odditudes-and-weirdities

Texas breaking away from Mexico, promoting reading among the young, banana cream pie, old stuff, and a giant gorilla from cinema are recognized today: King Kong Day National Banana Cream Pie Day Old Stuff Day Read Across America Day Texas Independence Day On this date in 1836 Texas declared its independence from Mexico. Read Across America Day is celebrated on the anniversary of the birth of Theodor Seuss Geisel aka Dr. Seuss  in 1904. King Kong made his movie debut on this date in 1933. Today is also about going through old stuff. Photo by Ryan Hafey on Unsplash

One of the most iconic American cinematic monsters, King Kong , premiered on this date in 1933.  King Kong has appeared in 11 movies already, and (along with costar Godzilla ) has another movie scheduled to come out this month. King Kong and Godzilla first starred together in 1962. It wasn't a buddy flick though; they had an adversarial relationship. Though most of us are familiar with King Kong as an unnaturally large gorilla, just how big is King Kong? Apparently King Kong is as big as a particular movie plot needs him to be; he can be anywhere from 25-150" in height . (A general rule of thumb is that if you're going to fight Godzilla, you want to be as big as possible.) By way of comparison, the extinct Gigantopithecus (which was really more of an orangutan than a gorilla) probably topped out around 12-13". If King Kong actually existed, his various incarnations would be roughly elephant-sized to larger than the largest land animals to have existed. Unknown autho...