Castle Films Home Movie Catalog

Before the VCR was affordable, the super 8 film craze was sweeping the nation. Here you take wonderful, colour, silent home movies of the family to keep forver.

But seeing as millions of families already had a projector, why not use it to show some highlights of Hollywood's finer and schlockier moments?

Castle Films was one of the best known houses for purchasing these short 16mm reels of Hollywood classics, I myself remember visiting birthday parties where the parents had rented shorts from Star Wars, Abbot and Costello and Universal Monster movies for the kids. This commerce would fade away by the end of the 70's but for a brilliant time, this was it and we loved it.

I was invited to more than one birthday party that the entertainment consisted solely of Castle Films shorts (rented from the Library). I can remember laughing at Abbot and Costello and being in awe of about ten silent minutes from Star Wars. I used to collect these, I regret selling out....

Check out the Castle Films Home Movie Catalog here

And to all my Canadian peeps, Happy Thanksgiving!

Other Monsterous Links:

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If you're into Castle Films, also check out this great site for cool images from the Castle Boxes:

TV Alert: Life on Mars

Tonight at 10 on ABC sees the debut of "Life on Mars", the americanized version of the brilliant UK series. Why am I blogging about this? Life on Mars follows the adventures of a modern day cop who after he becomes injured, wakes up in 1973. If it's half as good as the original, I'm so there.

Life on Mars website

Nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh THE BAT?

As I recall in 1975, I brought my mother my Mego Batman doll, a needle and some thread and asked her to make me the exact outfit for Halloween. My mom, prudent at darning socks and replacing buttons was not exactly a dress maker, so she did the next thing and took me to Woolco.

Of course, one we got there, there was no Batman to be found and I ended up settling for a Collegeville "THE BAT" costume, one of the biggest rip offs I've ever seen.

I must admit though, I was completely overjoyed with this ensemble and wore it until it fell apart. The memory was so happy that my mother and I would make the exact same mistake the following year and revisit Woolco looking for my next superheroic obsession. More on that later.

PS that wallpaper in the top picture? It was fuzzy like a G.I. Joe's beard....

Atari Wars

I am a veteran of the video game wars, fought mostly on my schoolyard. I, being of the clan of Atari, waged daily combat against those who had sworn allegiance to George Plimpton and quoted from the Book of Mattel. Mostly about how much superior the Intellivision system really was. I can remember HATING kids who had Intellivision and those damned commercials, I don't know why I took it so personal, I guess it was because I had no defense against "If it's said on TV,it must be true!"

My best friend at the time had Intellivision, and since he was Switzerland we played it all the time, it was a fun system and I liked a lot of the games, there I said it.

Halloween Countdown:

Erick from Wonderful Wonderblog shares with us some late seventies joy with Gene Simmons makeup, I wonder if he used the Remco Kiss Your Face set?

Holy Tooth Decay Batman!

I'm abundantly aware of how hacky and shameful that blog title is but it's unavoidable, I assure you. As much as I begged for a Batman and Steve Austin electric toothbrush as a child (because commercials told me I needed one) it was the one luxury my parents refused to provide me with. Somehow, I made it out of childhood OK despite this huge void.

Speaking of Batman: Here is another fine selection from Erick (of Wonderful Wonderblog) and he's wearing the Ben Cooper Batman costume. I've always wondered why BC decided to put the Batman Logo on the mask itself and why they felt it important to give Superman a dominoe mask. I guess I'll find out in the afterlife....

DVD DAY:

What better a time than October than to release the DVD of the Classic Tom Baker story"The Brain of Morbius"? It has all the classic horror movie elements, mad doctor, dead bodies, brain transplants, hunchback assistant, a (goofy) patchwork monster and of course, angry villagers in the form of an ancient cult.

The BBC is pretty good at packing these DVDs with extras such as commentary from Tom Baker and Liz Sladen as well little behind the scenes documentarys. You'll also get one of the bigger continuity goofs done on the series as the Doctor reveals he's had more than four past lives!

Also this week is the complete box series set of Speed Racer, it's over 1,200 minutes of the groundbreaking series that lead the charge of Japanese animation.

This is the one good thing about big Hollywood remakes, you end up getting deluxe box sets of the original series. I can't wait for Hollywood to remake "Logan's Run" just so I can get the shot lived series on DVD, it could star Carrot Top and Larry the Cable Guy for all I care, just gimmee! gimmee! gimmee!

Casa Del Mantooth

I know it might be more than a little nuts but I like to think that this is the kind of place PlaidStallion #1 Brick Mantooth goes home to every night.

Halloween Countdown: We've got some vintage goodness this week courtesy of fellow blogger and Halloween "countdowner" Erick from Wonderful Wonderblog with this trip back to 1975:

Aw Yeah, nothing says 1975 like Steve Austin.

Super 8 Shockers

Rob from the great blog "All in Black and White for 75 Cents" sent me these great Castle film ads from various monster publications in the 70's. While the home video market is definitely an example of how change can be good (in this case great) thing, I still kind of miss when my parents would rent these reels from the library, it was like having a movie theatre in your house.

Frankenstein Conquers the World? Man, I've got to own that. Everytime I look at these things, I wonder how I don't own hundreds. I don't have any will power, so it must be laziness.....

On the Halloween Front, a couple of folks have dropped me a line about entering the Halloween Countdown:

Laura Moncur has a Halloween Countdown each year

Gravedigger's Local 16

He's no good to me dead...

Halloween 1980 and that's yours truly rocking the Ben Cooper Boba Fett outfit. I really liked this suit for a couple of reasons, the first being that you could see through the mask but people couldn't see in real well, the other being that the picture on the front of the smock totally looked like the action figure that I mailed away for a year or so earlier.

Link of Interest: 1980 Ben Cooper Catalog

I'm a little late in plugging all my fellow bloggers in the Halloween Countdown, so I thought I'd better get on board. Here is an exhaustive list of the other bloggers participating in the Halloween Countdown this year, that's a lot of orange!

All Eyes and Ears
Art by Bubba Shelby
Azathoth's Abode on the Plateau of Leng
Azathoth's Abode on the Plateau of Leng: The Dungeon
Branded in the 80's
Cool-Mo-Dee
Creepy Los Angeles
Dave Lowe Design!
Distinctly Jamaican Sounds
Diversions of the Groovy Kind
Dr. K's 100-Page Super Spectacular
Dr. Squid's Smorgasbord of Terror!
The Drunken Secered Head
Frankensteinia: The Frankenstein Blog
Franklin Mint Blog
Geektarded
Halloween Addict
Harvey's Midnight Hour
Holiday Queen
Horror Host Graveyard
The Horrors of It All
House of Wax
John Rozum.com
Mark Harvey's World
Monster Crazy
Monster Memories!
Monster Rally
Monsters and More
Music From the Monster Movies 1950-69
Neato Coolville
Negative Pleasure
Nostalgia Factory
A Nostalgic Halloween
Oh The Horror
Orange and Black
Para Abnormal
Plaid Stallions
Pumpkin Hollow
Pumpkinrot
Random Acts of Geekery
The Sexy Armpit
Sweet Skulls
13 Visions
Tikiranch Hallows
Universal Horror Sounds
Valhella
Vinnie Rattolie's Records
Weird Hollow

Wonderful Wonderblog

Dive in People! It's all Good!

Monster Rap

One of the bigger explosions in the seventies was the rise of the homemade craft kit, which no doubt was brought about by the hippie movement of the 60's..

Children across America were making macrame (guilty!), rug hooking (guilty!) and happily making Christmas tree Candles (My father must have worried about me).

One of the bigger players in all of this was a company known as Rapco, who had the good sense to create licensed Canadle sets of the Universal Monsters, who wouldn't want a frankenstein or a creature candle? I want one right now!

Check out the 1975 Rapco Catalog for Famous Monsters Candles , Plaster casts and Bisques, as well as spin art, bottle cutters and plastic-cast baby!

Want More Monster Toys, check out these galleries:

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Pajama-Rama

Loving the props in this one, especially the feats of strength although I don't know why the Spock kid is lifting a dumbell. The Kirk PJs in the corner show the Captain in an episode called the Tholian Web, I have to admit, I've never seen that episode. I'm a bad trekkie.

Halloween Countdown Submission: Today's bonus is in the form of one of the coolest Halloween costumes I've ever seen, it's the Collegeville Ultra Man suit.

If you went as Ultra Man for Halloween, I envy you.

Childhood scares

I was reading an article in this month's Geek magazine about the wonderful site Kinder Trauma and it got me thinking about things that scared the crap out of you as a kid. The kind of stuff you never forgot, I thought what better way to kick off our Halloween countdown, seeing as all of mine relate to the early seventies. Here are just some of the items that had me scraping the poop out of my short pants back in the day:



When the boat turns evil on H.R. Pufnstuf: I couldn't have been more than 3 when I saw this movie, so it's not surprising that when the innocent sailboat Jimmy gets on turns evil, I firmly planted myself behind the couch. I still kind of get creeped out by that boat, it must have been powerful.

That ventriloquist dummy from Magic:

I'll admit I never saw the film until I was a teen but the ad campaign for it gave me nightmares. I always found Ventriloquist dummies creepy to being with, so this really didn't help matters much. A close second to Magic would be the ads for Killer Baby movie "It's Alive" (which they are remaking) the site of that creepy hand coming out of a crib was disturbing, I was a sucker for such things.

Sleestaks: If I ever get a chance to meet Sid and Marty Krofft, I won't know whether I should thank them or start swinging. I spent many a Saturday morning behind the couch because of these guys, eventually my fear turned into complete obsession, which is were I've been for the past 32 years.






Almost frigging every minute of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory: My parents probably had good intentions when they sat me in front of this (They also thought Animal Farm would be appropriate because it was animated, whoops!) I didn't jive with any of it, The OompaLoompas? Scary! Jack Albertson? Scary! The Ironic punishments? Terrifying, especially when Violet blows up, I've heard some people developed a fetish after seeing that, I think I prefer to be scared but to each their own....

The very sight of Jon Pertwee : Doctor Who was freaking scary when I was five and I respected/feared star Jon Pertwee and that haunting title theme. I remember my father mocling the show one Saturday night and I turned to my dad and said "No, don't make fun of Doctor Who!" I was actually worried for my father's safety.

Ten years later, I was sitting next to Jon Pertwee in a con suite, he was anything but scary.

The Robot Scene from Superman 3: If Richard Pryor wasn't bad enough, the film had a scene of a woman being turned into the most fantastically creepy robot ever, right in the middle of an effing Superman movie. Your guard is totally down and then BAM the producers shove in some good old fashioned nightmare fuel like a shiv in the back!

Well, that's all I care to drudge up seeing as I can't find a picture of my friend Paul's mom (she had crazy eyebrows man!) so tell me what scared the crap out of you in the 70's?

Jump-Alike

This is one of the few examples of dressing alike where it hurts both parties equally. I love the tagline that states "Casual Styles too smart to just stay at home" Yes, indeed show the world your matching jumpsuits and space age flip flops.

DVD DAY

If you're Canadian and grew up in the seventies, chances are Canadian content laws had you watch at least one episode of The Starlost before. the series was supposed to be Canada's answer to Star Trek but thanks to some US backing falling through, ended up looking like a poor cousin to Doctor Who.

Starlost follows the adventures of three young people who grew up on an Amish farm only to discover they are really on a floating space ark, whose crew has been wiped out by a "Radiation Virus" (science boo-boos like this caused creator Harlan Ellison to disown the whole show) and they must explore the other communities in the ark hoping to find someone that can steer tham away from a collision course with a sun.

All in all, the actual premise of the series is very good, it's also well acted, it's just the execution that suffers a little. The series is shot on video and much of the effects are chroma key based, the writers also seemed to have pacing problems, the exciting music breaks in at times seeming almost as if it's being ironic. With the Canadian series available, one wonders if CTV's "The Trouble with Tracy" (worst sitcom ever to many) may see DVD release.

Also available are the second season of Adam 12 and the complete series of George Peppard in Banacek.

Copter Envy

Although I never had Vertibird or any of the licensed Remco CSF Copters, I lived vicariously through the kids who did. Does anybody remember a version of this you could play in an arcade? It was in a big dome and you had to hunt a UFO, this was pre Space Invaders obviously. I sometimes worry that I imagined it...

Plaidstallions 70's Halloween Countdown

For the month of October, I've accepted a challenge put out by Jon (from Random acts of Geekery) and other blogs and entered the Halloween Countdown. Which means, I'll be posting something Halloween related every day for the month of October. We'll be starting out a little slow, posting additions to my usual blogs such as cool costumes, retro flashbacks and the like but all new catalogs for the month of October will be Halloween or Monster related. During the last couple of weeks, it'll be all Halloween, all the time.

If you have a vintage Halloween pic, I still have lots of spaces, 31 at last check ;).

Look for lots of cool additions from Collegeville, Castle Films, Imagineering, Rapco, Azrak Hamway and Remco, it'll be spooooooky I promise you.

Christmas in the 70ʼs book project

Iʼm pleased to announce a new and fun project Iʼve become involved with that could really use input from any child/survivor of the seventies.

"Christmas in the '70s" is a planned photo-essay book about, yes,Christmas in the '70s, as told through the yellowed snapshots of Instamatics past. Christmas in the 70's will be a photo-essay book that aims to celebrate that very special time, great toys, questionable fashion and those very odd carpet-color choices. Your Co-authors are Joal Ryan (Former Child Star Central) and yours truly.

If you've got an old Christmas snapshot (circa the '70s) of your old self (circa the '70s), we'd love to see it. We'd love to hear aboutyour misty-water-colored memories, too.

Did your brother tear accidently tear open your stretch monster? Did you eat your sister's play-doh? (I did!) Did mom get you a Parker Stevenson doll when you really wanted Shaun Cassidy? We want to hear about it.

Check out the official blog and if you'd like to share a photo -- and a story -- of you in your Christmas-morn best (or worst), please email us at xmasinthe70s [at] yahoo.com.

Please donʼt contact me through here, Iʼm easily confused.

Great Hera! Look at those Box Cars!

The mid to late seventies saw what would become a regular event in our lifetime, an explosion on superhero merchandising. Some of it cool and logical like the Mego Superheros and some of it well, just plain strange. Take for example the 1977 Tyco Superhero boxcars, an odd marriage of Comic Books and the Rail Yard.

Tyco solely went with the DC characters for this venture and the used the seventies four pronged merchandising machine of Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and Shazam! Shazam faded from a lot of merchandise once his live action TV Series was cancelled. Poor Aquaman once again gets the shaft....

1977 Tyco Superhero Box Cars

Also check out these links for more Super Heroic Merchandise from the same era!

Memorable Birthday Cakes

There is no better day for me to pay tribute to my talented and festive mother and some of the cooler pop culture cakes she produced for me over the years. My mom made cakes for every occasion growing up, Halloween, St Patrick's Day, last day of school but birthdays, those were the coolest. Above is 1975's selection the previously shown, blue coconut Grover.


Here is 1978 and it's Captain America's shield, if you look closely you can see a Fisher Price Gonzo figure, I'm not sure why I wanted that but I did.
I am sure I had at least one Star Wars themed cake but I cannot find any evidence of it.
Finally, we has this G.I. Joe RAH cake from 1982, this may have been the exact moment I realized I was too old for action figures. I felt uncomfortable with this cake, even though it was really, really cool and i wish I still had those figures!

Jr. Sportscasters of America

Back to you Marv Jr!

Pick a Set From the Denim Patch

What was with the obsession with patches? I never really got that but I honestly remember thinking they looked cool.

DVD Day

Just in time for the election is this limited edition DVD of Politically themed School House Rock segements. Just hearing the words "Schoolhouse Rock" puts "conjunction junction" in my head for the rest of the day.

Anyway, while you do get classic stuff like "I'm just a bill" you are far better off picking up The 30th Anniversary Edition for like a buck more.

Other than that this week also sees a release of quintessential 70's gangster cinema with the Godfather Trilogy. If you haven't already picked these up, they may be of interest. How else would you be able to catch the 100 or so references to it a day on "Opie and Anthony"?