Dracula and Junior

 

 

 

This is the third of the Aurora monster models that I -- err, borrowed -- from my big brother, along with a smaller plstic action-figure (!!!)-type version.

 

Once I asked Robert why there was no blood on Dracula's mouth and he said portentously that the vampire never shows a trace of his kill.

This was malarkey, but at that young age I took it as gospel.

See upi tomorrow for Musical Monday!

The Rabbitville Gazette

 

 

 

This cute page is from the October 1964 Jack and Jill.  It takes a certain kind of talent to come up with gentle humor that a kid will get.  But that also can get a smile and a shake of the head from Mom and Dad.

 

"Invisible Ghost Costume," get it?  "Bottomless Candy Bag"?

 

See you tomorrow!

Monstrous Playing Cards

I picked up these and a set based on the 1932 The Mummy at a dollar store a few years ago. 

As you can see by the lower left item, the playing cards come in a card-shaped plastic case.

It's hard to see, but on the back side of each card (the side with Karloff's face), on the bottom, is a tiny tagline that says:

"© 2006 Property of X one X Archive Inc"

See you tomorrow!
 

Let's Get Hairy! ... Or Larry?

 

Meanwhile, in stately Wayne Manor ...  WAIT A MINUTE!  This is stately TALBOT Manor, sorry about that!

 

 

Larry is calibrating his dad's telescope, the better to see into the girls' locker room, my dear.  Note that we are in the realm of generic people again, so as not to have to pay royalties to families of stars, I guess.  In fact, in the above line drawing, the father looks more like Claude Rains than the son looks like Lon Chaney Jr!



 

Note that Larry now has a jacket on, signifying that he is no longer with his dad at home as shown above in the second panel.  This is really a pretty good line-drawing depiction of the silver head of the momentous walking stick.

See you tomorrow.

 

The Mummy Comes Unraveled ...

 

 

Helen Grosvenor has decided that she doesn;t want eternal life with ol' Imhotep, so she hollers for help.



 

 

In this coloring-book pantomimic telling of the Karloff movie, we don't get to see the payoff at the end of this final page, wherein dat bad ole puddy-tat (I mean, that bad ol' MUMMY) gets his overdue come-uppance and dissolves into a dessicated pile of ...stuff.

 

See yo tomorrow!

 

 

The Munsters at Carl's Jr

In 1987, Carl's Jr used this bucket for one of their kid's meals.  Featuring America's "First Family of Fright," the Munsters, it is also distinctive in the fine print whre it says "Made in the U.S.A."

 

Herman is saying, "Now Eddie, you have to wait til after dinner to eat your candy."

Ghouls with Attitude, Volume 2

Here's the second release in Oddio Overplay's Halloween assemblage.  Once again, this is a fine compilation that is no longer available on their own site!

I've added some disc art.

These are the songs:

1) Billy DeMarcus - Drac's Back
2) Movie Trailer - Ghost In The Invisible Bikini
3) Peter Pan Singers - Theme to Casper the Friendly Ghost
4) The Creatures - Mostly Ghostly
5) Tyrone A' Saurus & his Cro-Magnons - The Monster Twist
6) Mann Drake - Vampire's Ball
7) Movie Trailer - The Return of Count Yorga
8) The Hamburger Brothers - Omar The Vampire
9) The Zanies - The Mad Scientist
10) The Cool Ghoul - You Can't Ghoul Me
11) Ted Cassidy - The Lurch
12) The Detergents - Igor's Cellar
13) The Milton the Monster Show - Theme Song
14) Movie Trailer - Graveyard Tramps
15) Cathy Mills - Monster Hop
16) Glen Ryle - Wolf Gal
17) Movie Trailer - Dr. Jeckyl and Sister Hyde
18) Ralph Marterie and His Marlboro Men - Alfred Hitchcock Presents
19) Lois Prante Ellis and Mary Ann Parker - Troll At The General Meeting
20) Jimmy Cross - I Want My Baby Back
21) Count Baltes & The Egors - Opening The Coffin
22) Sounds of Terror! - The Exorcism
23) Al Zanino - The Vampire Speaks

There is one mistake in this listing (which is the same as the liner).  Track 4, "Mostly Ghostly," is NOT by "The Creatures."  I don;t know what "The Creatures" is, but ...

"Mostly Ghostly," and specifically THIS PERFORMANCE of it, is from the 1959 Monster Rally album.  This great disc is performed by two giants of characterization:  Hans Conried (the voice of Captain Hook in Disney's Peter Pan and the blustery Uncle Tonoose on the Danny Thomas Show);  and Alice Pearce, star of stage and screen (On the Town, 1949, and that nosy neighbor Gladys Kravitz on TV's Bewitched).  Ain't no "The Creatures" here.

Anyway, this aggregation of holiday silliness is lots o' fun.  Here is the link: http://www.mediafire.com/?q46q7n6g77h0x05
Later, Zombie Gator!
  

Ze Mummy, He Is Steamed, No?

More coloring book pages . . .

These four pages, with their left-and-right views of supposedly the same scene, are the coloring-book equivalent of pan-and-scan.

 

 

Of course, in the movie, the scene shown in the pages above takes place in Ardath Bay's home, while the bottom two pages' scene takes place after hours in the musem.





The part of Helen Grosvenor is being played tonight by Zita Johann . . .

  

Fun from Jack and Jill

 

 

A couple of activity pages from the October 1964 Jack and Jill.

 

 

I feel happy that my eight-year-old self didn't color or mark all over these pages.

You Know How Much Your Mummy Loves You!

Here are more pages from the coloring book.  It seems that The Mummy, with 11 pages, gets the most coverage of all the monsters in this book.

This is another page Melissa (now 21) got ahold of.  When such a multi-hued guy wakes from a long sleep, does he come out with a "Technicolor yawn"?

The last two of these pages sort of match up, except that a big section of the sarcophagus's middle section is gone.

 

 

  

The Alien Model

Soon after it came out, I bought the model of the eponymous Alien film.  It didn't last long in its assembled state, and by now I've lost only the head.

 

 

But, packrat that I am, I still held onto the instructions sheet.



 

 

Isn't the "font" for the lettering of "Alien" creepy and Giger-ish?  Note that they even used the design for the step numbers 1 through 7 on the insructions sheet.



Let's get a close-up of that logo.  Some fun, eh, kiddies?

Good Ol' Fuzz-Face!

 

 

This is another of my big brother's masterpieces, the 1962 Aurora Wolf Man.  The box looked like this:

Now, the box art looks more like Lon Chaney, Jr than the model's face, but it's still another bit of creepy fun!

What amazes me is several eBay listings of this model for around $100 buck is the same stae as mine -- already built and painted.  Actually?  You couldn't put a price on my memories, so I would agree that this is worth a bunch if you put a gun to my head and told me to put a price on it.

But why would somebody else pay a hundred bucks for this thing?

Unless it were the plot of a sitcom episode -- "Uh-oh, Bobby, you broke Uncle Ralph's model and I have to buy another one before he notices!  I'll pay anything!"

 

Exit Dracula, Enter ... The Mummy!

More from the coloring book:

 

Statistically, more vampires prefer a hot stake (steak) to a cold chop (in the neck) -- wokka wokka!

 

He -- he went for a little walk!

 

 



Musical Monday: Ghouls with Attitude, Volume 1

This gem was assembled by Oddio Overplay a few years ago but it's no longer active on their site.  So here it is, along with disc art that they did not provide.

Here are the selections:

1 Tarantula Ghoul and the Gravediggers - Graveyard Rock
2 Don Hinson and the Rigamorticians - Riboflavin-Flavored, Non-Carbonated, Polyunsatured Blood
3 Movie Trailer - Vampire Playgirls
4 Bobby Bare - Vampira
5 The Crewnecks - Rockin' Zombie
6 Griz Green - Jam at the Mortuary
7 Movie Trailer - Monsters Crash the Pajama Party
8 The MSR Singers - Monster Man
9 The Abominable Surfers - Monster Surfer
10 Bobby 'Boris' Jones - Surfer Smash
11 Jupiter Jones - The Spook Spoke
12 Bob McFadden and Dor - I Dig You Baby
13 Movie Trailer - The Mind of Mr. Soames
14 Albert DeSalvo - Strangler in the Night
15 Kenny and the Fiends - House on Haunted Hill
16 Winchell's Donut House Halloween Record - Hear the Monsters (Spooky Sounds and a Spooky Tale)
17 Buddy Morrow and His Orchestra - The Raven
18 The Modernaires - The Rockin' Ghost
19 Bob Rosengarden & Phil Kraus - Satan Takes a Holiday
20 Boris Karloff and Friends - Ha Ha Ha / The Bride of Frankenstein
21 Movie Trailer - Brain Eaters
22 Groovie Goolies - Goolie Garden
23 Hap Palmer - Haunted House
24 Bruce Haack and Norman Bridwell - The Witch's Vacation
25 Sounds of Terror! - Burned at the Stake
26 Louise Huebner - Intro Orgies, a Tool of Witchcraft
27 Marty Manning and His Orchestra - Night on Bald Mountain
28 Criswell (The Legendary) - Someone Walked Over My Grave  

Here's the link:  http://www.mediafire.com/?41bbxjt2og1n63a
Enjoy the creepy silliness!

The Last from Golden Magazine

This is the last Halloween-related item from the October 1965 Golden Magazine.

 

Some of the ladies I love have LOTS of these permanent beauty marks!

From 1964 Jack & Jill

Here's the do-it-yourself calendar page from the October, 1964 Jack & Jill.  The days of the wek don;t match this year, but it's still fun.

 

See you tomorrow.

Behold a Crown Jewel

My big brother Robert is nine years older than me.  And when I came along, he was forced to share his bedroom with me.

Now that I am a grown-up, I feel like constantly apologizing for his having to put up with THAT!

So when he went to college . . . got married . . . moved out . . . some things got left behind.

And believe it or not, there are some of these things, that I did not break!  Here is one of them . . .

Here's a first-issue 1961 Frankenstein model, in a photo taken last month.  It makes me smile and be happy just to look at ol' Frank.  He's proof that I didn't ruin EVERYTHING pertaining to my childhood. 

I don't remember if I have ever offered to give him back to Robert, but why start now?

Next to Frank is HIS OWN pesky little brother, the provenance of which I don't recall.  Its arms move and I think his green head and his hands are supposed to glow in the dark.

You'll meet a couple of Frank's cousins later this month.  See you tomorrow, kiddies!

More Halloween Stuff from the Attic

 

In case you couldn't tell by their color, these monsters from Marx Toys glow in the dark!



 

Notice that, as with Aurora's Frankenstein, the preferred face-under-the-makeup is not Boris Karloff, but Glenn Strange.

How many of you know that many of us Baby Boomers got to know Glenn Strange by his real face, on Gunsmoke?

He played Sam Noonan, the barkeeper at the Long Branch Saloon, from 1961 until his death in 1973.

More Coloring Pages of Scary Guys (and Gal)

Somebody (named Melissa and now 21 years old) got to the above page first!

When, in their song "D.O.A.," the group Bloodrock sang, "The girl I knew has such a distant stare," I don;t think they meant THIS kind of stair!

Monster Hot Rod Craze

The resurgence in popularity of monsters started with the "Shock Theatre" release of Universal monster/sci-fi movies to TV stations in the late 1950s.  By the early 1960s they had permeated popular culture and trickled down to the youth scene.

Many Boomers grew up with monsters in our living room -- wasn't it grand?

A nice synergy developed when somebody in marketing decided to cross-pollinate monsters with the surf-driven car-customizing crowd.  And so we got, monster dragsters!

These are all re-issues of original Aurora kits.  I haven't opened them yet.

My big brother had Frankenstein's Flivver.  I can tell you from experience that Aurora did a smart thing by reusing pieces of the ORIGINAL Aurora model.  The thorax, head, and left arm of the Frankenstein Monster were identical to the original kit!

From the looks of things, they might have re-used Dracula's original head in his kit.  And Wolf Man's Wagon could have used the head, body, and right arm of the original.

Perhaps someday when my in-the-womb grandson is old enough, we'll open these kits and I'll give him a little monster schoolin'.

See you tomorrow!