Halloween contest winners

I planned on doing this earlier but happily this was the most kids I've ever had to the casa. I was beginning to worry that Halloween was in trouble but I'm glad to be wrong. Above is my Sleestak, built mostly with trash. Most people called it the Creature from the Black Lagoon, I'll live with that.

My Lincoln Mummy and Frankenstein are still kicking after a year in storage. One parent laughed at the Mummy's comically oversized shoes, which in reality are my everyday shoes, so I had a good cry.

But enough of deformities, on to the contest. I want to say thank you to the amazing input i got this year, I didn't get to use everything but I did enter every name into the contest and plan on sending all of you a small token of appreciation, onto the winners drawn by my lovely wife:

Runner up winners of the 1978 Reimagined Catalog:

Sammy and Jon

Grand Prize Winner of the Barnabas doll: Lori

Thanks again everybody for a fun filled 30 days, tomorrow will see the return fashion mockery but for now I have to hide evidence of how many "wunderbars" i stole from my kids. Daddy has a dependancy issue when it comes to the marriage of peanut butter and chocolate. I don't even know myself anymore.

What Monsters Read

Anna sent in this great shot of her husband Jim getting made up as Frankenstein for the premiere of "Gods and Monsters". How cool is this?

Colouring Book Theatre: Monster Squad

‘"Monster Squad" by Rand McNally

As we close our month of Halloween goodness, I thought of no better choice than this newly discovered addition to my collection.

As any reader to the blog would know, I kind of have a minor obsession with the 1976 Saturday morning series and finding merchandise from it.

I was a little worried that this book would suck but am pleasantly surprised to find it faithful to the show, even catching some of it's weird humour.


More Monster crime fighting after the jump:

Cool Collections: Sammy

I got a cool Halloween Treat this week froim my pal Sammy from the Mego forum, he was kind enough to get into the Spooky spirit by sharing his collection of Aurora Monster kits and AHI Super Monsters. Both of these are like kryptonite to me, so check out all the fun after the jump:

The 1973 Ben Cooper Catalog gets Groovy

The name “Ben Cooper” and “Halloween” are pretty synonymous to children of the 1970s/ The company produced a staggering amount of items devoted to October 31st and chances are if your parents used “store bought” costumes, they were from Ben Cooper.

1973 like every year is a load of fun, lots of popular licenses (including the insanely logical Groovy Goolies) , popular generics and neat-o stuff like Jigglers which were popular year round.

Click Here to Explore the 1973 Ben Cooper Halloween Catalog

More Halloween Costume Goodness:

The Tomland Mini Monsters

Happy to showcase these weird little figures, produced in 1979 by a UK company called Tomland (under the umbrella of Marx) these stylin' mini monsters were based on my beloved Lincoln International Monsters. I don't know why and I honestly don't care, I'm just pleased that they were. Tomland made their own 8" versions of the Lincoln Monsters as well. More after the jump 

Gre-Gory is a loser?

From the "parents just don't understand" file, I bring you a 1980 report crapping on a toy that any ten year old knows to be awesome, Gre-Gory the Vampire bat. The group questioned it's play value? It's big bat filled with blood, do I need to spell it out for you?

I can't go a Halloween season it seems without talking about Gre-Gory (something I have always pronounced "Gree-gory") . Always wanted one, never so much as held one and it's starting to get a touch old.

Aggggh!

A Monster Squad Gallery Update

It's been over a year since I unveiled the web page to my obsession with collecting things related to the 1976 Saturday morning series "The Monster Squad" and I'm happy to report that I have some new additions, a couple of which I had no idea existed until I found them:

Finally unearthed a pair of the Collegeville costumes, I'm convinced that Frank was never offered by Collegeville, I'm not sure as to the why.

Tomy makes monsters

The Tomy Mighty Men and Monster Maker was one of the more memorable toys of my childhood, from the moment I saw the commercial, I was single minded in my purpose to get it for my birthday which I luckily did.

That meant the entire month of October preparing my house for Halloween, as toys went I got my mileage out of this sucker and it's one I'm surprised hasn't seen some sort of reissue.

Colouring Book Theatre: Jaws 2

Jaws 2" by Treasure Books (1978)

 If there ever was a horror film phenom in the 1970s, it was the original Jaws, a movie that made a generation scared of going out in the water.

I did not see the film when it first came out but reputation alone carried it to the schoolyard. While merchandise for the original Jaws was light when it came to the sequel, there were sharks everywhere, inlcuding trading cards, comic books and this colouring book.

The book itself is thicker than normal and I assumed you would run out of blue crayons very early in the day if you set out on this one.

If you want to experience the terror, check it out after the jump:

Store bought Superheroics

Some more vintage Halloween submissions for our contest, starting by this one submitted by Austin (Megowgsh on the forum) and it's future in-laws and wife as Spider-Man, Mighty Isis and Bionic Woman respectively. That's a triple helping of Ben Cooper goodness right there.

Harris from the great blog Negative Pleasure sent in this fun mash up of "Super Cowboy"

Finally Lori sent in this cool shot of a very KISS inspired 1979, looks like Beth might have been everybody's favorite.

More Fun Next Saturday!

1975 Imperial Toys Catalog

When discussing Rack Toys, Imperial Toy has to come up, they were and still are kings of the industry.

One of their formulas for success was to not invest heavily in licenses but create their own brands. It really did work as many of us had happy childhoos playing with Poopatroopers, Kooky Spooks and assorted Imperial animals such as Congo Gorilla.


Click on the pictures for an indepth look.

1975 Imperial Toys Catalog

Other Rack Toy Links

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Oddly familiar giant gorilla

I found pretty trashed copy of the 1977 Multiple Toymakers catalog recently and the things that really struck me were these obvious King Kong Knock off sets. Both were marketed under the brand "Terror on the Tower".

This looks exactly like a set Mego made for the real Kong movie and I now really want it. Did anybody have these as a kid? I really want to know if they got produced.

Create a Monster

Monogram really did create a monster when they reissued these classic Aurora Monster kits in 1983, unfortunately that monster was me and I still get crazy whenever I see these. I hope these kits never stop being reissued.

Rubber Jiggly Horrors

This could be your head

I was denied this as a child but I remember friends having this wonderful kit and as you'd expect from something with Vincent Price's face on the box, it was a high quality item.


Talk about timely, Jody sent in the picture for our Halloween contest of her latest yard sale score. I go to tons of yard sales, all I ever see is baby clothes and VHS!

Colouring Book Theatre: Creature from the Black Lagoon

‘Universal Monsters" by Golden

Our final look at this fun book was chosen by you the reader and I can't honestly say I'm surprised it's the creech, his popularity is probably why his toys cost so darn much in any assortment.

To be honest, I share that fascination and always have, the Creature sits at the cool kid table in the Universal Monsters cafeteria.


Bring your green crayon and join me after the jump:

The Bananna Splits Meet Batman

Mike sent in these little bits of greatness from 1973 (Batman) and 1971 (Splits) , I miss store bought costumes....

 

Still time to enter our Halloween Contest, send your vintage Halloween pics or Monster collections on down to me here and you're in.

1982 Ideal UK Catalog

Even though the company's name is "Ideal" you won't find a great amount of Ideal toys in this catalog, that's this is the UK branch of the company which also distributed toys for US based companies with no UK offices.

That means this catalog is loaded with some of the best toys 1980 has to offer from Mego, Remco, Tomy and of course Ideal. The reason this is being unveiled during the "Month of Halloween" is for two reasons, the first being that Ideal UK carried my beloved Remco Universal Monsters line and secondly, the Jaws Game baby...

Click Here to Visit the 1980 Ideal UK Catalog
Other Remco and Ideal Catalogs