The 1981 Remco Catalog means Monsters

In 1981, Remco, a division of Azrak Hamway International for almost the past decade, went through some changes in their product line.

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Demand for many of the items that had been staples for the company such as Utility belts and powerzed Superheroes was starting to wane. All the Hulk merchandise and the Star Trek CSF sets of previous years were now gone.

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Instead, Remco began to expand with things like Crayon cosmetics for girls and by expanding upon their Universal Monster license with a new series of mini monsters and two new additions to the 9" series in the form of the Creature and the Phantom.

As an added bonus click on the Monster pages to see a full gallery of packaged figures and playsets.

Check out the 1981 Remco Catalog Here

Want more Remco toys in your diet? Click the Linkage below:

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Spoooooky Games

While Monster Toys often get the shaft in department store catalogs for being too seasonal , the one place where that doesn't seem to happen is the games section which always have a few monster items in for good measure.

Take this 1971 spread for instance, we've got the classic Green Ghost game , something called "Which Witch" and a TV boardgame from the popular daytime horror show Dark Shadows.

Hand Puppet Horrors!

The Remco Monsters at Home series is a weird little footnote in Monster toy lore, basically the company took the heads and hands of their 9" Universal Monster dolls and made these charming little hand puppets complete with a plastic environment.

What's weird is, it all sort of makes sense, Dracula has a coffin, the Mummy a tomb, the Creature a sea chest and Frankenstein..... OK they don't all work but there is something likable about this line.

I wonder why the Wolfman and Phantom of the Opera didn't make it though, the Phantom could have popped out of an organ...

Carded Dracula

Mummy Mint On Card, he looks pretty sleepy.

The Front of Frankenstein's "home"

See that look? That's the same face I make when you knock on my door on Saturday morning

I'm missing the Creature if anybody has a picture they'd like to contribute, drop me a line.

Hugo: Man of a Thousand Faces

In 1975, Kenner produced a doll that was the brain child of special effects artist/director/writer Alan Ormsby who directed the film "Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things" and authored the classic scolastic book Movie Monsters which probably spawned a legion of Monster kids by itself.

Hugo was a great concept, a puppet version of Lon Chaney sr, complete with makeup kit so you could give him hundreds of combinations of creepy disguises. As a bonus (?) the Hugo puppet on it's own was creepier than ten ventriloquist dummies, his unusual stare had him featured in Pee Wee Herman's original act and on the popular "Uncle Floyd Show".

DVD DAY

Two big TV classics are out today, first is the complete box set to the Man from U.N.C.L.E series. It took me a long time but I eventually grew to love this wild sixties spy series that started a national craze. The series goes from straight to breezy to downright campy and all of it is enjoyable.

Lots of stars in this series as well from Yvonne Craig (a boyhood crush I never recovered from) to Sonny and Cher, even James Doohan as a baddie.

The other big release is one of the most seminal series of the 1970's in the release of the complete box set to the Incredible Hulk series. This long running classic show sent a nation into "Hulk Mania" and just by running through some of the toy archives on the site, you can see how big an impact this series had.

I recently rewatched the pilot movie and it still holds up, eventually the show's formula tends to grind but it's still a classic.

Puffy Monsters

I am loving these Universal Monsters Puffy Stickers produced by Gordy in 1982. I will confess I had a puffy sticker phase and did have some Monster ones but I never ran into these before, I'd have been all over them. I had have an unhealthy obsession with all things Creature from the Black Lagoon.

I think it's neat that they added stuff like Tarantula to the mix in these.

Spooky Store Displays.

Some cool items to highlight on this fine October day, this is a 1983 Collegeville store display for "Halloween Accessories" which is stuff similiar to the Imagineering stuff from yesterday. I dig the fangs and fake blood but the big ears are a little weird.

This display of Collegeville rubber masks has special meaning for me, I bought that Creature from the Black Lagoon mask that year. I saved my pennies and picked it up at SS Kresge and Co (the lunch counter in that store made every customer smell like they just made a grilled cheese)

It was slightly off model (it had big red warts) but I put on my best green sweater, a pair of green playtex gloves and skulked off a to a seventh grade dance, where i learned a valuable life lesson Girls don't dig on the gill-man.

Imagineering

Imagineering was an Arizona based company that were known for make up kits, predominately around Halloween. One of the things the company is best known for were their inexpensive rack items such as Vampire fangs and fake blood. My parents were always pretty thrifty but they'd get downright outraged if I came home with any of that kind of stuff. To a parent, it's just crap, they just don't realise the inherent awesomeness that is fake scars and evil teeth.

The aptly named "Imaginary World" website has an enviable amount of Imagineering items and catalogs (which I'm real jealous of) check it out here or click the picture to be transported.

Warning: viewing that site may have you cruising Ebay, it did with me, please don't tell my parents...

1974 Collegeville Costume Catalog

When it came to Halloween costumes, the two biggest names in the 70's were Ben Cooper and Collegeville. If one didn't have a specific license, the other surely did.

In the mid seventies, Ben Cooper had a lock on some prosperous licenses namely The Universal Monsters and Superheroes from DC and Marvel houses.

This left Collegeville with some interesting choices and a great deal of "imitation brand" characters. Concentrating on cartoon characters and popular toy brands, Collegeville has a real mix of fun knock off costumes that would be fun to collect.
While looking through this catalog, I was shocked to discover that much of my trick or treating involved Collegeville. It must have had a lot to do with my proximity to a Woolco.

Enjoy the 1974 Collegeville Halloween Costume Catalog

And if you still want to look at Halloween Costumes, check out these other two galleries:

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Leisure-A-Likes

Because looking like a gigantic sleaze isn't just for him anymore. Now you can both harrass Pat Benetar in that "Love is a Battlefield" video....

Vintage Halloween

I got a couple of cool Darth Vaders today, first off is Russ from Toytraderz again rocking this Ben Cooper set.

And here's Jason from Bif!Bang!Pow! (makers of those awesome Flash Gordon figures) looking cool as the Dark Lord of the Sith. The gloves really complete the outfit don't you think?

I'm pretty positive I went as Vader in '78 but I'll be damned if I can find evidence, thanks guys!

Thwip? Thwip?

In 1976, I switched camps and decided that Marvel superheroes were now the way to go, so Spider-Man was what I needed to be that Halloween. Despite my adventures the year previous as "The Bat", my costume hunting was again done at the same Woolco store that had what seemed like a gigantic rack of collegeville costumes.

In a repeat of the last year, no Spider-Man costumes were available, so for Halloween 1976, I was "The Spider", no, not the classic pulp character, just a guy who looked enough like Spider-Man not to get sued.

I will again admit that I loved this costume although I have to admit that I was much more concious of this being a knock off than I was being "The Bat", I guess shame comes with age.

If the mask looks familiar, there is a good reason, it was used on the cover the classic rock album "The Joker" by Steve Miller.

PS I really miss my dog...

Help.....Me....

Warning: Staring directly at item C may will cause nausea.

Vintage Halloween Goodness

Another great flashback from Russ over at toytraderz, this time he's Japan's greatest export (besides that Asahi beer and Hello Kitty) Godzilla!

A close up of the classic Ben Cooper costume Russ is sporting. More on Godzilla hopefully later on in the month.

DVD Releases:

Ultraman : The Complete Series.

Oh hells yes, it's finally out. For those of you not in the know, Ultraman is the brain child of Eiji Tsuburaya (of whom there is an excellent book currently out) the creator of Godzilla.

The series chronicles the adventures of Hayata, a member of the science patrol who has become fused with a giant alien policeman and can become him for periods of time. That's good because Japan is freaking loaded with giant monster problems.

The series still holds up well too, I put some episodes on for the kids a few weeks back and they wanted to watch them again.

Prehistoric RC

My pal George at the Mego Forum turned me onto these cool toys from 1973, these two dinoaurs seem to be exclusive to Sears. What a no brainer, light up remote controlled dinosaurs. Like probably every boy (and likely a bunch of girls), I went through a dinosaur phase in my life and these would have been high on my wishlist had I seen them.

Vintage Halloween:

Russ from Toytraderz.com sent me a pile of coolness that I'll be showcasing all this week, the first is this superbad Bigfoot costume. Much like Gavin MacLoed, Bigfoot attained a certain celebrity status in the 1970's, he was everywhere for a while.

Vintage Halloween Stores

Like all good Canadians, by the time you read this I'll either be immobile from eating my own weight in Turkey or drunk, most likely I'm both right now.

It's hard work making a pig out of yourself and/or ruining a holiday memory for everyone, so rather than blog about something new, I'm going to devote some time to some of the halloween related retro retail shots that I've collected over the years.

Above is a Lionel aisle of Halloween decorations from 1973, I was told on the forum that these are by a company called Beistle.

A shelf of Aurora Glow in the Dark Monster kits from 1975, it's an understatement to say I love Aurora figure kits. I even bought a bunch this year so the kids could paint and use them as our centerpiece.

A whole wall of rubber masks in a Cassler's store circa 1983, these things had such a distinctive smell. I used to just drool at displays like this.

Finally, a store window from 1982 and a shop called "Intellitoys", educational toy stores were always kind of a letdown, it looked like a toy store until you got inside and then it was too late!

Some Linkage:

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Reflecto-Lite Masks

I have a weakness for store displays of any kind and it's a true bonus when you can find them in a catalog. This sweet display of Collegeville masks inclues "The Bat" and a great generic version of the creature from the black lagoon that I'm kind of smitten with:

Much more about Collegeville all this month.