apollak

Topps Kong Cards All the Kong hype surrounding Peter Jackson's new film has got my nostalgia turned way up. I mean, I like my regular dose of nostalgia as much as the next twenty-first century American but my own personal hazy look back-with-longing has focused in on the Kong of my childhood. To my knowledge I have never seen the full 1933 original King Kong film. My ties with Kong started when I was five and King was a Seventies Man, straddling the Twin Towers, Jessica Lang in hand. Yes - I said straddling - I didn't even know until recently that there was any debate between the straddling camp and the mid-leap camp. I'm talking about the iconic movie poster that seems, in my mind, to portray a Kong much bigger than he has ever been in any film. Well I take that back - the Kong of the Godzilla films may have been skyscraper sized so he could look Godzilla in the eye.

Anyway, way too many digressions. I don't specifically remember seeing the 1976 film but I must have because I have three historical remnants tied to the film. The first is a collection of King Kong trading cards, currently lost somewhere in my parents' attic. I'm working on digging them up but the attic is in serious need of the TLC Clean Sweep team. My brother and I avidly collected movie trading cards and the top three properties we collected cards for were Star Wars, Superman and King Kong. The images on the cards etched themselves into my memory - no not just my memory. On a stormy night, whenever there's lightning in the sky, I still always think of the card that showed Kong messing with the elevated Subway train against a dark purple, lightning filled sky. The line from Prince's 1999 about the sky being all purple makes me think of that card too. The other card that sticks in my mind is the image of Dwan (Jessica Lange) standing in front of the dying Kong's massive head on the ground in front of the World Trade Center. So sad. Thinking about these cards now and how they captured the essential moments in the films makes me think of my interest in sequential art as a storytelling vehicle. The movie cards were kind of like collecting a comic book, one panel at a time. Hm. Fascinating. I really need to channel my inner Indiana Jones and make a serious effort at digging up those cards.

The second bit of childhood that sprung from Kong was our Kong Colorforms set. I cannot find a picture of this anywhere online nor can I find one for sale. Either there were in short supply or anyone that still has theirs will not part with it for any money. I can see that. This was the ultimate colorforms set. The background was huge - at least twice the size of any regular sized colorforms set. It had three scenes on it, first the scene outside the gates with all the detail of the bamboo and rope doors. Then the gate scene folded open to reveal the native village where you could make the scary which doctor do his voodoo. And finally if you flipped over the whole background there was the background of the Twin Tower tops where you could recreate the movie poster itself.

 The third item of particular interest to me with regards to Kong takes the form of the only recurring nightmare that I have ever had. I don't really have a clear image of how the whole dream goes, but I remember the wall and the Skull Island natives dressed in their konglike costumes and I remember Kong breaking through the wall. I remember being a kid - maybe six or seven years old and waking up in a sweat, terrified. Then the realization that it was the Kong dream again and the recurrence itself unnerved me as if the dream had been desperately trying to deliver a message of pending doom.

Despite the threat of nightmares and heavy nostalgia I'm very psyched to see the new flick. Will let you know what effect it has once I've seen it...