Posted on 10/30/2016 2:41:55 PM PDT by Zionist Conspirator
. . . I can't help but enjoy the attention paid this time of year to classic monsters and grade-B sci-fi. I'm sure it has something to do with being a little kid during the monster craze of the early 60s which gave us "The Munsters" and "The Addams Family" and similar things.
Pop culture historians tell us that it all started when Universal began re-releasing their classic horror movies in the mid-50s and teenagers discovered them. I'm too young for that. But I remember monsters being everywhere in the early 60s even though I didn't really know what a "monster" was.
I had no idea at the time that monsters were characters from classic movies. All I knew is that they were "neat!" I didn't really understand why they were considered scary (I don't enjoy being scared and have still never been in a carnival spook house to this day). I just knew that they were fascinating to me . . . and apparently to lots of other kids my age as well.
One part of this craze was the black-and-white horror comics that were available on the magazine rack (by being sold on the magazine rack they avoided having to abide by the comics code that put the old horror comics out of business). I'm sure lots of you remember Warren Publishing's magazines: Creepy, Eerie, and Vampirella (I actually had a copy of the first two). Then there was the cheap knock-off Weird magazine, published by Eerie Publishing. How I coveted those magazines at the time! Apparently I wasn't even trusted with 35 cents of my own at that time.
The grand panjandrum of such magazines though was Forrest J. Ackerman's Famous Monsters of Filmland which, along with the others, was available at the magazine stand of just about every supermarket (now supermarkets don't even sell comic books). I managed to purchase two or three copies, but my favorite was the 1965 or 6 "year book" with the Phantom of the Opera on the cover. All through the issue were gorgeous and fascinating stills from classic monster pics. And never having actually seen a monster movie, I ate them up! I wasn't much into reading the text of the magazine at all; I just wanted to look at all those amazing monsters! Every obscure title seemed to promise something wonderful. But the only place to see old monster movies back then was on the local late night horror show (which I did watch a few times).
Several of the magazines had full page ads where classic monster movies were for sale . . . but these were genuine film reels, and required one to have a projector and screen in order to view them! This is a far cry from later days of VHS, DVD, and, now, online streaming.
The holy grail of that era was the 1966 "Monster Calendar" featuring pictures of classic monsters as drawn by Don Post. Alas, I never had a copy of this calendar, though I remember vividly coveting the one owned by one of my schoolmates.
Now I'm on the other side of fifty and I've actually seen most of the old classic monster movies. I still don't think they're very "scary" (I probably wouldn't watch them if they were). But now with so many old movies online for viewing at practically any time I enjoy looking back to the days when monsters were only available for the most part as still pictures in magazines. And unfortunately, childhood fascinations of all kinds seem to fade with age, monsters among them.
I just thought I'd share these thoughts and see if any other FReepers would like to do the same with their own childhood memories.
I actually don't care too much for vampire stories, both because of the occult elements involved and because I am a chiropterophile. Thanks to vampire stories the world is actually full of people who actually believe that real bats all "suck blood," don't have reflections, and explode in the sunlight.
I have seen the original 1931 Dracula a couple of times and I don't think it's very good. Most of the action takes place in stuffy London drawing rooms (it's adapted from a stage play after all) and it ends rather abruptly. Originally Edward Van Sloan ("Van Helsing") turned to the audience and spoke to them as he did at the beginning of Frankenstein but this has been lost for decades. It leaves the ending sort of unsatisfying.
The Net Nanny Wet Blanket has arrived.
The 1977 version of Dracula with Louis Jourdan in the title role was pretty good too . . . and actually scary.
That was a great movie.
I love the kids. Their excitement.
Too bad so few kids don’t *make* their own costumes...like in days of yore.
Live for the CANDY! WHOOP!
Too bad so few kids don’t *make* their own costumes...like in days of yore.
Live for the CANDY! WHOOP!
This is actually a 60s pop culture monster nostalgia thread rather than a "halloween" thread, but I'm glad you enjoyed it.
I prefer SciFi (even b-grade!) to “monster movies” and LOVE the old stuff. The 1950’s seems to have been the zenith for “classic Sci-Fi” and everything since has been derivative.
“I still have all my old copies of Famous Monsters of Filmland.”
I had to blink a couple times, I thought it said ‘Famous Monsters of Finland.’
My grandparents back in the 1970s and 1980s lived in an area where we could watch WSTM Syracuse NBC and I believe that was on but I also remember Joe Flaherty as Count Floyd doing a similar thing on Saturday afternoons as well on that station.
Yep, that stuff is great (and no occultism). I'm crazy about Ray Harryhausen's stuff.
Only time I've ever done Halloween.
Seems these days Halloween is only to get as drunk as possible and dress as slutty as possible.
We had our own hokey “scarey guy” spook movie presenter. Discerning listeners recognized the voice of “The Count” as one of the actors from that station’s morning kids TV show “JP Patches”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euwNTwYQ-rE
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