Jackson's family bought their first TV when he was 5 years old, and the world of television immediately captured his young imagination, especially a futuristic English sci-fi show called Thunderbirds (1965-66). Jackson's obsession with film began when he saw the original King Kong at the age of 9. "I think I still have a rotting puppet of King Kong somewhere in my basement," he said. "It was about a foot high. Then I made a cardboard cut-out of the Empire State Building for him to stand on, and I painted a backdrop of Manhattan."
In 1969, the same year that he saw King Kong, Jackson's parents received a Super 8 movie camera as a gift. Jackson remembers thinking, "Now I can get my spaceships that I've made, my models, and I can film them, just like Thunderbirds." By his early teens, he was using his friends as actors, his parents' house as a set and whatever he could concoct in the kitchen for special effects, Jackson set out to make original movies. He recalled, "I did like a World War II drama film with friends of mine in old army uniforms—kids with big helmets and uniforms that don't fit very well—running around, dug trenches in my parents' garden."