In high school in 1976-1977, he directed an amateur parody of King Kong entitled "The King is Back". This Super 8mm film was approximately 45 minutes long, and sported a home-made ape suit, giant ape hand, and surprisingly effective trick photography. The cast consisted of many of his high school friends, most of whom made on-screen appearances in the ape suit. Gardner's only appearance in the film was a short scene when he himself was in the suit. Dialogue was presented silent-movie style on inserted captions, but the film had a taped musical accompaniment.