King Kong

Review by NekroDave

Despite it's initially repulsive looking appearance, this might be one of the more interesting pieces in my collection. I found this on Ebay one day while just doing a generic search for King Kong. It's size (19") and material (polyethylene) naturally appealed to me as a Jumbo Machinder collector and since I was in the midst of a big monster collecting period, I figured I'd try to get it even though I really didn't know much about it.

Before continuing, let me finish up with the "just the facts" part of the review. Although it's assumed to be intended to represent King Kong, there are no markings to that effect anywhere on it nor do I have any packaging for it. It might just be a standard ape. Furthermore, although it's arms can be raised and lowered, it's not really a toy per se. It's actually a piggy bank. There is a slot on the top of the head and a hole cut out of the back. The hole is pretty rudimentary and looks like someone manually cut it out with a knife. I have no stopper for it. The poly is entirely yellow with black paint covering it and red highlights painted into the eyes, nose and mouth. Much of the paint has flaked off as you can see.

When I got it, it was filthy. Just filthy. Still is really. It seems like no matter how much I clean it, the dirt just keeps coming back. Anyway, I asked around about it to see what it's story was. The only real concrete information that anyone had was that there is a similar Frankenstein bank out there. (In fact, in looking at the style of the jacket on the Frankenstein, it's assumed to have been inspired by the Big Frankie.) That one is also 19" tall and in a similar style, however it is known to have been made in all yellow and also in black with painted yellow highlights. There's some debate even about the Frankenstein's origin, though. Some think it's Mexican, some think it's American and it's even been speculated to have been a carnival prize. Unfortunately, at the time of this writing, there seems to be only a handful of Frankenstein's known to exist and I don't know of any other Kongs besides mine. (There are 7 known Frankensteins which would make this Kong....THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD!! ...ahem.. ) None have packaging so it's all speculation at this point, it seems*.

Yellow unpainted Frankenstein

Black painted Frankenstein

The general school of thought seems to be that the yellow Frankenstein was meant to be painted by a child while the other one was more likely factory painted and therefore that the paint on this yellow Kong may not be a factory job, either. It is pretty messy, but in my experience with Mexican toys (if this even is from Mexico), often the factory job looks like it was done by a child anyway! (I'm looking at you, Mazinger Z!)

Regardless of who made it or where it was distributed, the one thing that seems undisputed is that these two pieces are related and both are super hard to find (and I'd kill to get one of those Frankensteins!)

The only other thing I can say about this isn't really about the toy at all. But in May of 2006, I actually had a dream that there existed a never before seen King Kong machinder. I know this certainly can't be truly labeled as such, but I think it's probably the closest we'll ever get. At any rate, my Shogun Warrior Godzilla now has another foe to deal with besides Rodan!

*Frankenstein pics and info gathered from the Universal Monster Army.