It’s hard to look tough in long johns and a purple tunic-skirt, but the kid kind of pulls it off. Speaking of classic MOTU, have you seen this guy?
(Photo via the he-man.org message boards)
Archive for October, 2013
Halloween, 1983: He-Man
Published October 14, 2013 Halloween , Halloween Costumes , Masters of the Universe 4 CommentsMattel’s Clash of the Titans Toys: Kraken Sea Monster (1980)
Published October 11, 2013 Clash of the Titans , Mattel Toys , Ray Harryhausen 10 Comments
Crappen would have been a more appropriate name, because the thing actually looks like a turd. If you snapped off the arms and dropped it in a toilet, nobody would know the difference. In fact, the next time you’re hunkered down to do some business, feel free to cry out: Release the Crappen! (Sorry, couldn’t resist.)
The Clash of the Titans action figures look much better in comparison, though the whole line is forgettable, even compared to other second-tier efforts of the time like Mego’s The Black Hole and Star Trek figures (both from 1979).
You can see all the Clash toys at Plaid Stallions. The line tanked for the same reason all of the other lines tanked: Kenner’s Star Wars franchise was a ravager of allowances, the absolute ruler of wishlists, and it wouldn’t face any serious competition until G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero and Masters of the Universe crashed the party in 1982.
I’ll be posting the carded figures, and Pegasus, as soon as I gather them all. Mattel did get the packaging right. I love the lurid reds and purples—reminds me of Harryhausen’s breathtaking Medusa scene. The art isn’t bad either.
Side note: Clash of the Titans premiered on June 12, 1981, the same day as Raiders of the Lost Ark. What a summer.
UPDATE (6/20/14): I’m posting exhaustive images of the box below. Notice the price tag in the first photo: $23.49. For comparison, Kenner’s Empire Strikes Back Millennium Falcon retailed for $30 or just under.
Power Records: The Man-Thing in Night of the Laughing Dead (1974)
Published October 10, 2013 Comic Books , Make Mine Marvel , Records (LPs) and Cassettes 4 Comments
Remember when I said that the Amazing Spider-Man Rockomic From Beyond the Grave (1972) was the weirdest, scariest shit ever marketed to kids? I stand corrected. That honor (for now, anyway) has been passed along to Night of the Laughing Dead. The story, by Steve Gerber, is adapted from Man-Thing Vol. 1 #5. (Beware: spoilers ahead.)
Our story begins with a weeping clown, his copious make-up smeared from tears, putting a gun to his head and pulling the trigger. The Man-Thing, a tortured, unreasoning beast who vaguely and painfully recalls his former life as a human being, hears the shot and finds the dead clown face down in the swamp. The creature picks him up, intending to bury him. The music kicks in: it sounds like a cat being sawed in half in slow motion.
Meanwhile, the clown’s girlfriend, who’s upset because she “betrayed” him, gets beat up by the carnival manager. Two hippies rescue her and they all go looking for “her clown.” They find him on the side of the road. He seems to be fine. But he’s not. Because he’s dead. The kids follow the silent apparition into the marsh.
The carnival manager and his meathead henchman, the carnival strongman, speed after the hippies and the clown’s girlfriend. They find the clown too, seemingly alive, and swerve to miss him. The truck hits a tree and explodes. The carnival manager burns to a crisp. The clown taunts the meathead in an evil clown voice, laughing the laugh of an evil, dead, insane clown. The meathead takes the bait and plows after him/it.
Not too far away, the kids, lost in the poisonous marsh, see the Man-Thing carrying the dead clown’s body. Ayla, the girlfriend, screams and rushes to her man, cradling the dead body in her arms, weeping. The hippies wonder: hey, if the clown is dead, what exactly was it we saw head into the swamp a few minutes ago?
The strongman arrives, picks up the clown corpse and implores it to “stand up and get beat to death like a man.” One of the hippies tries to stop him, and the meathead knocks him out. The Man-Thing intercedes, fighting the strongman and eventually drowning him in the swamp.
The ghost of the clown rises from the corpse and explains in the evil, insane clown voice that he’s finally found peace. You see, all clowns want to do is make people laugh, and clowns can’t make people laugh when they’re betrayed and all they feel is pain. But now, because his soul is free and there’s no more pain, he can laugh forever. He laughs his evil clown laugh, and the Man-Thing thinks to his miserable self: never has laughter made me feel so sad. Eerie rock music fades in. The End.
As Sanctum Sanctorum Comix notes, the story continues in Man-Thing #6, but Power Records didn’t produce the second act. I wonder if that’s because all the kids who listened to the first act crapped in their pants before dying of terror.
Read the whole book at Rob Kelly’s Power Records blog. Listen to the whole record below, if you dare.
(First image via My Comic Shop; video via Brandon Hex)
Halloween in the Classroom, 1976: Batman, Jaws, Snoopy, Witchiepoo, and More
Published October 9, 2013 Halloween , Halloween Costumes , Jaws 8 Comments
Witchiepoo is the antagonist in Sid and Marty Krofft’s H.R. Pufnstuf, which originally ran in late 1969 but stayed in syndication until 1985. The bat costume has an image of Vampira on it—I have a better shot I’ll post soon. I also see a Tweety Bird costume. What’s the yellow costume with the blue tie and suspenders? It looks familiar. Any others I’m missing?
They’re all eating cupcakes on a Halloween napkin, drinking out of Halloween cups. The cupcakes are not gluten-free or sugar-free. Construction paper jack-o’-lanterns hang from the blinds. And those desks!
Kids Playing Atari in Department Store, 1981
Published October 8, 2013 Atari , Demonstration Centers/Stations , Department Stores , Home Consoles , Intellivision , Video Games 15 Comments
The year is a guess, and the exact location is unknown. I’m going with 1980 because that’s when Intellivision (carts in the glass cabinet on the left) was released nationwide. The Atari 400 and 800 came out in November of ’79, and the Odyssey² came out in ’78. The original Magnavox Odyssey hit shelves in 1972. The ping-pong game that came with it inspired Pong.
I can’t tell what’s playing on the 400, but somebody’s playing Space Invaders on the screen to the far left. It doesn’t look like any of the Atari versions, so maybe my year is off after all. It could be Intellivision’s Space Armada (1981), but there’s more space between the aliens in that game.
UPDATE: The year is at least 1981. Lefty Limbo spotted the Asteroids 2600 cart (1981) on the top row of the front glass cabinet. Title updated accordingly.
(Photo via Historic Images/eBay)
Comic Book Stand, 1975
Published October 7, 2013 Comic Books , DC Had Its Moments , Horror Movies/TV , Magazines/Zines , Make Mine Marvel , Newsstands/Comic Book Stands , Warren Publishing 2 Comments
Photo via Detective21
Oh, how they gleam with fresh-off-the-press-ness. I can smell them from here.
Horror titles (comics and magazines) were immensely popular at the time, and comic back issues will cost you a grip today, even in poor condition. The genre saw a huge resurgence in the ’70s for a number of reasons, all of them mutually reinforcing: the commercial success of 1968’s Night of the Living Dead and especially Rosemary’s Baby; changes in the Comics Code (1971) that permitted the depiction of “vampires, ghouls and werewolves”; the proliferation of syndicated horror showcases across the nation: Fright Night (1970), Creature Double Feature (circa 1972), Chiller Thriller (circa 1974), etc. (I’ll post some of the intros later on Facebook.)
As much as I love The Tomb of Dracula and all of Marvel’s monster titles, DC really set the comics standard with The Unexpected, House of Mystery, House of Secrets, The Witching Hour, and Ghosts. Weird War (not pictured here) was a brilliant combination of the horror and war genres. If I had a choice of a full run, that’s the one I’d want.
Above the comics you’ll see some magazines, including Monsters Unleashed, Vampirella, and Famous Monsters of Filmland. The pile of Mad magazines on the bottom right is #174. Cheap!
Movie Theater Marquees: Night of the Living Dead (1968, 1986)
Published October 4, 2013 George Romero , Horror Movies/TV , Movie Theaters/Marquees 2 Comments
Above: The Night of the Living Dead premiere at Pittsburgh’s Fulton Theater (now the Byham Theater) on October 1, 1968. The film was shot in rural Pittsburgh for a little over $100,000. It grossed $12 million domestically and $18 million internationally. The photo comes from The Complete Night of the Living Dead Filmbook (1985) by John Russo. I found it online at The Sweetest Psychopath.
Below: The Fulton again. According to Cinema Treasures, the photo is from 1981 or 1982, but Day of the Dead didn’t come out until 1985 (I was working in a video store at the time and remember eagerly awaiting the VHS release). You’ll see Sky Bandits on another marquee to the left. That movie came out on October 31, 1986.
The original Dead Trilogy in one sitting on Halloween in 1986? Mercy.
Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Characters Coloring Book (1983) (Part One)
Published October 3, 2013 Coloring/Activity Books , D&D , D&D Art , D&D Non-Gaming Merchandise , Earl Norem , Make Mine Marvel , Marvel Books (Imprint) , TSR 22 Comments
Along with the AD&D storybooks, Marvel and TSR collaborated on five coloring books featuring the same cast of characters, some of them from the toy line, others from The Shady Dragon Inn (1983), a game aid featuring pregenerated characters (and stats for the characters in the toy line).
Jane Stine, who co-wrote The Treasure of Time (1983), wrote the Characters coloring book. Earl Norem did the cover art. Jim Mooney, who worked for DC in the ’60s and Marvel in the ’70s and ’80s, and John Tartaglione, Silver Age inker of Sgt. Fury and Daredevil, did the interior art. (The lips look unmistakably Mooney to me, so I gather he did the pencils.)
The book is essentially a visual illustration of the different D&D character class attributes, alignments, and skills. It even covers some spells (feather falling) and magic items (helm of water breathing). Unlike the storybooks, there’s a definite link to D&D‘s role-playing core.
Parts two, three, and four of the Characters Coloring Book are here, here, and here.
Toy Aisle Zen (1980): Dungeons & Dragons Computer Labyrinth Game, Super Simon, Perfection, and More
Published October 2, 2013 Board Games/Tabletop Games , D&D , D&D Computer Labyrinth Game (Mattel) , D&D Non-Gaming Merchandise , D&D Toys , Dark Tower , Toy Stores/Toy Aisles/Toy Departments 10 Comments
The D&D Computer Labyrinth Game was not a big seller, as you can see. It was expensive, and D&D hadn’t yet gone viral in the kid world. Here it is with Dark Tower in the 1981 Montgomery Ward Christmas Catalog for $44.88.
Super Simon was in the same catalog for $37.99. The non-electronic games pictured—Ideal’s Rebound, Galoob’s Pro Pinball, Perfection (scared the crap out of me when that board shot up)—were much cheaper.
The photo is alluring, but also frustrating: all of those aisles in the background forever unexplored, all of those endcaps flush with eternally unidentifiable carded toys.
(First image via Historic Images/eBay)
Halloween, 1977: Ben Cooper Chewbacca Costume
Published October 1, 2013 Halloween , Halloween Costumes , Star Wars (Original Trilogy) , What Our Rooms Looked Like 9 Comments
Halloween marks the beginning of my personal holiday season. October itself has a smell and a feel, a comforting crispness, even in Southern California. I don’t have the time to do anything elaborate for the blog, but I do have a few great shots like the one above, and I’ll try to mix in some other ghostly stuff as well.
The first costume I remember wearing is a Luke Skywalker number my mom made for me in ’77 or ’78. What about you guys?
2 Warps to Neptune 