SUSPENDED ANIMATION #252
“King Kong
“You know the name of King Kong.
“You know the fame of King Kong.
“Ten times as big as a man.
“One day, a boy, too young to know the danger,
“Made a friend of this giant fearsome stranger!
“And the life they led on their island home became a legend
“The legend of … King Kong.”
That was the classic theme song by composer Maury Laws and lyricist Jules Bass for the animated ABC Saturday morning The King Kong Show that premiered in September 1966 and ran for 26 half hour episodes. The song was recorded in London, England using primarily British studio musicians
It not only explained the premise of the series but is perhaps one of the most memorable of cartoon theme songs, more so than the actual episodes. There was a soundtrack album released by Epic Records that had four complete episodes with new narration by Bob McFadden.
A 45 single was also produced as a promotional item that featured the King Kong theme on one side and Tom of T.H.U.M.B. theme on the other performed by “the Maury Laws Orchestra”. These versions were entirely different than the ones used on the television show or the soundtrack album. (More about Kong cartoon music by Greg Ehrbar click here).
The King Kong Show was the third animated television series produced by Rankin-Bass. In 1966, the company got permission from RKO who owned the rights to the character for an animated series under the stipulation that they also produce a live action film.
The concept of the show was that renowned and widowed archeologist Professor Bond (voiced by Carl Banas) brought his blonde teenage daughter Susan (Susan Conway) and his young son Bobby (Billie Richards) with him when he went to conduct some studies on the mysterious tropical island Mondo. What makes the island special is because it has a valley that is home to extinct prehistoric animals. There are rumors of a massive beast that also roams the island.
The show premiered with an hour-long primetime pilot episode on the ABC network on Tuesday, September 6th, 1966. This special was later divided into two separate episodes of the series.
While looking for some unique moss for his father, Bobby encounters a hungry Tyrannosaurus Rex but is saved by Kong. Bobby befriends the giant ape and brings him home to his amazed family and Captain Englehorn (a character from the original 1933 live action film) who is the captain of the ship Java Queen. They decide to take Kong to New York by towing him on a huge raft attached to the back of the ship.
During the voyage Kong saves them all from a giant octopus called the Kraken but in a severe storm, King Kong is washed overboard and finds himself in New York City. He climbs the Empire State Building and the Bond family must stop the military from killing him.
The show moved into its regular Saturday morning timeslot on September 10, 1966 and was shown on ABC thru August 31, 1969 and then offered in syndication by ABC Films.
There were two roughly seven minute episodes and in between was an episode of a spy spoof (a popular genre at the time) of Tom of T.H.U.M.B. (Tiny Humans Underground Militaristic Bureau) who had been accidentally shrunken to four inches tall with his friend the martial artist Swinging Jack. The duo battled the evil agents of M.A.D. (Maladjusted, Antisocial, and Darn mean) but their size and inexperience are the basis for the humorous approach.
The character designs are attributed to Rod Willis and Jack Davis (who concentrated primarily on Kong) although apparently Paul Coker Jr. also did designs for the Bond family and series main villain, Dr. Who, an evil scientist.
Writers included Lew Lewis, Bernard Cowan, and Ron Levy who not only scripted adventures on the island (like trapped on a sunken shipwreck, confronting inhabitants of an underground kingdom, battling killer bees) but around the world (like Egypt to defeat a giant Sphinx, the North Pole with sabretooth tigers, Scotland to deal with the Loch Ness Monster) as well as having them deal with not just dinosaurs but natural disasters, aliens looking for human specimens, a deadly hunter, and even the iconic robotic Mechani-Kong created by Dr. Who.
The King Kong Show has the distinction of being considered the first animated show created in Japan for broadcast in the United States. The scripts, storyboards, character designs, and voice acting were all done by Rankin/Bass but the episodes were animated overseas by Toei Animation that also put production money into the show in exchange for Japanese distribution rights.
To satisfy the stipulation that a live action Kong film was made, Rankin-Bass made a deal with Toho Studios. Their first script was rejected by Arthur Rankin Jr. as not close enough to the animated series. It was later revised and filmed as Godzilla Vs. The Sea Monster (1966) changing Kong to Godzilla.
The second attempt resulted in King Kong Escapes (1968) which was supervised by Rankin. It included elements from the cartoon including Mondo Island, Dr. Who (voiced by Paul Frees), Mechani-Kong and a blonde female named Susan Watson. The Bond family did not appear.
In 1967, to appear in the summer just before the fall premiere television season, Marvel packaged a comic book to promote the Saturday morning cartoons appearing on ABC. It was a one-shot called America’s Best TV Comics. (ABC)
Two of the debuting cartoons were the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man so it was not surprising that the American Broadcasting Company went to Magazine Management run by Marvel publisher Martin Goodman to “prepare and edit” the special sixty-eight page comic book. It was distributed by the Independent News Company that distributed Marvel comics but there was no indication in the book itself that it was connected with Marvel. Roy Thomas wrote the advertising copy in the book but none of the stories.
Marvel had quietly packaged comics for outside companies before with production head Sol Brodsky in charge as he was for this book where he hired freelancers for the new stories featuring the new characters. The cover which featured Kong, George of the Jungle and Journey to the Center of the Earth is usually credited to Mike Royer (with the Marvel characters done from stats).
The ten page story inside that featured Kong is untitled but usually referred to as “Kong at the Circus” with pencil artwork by Brodsky and inks by Frank Giacoia. The Bond family takes Kong to California to appear in P.T. Bunkum’s circus for one week in exchange for a donation of $100,000 for their favorite charity.
Supposedly, the Rankin-Bass animated Kong battled a living version of the Statue of Liberty (the work of Dr. Who) in issue No. 34 of the Japanese Shonen Magazine. Additional Kong stories (both adaptations from the series and original) also appeared in the magazine while the show was running in Japan. Hikari No Kuni Comics had comic magazines based on the series as well.
The show produced a variety of merchandise including a talking doll and a talking hand puppet with a detachable Bobby Bond figure that usually got lost. Milton Bradley released a board game. There was a Kenner Give-A-Show projector slide series.
As Rankin-Bass historian Rick Goldschmidt has revealed from his research, “There was even a plastic jungle playset released by Multiple Toys which came with a large plastic Kong with magnetic grip. There were coloring books and figures based on Mecha-Kong. Multiple Toys made a carded King Kong bendable figure.”
I have always been a huge King Kong fan so I naturally watched the show every Saturday and even today can sing the theme song. Some of the episodes have been released on videotape but not the entire series.
Jim Korkis is an internationally respected animation historian who in recent years has devoted his attention to the many worlds of Disney. He was a columnist for a variety of animation magazines. With his former writing partner, John Cawley, he authored several animation related books including The Encyclopedia of Cartoon Superstars, How to Create Animation, Cartoon Confidential and Get Animated’s Animation Art Buyer’s Guide. He taught animation classes at the Disney Institute in Florida as well as instructing classes on acting and animation history for Disney Feature Animation: Florida.
“Nobody cry when Jaws die. But when the monkey die, people gonna cry.” — Dino de Laurentiis
At some point in my childhood one of the local UHF stations aired a heavily-promoted Friday night double feature of the original “King Kong” and “Mighty Joe Young”. I went completely ape over it. “King Kong” remains a favourite, on the short list of films I have seen over thirty times. The best thing about it, and what gives it its dramatic power, is the thrilling, bombastic score composed by Max Steiner, on every critic’s short list of the greatest film music of all time. (Maury Laws, for all his vaunted French horn lip-trills, is simply not in the same league.)
By the time I was introduced to the film, however, “The King Kong Show” must have already come and gone, for I have no memory of it at all. (In 1966 I would have been watching whatever network aired Space Ghost, Linus the Lion-Hearted and the TTV shows, instead of ABC.) I found an episode online, in which Bobby catches a rare Ichthyok fish, and while Susan is cleaning it for supper she finds that it has swallowed a solid gold statue of the Etruscan goddess Uni. (Since “uni” is the Japanese word for sea urchin, I guess the fish made an honest mistake.) Professor Bond goes skin-diving and finds a sunken temple offshore, but is unable to explore it because of the treacherous seas; so Kong thoughtfully dredges it up and sets it on the beach for the professor to study. Cute, but it really isn’t King Kong without the tragic elements. It’s like making a Saturday morning cartoon of La Boheme where Mimi, Rodolfo and the gang go around the Latin Quarter of Paris solving mysteries.
I have fond memories of the animated musical “The Mighty Kong”, starring Dudley Moore as Carl Denham and Jodi Benson as Ann Darrow with songs by the Sherman brothers, which I saw just once nearly 20 years ago. I liked that it adhered closely to the original story and kept the period setting. (Peter Jackson also did so in his 2005 film — and took fully twice as long to tell the same story.) In a twist ending (spoiler alert), Kong survives. Sure, we’ve been rooting for him all along, and we’d all like to see him marry Ann and go on to make a sequel with all their wacky in-laws. But if the monkey don’t die, I ain’t gonna cry.
“Tomfoolery” — now there’s a Rankin/Bass show I’d love to see again.
Agree 100% on “Tomfoolery!”
“a Saturday morning cartoon of La Boheme where Mimi, Rodolfo and the gang go around the Latin Quarter of Paris solving mysteries.”
GREENLIGHT THAT SUCKER!!! ;D
“The Mighty Kong” is available on DVD on Amazon. If you have Amazon Prime, you can stream it for free! (I do, and I’m going to put it on my watchlist.)
I, too, an a true Kong-o-holic, and watched it religiously! ( and, yes, true: the theme far better than the series, lol). But a question i’ve always asked: in what year was the film first available to local channels???
I hope that the Mechani-Kong episodes at least get an official release someday. Shame that Classic Media’s DVD releases of this show back in 2005 stalled after just two volumes.
Here’s some more info on this series: http://www.scifijapan.com/articles/2008/12/20/king-kong-cartoon-series-guide/
A boomer childhood puzzlement: I remember that, for a while at least, “King Kong” and “Milton the Monster” traded middle toons: Tom of THUMB moved to “Milton the Monster” while Fearless Fly appeared on “King Kong”. Did I hallucinate this? If not, how/why did Rankin Bass and Hal Seeger make the swap? Both shows were on ABC, which may or may not be pertinent.
Also, an instrumental version of the Kong theme turned up on one of those Saturday cartoon theme collections some years back. Without lyrics, it sounds like a goofy parody of spy movie music.
[Looking at “Hey, Kids!” ad above] King Kong, Casper, George of the Jungle… Add AAP Looney Tunes, live-action Three Stooges, and Felix the Cat, and you’d have a typical early-Seventies episode of “Slam Bang Theater” (KTVT-TV).
The original King Kong is my favorite movie! Turning a horrible monster into a friendly heroic monster. There is something to talk about. Because kids love monsters they need something to look upon to and get courage and backbone in order to get resilience. Monsters are abstracted versions of our common fears when something scary is shown to us, we get scared of it and our fear gets questioned. From that point, we find a path to conquer our fear.
Speaking of Kong, in 1976, months before the remake was being in hype mode, DePatie-Freleng Enterprises and Fred Calvert’s Farmhouse Films were planning to make cartoons based on King Kong. The one by the Pink Panther producers was a cartoon, but the one by Fred Calvert was going to be the first animated mini-series. A six-part animated series based on the film’s novelization since it is in the public domain due to an improper copyright renewal. Walter Bien and Gene Farmer were going to produce the DePatie-Freleng version.
To know more about Kong and his king, see my documentary, HAIL TO THE KING – A KING NAMED KONG (2014).
See it.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x21zj24
“The song was recorded in London, England using primarily British studio musicians.” <– I'm doubtful of that. The King Kong music was most likely recorded by and arranged for the same hand-picked ensemble of American jazz musicians organized for MAD MONSTER PARTY, whose music would've been recorded around the same time as THE KONG KING SHOW (some time in early-mid 1966). The size and sound of the orchestra sounds identical to that of MMP, and there are even allusions to the King Kong theme in MMP's score as well.
Can anyone help me? I got a box set DVD of this when I was a kid about 9 years ago. Lost it, and I remember there being a mini series between episodes where a spy [or scientist] and his said kick [or lab partner] would shrink themselves down with a shrink ray and stop an evil scientist. Does anyone know the name of that series.
It’s called TOM of T.H.U.M.B.
I seem to remember this being part of the theme:
Throughout the land, you’ve heard about this wonder,
Listen closely and you will hear his thunder
But this mighty ape can be a friend of man
So says the legend, the legend of….
I declare, this is a red-letter day for me! Before I stumbled across this website, I had become convinced that the late-Sixties ABC “King Kong” show was just some kind of a figment of my imagination! You sure as heck don’t see it anywhere! I’m sure that the last time I saw it was around 1968 or 1969, when I was just a wee lad in the first or second grade! The rather mature-for-Saturday morning theme song has been floating around in the back of my head for over fifty-three years! No joke! I have been trying to decipher the lyrics, with no success. Finally found them posted on this website! I would NEVER have reasoned out those lyrics on my own, even if I were to live for ANOTHER fifty-three years! ( not much chance of that, I’m sure ) Another ABC cartoon from this period that I would love to see again is “Journey to the Center of the Earth”, which I dimly recall as being very, very literate for Saturday morning kiddie TV. Fortunately, the ongoing worldwide popularity of both the “Spider-Man” and “Fantastic Four” cartoons from this period of time have made it possible for me to obtain complete editions of both these iconic shows on home DVD. Now, if somebody out there would just give us “King Kong” and “Journey to the Center of the Earth” on home DVD, as well. “Super President”, anybody??
For more about Super President – see this post: https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/a-nonpartisan-leader-for-our-times-super-president/