Fans of King Kong and other giant screen apes, gorillas, and ape-men rejoice! Have I got a trailer compilation for you. At little over an hour, King Kong, Mighty Joe Young, and Friends (although it’s listed on Tubi as King Kong and Friends: Gorillas, Dinosaurs, and Fantasy Creatures) is a fun collection of Hollywood monkey business through the decades. I’m sure you guessed there would be previews for such classics as King Kong, Son of Kong, Mighty Joe Young, and King Kong vs. Godzilla, but we also get the cool trailer for the underrated King Kong Escapes as well. Heck, even vaguely related, sorta-apes like Robot Monster are well-represented.
Unlike most trailer compilations, this has the added attraction of vintage newsreel footage, old promotional featurettes, classic commercials, and select scenes from a few different movies that help to increase the fun factor. My favorite part was the old Volkswagen commercial featuring an excellent stop-motion King Kong. As far as the clips portion of the program goes, it’s a mixed bag. I mean, did we need TWO scenes from Jack the Giant Killer? (Especially when the stop-motion monsters are kind of crappy.) The good news is the scene from Rocketship (the condensed feature length version of the old Flash Gordon serial) where Flash goes toe to toe with an ugly gorilla is really cool.
While there are some pokey stretches, for the most part, King Kong, Mighty Joe Young, and Friends is an agreeable and breezy way to kill an hour. When the killer apes (of both the stop-motion and men-in-suit variety) aren’t front and center, there’s plenty of giant lizards (of both the men-in-suit and regular-reptiles-photographed-to-make-them-look-like-giants variety), dinosaurs, or stars of Bert I. Gordon movies around to keep you entertained. Trailer compilation hounds and monster movie enthusiasts are sure to go ape over it.
AKA: King Kong and Friends: Gorillas, Dinosaurs, and Fantasy Creatures.
The complete trailer line-up is as follows: Vintage monster promo reel, King Kong (1933), Son of Kong, Mighty Joe Young (1949), King Kong Volkswagen commercial, King Kong vs. Godzilla, King Kong Escapes, Konga, The Magic Sword (scene) Jack the Giant Killer (scene), Jack the Giant Killer (another scene), Unknown Island (scene), Journey to the Beginning of Time, The Lost World (1961), Earth vs. the Spider, The Giant Gila Monster, Valley of the Dragons, 20 Million Miles to Earth, The Land Unknown, Robot Monster, The Cyclops, Rocketship (scene), Gorilla at Large, The Ape Man (scene), White Pongo, Godzilla, King of the Monsters, The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, Planet of Dinosaurs (scenes), Planet of Dinosaurs (another scene), Planet of Dinosaurs (yet another scene), and Planet of the Apes (promotional featurette).
