KING KLUNK (1933)
Animated short

Article 3579 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 5-13-2011
Posting Date: 6-2-2011
Director unknown
Voice actors unknown
Country: USA
What it is: KING KONG parody

Pooch the Pup goes into the jungle to film the giant monster known as King Klunk. Unfortunately, the monster takes a liking to his girlfriend, and he must rescue her from the monster.

King Kong was one of the few classic monsters of the era that didn’t originate from Universal, but it looks like they got one of the first parodies of the movie out with this Walter Lantz short. It features the mostly forgotten character of Pooch the Pup, and it isn’t a particularly great cartoon. Pooch plays a combination of characters from the movie, including the Carl Denham and the John Driscoll characters as well as one of the biplane pilots, and there’s a short Tarzan parody as well. The sacrifice scene, the fight with the dinosaur, and the final scenes in the city are all parodied. It’s all done in the cartoon style of the period, with minimal dialogue and lots of rubbery characters. All in all, more of a curio than a must-see, but genre fans will want to catch it.