King Kong opens today, and from what I've read so far it looks like a must see. Truth be told, as much as I've always loved giant monster movies, Kong has never been one of my favorites. Perhaps it's because I didn't see the original 1933 film (yes, I know I'm losing major geek points for this). Which of course means that my opinion was formed from the cheesy 1976 Dino De Laurentis version (and the even worse 1986 sequel). Being a kid though, I loved them because there were giant monsters running amok. But by far my favorite was Godzilla. Back then, the highlight of my week was Saturday afternoon when the "Creature Double Feature" would play on WLVI channel 56 (pre-cable TV, if you can imagine). Even in the movies where Godzilla was the bad guy, I rooted for him. And then I received this wonderful toy as a Christmas gift. It's a couple of feet tall and I thought it was awesome, even though the "fire" that comes out of his mouth looks more like he's sticking out his tongue and his tail fell off a lot. Oh, and for some inexplicable reason his hand would shoot off when you hit the button on his right arm. I really don't remember him doing that in any of the movies - and it's also why the hand is lost on every one of these toys.