taraco wrote:

I was also interviewed on video by J. Michael Roddy, who is preparing a documentary on 'Monster Kids,' and who laughed when I told him my love of monsters was born when I saw KING KONG on Million Dollar Movie in New York. It seems three or four of his intervewees have said the same thing!

This also seems to have been what turned Mark Hamill into a genre movie fan (if not quite a Monster Kid). He said he watched it every day, and every day fell apart in sobs at the end. As his father carried him up to bed after one of these tearful collapses, he asked Mark why, if the movie upset him so much, did he keep watching it? Mark said "Because I keep thinking he'll WIN."