Joseph Young
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Mr. Joseph "Joe" Young of Africa is a giant gorilla who first appeared in the 1949 RKO Pictures film Mighty Joe Young. He was born in Africa, more specifically the fictitious "Pagani mountains" in the film's 1998 remake.
Appearance
Joe is a large gorilla, but his size is not widely agreed upon. It was decided to keep him relatively small to enhance the film's realism, and Cinovation later decided to make him 9.5 feet tall while standing on all fours, with a standing height of 13.5 feet.
Origins
Joe is an unusually large mountain gorilla that came into the care of Jill Young, an American child living in Africa with her father in the 1949 film, and her mother in the 1998 remake.
In the original film, due to unknown circumstances, Joe came into the posession of two traders, neither of whom spoke English or Swahili enough to talk about thr infant gorilla, who moved across the jungle in a caravan with other traders and their goods. The two men carried a basket with Joe inside past a farmhouse owned by the Young family, and the owner's daughter Jill traded some trinkets and her father's flashlight for the baby.
In the remake, Joe was an infant in a troop of gorillas being studied by Ms. Young, who along with Joe's mother, was killed by poachers. Young's daughter Jill then raised him into adulthood.
For unknown reasons he grows to immense size, and because of this he eventually ends up in showbusiness in the United States.
Design
The 1998 Joe was designed primarily by Matt Rose and Rick Baker, who had previously worked on the 1976 film King Kong. Baker's effects company "Cinovation" was approached by Walt Disney Pictures CEO David Vogel before the film had even been greenlit to ensure that Joe would feel like a real animal. Baker and Cinovation had worked on several other gorilla centric films, and to make sure that Joe was distinct enough from Baker's character Digit from Gorillas in the Mist, left Matt Rose in charge of Joe's creation.
While Disney sought to make Joe bigger than he had been in the original film, Baker sought to keep his size down to make his existence feel more plausible.
History
- Mighty Joe Young (1949)
- Mighty Joe Young (1998)
Migthy Joe Young (1949)
Joe was an infant when he came into the posession of a caravan of traders. Two of them carried him in a suspended basket through a jungle and across a river before passing in front of the Young family's farmhouse. The farmer's daughter Jill Young stopped the men, and on seeing baby Joe, decided she had to trade them for him. Using some of her loose change, toys, some beads, and her father's flashlight, she was finally able convince the men to trade with her, and they left him in her care. Joe sat under a tree and ate some nearby plants before being taken inside to surprise Jill's father. She put him in a bed and pulled the covers over the top of him before hiding. Mr. Young came home and saw movement in the bed, and pulled his pistol to fire on the intruder before Joe pulled the covers off and revealed himself. With Mr. Young placated, Jill revealed herself and introduced Joe to her father. Mr. Young insisted that they could not keep him, but quickly found himself bottlefeeding thr ape. Despite this, he took care to make sure Jill knew thst one day he would be too big and dangerous to keep on their farm.
Jill took care of him as he grew, and in twelve years time he had grown larger than any other recorded gorilla. Despite his size and strength, he remained loyal to Jill and would listen to her commands. One day, six months after her father's passing, Joe wandered into a poacher's camp on Jill's land and he began trashing a cart holding one of their lions. A group of cowboys then came and tried to lasso him, and he began to fight them off. The leader of the men, Max O'Hara came to try and stop him, and Joe lifted him off of his horse, and was preparing to throw him from a short cliff when Jill arrived to call him off and to chase off the poachers. In reality, it had all been a misunderstanding, but when Joe returned to the farmhouse, he saw O'Hara admonishing Jill and two other men at a table and became angry. Jill quickly soothed him with bananas, and made arrangements for both she and Joe to become the stars of Max O'Hara's Golden Safari club in Hollywood, California. There, he hoisted a platform supporting Jill playing a grand piano one night, and bested numerous strong men in a tug-of-war. Despite this, by night Joe was forced to sleep in a small cell in the club's basement, where he quickly became disillusioned with showbusiness. One night after ten weeks of this, O'Hara had Joe dress as an organ grinder's monkey, and had patrons throw giant coins at him with the stipulation that if any got in Joe's collection cup, there would be free champagne for the whole club. Joe was not a fan of having things thrown at him, and when a group of rowdy, drunk, patrons threw a bottle at him, he became angry, and O'Hara cut the act short and reprimanding the men. Instead of leaving, the three men made their way backstage to Joe's cell and gave him two entire bottles of champagne before turning on him for not leaving any for them. One then burned Joe with his cigarette lighter, and the drunken Joe tore off his cell door and began to rampage. He burst back onto the stage as patrons fled before him, and broke the glass enclosure for the giant lions behind the bar before beating a number of them and throwing others across the venue.
Mighty Joe Young (1998)
Abilities
Physical strength
To be added.
Sapience and intelligence
To be added.
Books
Mighty Joe Young (junior novelization)
To be added.
Mighty Joe Young (Golden Book)
Joe was a baby gorilla under the care of Ruth Young when his mother was killed by a poacher named Strasser. In time he grew to a height of fifteen feet, and caught the attention of Gregg O'Hara, who encouraged his caretaker and best friend Jill Young to move Joe to a conservancy in the United States. There, he was filmed by TV crews, alerting Strasser, who hatched a plan to steal him. While at a party hosted by the conservancy in Joe's honor, Strasser made an appearance, sending Joe into an enraged frenzy. With his keepers now convinced that he was dangerous, Joe was locked in a small cell. Eventually, it was agreed that he would go with Strasser to his alleged wildlife reserve in Africa. When Joe was already ready to be shipped off, Jill realized who he was, and bade Joe to escape. He broke free and began crossing the city, terrifying all who saw him, and made his way to a carnival in the nearby hills. There, Strasser threatened Jill, who had come there in search of Joe, and in retaliation Joe smacked him into the sea. Joe then climbed a Ferris wheel to save a stranded child. The wheel began to fall down, and Joe leapt away in time to save himself and the boy. Afterward, with the help of the conservancy and donations from fans, Joe was moved to the new "Joe Young Wildlife Park" in Kenya.
References
This is a list of references for Joe Young. These citations are used to identify the reliable sources on which this article is based. These references appear inside articles in the form of superscript numbers, which look like this: [1]
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