13. Was Daddy Kong A Hermaphrodite?
When King Kong hit the jackpot in early '33, co-directors Cooper and Schoedsack were told to make a "bigger and better" sequel. Son Of Kong (1933) was in the cinemas by the Christmas of that year; as screenwriter Ruth Rose remarked, "If you can't make it bigger, make it more comical," was the compromise they eventually settled on. Discovered by a bankrupt Carl Denham (sued for damages by the City of New York), the smaller, benign white ape was sometimes written about as 'Kiko' (a truncation of King Kong) but called 'Little Kong' throughout the film. By the time he drowns to save the (smaller) crew and the latest girl Denham has brought along, the sentimentality is almost on a Disney level. But there's one point that disturbs: given Kong's solitary nature in the original film and the total absence of any female of the species, did he somehow give birth asexually?