The King Kong Show


The King Kong Show is an American/Japanese anime-influenced series produced by Videocraft International and Toei Animation. ABC ran the series in the United States between September 10, 1966, and August 31, 1969. It is the first anime series produced in Japan for an American company.
This series is an animated adaptation of the famous movie monster King Kong with character designs by Jack Davis and Rod Willis. In this series, the giant ape befriends the Bond family, with whom he goes on various adventures, fighting monsters, robots, aliens, mad scientists and other threats. Unlike King Kong's destructive roles in his movies, the cartoon turned him into a protector of humanity.
Included is a spoof of the spy films of the 1960s called Tom of T.H.U.M.B., about a secret agent for "T.H.U.M.B." named Tom and his Asian "sidekick" Swinging Jack, who are accidentally shrunk by a ray to three inches tall. The pair are sent out in a variety of miniature vehicles by their bad-tempered boss, Chief Homer J. Chief, to foil the fiendish plots of "M.A.D.", an evil organization made up of black-hatted and black-cloaked scientists "bent on destroying the world for their own gains".
In Japan, the first two episodes were combined into a 56-minute special, titled King of the World: The King Kong Show, and was broadcast on NET on December 31, 1966. The rest of the series, with the inclusion of Tom of T.H.U.M.B., was broadcast on NET as King Kong & 001/7 Tom Thumb, and aired on April 5 to October 4, 1967, with a total of 26 episodes.
This series was successful enough for Rankin/Bass to extend the Kong franchise to another Japanese company, Toho. This resulted in Ebirah, Horror of the Deep and King Kong Escapes, which was based on The King Kong Show.
On November 15, 2005, Sony Wonder released the first eight episodes on two DVD releases titled King Kong: The Animated Series Volume 1 and King Kong: The Animated Series Volume 2. The pilot episode was included, in its two parts for American syndication, between the two DVDs.

Music

Theme music for the series was recorded in London, England, in 1965, using primarily British studio musicians. Canadian conductor, vocalist and former Kitchener-Waterloo Record entertainment columnist Harry Currie provided vocal talent on the recording.

Characters

The following episode list describes the show as it originally aired, beginning with a six-minute King Kong segment, followed by a six-minute Tom of T.H.U.M.B. segment, then followed by another six-minute King Kong segment.
In the 2007 book Comics Gone Ape! The Missing Link to Primates in Comics, comics historian Michael Eury writes, "The Rankin/Bass King Kong was an early case of identity theft, where the Kong name was appropriated to describe a new character that, at best, only remotely resembled his namesake. This was Kong done wrong."

Cast