I hear you, Joe. I’ll take this silly Kong movie over the 70s remake anytime (although Rick Baker did create and perform in a very cool gorilla suit), and since Godzilla’s in it, too, well, so much the better!

My earliest recollections of this film are from seeing the commercials promoting it on television, when I was five or six years old. I’d recently seen the original KING KONG for the first time, and I distinctly remember that scene on the TV promotion with my new hero Kong facing off against Godzilla, two titans silhouetted by the flaming wall of a blazing skyline. Funny, but I still retain the image of the O’Brien Kong in my head for that scene, instead of that low budget ape suit. Anyway, that picture really stuck with me and I drew it from memory over and over.

Of course, I had absolutely no clue as to what this Godzilla guy was, hadn’t seen any of his movies at that point, but I assumed—since he breathed fire—that he was a dragon, and as such would have been a thrilling opponent for Kong. I did already have the really cool Godzilla Aurora model, too, so he was officially a real monster in my book.

I didn’t get to see the movie until a couple years later when it started showing up on television. As I recall, I liked it immensely. I even think it might have been the first Godzilla film I ever saw.

Watching through adult eyes today, I still like it for mostly different reasons. Sure, it’s corny and goofy. But sometimes that’s just what I’m in the mood for. If I ever want to see a serious, genuinely chilling Godzilla movie, I can always pop in the original, which, I think, is still very powerful (and even better without “Steve Martin”).

Martin