CoachJim I saw this last night as the lead-in to the showing of the 1933 classic, King Kong. With the distance of time and evolved social awareness, I found this to be very offensive. Technically, it seemed quite rushed. The finesse of period Woody Woodpecker cartoons was totally absent. There was a very thin script, which seemed unnecessarily harsh in telling an angry story. This old white guy was appalled. I can only assume that the person who chose this short did so to magnify the evolution of national social consciousness.

tavm Since I'm watching Kong: Skull Island tomorrow, I thought I'd finally watch this cartoon spoof of the original from 1933 on YouTube. The leading character is named Pooch the Pup, one of the more obscure of the Walter Lantz cartoon creations, pre-Woody Woodpecker. Anyway, he and his girlfriend are on an island with a camera. The Ape then appears and he's trying to eat a native girl. Then he sees Pooch's girl and changes his mind...I'll stop there and just say there are some amusing gags involving some inanimate objects moving by themselves with facial expressions, a few Felix the Cat-like visual puns in which some body parts of some of the characters become something else, and a twist at the end. Not hilarious, but King Klunk was pretty amusing much of the time.

Michael_Elliott King Klunk (1933) ** 1/2 (out of 4)This pleasant Universal cartoon has been forgotten over the decades but it's in fact the first film to spoof RKO's KING KONG so that reason alone gives it some historic importance. In the film, Pooch the Pup takes his girlfriend to the Africa so that they can make a movie about a giant ape. They find the ape, return it to the U.S. and of course it breaks free and steals the girlfriend. The plot to this 9-minute short pretty much follows all the major points in KING KONG and I'm rather surprised how obvious it was as I'm sure there was some sort of legal matter that the studio could have done. With that said, fans of the giant ape will certainly want to check this out just to see how well it does spoof the film. I thought the stuff dealing with the fight between the ape and a dinosaur in the jungle was extremely well done and I won't ruin the ending but the final shot of the ape was perfect. The thing that keeps this short from being a classic is the Pooch character and the fact that he's just not that memorable or funny. There were several attempts at humor but most of them fell flat on their face. Some will probably find some of the humor around the jungle people to be offensive as it's the (for the time) typical black characters and their stereotypes.

ultramatt2000-1 King Klunk. You heard about it. You read about it (specifically in monster books that talk about anything related to the Eighth Wonder of the World). Now finally you have an opportunity to see it! It is either available on disc one of the "Woody Woodpecker Classic Cartoon Collection" DVD set or on YouTube. It starts off when Pooch the Pup, who looks like a combination between Bimbo from those Betty Boop cartoons and Mickey Mouse, takes his unnamed girl-friend down to the jungle to film the title beast. However, after the Klunk is munching on a sacrifice, he finds Pooch's girl-friend and with the help of cupid arrow, he falls in love with her. Meanwhile Pooch is trying to avoid the victim of sacrifice that the giant ape rejected and before you know it, the majority of the film is spoofing the original 1933 RKO classic, from the battle with the Tyrannosaurus Rex to the attack at New York where he climbs the tallest building (called The Broken Arms). Walter Lantz cooks up the film with his creative humor such as inanimate objects that have minds of their own (like the movie camera, the cactus and the airplane), the 6 7/8 gag (which appears in later cartoon as 1951's "slingshot 6 7/8" and those Inspector Willouby cartoons where his badge reads 'Inspector 6 7/8') and the most original gag in this cartoon, the drum-chest gag. On another note, the monster's size keeps changing. One scene he is as big as the gate, then he is as big as the sea. In another scene his head and shoulders are sticking out of the water while his feet is at the bottom. For the city scene, the gorilla's height is as big as the stage and then in the next scene he is holding the entire building above his head (must be "the think strong to be strong" technique which appeared in later cartoons). When he's chasing the people, the buildings are up to his legs and the panicking crowd are like ants. When he is holding Pooch's girl friend, the buildings are about his size, especially before he climbs up the building. This cartoon only aired on TV in the 1950's, but it never aired in the "Woody Woodpecker Show" (1988-1994). Why?! What's the matter? Is it because of the portrayal of the natives in this short are too racist? Is it because you are afraid of showing you early pre-Woody works from the 20's and 30's in fear that people will find them too boring? It worked on shows like "Donald Duck Presents", "Looney Tunes on Nickelodeon" and "The Popeye Show". Why can't you show it to the new generation of audiences, because black and white cartoons fascinated my brother and I when we were kids! Or is because you want nothing but Woody Woody Woody, so you can create a new generation of trouble makers to drive people of all ages bananas! Rant aside, this film should of been a short subject to the unmade Universal film, "The Legend of King Kong" (if Universal only bought the rights of original) or Peter Jackson's remake. Before I end this review, I would like to say that I uploaded for various reasons: 1. Because that DVD set is too expensive and I don't have any equipment to capture DVD footage to the computer. 2. I found a link to download it. 3. I stopped liking Woody Woodpecker when I was 10 because he was too mischievous. He caused nothing but trouble, drove people up the wall and gave maturity and growing up a bad name! Like "Hook Line and Stinker" (1969), where he was fishing and drove the guy next to him bananas and at the end, he was sobbing because he wanted some peace and quiet. Shame on you Woody! You make Popeye look like and angel!Bottom line: A must for anyone who is fan of (old) cartoons and monster movie fans (like me).No Motion Picture Association of America rating, but a G rating would work well (if it was re-released in 2005).