At my house anyway, every year my neighbour puts on a display with Jason, Freddy and Leatherface, while cool it isn`t my idea of Halloween. So I decided to spend some time in the garage and make these two, both of them are about seven feet tall.
James sent me in this awesome shot of himself still wearing his Ben Cooper Superman costume well past October 31st as what can be evidenced by what is in the background.
I say, Bravo to you James. I find the sight of Halloween decorations being replaced by Santa on October 31st somewhat bothersome.
Love, love, love this ad from '79, all the faves are here, Mork, Remco KISS your face, Imagineering's "The Face" but the big standout on this piece would be the "Incredible Melting Man" makeup kit by Imagineering. Based on the movie of the same name (which is also a great episode of Mystery Science Theatre 3000) the melting man kit was short lived and now quite desirable to collectors.
It's been a while since I unveiled a trading card and this is going out of order but what the hell, it's Halloween. Card #29 is the Remco Monsters. Anyone who has read this blog knows I'm terribly fond of the line and I loved this great glow in the dark shot, so it was a no brainer to get these out for October. I'll be doing a contest for these in November.
Speaking of the Remco Monsters, what better time to show off these great Newspaper toy ads which feature them, click on the one above for a larger look.
Clash of the Titans, Mego Pocket Heroes and Universal Monster dolls, total droolage...
$6.87 seems kind of high for these back then, of course if you offered this now I'd fill my garage.
The awesome mini Monsters are in this great Kiddie City ad. Click on it for a larger view.
Collect them all indeed. Stay Tuned all day for more Halloween Goodness...
Awww yeah, we wrap up our month of Halloween with our third dip into the "Collegeville barrel" with this grooving catalog from 1979.
'79 saw some great new additions to Collegeville as they scored some major licenses most important at the time would be KISS, the rock band that wore Halloween costumes 24/7. For the space kids, Collegeville had the good guys and bad bots of Battlestar Galactica and for you fantasy nerds, The Lord of the Rings!
Funstuff produced several "Aniform" figures of characters like the Incredible Hulk and the Universal Monsters. This rare promotional sheet shows the original packaging which was later altered. Funstuf also released a Dracula but I don't have that piece Click on the images to see a larger view of the sell sheet.
I've uncovered a few sales ads for the AHI "World Famous Super Monsters" one of the more prolific and collectable Universal licensed items produced in the 1970s. The one is from K Mart in 1976, where apparently the line is getting closed out, it's also a Valentines day sale, weird...
Here's another clearance ad, not only for the Monsters but for the other AHI lines like their "Action Apemen" and their generic Western figures.
This is a great ad from "Hecks" featuring an image of Frankenstein and the Wolfman, it also mentions the Creature (Drool) and "The Ape Man". Mego really brought out the lawyers fast on that one.
Ah the creature makes a rare appearance in this ad, it's the male version. At $1.44 you could put me down for at least a gross of each, if not more, these guys are some of the best rack toys ever made.
This ad from 1976 is noticeably missing the Creature.
What a tough choice kids had in 1979, smooth as glass spy James Bond or those "Whacky" Village People? In 1979 it was an honest dilemma, now those pictures look like different sections of an adult video store.
"I'd get the biker son, he looks tough, that Roger Moore is a cissy!"
Please tell me that at least one of my readers wore the "Glenn" and is willing to share photographs...
This is an ad from Canadian Tire of all places and I totally remember it, these guys were in my stocking one Christmas. Originally they were made by Azrak Hamway (AHI) . The three figures included a suspiciously familiar "Rex Dinosaur", the Creature from the Black Lagoon and King Kong, each shot sparks from it's mouth while walking.
Below is an original Creature (you can tell the originals because they have toes on their feet and are marked AHI) which I'm happy to say still sparks.
According to the 1976 AHI Catalog, these originally came carded but I seem to remember them just being in a counter display box.
After AHI stopped producing them, the molds for these seem to have gotten around Hong Kong as they continued to appear in stores up until the 1990s, for all I know they're still around, below is a King Kong I found recently, that was definitely a later release:
A tradition in my house every October is Monster Model day, where I get the kids together and we paint a couple of Aurora reissues and use them as our centerpiece for the month. Above is last years, I had a lot of trouble finding kits locally so I actually bought this years kits when I first saw them in July and I'm glad I did, they sold out quick!
This year I chose these Revell reissues of Dracula and Frankenstein, my daughter actually hugged her Dracula kit box when she saw it, a big hit. The deal is, I do the gluing, they do the painting, occasionally helping with tough stuff like the eyes.
I've put together Frankenstein before and it's amazing that the molds are still holding up! My compaints are the same as they were 16 years ago when I put together the Illuminators versions, it's tough to make the guy stand properly and I had issues with the jacket but it was no big deal.
Dracula's headsculpt looks different somehow but I really ended up liking it, I'd love it if it ended up on an action figure again the way AHI did them.
Viola! Not bad considering they're four and seven, they even learned the magic of "Dry brushing" from their dad. What I found most interesting was the amount of blood the kids put on the characters, I guess some things never change. Next year I think we'll do the creech and wolfman or maybe the phantom..
Lou sent in this cool shot of his sister, which he says is it is from a haunted house across from where "Bugs Bunny Meets the Superheroes" was playing. Dig her cool Wonder Woman shirt. We don't get enough Monster encounters here, this is only our second one. Come on People!
No, not the 1987 movie but the original 1976 Saturday Morning Series that really helped my love for Monsters in general.
The show has precious little web presence and I'm honestly surprised how much merchandise I discovered, so I've created a little gallery to showcase it all.
It's all here and there may be a few surprises, everything from proposed (but sadly not released) action figures to Halloween costumes, toy cars puzzles and the board game everybody should be familiar with.
Imperial Toy Corporation made (and still makes) terrific rack toys but the ultimate Halloween item has to be the rubber bat.It's almost an institution unto itself and one tradition that we still insist upon in the PS household (which we never refer to it as)
Oh this Imagineering stuff makes me crazy, it's really hard not to go spend hundreds on Ebay when you see ads like this. The pretend blood was schoolyard magic...
The Gigantics kits by Fundimensions are one of the coolest model kit concepts EVER! In 1975, fundimensions went to back to 1950s cinema with a series of giant insects attacking urban areas. I somehow missed these when they were first released, only discovering them in the mid 1980s when I grabbed the wasp kit at a toy show.
Sadly when I opened the kit, I realized I couldn't do it justice so I ended up selling it at the next show, I still kind of regret that decision. However, reissues of these kits are now about, so maybe I'll try again.
October seems like the perfect month to show off the two newest additions to the AHI Super Monsters Gallery on the site. Above is of course, the Wolfman, which I almost didn't get thanks to a spotty seller on ebay.
And the Mummy (these guys are hard to photograph) which I'd like to point out is a toy of Kharis, the Mummy played by Lon Chaney Jr and Tom Tyler and not Boris Karloff's Imhotep. I don't think that's really important to many but it is to me. I don't know why but I love big bloody splotches like this on Mummy toys.
October is the perfect time to highlight the cool custom Mego Monster figures from my pal Thomas in Belgium. He's both made and collected 8" versions of the classic Universal and Hammer monsters for his collection.
With it being October, I tend to get a little nuts with the Halloween costumes especially my favourite company Collegeville.
1978 was a fun year for Collegeville, sure they didn't have Star Wars but did Ben Cooper have the Hardy Boys? Not a chance. The 1978 Collegeville catalog is exploding with characters and creations that made the 1970s great including Jaws, Grizzy Adams, Farrah Fawcett, Superjoe, TV Super teams The Osmonds, Laverne and Shirley, Starsky and Hutch and the Monster Squad, just to name a few. It's like some weird TV special that probably happened...
No real direction today, just a bunch of different things that didn't seem to fit anywhere else, above is an early 80s ad for a costume company called Topstone. I'm not really all that familiar with them but I know there are collectors out there.
For Maxx Fx Fans, here is a 1989 article (click on it for a larger read) about the problems Matchbox encountered when they attempted to market Freddy Kruger toys to children. This was more based on the cuddly talking doll (bad idea) but it eventually doomed Maxx as well. I don't give a toss about Freddy personally but find it a shame that those wonderful Universal Monster toys weren't released. If you haven't already, I insist you spend the next hour checking out creator Mel Birnkrant's fantastic Maxx Fx site.
And lastly, I found this postage stamp sized ad in an old Canadian newspaper, it's for a clearance of Aurora Monster Scenes kits (which got Aurora in a lot of trouble at the time) and I know that the Giant Insect kit is one thing a lot of collectors would have loved to have found for under a buck.
Mattel relaunched their popular Thing Makers from the 60s in a new version that wouldn't permanently scar you (seriously I know people with scars).
This commerical from our DVD is kind of bittersweet for me, the happy part is realizing that it's narrated by Jackie "Uncle Fester" Coogan. but I'm also reminded how quickly I was shot down by my folks when asking for one of these. I'd have made a real mess of things, so I forgive them...
Some Terrific new additions to the AHI Monsters Gallery today, starting with this carded Frankenstein, I can't tell you how smitten I am with this guy, he rules.
The Bendy Mummy is by far the hardest one to find, even eclipsing the Creature from the Black Lagoon, which is usually the hardest to come by in any set, due to high demand.These little guys have really grown on me and they're one of my favourite Monster toys now, I mean, just look at them.....
Do not turn away, LOOK AT THEM! See how they mock you!
Halloween Countdown Item
Ahhh sounds to make you Shiver, it worked well on me back in the day. I never lingered at people's houses who played spooky sounds. Anyone have this for the ipod?
Chris sent in the cool pic of his KIng Kong merchandise from the 1977 remake, all of this stuff was made by Mego and is really hard to find. I have to admit I love that Japanese Vinyl.
How can you not love Youtube? That's where I found this home movie footage of a live Planet of the Apes appearance in Plymouth Hoe circa 1975. I know I say this far too oftenbut had I been exposed to this level of awesome as a child, it would have reduced me to a babbling, incoherant state.
Seeing as it's October and it's all about dressing up, I thought I'd show off other Ape Mall Appearances from previous posts:
Scott sent in this awesome shot from Long Island in 1975,
I've always wondered if it's the same one that was sent anonimously here, love the Addar kits in the foreground.
All of this was put on by Mego of course, the one company that really drove the train when it came to "apechandise" , kids even got this handout which I now happily own:
By 1983, Remco had put down their utility belts and picked up some swords but never actually straying from their comic book licensing ties. Their long relationship with Marvel comics made them a natural to market the action figures based on their Crystar comic series , also announced were a series of figures based on Kazar that sadly, never materialized.
DC comics provided Remco the opportunity to combat Masters of the Universe in the form of the "Lost World of the Warlord" toyline based on the works of Mike Grell. The Universal Monsters (another long relationship for AHI and Remco) were still kicking and after years being seperated it seems that Remco/AHI finally became one in 1983 with the rack toy items finally being marketed in the Remco catalog.
Thanks to Steve F. for these marvelous scans. Click on the images for pages with descriptions:
This Star Wars race set may be pushing it a little when it comes to licensing but there is something oddly appealing about it as well. I think I like the Giant Vader and Luke Skywalker heads, which just seem kind of wrong....
Halloween Ad of the Day: This one is for the Mego World's Greatest Super Monsters, now on clearance at Two Guys it seems. As monster dolls go, Mego's line may not have been licensed but they were the highest quality figures we'd see in the 1970s.
I hate to burst any bubbles here but men do not stand undercomfortably close to one another for long periods of time thrusting while in their underpants. Catalogs would have you believe this is an everyday occasion, they are lying to you.
Also mustard underpants = fail.
Halloween Countdown piece of the Day:
Mix and Mold Monsters $1.88 each, I am probably still not patient enough to do these any sort of justice...
Did these ever see release? This ad is the first time I've heard of them but it seemed that Amsco was about ten years ahead of the Madballs trend. Not only do you get Superheroes and Monsters but Planet of the Apes as well. The cards for these are fantastic, if anybody knows if they existed, drop a comment!
For those not in the know, Frightenstein is a Canadian series that mixes one part Universal Monsters, One Part Laugh in and a touch of Sesame Street to make an interesting and sometimes surreal cocktail.
Created in 1971 in Hamilton, Ontario. Frightenstein is a really charming and gorgeously made show, it revolves around the characters of Castle Frightenstein in Frankenstone. The centerpiece of making it work is the comedy genius of Billy Van who plays 8 of the 11 characters including The Count, The Wolfman, The Librarian, Grizelda the Ghastly Gourmet, Dr Pet Vet among others.
Also along for the ride are Vincent Price (yep!), Dr. Julius Sumner Miller (providing the educational segment) Guy Big as the Midget Count (Big was supposed to play the count but couldn't maintain his voice).
I loved the show as a kid especially the fact that one guy did so much and thanks to Can Con laws (a rule that Canadian Content Television shows MUST be played for a certain amount of time each day) it was on for the majority of my life along with other Canadian favourites like Spider-Man, Rocket Robin Hood and The Forest Rangers. When it went away for a time in the 1990s, I sorely missed it and it became a regular discussion with friends at the pub.
Well, Critical Mass has brought this Canadian classic back not only to the airwaves but to DVD with this great release (actually there are several Frightenstein DVDs out there all thanks to CM) the picture is cleaned up, music rights secured (I've always been curious how the series managed the Stones "Jumping Jack Flash" but I always think of the Wolfman when I hear it) and it's just a joy to see it again. Plus, free magnets! I needed these for my fridge badly.
Two things come to mind when I watch it now, one how much fun everyone seems to be having, especially Billy Van who is amazing at ad lib and two, how wonderfully psychadelic it all is. From Brucie's peace sign necklace to the Maharishi to the wonderful Wolfman music sequences (check one out here) there is no doubt in anybody's mind what era this came out of.
Overall Assessment: It's fun to be back in Transylvania!
I can't believe it took me two years to notice this wonderful picture from the 1982 Don Post Catalog, I'm guessing it had been taken a couple of years earlier. If you google "Halloween in the 70s" this should be the first thing that pops up.
Dracula is seen here clearly living the high life, pissing away the royalties from all his merchandise and film remakes.His agent Nosferatu, seen in the background, is currently booking Drac as the October co-host on the Mike Douglas Show.
Followers of this site and blog will know that Collegeville is a favourite subject around here, that's likely because I got a ton of these as a kid combined with the fact that they got some really cool licenses.
1973 was a cool year for Collegeville, in addition to their line of generic monsters and familiar looking superhero designs, we got stuff like The Phantom, H.R. Pufnstuf, Pebbles and Bam Bam, Ultraman, Hot Wheels, Big Jim and my personal favourite of the lot, the SHADO pilot from Gerry Anderson's U.F.O.
I can't believe it's October already, that means the countdown to my favourite holiday has begun. Like every year, I'm going to be running a Horror themed bonus feature for the beginning of the month and flip the switch to total "Orange and Black" by the end.
Lots of fun stuff this season, four new catalogs, a new gallery and tons of cool and hilarious merchandise.
The best part is, I'm not alone, bloggers across the world unit to celebrate October 31st in style, for more spooky goodness check out this site Countdown to Halloween
Here are some cool Catalogs from last Halloween that I'd kind of forgotten about:
Rapco made really groovy craft kits back in the 1970s but most collectors remember them best for their line of Universal Monster products. The 1975 Rapco Cataloggives you an idea as to why these items are sought after monster collectibles now.
Before we had VCRs we had home projection systems (well some of us) which gave us the ability to play short silent clips from Hollywood classics like the Universal Monster films. The 1973 Castle Films Catalogis a fun trip into sadly, an obsolete form of commerce.
