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Gorilla King. The Gorilla King was created by The Kids’ Theatre of Shanghai and appeared in the play The Gorilla King (1941?).

The Gorilla King is Sun Wukong, the Monkey King of the Chinese novel Xi-yóu-ji, a.k.a. Journey to the West (circa 1590). In The Gorilla King Sun Wukong is also King Kong (I) and lives on Skull Island, but once China is invaded by a group of conspicuously unnamed invaders the Gorilla King swims to China and liberates the country.

* I'm including the The Gorilla King in the Best of the Encyclopedia category because of the imaginative premise of the play. There are two types of people in the world: those for whom the presence of primates in any form is a force multiplier of coolness, and those whose souls are bleak and blasted wastelands devoid of life. I, obviously, am of the former party. So for people like me, who you understand have innately superior taste, a play in which a) Sun Wukong b) is King Kong (I) c) living on Skull Island but d) swims to China and kicks the asses of the invading Japanese is a work of sublimity and Art. We happen to be correct in this opinion: it is Art. 

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