Whenever we think of modern stone-age humor, we think of THE FLINTSTONES, but before we them let us scroll back to 1915 and see where it really all began. In this claymation short (yes they had claymation back in the silent era), we see a primeval love triangle between The Duke and Stonejaw Steve. They want to marry the girl, but along comes the youngster Theophilis Ivoryhead, and you know where this is going. You are asking, "Hey, where is the dinosaur and where is the missing link? The Missing Link is the villain in the picture and his name is Wild Willie. This Australopithecus (the missing link between man and ape), looks more like a gorilla-chimp hybrid. In fact, Willis O'Brien, who made this short, called him "King Kong's Ancestor." After Wild Willie sneaks in to steal their lunch, which happens to be snakes. (Were you expecting spaghetti? Just go with it.) A flightless prehistoric bird called the Dinornis (referred to as the desert quail), makes an appearance not only to dodge Stonejaw Steve's arrow (which hit's The Duke's rump), but scares the antagonist away. Theophilis Ivoryhead goes fishing and sees the battle between the dinosaur, a Brontosaurus (being the deus ex machina), and Wild Willie. After gang returns, all the youngster says that he fought him, leading him to win the girl's heart. This was Willis O'Brien's first film before the original THE LOST WORLD, before the original KING KONG, and before the original MIGHTY JOE YOUNG. This battle between those hairy and the scaly would pop-up again in 1933 with KING KONG, 1948 with UNKNOWN ISLAND (done with men in costumes), Toho's KING KONG VS. GODZILLA, 1976's QUEEN KONG (read my comment), Dino Delaurentiis' 1976 remake (done with a snake), Peter Jackson's 2005 remake (done with three T-Rexes), KONG: SKULL ISLAND (2017) and RAMPAGE (2018). Wild Willie paved way to many stop-motion animated apes. The gorillas in THE GORILLA HUNT (1926), KING KONG and SON OF KONG (1933), MIGHTY JOE YOUNG (1949), Taurus from EQUINOX (1970) KING DONG (1984) and the yeti from THE PRIMEVALS (which never got made until November 2017 when Charles Band announced that it is coming out sometime in 2018). This short never got remade, until 90 years later. It was remade my me and it came out in the time of Peter Jackson's KING KONG remake and it is up on YouTube and the link is down there. Give it a watch and it is pure family fun. Not rated, but a "G" would be nice.

This is an extremely important animated short because it shows what Willis O'Brien, the special effects genius behind King Kong and many other stop-motion films, was doing early in his career. This film's quality isn't nearly as good as his later work, but you can see how he's learning and improving his craft in this film. You really can't rate it or compare it to later films because it was so crudely done in the very early days of animation.Now just because this is a rather crude stop-motion film does not mean it is bad. In fact, I thought it was pretty cute. It is the story of three suiters during the caveman days--each trying to impress the girl. Exactly what happens and how the wimpy guy gets the girl is actually kind of funny, but I don't want to spoil it.

Its amazing to see what O'Brien was able to create so early on in the history of film. The motion picture camera was barely new and he made such a groundbreaking piece of work with it. Every stop-motion lover or animator should see this film, its truly fantastic for its time. I had just seen a preview of this on the King Kong DVD and to actually see it is a joy. Its a shame that no video documentation on his techniques could have been made, I guess we just have to figure things out for ourselves. Its kind of surreal to watch with technology today what was shot on such crude and primitive equipment in the early 1900's, but hopefully this means we will be able to enjoy pioneers in stop motion like O'Brien's work for years to come.

It's amazing stuff now and it was probably even more so back in 1915. I can't believe it's gotten such low votes! Even if you can't get past its primitive nature (no pun inten ... oh well, what the heck, pun intended), surely you can appreciate it as a dry run for King Kong. Amazingly graceful, fluid movement at times, and O'Brien really must have had some fun scrutinizing every last detail of the missing link's body movements. Obviously the work of someone who cared.