Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Muppet Labs' Mechani-Kong


So when I was sorting through the odds 'n' ends I acquired in the Bucket o' Godzillas I purchased from the antique store, I really thought I had the severed head of Mechani-Kong.

Mechani-Kong is of course the giant robotic gorilla from the movie King Kong Escapes:


And this is the toy component in question:


However, no amount of Googling would turn up a toy Mechani-Kong with a head that looked like this. Here are a couple of examples:


Finally I stumbled upon this discussion thread, which included a picture of a customized action figure that someone had created by mounting this head onto the body of Iron Monger, the villain from the first Iron Man movie:


Thankfully, the discussion itself also solved the mystery. This was NOT the severed head of Mechani-Kong, but rather the Muppet Labs Gorilla Detector:


Not sure how I missed that episode of The Muppet Show, but here is the relevant clip:


So now my desk is as safe from gorillas as Dr. Bunsen Honeydew's Muppet technology can make it...


Update: Muppet Labs' Mechani-Kong Revisited

4 comments:

  1. Ahahahahaha, that's great!

    But you know, the resemblance is striking. That can't be an accident. Especially considering the Rankin-Bass involvement with that iteration of Kong.

    ...Now I want to look up the design of the Mechani-Kong from the King Kong cartoon series.

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  2. Yeah I can only assume whoever made the original Muppet Labs prop based the design on Mechani-Kong as an inside joke.

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  3. Heh, that American poster for the film is pretty funny. Mechani Kong looks like a zombie while the King Kong suit is all wrong. But that's cool about the head, never seen one in person.

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    1. I've always wanted to photoshop a basketball under Mechani-Kong's hand. It looks like he's challenging Kong to some streetball.

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