MA-59 - Araya Sunshine Martin -- welcome

This wide-eyed beauty is my youngest granddaughter, the abovenamed Araya Sunshine Martin.  Yes, if you say her first and middle names aloud, it sounds like she's "a ray of sunshine."

Which is true, most of the time!

Araya turned two during October, amidst Blog-o-ween on Mark's Super Blog, but you could say that her story started much longer ago.

You see, my big sister Sue (1958-2009) was a bona fide Flower Child (minus the drug use) of the 1960s.  She always said that if she gave birth to a little girl, she would name her "Angel Sunshine."  Which makes me wonder if her only child, Jamie Nathaniel Ulrich, is happy that he was born male.

Anyway, our youngest daughter Melissa is in some ways Sue's spiritual descendant.  When she gave birth to a girl on October 1, 2010, "Araya Sunshine" was the name she picked.

I was inspired by the arrival of our little ray of sunshine to put together some feel-good songs with "sunshine" in their titles, and here it is.

These are the songs:

01 - Beatles Remixers Group - Sunshine
02 - Jackie Mitto - Sunshine
03 - Natasha Bedingfield - Pocketful Of Sunshine
04 - Paul McCartney - See Your Sunshine
05 - The Brady Bunch - It's A Sunshine Day
06 - GUB - I Love the Sunshine
07 - Frente! - Open Up Your Heart and Let the Sun Shine In
08 - Roy Ayers Ubiquity - Everybody Loves the Sunshine
09 - Spooky Garcia - Little Girl Sunshine
10 - The Elves - Wakeup Sunshine
11 - The Corrs - Summer Sunshine
12 - Gray Sky Girls - You Are My Sunshine
13 - Cream vs Gerald Wilson - Sunshine of Your Love
14 - Earth, Wind & Fire - Sunshine
15 - Paul McCartney - Sunshine Sometime
16 - Lesley Gore - Sunshine, Lollipops and Rainbows
17 - Osibisa - Sunshine Day
18 - Chicago - Wake Up Sunshine
19 - Stevie Wonder - You Are the Sunshine of My Life

I hope these songs make you happy, because that's the effect they have on me!  Sometimes it is great to just have an hour or so of unbridled optimism.

If you could only know Araya and her smile, you too would be charmed into opening up your heart to let the sunshine in!

Here is the link:   http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?xbvaaq98umols4f
Smile, darn ya, smile! 

 

A Final Thought on Pretenders

The First Trick-or-Treat

 

The ones who first cried “Trick or Treat”

Wore costumes made of leaves --
They did not ask, but snatched their prize --
This Adam, and his Eve --

 

The first to hide and say “Not Me”

When asked if they were there --
The first to huddle in disguise --
Spend trembling nights in fear -- 

And we, their children, hide like them

And live behind a mask --
Our true self we’re afraid to show
And too ashamed to ask --

I wait with eagerness that day

When masks are cast aside --
When treats are given evermore
And we are waved inside


Happy Halloween!

See you next Monday.

Thingmakers and Creepy Crawlers!

They came out in 1964.  It was with much joy and jubilation that I received one soon afterwards!

You poured the Plastigoop into the metal molds, you heated the mold in the Thingmaker cooker thing, and when it turned the right color (a darker "cooked" color), you took it off the heat and let it cool ... and you had your own bug! or whatever.

Now, all of my Thingmaker accoutrements have gone with the wind.  But in later years, when it came out, I bought the reissue, whose package is seen thusly:

Sadly, this newer, "safer" version is like the Easy Bake Oven -- heating via light bulb.  So slow and inefficient!  After a couple of disappointing attempts, this thing is now in the attic.

However, in recent years I have come across two relics from the original sets. seen below.

 

Someday I am going to buy some more Plastigoop and pour it into this mold.

And I'm going to plug in this Thingmaker.

And I'm going to MAKE A BUG!

Just don't hold your breath!

Musical Monday: MA-16 - Ghos-Terrific Sounds

 

Here is last year's Haloween compilation, lost to history when Megaupload was seized.

 



By the way, the above is the original art that I tweaked for my CD cover art.

These are the songs:

1        Mr After Halloween Costume Shop Salesman        Al Lowe      1:00

2       "The Return of Dracula": The End   Gerald Fried      4:08
3       Teenage Frankenstein     Alice Cooper      3:27
4       Trick or Treat  Andrew Gold         3:23
5       Everybody Loves You When You're Dead     Stranglers         2:39
6       Creature from the Black Leather Lagoon           The Cramps    3:12
7       Count Dracula  All About Halloween  1:09
8 Halloween in Heaven Type O Negative 4:50
9 The Nightmare Before Christmas Pharaoh Atem 1:37
10 Godzilla (Album Version) Blue Oyster Cult 3:42
11 Halloween Parade David Berkeley    3:16
12 Gigantor Helmet   4:12
13 Surfin' Halloween Big Chopper 1:27
14 Count Dracula Robbie the Werewolf 5:09
15 Halloween Monster Mania stAllio!   7:55
16 Planet of the Apes Frankenstein Drag Queens   3:00
17 The Legend of Wooley Swamp Charlie Daniels   3:56
18 Spooks of Halloween Town   Yoko Shimomura   1:20
19 Hand of Blood Bullet for My Valentine 3:37
20 Casper, the Friendly Ghost      Peter Pan Singers 0:53
21 Scary Song Frankenstein Drag Queens    2:37
22 Zombie Stomp      H. Zombie featuring Toño Pneumo 4:14
23 Halloween Party     Sue Schnitzer 3:54
24 Frankenstein Rock Eddie Thomas 1:50
25 I Want a Monster     Prairie Dawn 2:12

 

And here is the link ... if you dare!  http://www.mediafire.com/?j55oxvpqzwlbam7

 

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.