The inspiration for these annual day long posts of kaiju films come from my childhood and WOR-TV in New York. Every Turkey Day, it would air after King Kong and Son of Kong, making you feel better after the depression of that second movie, until 1985, when RKO General sold Channel 9 to MCA Inc.

I did some reality checking with Wikipedia and learned this: “These WOR-TV Thanksgiving programs started on Thanksgiving Day 1976. On this occasion, Channel 9 broadcast Mighty Joe Young (at 1 p.m.), King Kong vs. Godzilla (at 3 p.m.), and Son of Kong (at 5 p.m.). In the years that followed, WOR broadcast Mighty Joe Young (at 1:00), King Kong (at 3:00), and Son of Kong(at 5:00) in 1977, Mighty Joe Young (at 12:30), King Kong (at 2:30), and Son of Kong (at 4:30) from 1978 to 1980, Mighty Joe Young (at 1:00), King Kong (at 2:45), and Son of Kong (at 4:45) in 1981, King Kong (at 1:00), Son of Kong (at 3:00), and Mighty Joe Young (at 4:15) from 1982 to 1984, and King Kong (at 1:00) and Mighty Joe Young (at 3:00) in 1985.”

The further inspiration for these posts comes from the second part of the day: “The ratings of the 1976 Thanksgiving marathon were good enough for WOR-TV to include the day after Thanksgiving (Friday) into the monster movie line up. Over the next few years the same movies were aired on Thanksgiving Day, but the movies broadcast the day after changed. Several times the movies Godzilla vs The Cosmic Monster, Son of Godzilla, Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster and Godzilla vs. Megalon were aired on that day.”

This movie was produced by Arko, a company formed just to make the film, a union of RKO and Argosy Pictures, which was John Ford and Merian C. Cooper. Ernest Schoedsack and Willis O’Brien contributed to the storyline while Schoedsack’s wife, Ruth Rose, wrote the screenplay. It was intended to be a more lighthearted version of King Kong, as it was made by many of the same filmmakers, aided by around ten animators working for fourteen months, along with Ray Harryhausen working on his first movie.

When living in Tanganyika in Africa, seven-year-old Jill Young (Terry Young) adopts a baby gorilla that she names Joe. Ten years later, Max O’Hara (Robert Armstrong) and a cowboy named Gregg (Ben Johnson) find him and want to bring him to America to be a performer, because that always works out so well. Jill needs money to maintain her father’s home, so she agrees. She may also kind of be into Gregg, so that helps.

In Hollywood, Jill plays “Beautiful Dreamer” on the piano while Joe lifts her and outboxes Primo Carnera, who was also a pro wrestler. Joe gets homesick while Jill and Gregg fall in love. Some drunks give him whiskey and then set his hand on fire. He reacts as you’d expect, destroying everything he can. The authorities want to execute Joe, who everyone helps escape, only to find a burning orphanage that Joe and Gregg work together to save. He’s allowed to go home, where they send Max a video of the ranch and the happy — and surviving — Joe.

This had a huge advertising campaign, with 11,000 postcards being mailed by Joe to people — I wish I had one! — and someone dressed as him appearing in several parades. It didn’t help — the movie didn’t perform as well as the films it was inspired by — but it did become part of Flannery O’Connor’s Wise Blood in the character of Gonga the Gorilla and Enoch Emery going to see a movie in which an orangutan rescues children from a burning orphanage.

It did win the first Academy Award for Best Visual Effects and there was almost a sequel, Mighty Joe Young Meets Tarzan. I would have gone crazy over that as a kid. While it doesn’t have the horror at the heart of the first two RKO ape movies, there are some wonderful memories associated with this film.