Episode 103: 'Konga' vs. Record All Monsters

Hello, Kaiju Lovers! Nate and Jet move on to jolly ol' England for the penultimate stop on the Monster Island World Tour, but it's to discuss the sleaziest of the 1961 European kaiju movies: Konga. Thankfully, Nate is joined by the co-hosts of the podcast Record All Monsters (and...fugitives...?), who un-ironically like this movie. While it's a King Kong "knockoff," the studio paid RKO $25,000 for the rights. Not to mention, aside from featuring a giant gorilla (for 15 minutes) who carries humans in his hand, it has almost nothing in common with Kong. But hey, it has Michael Gough (aka Alfred Pennyworth) in it! The Toku Topic, appropriately, is the mad scientist archetype.

"Jimmy's Notes" on this episode COMING SOON!

For full show notes, including a bibliography of sources, read this episode's blog post on the MIFV website: https://monsterislandfilmvault.com/index.php/2025/04/26/episode-103-konga-vs-record-all-monsters/. 

Buy Robert’s book, Record All Monsters: The Book of the Essays from the Podcast (https://a.co/d/gFq6W2U).

Listen to the Record All Monsters’s episode on Konga: https://www.spreaker.com/episode/09-konga-mad-scientists-and-the-return-of-giant-monkeys--49864456.

Hollywood Gorilla Men: http://www.hollywoodgorillamen.com/.

Check out Nathan’s spinoff podcasts, The Henshin Men and The Power Trip, and Henshin Power V3!

We’d like to give a shout-out to our MIFV MAX patrons Danny DiManna (author/creator of the Godzilla Novelization Project); Damon Noyes, The Cel Cast, TofuFury, Eric Anderson of Nerd Chapel, Ted Williams, Wynja the Ninja, Christopher Riner, The Indiscrite One, Eli Harris, Jake Hambrick, Matt Walsh (but not that Matt Walsh), Jonathan Courtright, Leon Campbell, Michael Watson, and Sam Allred! Thanks for your support!

You, too, can join MIFV MAX on Patreon to get this and other perks starting at only $3 a month! (https://www.patreon.com/monsterislandfilmvault)

Buy official MIFV merch on TeePublic! (https://www.teepublic.com/user/the-monster-island-gift-shop). NEW MERCH NOW AVAILABLE!

This episode is approved by the Monster Island Board of Directors.

Timestamps:

• Introduction: 0:00-16:46
• Entertaining Info Dump: 16:46-24:37
• Toku Talk (main discussion): 24:37-1:45:59
• Podcast Ad – Henshin Power V3: 1:45:59-1:48:08
• Toku Topic – Mad Scientist Archetype: 1:48:08-2:33:13
• Outro (housekeeping, etc.): 2:33:13-2:41:31
• Credits: 2:41:31-end

Podcast Social Media:

• MIFV Linktree: https://linktr.ee/monsterislandfilmvault
• Nate’s Linktree: https://linktr.ee/nathan_marchand
• MIFV is a member of PodNation (https://podnation.tv/)
• MIFV is one of Feedspot’s top 10 tokusatsu podcasts! (https://blog.feedspot.com/tokusatsu_podcasts/)
• MIFV is one