TreasuryCast #9 – King Kong

8 responses to “TreasuryCast #9 – King Kong”

1. Still listening to the episode as I write this, but a couple of notes about the art: George Wilson was the artist on many (if not most or all) of Gold Key’s painted covers. Giovanni Ticci and Alberto Gioliti were best known as the art team on ‘Turok, Son of Stone.’ Interestingly, the two artists drew Turok and Andar in their own likenesses.

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2. Nothing to add about the King Kong comic or the treasury edition, but since you brought up the Peter Jackson remake, I have a thought on that film. My memory is that Jackson’s version of KING KONG was fine, maybe even great, but too long. More than that, though, I knew when I left the theater that I never wanted to see the movie again.

   Why such a strong reaction to a film that I didn’t dislike?

   Because of the insect pit scene.

   There are two screen deaths I’ve watched that completely unnerved me, that upset me to a point I can’t totally explain or understand. I’m not someone who is easily grossed out or bothered by gore and violence, but sometimes a violent or gruesome death sneaks up on me and brings me close to nausea or beyond.

   One of those deaths was in the show GAME OF THRONES when the character of Prince Oberyn Martell meets a horrible, gut-punching fate in a duel. It’s the only episode of the show that I haven’t watched more than once because that death was still bothering me days after I watched it, not just because of how horrifying and brutal it was, but because of who the character was and what his death meant to my impression of the show.

   The other death that bothered me was in Jackson’s KING KONG, and it’s how Andy Serkis dies in the insect pit. Serkis, of course, did the motion capture work for the giant ape, but he also played one of the ship’s crew. The men fall into the pit and are swarmed by giant bugs, cockroaches, spiders, etc. Serkis is surrounded by these worm-like snake creatures with nightmarish mouths. He hacks away at them with a machete until they overwhelm him. One begins to swallow his arm and he tries to hack at it, then another comes out behind him and puts its whole mouth over the crown of his head and slowly works down, engulfing his entire head. He’s screaming and thrashing, his machete still waving as if he could kill these things that are slowly, steadily swallowing him whole.

   Again, I’m not someone easily grossed out, but after that scene, I had to retreat to a very quiet place in my mind, and I don’t really remember anything that happened later in the movie.

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   1. Note to self: Buy Daly a bug-filled terrarium for next birthday

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3. Lovely episode as ever. Great story from Anj about his Mom. I never saw the 1976 King Kong though I did enjoy the Mad magazine spoof.

   I really liked the Peter Jackson version, I loved the island scenes, and the realisation of Thirties New York. I’ll likely go to Skull Island, as t’were, though Samuel L Jackson puts me off, I just wish he’d try playing a part as something other than Cool Samuel L Jackson.

   I suspect Anj learned ‘voluminous’ from Volstagg in Thor. Superman taught me ‘invulnerable’, ‘ironic’ and, of course, ‘chrono-synclastic infundibulum’.

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4. Great episode! Count me in as someone who like to impress their folks and anyone who would listen with comic-learned adjectives. I aced just about every Elementary School vocab test thanks to comics!

   I wasn’t aware this treasury existed till I saw it on the blog. I agree there SHOULD be a Kong Skull Island treasury out NOW. Get on it Hollywood!

   Always a pleasure to hear Dr. Anj.

   Chris

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5. Oh yeah, that’s some classic Gold Key art. Looks just like their Star Trek comics of the era. That blue Kong… I can’t help but see him as Marvel’s Beast. Just me? Okay.

   Great episode as always. We won’t be happy until you do a Kong episode for every show you host, Rob!

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   1. There IS a Bob Dylan song that mentions King Kong…

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6. I guess you could say I went through a King Kong “phase,” but it would be a reach. I saw the original ’30s (which are now closer to coming around again than far away) picture on the little black & white television in the back bedroom of the first apartment I have memories from, on a UHF channel in the early ’80s. I’ve always loved stop motion, and was impressed by how good it looked, especially for its time. I vaguely recall seeing the ’70s flick on the “cabinet” (more like embedded in a coffee table) color TV in the living room on the VHF channel 13 Million Dollar Movie one afternoon and being considerably less impressed. I think I caught the King Kong versus Godzilla movie the same way, and rooted for the home team, but still thought it was dumb, cheap and anticlimactic. They used to run Godzilla movies a fair amount on UHF, but I could never get into those, and only half-watched a couple or three (despite having most of that Godzilla action figure with the flaming “tongue.”) Kong Lives was savaged on At The Movies, so the closest I ever came to bothering with it was playing it in the background on cable in the early ’90s. I made a point of fast-forward watching the ’90s Godzilla on a loaner VHS to skim how bad it was. I skipped the Peter Jackson King Kong, and by that point, I was so far removed from whatever degree to which I had been a Kong fan that it might as well have been an Abbott & Costello reboot. I did get suckered into the (barely any) Bryan Cranston Godzilla from a few years ago, which I neither hated nor loved. The second trailer to Skull Island made me wish whoever cut it had done Suicide Squad, and I feel a slight obligation to see it and balance the karmic scales against Godzilla.

   So basically, I can sum up the lion’s share of my interest in kaiju, foreign or domestic, by saying that I really loved Rampage at the arcade thirty years ago. The End.

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