KONG!

Today is one of the declared holidays of Ringside at Skull Island.  Seventy-eight years ago RKO's King Kong premiered at Radio City Music Hall--launching stop-motion animation synced with sound, Skull Island, and the Empire State Building (completed just two years earlier) into motion-picture history.  (Click here to see the video clip that launched this site.)  King Kong is one of the iconic Hollywood films of the 1930s, the definition of badass for decades, and the first monster movie I ever saw on TV (I was mildly traumatized by a shot  of Kong peering over the tops of trees at Fay Wray).  On the whole I'd call myself a Tarzan man, but the Kong legend inspired my nom-de-www and the title of this blog, and, besides, Johnny Weissmuller never wrestled a Tyrannosaurus Rex to the ground and cracked its jaw off with his bare hands.