King Kong Escapes!

The Rankin-Bass team are famous for their Christmas specials, most famously Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. But way back in the groovy decade of the 60's they tried to branch out a bit and bring back a classic monster, King Kong. The deal was complicated but essentially they contracted with Toho Studios, the home of Godzilla and the last known residence of Kong after his skuffle with Big G several years before in the 3rd Godzilla movie, to make a cartoon version of Kong's adventures for TV and also a couple of live-action movies starring the Big Ape. It all gets sort of complicated.

Well anyway, I've rounded up both volumes of the cartoons, and I landed the double set of Toho Kong films - Godzilla Vs. King Kong and King Kong Escapes. The former I'm familiar with, but it's been a very very long time since I've seen the latter film, which is pretty directly developed from the cartoon. Supposedly the damsel in the movie is supposed to be the girl from the cartoon, though that wouldn't really make sense given her attitudes about Kong in the first part of the movie. The long story short, I recommend this flick. It's very long and features some pretty interesting spins on both the original Kong flicks and on classic Toho big-suit movies. On "Mondo Island", Kong reprises his classic battles from the original 1933 flick, and there are scenes which remind me of the first Toho flick. The fight between Kong and MechaniKong (created by a guy named "Dr.Who" also from the cartoon) is pretty fun, with the suit-actors really giving the pair some vivid characterization. This movie even stars Rhodes Reason, brother of and lookalike for Rex Reason, the hero of This Island Earth, and his commanding presence is actually pretty good. This is kids stuff, but then that's what we're about here.


The movie and the cartoon attempt to blend Kong, spies (the family is named "Bond" for no small reason I suspect), Toho magic, and the whole Rankin-Bass zeitgeist into a single package. It's a heady brew, and while it misfires from time to time, overall the cartoon and the movie are pretty diverting entertainments.
This version of Kong has only been adapted to comics once that I know of, in the one-shot America's Best TV Comics which also features classic FF and Spidey material along with George of the Jungle, Journey to the Center of the Earth, and Casper stuff. The Flying Nun even shows up on the back cover. This comic book is a real artifact of the time.

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