Short version: a huge King Kong animatronic shows up in Argentina and everything goes wrong.
You can read the long version after this picture:
On september 1978 a giant full size King Kong animatronic was brought to Buenos Aires, Argentina, to star in a new live show that promised to shock kids and adults alike.
The
media went crazy over it, treating the animatronic and character like a
real living actor and chronicling how the dismantled parts arrived by
boat from Los Angeles and were transported by several trucks to be
reassembled.
Reports
say that the show consisted of an announcer who, accompanied by clowns
and jugglers, narrated the life story of King Kong to the audience up
until reaching Argentina, while giant curtains partially covered the
giant ape who every once in a while moved to keep the audience's
expectations.
Apparently one of the things said to make time was
that Kong was the enemy of Superman, as the movie starring Christopher
Reeve was to be released soon.
When the curtains opened and King
Kong was finally revealed, he would move his chained arms, fingers, eyes
and mouth, roaring menacingly. Kids would be allowed to ask him
questions (such as what his favorite "futbol" team was), to wich some
sources say he simply roared back, while others say it actually talked
(the answer to the previous question, allegedly, was Boca Juniors).
But
eventually the announcer would warn the audiences that King Kong broke
free and to run for their lives, curtains covering Kong again, ending
the show. Of course, at the exit there was a stand with a giant Kong
hand for kids to sit on and take pictures and also buy merchandise.
Aparently
the adults thought the show sucked. Not only was it pricy for the time
but they also had to wait in line for hours just for a poorly organised
show that lasted little more than twenty minutes.
But much like
the De Laurentiis' movie that was released the previous year in
Argentina, the bad critical reception (by the adults) didn't stop it
from being a comercial success, and so the show went on for four months.
Then on January 1979, in the middle of the summer, it was decided to take the show to the beach city Mar del Plata, expecting it to be a bigger success. This is where everything went to hell.
To
even start setting up the giant animatronic by the beach, they had to
dig up a huge hole in order for it to fit inside a tent for protection. A
lot of time and money was spent to get things ready and by the time the
show started again... not enough people cared, as some already saw it in
Buenos Aires, while others had heard how lackluster it actually was, and
there is the fact that summer was ending. The fact that it now costed
twice as much to see didn't help at all. As if the comercial failure
wasn't enough, several lawsuits soon followed due to ilegal use of music
during the show and the rented tent going unpaid.
Nobody wanted
to take responsability for this mess of a situation so the Kong
animatronic was simply left there for months. The company that owned the
tent ended up simply taking it back, leaving the ape even more exposed
to deterioration due to the beach weather. It became a common sight for
the people there.
But then one day the animatronic simply... dissapeared.
There are several urban legends about what exactly happened to it.
Some
stories say that it was bought by a circus. Others that it was hidden
below the famous theme park "Republic of the Children"
(Repúºblica
de los Niños). Others that it was bought by a pharmaceutics company.
Some that it ended up somewhere in the now non-existant Boca Juniors
City complex.
But the most popular and accepted one is that it was simply moved by
crane and abandoned in a garbage dump near a prison, where the latex
eventually rotted away, leaving the metal endoskeleton exposed and
partially scavenged by villagers of the area to be used as raw material.
Many
people lament that such a classic movie character had to meet this
tragic fate, humilliated and ignored, away from its home, much like the
character from the classic story. It is said that the rusty, broken
remains of the once mighty animatronic are still buried somewhere in
that garbage dump, waiting in vain to be rediscovered and rightfully
apreciated.
...
That's all bullshit though.
The
reality turned out to be far less poethic, but argentine people were
left in the dark until historian Jorge Soto Roland went out of his way
to uncover the whole mess in 2015 ( [x][x] ).
As
some of you may have probably guessed, this was the very same 40 ft
giant animatronic used in the 1976 movie for like three seconds as a
publicity stunt. It was rented for this event and expected to be
returned some months later.
After
the failure of the Mar del Plata show, people involved wanted nothing
to do with it and it was eventually decided to auction the animatronic,
with several people interested in buying it.
Fortunately, before
that happened it was discovered that it actually had to be returned to
Dino De Laurentiis and the whole embarassing thing was sweeped under the
rug. No garbage dump nor circus nor anything. The animatronic was
properly repaired and shown in other countries before letting it rest
forever in 1985.
But here is the thing: it's not just that most
argentinians didn't know what actually happened for decades, but also
that what they thought happened was simply too fitting with what was
going on at the time.
Back
then Argentina was under a military dictatorship that caused the deaths
of countless people (especially since it was at war with the montoneros
guerrilla group), and several of these deaths were kept in secret (they
"dissapeared"). 1978 was also the year Argentina both held and won the
FIFA World Cup, soccer (or "futbol") being the most beloved sport
in the country by far. This double triumph, however, was held with some
resentment because it indirectly made the military regime look good.
So,
you have this ambitious but greedy project, meant to distract argentine
people during such a hard and cruel time, involving a "monster", and
that resulted in an unfair "death" that was covered up to save
face... It
really struck a chord. To this day, many articles and videos about the
show tend to use this mess as a mere excuse (or catalyst) to talk about
the dicatorship instead, and usually finish by going on and on an on
about the supposed sad ending of the animatronic. Because of this, it
may take some time to get used to the recently confirmed facts.
Now, to not end in such a sour note, wouldn't this urban legend make for an excellent movie?
A
giant old animatronic gorilla suddendly comes to life and starts
terrorizing a beach city as revenge for people not apreciating his show
back in the day?
I would watch it. I'm sure kids would love it. Who doesn't love giant monsters and gorillas.
