PING PONG

KING KONG (1933)
dir: Merian C. Cooper & Ernest B. Shoedsack


There have been dozens of strips too numerous to catalog of Frankenstein, Tarzan, The Lone Ranger, Zorro, Superman, Oz, and others, characters like this that are not quite public domain. Right now I'll just stick to movie adaptations of them and strips meant to cash in on their release. Perhaps I'll revisit them later.

PING PONG
MAD #6, August-September 1954
w: Harvey Kurtzman
a: Bill Elder

I read most of the comic book MAD stories as a kid and still find new things in the “chicken fat” of the Kurtzman/Elder stories, and to some extent the Kurtzman/Wood stories. Even more impressive is that these guys were in their twenties when they did these comics. I and most people I know are twice their age and none of us can even tie our shoes.

The ship is now heading for the island with Carl Denham (Robert Armstrong) heading to an exotic jungle locale with the ship's first mate Jack Driscoll (Bruce Cabot), and Ann Darrow (Fay Wray), who will be the female lead in the picture. There they discover the natives of the land.

Cecil B.V.D. Mill is a pun on filmmaker Cecil B. DeMille and underwear brand B.V.D.

They attempt to communicate with the tribe who is making a sacrifice to their god Kong. They offer to trade six of their women for Ann.

What's not in the remake are battles with Kong and dinosaurs animated by Willis O'Brien (see below)

While Kong is battling the dinosaurs, he is also carrying Ann, who he is infatuated with. He puts her down while he fights them and rescues her when they try to take her away. The crew tries to rescue her and they eather are eaten by the dinosaurs or are killed trying to fight Kong and get to her across a log (also see below).

They gas Kong to knock him out to get him to New York for a show, and the climactic scene with the Empire State Building is also not used.

KING KONK '68
Not Brand Ecch #11, December 1968
w: Roy Thomas
a: Tom Sutton & Marie Severin

The person in the foreground flying the plane is Arte Johnson with his catchphrase and character from Laugh-In. In the fists of King Kong You know from the current movies, but in case not, they are Hulk, Thor, Thing, Sub-Mariner, Daredevil, Nick Fury, Captain America, and Iron Man.

This new version has Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor. References are made to their previous pictures Taming of the Shrew, Cleopatra, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and The Sandpiper.

The native on the island is Hugh Hefner. In the lake is Albert Alligator of Pogo. National Velvet was another of Taylor's movies.

Hugh Hefner's sporadic editorial/manifestos were called The Playboy Philosophy. Note the nod to Kurtzman's earlier parody.

The joke in the first panel is Phyllis Diller's persona was that she was ugly (it was self-shaming) while Liz Taylor was beautiful.

“You rang?” was a reference to Lurch from The Addams Family.

Taylor was in Reflections in a Golden Eye.

The emcee of the show is supposed to be Ed Sullivan.

Reed Richards was always coming up with formulas to make the Thing back into Ben Grimm. Artie Simek was a letterer for Marvel.

There are too many superheroes to identify here, but I'm sure most people have seen the Marvel movies.

Same here. Butterfield 8 was another of Elizabeth Taylor's movies.