What's your best local burger/dog shack?

Most people, if they are fortunate, have a local place they always love to go for summertime comfort foot: burgers, dogs, shakes, onion rings, and all those other cholesterol bombs we're not supposed to have, but love indulging in. My favorite is the Half Moon Drive In, located in Lockport Manitoba. The Half Moon is one of those roadside stands that seems to have been there forever, and at 75 years, the Half Moon fulfills that role for most people alive today. When I was a kid, The Moon was located in a string of old quonset huts placed side-by-side, and their half-curve shapes is probably what gave the place it's name. Originally there was just drive-up service, but The Moon has been rebuilt as a 50's themed sit-down restaurant. The Half Moon was always the burger stand on the East side of the Red River. The west side was controlled by "Skinners", the rival burger/dog stand that claimed to have the "world's greatest hot dogs". While Skinners probably has more authentic period "charm" than The Moon (booths with little juke boxes, faded pictures of hockey players on the walls, vs. retro-looking 50's style), Skinners has become fairly dingy over the years. I pick The Moon any day for it's comfort, style, and of course, it's great food. Here's a couple of my favorites. The Moon Dog! Just saying it makes me feel like I'm back at the start of the space race. The Moon Dog is a smokey foot-long weenie in a fresh bun, filled with bacon, shredded cheddar cheese, fried onions, mustard and a long-cut pickle! Bliss! Add an order of home fries and a fountain pepsi, and you have to have the best meal experience a mortal can enjoy. For the rare occasions when a Moon Dog, just won't cut it, how about a Saturn Burger? DOUBLE bacon, DOUBLE cheese, tomato, BBQ Mayo sauce, topped off with fried onion rings! Only a trip to the ringed planet itself could weigh you down as much as this burger, only not so deliciously. Like any good 50's-style diner, The Moon has booths, vintage signs, coolers and stuff, and classic rock n' roll playing for you. Usually I sneer a bit at places that try to pretend they are "vintage", but I figure The Moon really was there back in the day, so they deserve a little slack. In all your world travels, I sincerely hope you get to experience the Half Moon at least once.

The future of the past!

Remember when the future was actually supposed to be pretty awesome? Not the one inhabited by punk rockers wearing shoulder pads, but the one where we routinely travelled the highways and biways of outer space. I was thinking back on this after I picked up this awesome book from 1959, "Space Flight" from the "Golden Library of Knowledge" This is actually the 1961 edition, but since the "GLK" specialized in "factual books for young readers" one can only assume it was even more factual than in it's original debut. And what great facts! As you can see, rocket ships were going to enjoy the sleek, clean conical design of an aircraft nose-cone, only the size of a 30 storey building! Had to have lots of fins, of course, for the coolness factor as much as the aerodynamics. Astronauts, you get to look out of a super-sleek cockpit. While inside the cockpit, though, be sure to stay buckled in. Uh oh! Looks like Bob forgot, now he's floating around the cockpit like a dead goldfish. It's nice to know the future saw astronauts enjoying white-bread sandwiches with the crusts cut off....and is that a Coke they're drinking? Looks like the golden Library was looking for some product placement! Of course, you don't want to just look outside, you want to toot around, and for that you need your own jet-powered space-suit. these were so much more streamlined than the clunky things "NASA" ended up making....and whatever happened to those claw-things on the hands and feet? Were the astronauts of the future encouraged to avoid trimming their finger- and toe-nails? BUUUUT seriously. I love these old books, the art is crisp and clean, and the vision of the future couldn't fail to inspire young minds. For those afraid the future was going to be a boys-only club, "Space Flight" assures us there will be room for space-girls too! Quote: "Girls will also want to go into the Space Service. they will probably do at least as well as men. For long and difficult trips, women may be preferred, since it has been proved that they are able to stand monotony better than men." Must be all the hours they have to spend listening to guys talk about their favorite sports.

Dick & Jane & the other kid-remembering our old chums!

Who doesn't remember "Dick & Jane", even if it's just as a popular culture memory associated with a vaguely old-fashioned and bucolic view of family life? Dick, Jane, and their generic parents were definitely a product of their time, but that doesn't stop us from appreciating the fact that our old school books were graced with some pretty attractive illustrations. Let's take a look at a few.

Here's our heroes doing what every boy and girl want to do...dressing up and skipping rope with their sister. Safely ensconced behind their white picket fence, Dick and Jane dutifuly help little sister (What was her name....Sally? Suzie? maybe just "sis"?) trip the rope fantasic while being watched by Spot ("the dog"), Puff ("the Cat"), Leroy ("the squirrel") and Stan Musial ("the cardinal"). It looks like the fun never ends until you realize that D & J aren't actually twirling the rope. I guess it's the skipping version of training wheels.

Here's the adult female designated as "Mom" shopping at "the market"...and what a market it is!! Who woudln't want to shop here with all those radiant vegetables cascading out of baskets towards you? The grocer, most likely named "the grocer" or "Food Delivery Technician # 4" looks like your doctor, or at least a Good Humor man. Here he's personally wrapping each individual grape in brown paper for it's perilous trip home, while Jane loads up the shopping basket with the giant economy-sized bottle of suds from the beer & wine aisle.

Farming's a breeze when your animals have learned to assemble themselves by species! Here the farm animals graciously abide by the unwritten farmyard apartheid, with pigs clustering with pigs, chickens keeping company with chickens and sheep looking nervous in the middle of the pack. Dick gets to make friends with "horse", while little sister points to the abattoir located to the right of the picure. Seriously though, I really do love these old illustrations. Even when I first saw these as a kid I knew they were very idealized and unrealistic, but that shuoldn't detract from your enjoyment of them.

Why We Need Halloween

Well it's only a couple of weeks until Halloween, and, in what seems to have become an annual event, you see the occasional news story pop up of some group or individual attempting to ban Halloween from their school, community or organization. Inevitably, it seems, critics of Halloween point to issues of safety ("there's too many 'weirdos' out there") or ethics ("Halloween is 'evil', it promotes vandalism"), or religion ("my non-pagan child isn't going to celebrate a 'pagan holiday', Halloween promotes 'devil-worship'") to try to justify spoiling what has traditionally been one of most fun dates on the kid calendar. To kids, of course, these arguements are all wet. For the vast majority of kids, thoughts of using Halloween as a gateway drug to the order of Wicca or a way to garner "street cred" to impress the local chapter of the Hell's Angels is the furthest thing from their minds. For kids, Halloween is costumes, and candy and spooky thrills. It's a carnival ride with a personal stash of junk food at the end of it. Quite simply, Halloween is just "fun". As adults, however, we like to think that we're able to see the deeper meaning of things. For all the adults who think they see evil lurking behind every smiling pumpkin, I ask that you please consider the following. Halloween is important in a child's development because it's one of their earliest opportunities to practice for their eventual emancipation and development as an adult. When a child chooses or makes a Halloween costume, it's their usually first chance to decide on who or what they want to become. If you think about it, it's their first personal transformation they are, for the most part, in control of. Don't we hope our young adults to be able to basically "create" themselves when they reach maturity? Stop acting like a child and start acting like an adult?Halloween is their first dry run! Once tranformed into a new being of their own choosing, the child at Halloween sets out after dark, exploring new and unfamiliar territory, just as the young adult explores new territory when they move into apartments, dorms or residences. As the child make their way to new and different houses, they are unsure, and perhaps a little frightened, of who (or what!) they will find (still sounding familiar?). Even the traditional call of "Trick or Treat" is a learning experience. While the usual interpretation of "Trick or Treat" is a bold warning to residents to "pay up or pay the penalty", there is also the implication that, while new experiences have a potential bonanza, there is also the danger of having a not-so-pleasant outcome if you don't stay on your toes. That would seem to be pretty sound advice for young adults leaving the nest for the first time, don't you think? Sadly, even the occasional lunatic who spikes candy with with foreign objects or poisons drives that point home. Finally, Halloween is traditionally a time for monsters. For kids, it's a monster they can understand. The big green guy with the bolts in his neck, the gal with the pointy teeth, or the furry, snarling dude with the fangs and claws definitely belong under the category of "don't touch", but they still get viewed as something you can cope with and avoid if you're prepared. If not, they can do some real harm when they spring up in front of you. Young adults need to be prepared for their "monsters" as well. So thank you Halloween. Your early frights and dares and treats and tricks help preare us for the real-life challenges we face when we set out on our own. When we're no longer just "son" or "daughter" or "brother" or "sister", but something new and different; something we choose for ourselves. There's a bonanza waiting to be had out there in the world, and we need courage to go get it. But we also need to be smart, because there are some real monsters lurking in the shadows, waiting to bring you down. Monsters called addiction or abuse or hatred or debt, things we need to prepare for when they spring up in front of us; things we need to control, or they will certainly control us. Maybe this is why, as adults, we end up seeing our childhood "monsters" as our friends.

Remembering The Three Investigators

Anyone remember "The Three Investigators?". In a boy's world of advanture books populated by the likes of The Hardy Boys and Tom Swift, The Three Investigators were, in my estimation, the coolest of the bunch. Officially the title of the series was "Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators, and therein lies the source of their ultimate awesomeness. The Investigators were made up of Jupiter Jones, slightly pudgy but brilliant leader of the gang, Pete Crenshaw, the muscle, and Bob Andrews, the researcher who worked part-time at the local library in the town of Rocky Beach, California. Jupter lived with his Uncle Titus (owner of The Jones Salvage Yard) and Aunt Mathilda, a no-nonsese dame who could always find work to keep boys out of mischef. Of course, even the most time-consuming chores would stop the three lads from investigating mysteries. Heck, they even had their own business card, replete with multiple "? ? ? ? ?" symbols, showing off their willing ness to encounter the unknown. The boys had the requisite "secret clubhouse", but what a clubhouse! It was a trailer in the back of Uncle Titus' junk yard, disguised by layers of detritus (any kid knows the best fun can be found in a pile of junk!). It had multiple secret entrances code-named the "green door" or "red dog", and even had telephone service for quick agent notifications. As the title suggested, the boys actually had contact with Alfred Hitchcock, with whom they would meet at least once a story (sometimes more often). The boys, of course, had full access to the famous director at his studio, and would regularly meet with The Man to consult on a particulalry sticky conundrum, or provide notes on the solution to their latest adventure.("It would make a keen movie!!") Boy's adventure books in general had the greatest art ever seen. and the cover shown here from the Mystery of the Flaming Footprints, usually captured an important moment of action in the book (you were never lured by some kind of phoney baloney cover that showed something that was not in the story...the Investigators were nothing if not honest to the core!). The inside of the cover was a generic but super-cool depiction of the three shamuses creeping through the spookiest graveyard outside of Edgar Allen Poe, equiped for detecting with magifying glass (for locating clues), reel-to-reel tape recorder (for caturing confessions), and something that looked like a transistor radio (for weather reports and spot dances, one might assume).

Lurking on the oppostite page, behind the giant spider-web, was "the shadowy figure". Who was this man of mystery? The villain of the book? Alfred Hitchcock? The editor of Random House books? Whoever he was, he set you up for a mystery that was sure to glue you to the sofa on a hot summer day or a cold winter night. I don't know if the Three Investogators are still being published, or whether "kids nowadays" would know who Alfred Hitchcock was. OIf not, it would be a shame, because the Three Investigators and Mr. Hitchcock always provided me with.... a "Gooood Eeeeevening"

Monster Bash 2012-Adios Butler!!!

Well, June has come and gone, and this year was the last year of celebrating Monster Bash at Butler Pennsylvania. Next year it will be at the Four Points Pittsburgh North, closer to the city of Pittsburgh, and definitely a larger and swankier locale!! As for Bash 2012, what a great way to wrap up our time in Bulter. This one had an "Eegah" reunion, featuring Richard Keil and Arch Hall Jr., stars of that independent caveman epic and Mystery Science Theatre 3000 favorite!. Pictured is myself with Arch, both of us still looking studly after adding a few years of experience to our lives!! Arch played with the Bash Boys Band on Friday night, which also featured the groovy singing of Kenny Miller, one of the stars of "I Was a Teenage Werewolf". The Bash Boys were in fine form, and despite a few minor slips during the performance of Good Lovin' (it's OK Bobby P.....your lyrics were better than the originals anyway!!!) put on a great show. This was also the second year in a row I hosted David "The Rock" Nelson as a room-mate on Sunday night. Last year I met the Rock as he sat outside the Days inn, wondering where he was going to sleep on Sunday, as his room-mates had left already. Having a second bed in my room I offered him shelter, and a legend was born. This year "The Rock" was in the room right across the hall from me. Being in a similar straight, I couldn't very well ignore his need for a place to stay. I temporarily considered getting a t-shirt made that said "I slept with The Rock at Monster Bash 2012", but I couldn't imagine any sort of positive outcome from it. I have to admit, this was kind of a therapeutic Bash for me. My brother died back in Februuary, and while we only attended one Bash together, I always bought my DVDs with the idea we'd be watching them together when I got home. I'm not too proud to say I shed a few tears during the Bash, especially during the video tribuet to stars we had lost over the past year. Tough at times, but much better haviong come through it. Thanks to Mark Statler for the kind words in the Creepy room. Other highlights of the Bash: The sassy and saucy Martine Beswick!!! This ex-Hammer- and Bond-girl was the hit of the Bash interviews, as far as I was concerned. Full of life and a sassy sense of fun, Martine brought a huge amount of joy to the Bash. Who says age dimishes sexiness??? The second picture is myself with Martine-come back to the Bash soon!! The next Monster Kid Generation: During the talk with Creature From the Black Lagoon stars Julie Adams and Ricou Browning, a young (8-10) boy was sitting near us with his father. Dad told us the Creature was the boy's favorite film, and when he got a chance to ask Ricou a question, his smile was as big as any kid getting a personal tour of Santa's toy factory! It reminded me why it was so great to be a Monster Kid!! Father Mike: The Bash priest and fan himself. I had the chance to talk to Father Mike after the Bash was over on Sunday night in the bar/restaurant at the Day's Inn. What a wonderful human being...full of joy and able to communictae it to everyone he meets. For lack of a better phrase, he's kind of like the Bashers "Friar Tuck"...full of the joy of life and other people!! Like I said, next year the Bash is moving to the Four Points Sheraton. Hope they know what they are getting into!!!

Bazooka Joe-Where Art Thou?

When I was a kid, the kind of bubble gum you chewed was very important. Sometimes, of course, you didn't have a choice. If you needed a fix and all that was available was the local penny gum machine (usually clustered with similar machines offering small toys or novelties for a quarter), you took what was dispensed. When you had a choice, however, cool kids chose Bazooka Joe. Now there may be some "Double Bubble" fans out there who disagree, and as I have aged and matured, I've come to accept the fact that there are those that cling to their sad delusions. But let's face facts. Bazooka Joe tasted better. It gave great bubbles, especially after adding the third or fourth peice to your wad, and most importantly, it offered great prizes for collecting their comics! Look at what was offered here...harmonicas (in case you're invited to an impromptu hobo jamboree and are asked to contribute with a rendition of "My Darling Clementine"), two-bladed knives (double the danger! double the thrills! Useful for fighting off both large and small bears, which, as a kid, you always suspected of lurking near your house, just out of ear-shot) and, in my mind the holy grail of Bazooka Joe prizes, the "exploding battleship". What a write-up! I quote: "A direct hit here "explodes" the ship. With the submarine and 3 torpedoes. Free (my emphasis) for 250 Bazooka Comics or send 55 cents and 5 comics to: Bazooka Box 666 London 12 Ontario". Could any kid imagine a more rapturous toy? "Free", with the measily output of 250 comics and the cost of a stamp! Of course, the challenge was gathering the comics. Greenhorns would try to buy and chew 250 pieces of gum and, while this was an appealing idea, would take far too long before the payoff of explosive mayhem. No, the smart kids had a trick-raid the desks of other kids at school! Ok, so maybe it was a little on the shady side of right and wrong, but let's face it, when the prize is an exploding battleship, you tended not to linger over the fine details of morality. Rifling desks usually took place near the end of lunch hour, when most kids were lingering for the last few moments out of the classroom. There was no small amount of tension as you tried to search desks noiselessly while listening for the footfalls of approaching classmates; kind of like starring in a bank-heist movie, or taking part in a daring prison-camp escape with your buddy Sgt. Rock. Comics in hand, I was ready to order my prize! Then...crushing disappointment! They never had the battleship in stock!! Sure I could order something else, but who wanted a locking diary or a "dainty drop pearl necklace"? I already had a knife, and I had already resolved to avoid hobos whenever possible, so the harmonica was out of the question. Thus, here I sit, years later, still cutching my 250 comics-worth of Bazooka currency. Sure I can read about Joe, Pesty, the weird faceless Herman and the rest of the gang, but it's done with a feeling of whistfulness. What might have bath-time been like with that batleship and submarine, duking it out between the suds? I think this is why I take showers now.

View-Master! Better Than Awesome

Remember View-Master? The little stereoscopic viewer that allowed you to look at colourful picture-reels started in 1939 as a kind of travelogue picture viewer, but in 1966 (the best year ever!!!) the disk subjects expanded to include cartoon characters and popular TV shows!

When you bought the viewer (a nice, comely brown in my era, as you see by the photo), it came with a sample disk titled "What in the World Do You Want to See?". Now at that time, there were a number of things I "wanted to see", few of which are appropriate to mention here, and none of which were addressed on the free disk. What it did show, however, was a little commercial for the selection of disks you could buy that would take you "From Arizona (picture of a girl with a herd of goats in a desert) To Zanzibar!(man kneeing in front of grass hut, inspecting coffee beans). From the Depths of the Ocean (shark about to gnaw on your face), To the heights of Mt. Everest! (man on snowy cliff...could be Everest, could be the snow-bank by my school).From the Ancient Wonders (really cool picture of a model of an ancient Greek temple), To Outer Space! (picture of the model of the Saturn V rocket you wished you got for Christmas instead of those socks).

I still have our viewer, plus six original packs of disks, including Quick-Draw McGraw, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Wonders of the Deep, The Seven Wonders of the World (one disk per set of wonders) Peanuts and, my personal favorite, Prehistoric Monsters. The disks usually came with a little story book that gave you more detail than what they could fit into the tiny window above the image you were looking at. I have to admit, I don't think I ever read one of those booklets, having skimmed them and likely had been discouraged from reading further by slide titles like "Timid Mollusk" and "The Octopus, timid monster of the sea" (both "Wonders of the Deep"). I guess in my childhood innocence I was supposed to wonder what made them "timid", but all honestly, I was too busy wondering if the Yellowfin Grouper on picture #7 could swallow a diver whole to concern myself too much about underwater timidity.

I remembered all this because today I bought an old View-Master packet called "F.B.I Agent" at an antique store today ($2.00, no tax). The cover showed a picture of a stiff-looking fellow in a black suit shaking hands with J. Edgar Hoover. I had hoped at least once of the reels showed J. Edgar modelling a selection of his favorite gowns, but that wasn't to be the case. Instead, we get the story of agent "Bill Brown" from his first days of training at Quantico, to his apprehension of a kidnapper through the brilliant ruse of prentending to ask him directions while two agents leap at him from behind a large red Oldsmobile. Unlike many of the later View-Master sets that used pictures of 3D models, this one featured stereoscopic photos of people dressed like agents, or maybe the Blues Brothers, posed to demonstrate the action of the story. My personal favorite is the riveting "Bob Works Late Making his Official Report" slide, # 13 on disk 2! I can't imagine any child not being thrilled beyond repair thinking of a future of late-night paperwork at the F.B.I.

Eventually View-Master came up with newer versions like the "talking" View-Master, but I'll always have a soft spot for the old brown plastic viewer. Definitely Better Than Awesome!

How Phobic Are you?

Have you noticed how often people get accused of being "-phobic" about something? What used to be a suffix with a specific clinical definition has become a label that instantly dismisses someone's objections as being rooted in fear and, therefore, groundless. The term has wormed it's way into popular culture which, through it's over-use as a rather patronizing attack against critics, has bled it of any real meaning. You don't like KFC? You must be pullusophobic! Don't like me stealing from your store? How can you be so kleptophobic? Then I started to wonder....what kinds of "-phobics" would describe some classic monster movie stars?

Frankenstein's monster-obviously pyrophobic, what with all those torches being swung at him. Clearly, he didn't appreciate the villager's friendly attempts to show him how to write his name against the night sky. Therapy: Listen to The Doors try to set his night on fire.

King Kong-aeroplanophobic! fear of airplanes! Typical "luddite" reaction when introduced to a new technology-destroy it! Obviously, Kong's son thought him seriously out-of-date, which probably inspired him to dye himself white in rejection of his father's archaic and patronizing attitudes. Therapy: hug a carry-on.

Sinbad-cyclophobic! How else would you describe his aversion to the Cyclops in 7th Voyage? Of course, one could recommend he "get in touch with his inner cyclops", but that would just cause all kinds of potential trouble. Therapy: try to really dig monocles

Captain Patrick Hendry-vegetaphobic! The hero from The Thing from Another World obviously had "issues" with high fibre greens, and may have even struck out with a comely vegan at some point. Therapy: take anger out on "comedian" carrot top.

Major Cummings: cephaloreperophobic! The lead in "Fiend Without a Face" obviously had an irrational bias against crawling brains, as evidenced by his hyper-aggresive behavior towards those shy and misunderstood little critters who only wanted to jump up and hug him! Therapy: embrace his inner cauliflower

The Awesomest movie casting -Jem & the Holograms

Ok, this has been floating around the internet for some time now..the prospect that Hasbro will produce a movie based on it's 1980's line of toys and cartoon, Jem and the Holograms. And it's about time! Jem is so thoroughly 80's, so cloyingly "girly", and so deserving of a re-boot that it's producers only have to "not fail" to make this a huge hit. "Jem", of course, was actually Jerrica Benton, owner of "Starlight Music" and "Starlight House", a foster home for girls who never stopped dressing like it was the 80's. Jerrica transforms herself into the pink-mopped glamour-puss Jem by touching her pointy earrings and saying "showtime, Synergy", which is the cue for a sophisticated computer program (thoughtfully also named Synergy) to encase Jerrica in the hologram image of the titular diva.

Backed by her band The Holograms, Jem & her plucky gal-pals sing, dance and foil the plots of their evil rival Eric Raymond and his band of anti-Holograms called "The Misfits". The Misfits are three rude gals fronted by lead-bully "Pizzazz", who, though accurately boasting in the show's title song that "our songs are better", never seem to defeat Jem despite their outpouring of nasty tricks. Jem is also caught in a weird love triangle with the band's manager/roadie, the pouty, purple-haired "Rio", who breathlessly pursues both Jerrica and Jem...who is Jerrica....but she won't tell him....because....um....yeah. Add to this mix music-video performances by both The Holograms and The Misfits (which, for the Holograms included rainbows, unicorns, stars, pegasuses and estrogen, and for the Misfits; footballs, giantism and littering) made Jem & The Holograms easily the most "truly outrageous" plastic fashion doll endorsement ever conceived!!

Now for the movie! I'm not sure when or if this thing will ever get produced, but here's the suggestions by AGF (awesome girl-friend) and myself. See if you agree.

Jem: Taylor Swift. Who could be better? Taylor Swift is already pretty-much a living, singing plastic fashion doll. All she needs are those ninja-star earrings and she's got it made!

Pizzazz: Lady Gaga. Others have suggested this and we agree it's the best casting ever! Pizzazz is angular, talented and totaly lacking in conventional fashion-sense, just like Lady Gaga!! Think of how awesome the soundtrack album would be with her contribution. But that's not all...how about:

Synergy: Katy Perry. Another "truly outrageous" fashionista, Katy Perry would be the perfect model for the near-omnipotent, sentient computer program. She could even sing "pre-teenage Dream" for the soundtrack.

Eric Raymond: Neal Patrick Harris. What can we say? NPH looks great in a three-piece suit, and is able to reek arrogance as evidenced by his role in How I Met Your Mother. Actually, we think NPH should take the lead in developing this project!!

Rio Pacheco: Robert Pattinson. Already used to producing a vacant and breathless character in the Twilight series, Pattinson whuold just have to roll up his sleeves and dye his hair purple, and you have the perfect dazed and longing Rio.

The Holograms/ The Misfits: cast members from Glee/ American Idol. With all the star-power in the casting listed above, we feel the bands should not be populated with too many big names, and since these folks are already used to starring in teen-angst soap-operas, we feel they would easily fit in as band members.

So there you have it! The best cast ever for the Jem & The Holograms movie. Neal Patrick Harris...are you listening to this??? It's up to you now!

B.I.G. movie lines!!

Who doesn't love classic movie dialogue? Of course, I'm not talking about lines like "You played it for her, you can play it for me", or "The, uh, stuff dreams are made of". I'm thinking of those great, creative and often bewildering lines of dialogue found in those amazing 50's drive-in classics!

If you're looking to mine excellent dialogue, you should start by watching the movies of film-maker extraodonaire, Bert I. Gordon. Dubbed "Mr. B.I.G" by Famous Monsters editor Forry Ackerman, Bert filmed some of the most entertaining low-budget movies of the 50's and 60's. These movies entranced us monster kids growing up and, while some of their technical achievements may seem a bit "low tech" by today's standards (common exclamations include "hey! they're just grashoppers climbing on a post-card!",and "hey! I can see right through that rocket ship!"), their entertainment value is second to none! (Actually, some of the effects still stand up pretty well! It took me three viewings to realize the "puppet people" stored in jars in "Attack of the Puppet People" were just slightly curved photographs)

Due to the fantastical nature of his movies, it was probably inevitable that some lines ended up coming across as a little, oh, let's say weird. Here's a sampling of some of my faves from two of his movies:

King Dinosaur (1955) The crew of a space ship land on the planet "Nova", where they are imperiled by giant dinosaurs. Their only chance of escape is summed up by the ship's doctor when he exclaimed "I brought the atom bomb. I think this is a good time to use it!" Oh, when is it not a good time to break out the old atom bomb? They're as useful as WD-40! (also in this picture, we see the credit "featuring Little Joe-the honey bear". As far as I know, this was "Little Joe's" only movie credit before he changed his name, possibly to "Gentle Ben" or "Yogi Bear")

War of the Colossal Beast (1958) A sequel to "The Amazing Colossal Man" where an unfortunate air force colonel gets irradiated, only to grow into a surley giant wearing an "expandable sarong", for which the giant credits "army ingenuity" (hey, I'm impressed!! How many armies could whip us a giant expandable sarong??). In this sequel, the giant, Col. Glenn Manning, is found to be alive and stomping through Mexico. In tracking him down, a puruer exclaims "Giants can run fast, They have long legs". Perhaps Glenn has a shot at the Rockettes with them amazing gams of his. When the pursuers find giant footprints, they exclaim "What ever made these fotprints must be 60 feet tall.", to which Glenn's sister, Joyce, exclaims, "Glenn is 60 feet tall!". Could the two be related some how??????

Of course, Mr. B.I.G. didn't have a monopoly on great lines. In the excellent movie Kronos (1957) a giant cubist robot from "up there" is sent to Earth to drain all it's power and return it to it's owners, the Ray-O-Vac company. Brave scientists led by Dr. Leslie Gaskell (played by the breathless Jeff Morrow) search for a way to stop the robot at (at one point Gaskell laments that he's possibly "pulled the scientific boner of all time"). Not impressed by this feat, Kronos continues to piston across the countryside, until the good guys hit upon the idea of reversing his electrical change by dropping something like robot itch powder on him from a jet plane. On his approach towards the target, the pilot asks the control tower "Can you pinpoint the target for me?". Oh, I don't know..... could it possibly be that 200' tall alien robot???

As you can see...endless, timeless entertainment from Mr. Gordon and others of his vintage!! Thanks for the great times, Bert!!

Archie's Sound Effects

Having researched Archie comics ads, I thought I'd say a few words about their sound effects. Words like "brrrrf". Having mainly read super-hero or horror/fantasy comics as a kid, I was used to seeing sound effects and random vocalizations depicted in the comics. What book wouldn't benefit from the insertion of a "thwack", "skreeee" or "ba-da-bum"? When words failed the hero, victim or outrageous creature, a simple "graaough" "hnuuuh" or the ever-popular "aieeee" sufficed (with 'aieee', the more 'eeeee's' at the end of the word, the more terrifying the situation).

Archie, however, had it's own lexicon of onomatopoeia. When someone laughed, it wasn't "ha" or "har", it was usually "hyuk" or "hyok". Actions like slobbering or smootching were clearly represented with the words "slobber" or "smootch". My personal favorite, however has to be "brrrrf", as it neither copies a sound or utterance one would make in any situation, nor is it an idetifiable verb or adjective. What was it supposed to be showing in this example? Dread? Fear? Flatulance? Grinding teeth? The sound of a chain-saw not shown in the panel? It's still a mystery to me, but the more I look at it, the more I think I'll try to work "brrrf" into my vocabulary. "The car won't start....brrrf". I just won the lottery....brrrf". "Your Uncle is coming to live with us.....brrrrrrrrrrrrf". Yep, this will work out well. Happy "brrrf" everyone.

Comic Ads Part Deux

If you read this blog you've already seen my previous post regarding the wonder and mystery of some of the comic book ads I saw as a kid. In all fairness, these were only the ads I'd see in copies of Spiderman, The Flash, or Magnus, Robot Fighter. There was, however, an alternate world of comic ads, one aimed at the predominantly feminine audience found among the readers of Archie comics!

Archie, of couse, is that perpetually teenage carrot-top with the odd cross-hatching scratched on the side of his head. Abley assisted by his friend with the tape-worm, Jughead, and pursued by the uber-feminine Betty and Veronica, Archie indulged in hilarious "hi-jinx" that ranged from getting his "japoly" working to fighting crime and solving mysteries (though the mystery of Jughead's orientation, a topic of debates for generations, has never been satisfactorally solved). Guys would occasionally read Archie comics; while waiting for a hair-cut (if there were no copies of "Sgt. Rock" or "Kid Colt, Outlaw" available) or to pass the time at the cabin until the rain stopped, but for the most part it was the girls who enjoyed reading about what they could expect when they reached High School (boys just read about what they could expect if they were bombarded with cosmic rays, which seemed infinitely more useful to us at the time).

Consequently, the ads in Archie comics tended to be aimed more towards young girls who were eager to begin lives as happy and popular young women. In order to do this, they apparently needed to be equipped with "sassy sayings" pendants, to let the world know if they were "Hot Stuff", a "Foxy Lady" or a "Super Chick". Some, like "His" and Hers" seemed to be aimed at young Juliets who already had a Romeo in tow. My personal favorite of the group is "Tennis Bum", an endearment that suggests both hair that is tragically too big, and shorts that are tragically too small.

Needing "Longer Nails" seemed to be an urget health issue, so the next ads offered
"Longer Nails in Minutes". For only $1.98, the unfortunate girl could transform her nails that are "cracked", "ugly" and an abomination to all that's decent, into glamorous back-scratchers that would be the envy of the sandbox set. Unlike her class-mates, pets, or clergy, "sta-long" nails would truly be a "girl's best friend".

But one doesn't really want to grow up too fast. To help retain that childhood innocence, the reader also had the option of buying 100 dolls! "Don't shake your head in disbelief, It's True!" the ad promised; each guaranteed to be made of "genuine styrene and synthetic rubber". Everything from baby dolls, dancing dolls, cowboy dolls and "foreign" dolls were promised, the last possibly being espionage dolls sent by a foreign power to steal our styrene secrets.

Like the monsterous ads, I never actually met a kid who ordered any of these, but I knew a lot who wanted to. Oddly enough, few were "tennis bums" or "hot stuff".

Ah Christmas!! Catalogue Time!

Well, Halloween is over and, as every right-thinking monster kid knows, traditionally this was the time we started our serious planning for Christmas. Of course by planning, I mean we poured over Christmas catalogues with the intensity of little Howard Carters uncovering the tomb of King Tut. I know that I, personally, never employed as much scrutiny on any of my homework assignments as I did over the toy section of the old Eaton's, then later Sears catalogues. And Why not? The Christmas catalogues always arrived wrapped in a brown paper sleeve, hinting discreetly that the contents were sure to blow your mind, and were not safe to risk allowing them to casually flip open in front of, say, expectant mothers or people taking nitrates for heart conditions.

Toy sections were usually somewhere in the middle of the catalogue, after ladies undergarments and orthopedic shoes, but before pole lamps and canned fruits and nuts. The toy section was usually arranged by age and gender, with nondescript infant and toddler toys taking up the first few pages. No need to waste time here! The next few pages were often board games. Pause for a bit...there could be something interesting! Games like Battleship and Risk always looked cool, and the old stand-bys like Clue or Trouble would always have been a pleasant surprise. Some games appeared in the catalogue for decades, despite the fact I never knew a kid who ever owned one. A prime example was a game with a little suction-cup dart pistol, where the goal was apparently to shoot a chicken to cause it to lay a plastic egg. I never had the chance to try this one, but I'm sure it caused no end of havoc with boys who were raised on chicken farms who were desperate to re-create the effect in real life.

Moving on, there was usually a large section of girls toys. Very gender-role specific girls toys, which I'm sure would cause upset in some circles today. The Easy-Bake Oven, toy stoves and baby carriages and dolls galore. I have to admit, curiosity caused me to pause here every now and then, usually to try to get some glimpse into the workings of the unfathomable alien mind of the 8 year old girl.

Finally, patience ans sweaty palms pushed to the limit, I reached the boy's section. Glorious! Here, insulated from the true spirit of Christmas, was a treasure trove of action, adventure and mayhem. My personal-favorite pages involved either that 12 inch arsenal of democracy known as G.I. Joe, or his slightly smaller and bendier space explorer counterpart, Major Matt Mason! It would have been, not only inaccurate, but an outrage to refer to these figures as "dolls", especially in front of the young consumer drooling over their potentialites. These, my friend, were action figures, a name denoting thrills, adventure and possible future interactions with fire crackers or family pets.

Almost as good as the action toys were the toy gun pages! Yeah, I've heard the arguements about not wanting to instill violence in young minds, but for most of us, that violence was already there! We've survived endless playground games, schoolyard hazings and sibling abuses to know the world was full of conflict, and if you weren't prepared to deal with it you might as well just turn to the Bridge table section of the catalogue and just stop being a kid altogether! Luckily, toy manufacturers knew that, and were prepared to supply us with the ultimate in clever and devastating weapons of mass mischef!

After thoroughly scoping out the section several times, it came time to put together "the proposal", wherein I priced out assorted permutations and combinations of pricing schemes to present to my parents. These usually were in the vein of "if you plan to spend $20.00 on me you could get me this and this, but if you were going to spend $25.00 on me, you could get me this, this this and this"! World economics wouldn't be in such a poor state if they just let some kids with toy catalogues work it out.

Thoughts from a Halloween Werewolf

If you've read this blog before, it will come as no surprise that I love Halloween. As a kid, being able to spend weeks planning and making your costume, finally leading up to the night when you could go trick-or-treating, was second in delicious joy only to waiting for Christmas morning to come around. This was in the days before "politically correct" Halloweens, where kids are encouraged to dress up as socially positive role models like Montessori teachers or gender-neutral eco-facilitators. No, these were the days when boys wanted to dress in as violent and horrifying ways as they could on a budget of whatever could be begged or borrowed from one's parents. In those times, kids had to learn to balance the costume desires of "Mom" ("...but you'd look so cute dressed as a gingerbread bunny") and "Dad" ("...it costs what???? Forget it, here's my old hat, go as a hobo").

Now usually, a kid caught between these sorts of extreme views would end up in some sort of embarassing compromise that never really felt that satisfying. Getting sensible, inexpensive shoes instead of the cool black high-top runners with the picture of the jet on the little rubber circle sewn at the ankle, for example. But Halloween was such a magical time, that kids were usually able to buy or put together a costume that they actually thought was cool! Want to be a super-mad-doctor-pirate-vampire-eco-facilitator? At Halloween, it was possible!

Of course, that was then, and, as the proponents of linear time will insist, this is now. AGF (awesome girl-friend) and I love giving our Halloween candy and watching the assortment of costumes come to the door. This year, I decided to put a little more effort into dressing up my house, so in addition to hanging the rubber bat on the front door, I decided to put together a life-sized werewolf for my front yard. This was my first attempt to do something like this, and I have to admit, I kind of like the way it turned out. As you can see from the picture, his face was a pretty cool wolf-man mask I picked up at a yard sale this year, placed over one of those styrofoam wig-heads that I covered with fur. Note the ears, making him look a little like a were-bear...even cooler!

His eyes were little LED lights I snipped off fo two dollar-store book lights, and they were amazing. They were eye-shaped to begin with, and covering the mask's eye-holes with red tissue paper actually made them look like glowing red eyes! His body was an old plaid flannel shirt and jeans stuffed with newspaper. This wasn't as successful, as his contents tended to shift downwards, as is wont to happen to all of us, giving him a rather saggy gut and a flat derriere. Obviously, a Canadian were-wolf! He was kept upright with a broomstick running from his styrofoam neck, down the back of his pants into the ground. Once erect, my werewolf proved himself no match for the rigors of occasional gusts of wind, so his broomstick had to be supported by a metal pry-bar, also down the back of his pants, a towel, two rocks and a small log used by the cats as a scratching post. Once upright, his paws were attached to a pair of store-bought tombstones and viola, one Halloween werewolf was ready to go!

The werewolf proved to be a fun addition to Halloween, especially as the kids and their guardians weren't shy about offering comments. Here's a sample:

Older sister reassuring younger one, who is dressed as the pinkest fairy ever to wave a butterfly wand on our street: "that wolf won't hurt you". Awwwwwwww. Ok, there's a place for super-cute on Halloween!

A Mom: "I hope that doesn't move" Maybe next year, Mom!

Older guardian upon seeing the glowing red eyes: "Holy sh*t!". Gotta love that reaction!

Young boy dressed as a soldier (pointing his "rifle" at wolfie): "Brrr-rrr-rrr-rr-rrr-rrrr-at-att-att--tat" (gun sound)"Grrrrrahahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa!" (victory over werefolf cry) I'm glad that kid is fighting on our side!

And finally, two Boys: Younger one: "what's that what's that what's that?"
Older one: "It's DAD!"

A brave comment, son, considering Dad was standing right there with you! Then again, getting away with mischef has always been one of Halloween's greatest traditions. I'm glad that tradition is still alive.

Comic Ads

For me, as a kid, the enjoyment of reading comics was in perusing the ads at the back of the book. I never sent away for anything, and I certainly never new what "Grit" was or how on Earth anyone could sell it. What they did teach me was a healthy consumer skepticism that still serves me to this day. I should send away for my own submarine that fires a polaris missile! But wait, something in that picture doesn't look right....that's too small to be a real polaris missile!! Buy 500 toy soldiers in their own foot locker? Waitaminit... what would I do with a foot locker??? here's some of my faves (pictured)

Look Fellows!! The clarion call of of the "Grit kid", urging young entrepeneurs to win cool prizes like baseball gloves and polaris missiles if only, oh Lord if only, they could sell something called "Grit". I've never seena a copy of "Grit", though I have to admit I was occasionally tempted by the picture of the obviously prosperous and contemporary-looking chap in the photo. Unfortunately, my appetite to win pocket knives and bicyle lamps that looked like half-asleep eyes wasn't enough for me to send the coupon.

48" Talking Monster from Outer Space. I have to admit, the pricey $1.00 fee was certainly an obsticle to the purchase of this beast, but what really turned me off was the fact he had a prominant navel, which I felt no self-respecting space monster would ever display. That, plus what I later learned were called it's "jazz hands", soured the deal for me big time.

X-Ray Specs. Certainly the greatest invention of all time! I never bought these through the comics, but i did eventualy get a pair in a novelty shop years later. Who cares if their effective range was from your face to your hand (if you held your hand up to a high-intensity lamp), those hypno-spiral paper "lenses" makes wearing these the fashion coup of any social event or church function!

Monster-size monsters. For a buck a piece, another expensive prospect. These didn't talk, but their glow-in-the-dark feature was an almost irresistable hook. The Frankenstein monster looked intriguing, but that skeleton kept on truckin'! I always pictured him, strutting through my room like Mick Jagger, eyes glowing and "altertness lines" radiating from his skull, as if to say "I know what's going on...and I'm a skeleton!" Luckily for me, I never had the dollar to send away for skellie or his friends, or I would have learned he was only a poster, and unable to display the funkiness his ad promised. Sometimes consumer lessons are best learned from a distance.

Halloween Hijinx

Yesterday I was visiting the second-hand shop at the top of my street (the "Helping Hand") when I found this super-fun old Halloween mask/ costume kit. This one's a tiger, but I remember they had a huge variety of monsters, superheroes animals and princesses to choose from. This was before 95% of all Halloween costumes sported images of either liscenced TV characters or Kim Kardashian. You can't see the price tag, but it was originally $ 2.79 at K-mart (or maybe SS Kresge, which was either K-Mart's precursor or the name of the store's amphibious assult vehicle).

I always loved pawing through these costumes as a kid. As you can see, the "costume" was a rather cheaply-produced body suit made primarily of that plasticy tarpaulin material, which the makers reassured us was "fire retardant". I'm guessing this was third place behind "fire proof" (no way this sucka is going to burn) and "fire resistant" (we'll hold out as long as we can...remember the Alamo!). "Fire retardant" probably meant you had just enough time to wave your arms around and set some other kid on fire before disaster struck. Like I said, these costumes were fun!

On the front of ths costume there was a cool image reminding the home-owner what person or creature you were supposed to be, so they could exclaim "how cute!" or "oooh, scary" while you waited paintently for them to get over it and shell out some chocolate, man. I love this image-the tiger, though somewhat malformed, looks suitably ferocious with extra-long fangs, although he also looks like he painted his toe-nails for the occasion, making the costume suitable for either little boys or girls (this was in the time before gender roles were re-evaluated, folks).

The mask is typical of the time; really colorful plastic, with little eye- and mouth-holes to allow just enough air inside to avoid asphixiation, but not enough to avoid the inside of the mask heating up like a personal face-sauna. As a kid, you tried to avoid "de-masking" as long as you could, but inevitably, you needed to either wipe down or risk having sweat running into your shoes. I usually liked wearing my mask around the house for several days before Halloween, just to get into the character properly.

As a kid, it was always a toss-up whether I enjoyed Halloween or Christmas better. I eventually settled for Christmas, but in terms of defining what "dressing up" meant for a kid, Halloween had Christmas beat, hands-down. Then again, Christmas dinner wouldn't fit through that mask very well.

Remembering Scholastic Books

Anyone remember "Scholastic Books?" Once or twice a year, your teacher would take some time during your home room period to hand out one-page catalogue/ order forms from a company called "Scholastic Books". They usually had a pretty long list of inexpensive pocket books for kids, with topics usually in the science/ nature/ adventure story vein. I remember one called "Runner for the King", about some Inca kid sprinting over mountain tops with a knotted rope, which was the kingly message. I don't remember much about the message, or why the king needed his knots shared with such haste, but the cover looked kind of cool to me.

Being a kid whose mind was twisted by horror films, however, I was automatically drawn to either the ghost stories or anything that had a robot on the cover, Often I would buy the book just to look at the cool cover, and not bother with the contents (I would never admit this to my parents, as they thought they had a budding Einstein with a voracious appetite for literature. Actually I just had a voracious appetite for flashy covers. This would serve me well in later years to develop a completely indiscriminate attitude to selecting breakfast cereals and. later on, automobiles.)

I'd order books like the "Arrow Book of Ghost Stories", which promised a "shivery, quivery, just-scary-enough time!". I really should have been tipped off by the "...just-scary-enough" portion of the teaser, as the stories themselves tended to be pretty tame for my tastes (e,g, "Teeny-Tiny" by Joseph Jacobs. "Once upon a time there was a teeny-tiny woman who lived in a teeny-tiny house in a teeny-tiny village" Please, stop the shocks.)

Despite the somwhat vanilla nature of the books, I still enjoyed the process of researching, ordering and receiving the books, and even ended up reading some of them. I still have scholastic books in my house, and hope to finish reading "Teeny-tiny" once I have some time to get around to it. And a large pot of coffee.

Thoughts from the Summer Cabin

Well, AGF and I just came back from a weekend at out friend's cabin on the Bird River, near Lac du Bonnet. Cabin time is always different from "real" time, and usually much better. I have a ritual I like to perform at the start of these weekends. Once I pass the perimeter highway around the city, the watch comes off my wrist, and doesn't return until I am back within the perimeter. The result is a wonderful disorientation where I really have no idea "when" I am, outside of "when, in relation to when I last ate/ had a beer". This freedom of mind (aided, perhaps, by liberal dousings with recreational beverage) seems to lead to some wonderful spontaneous bursts of creativity. Here's what resulted this time:

1-The Best Video Game Ever. My friend's son was at the cabin, playing FIFA soccer on his X-Box for mutch of the weekend. After Canada won the World Cup (only on a video game!!) he switched to one of those first-person shooter games, where you see the barrel of the gun sticking out in the middle of the screen.

A much BETTER idea is to have a first-person doggie game. Instead of the gun, you see the nose of the pooch you are playing. The goal is to tip garbage cans, sniff crotches and vacuum up foodstuffs dropped on the floor. You have to avoid getting your nose scratched by cats, getting your hair clipped or wearing one of those plastic "lamp shade" collars. You ultimately win the game by sniffing the crotch of a member of the Royal family. Patent Pending.

2-An "app" for guys. "Cut the lawn". The goal is to cut your virtual lawn. This could be followed by "apps" like "trim the hedge", "paint the baseboards" and "get another beer from the fridge".

3-Horse-fly/ Black-fly collars. Much the the afore-mentioend plastic "doggie collars", cabineers can wear a repellant-doused plastic collar around their necks as they float in the lake/ river, to deter those annoying pests from buzzing your head. You could also fill the cone with recreational beverage. The added attraction is how appealing this will make thee wearer to the opposite sex. If you have a souse/ significant other, the answer is, of course, absolutely none.

There you have it. take off your watch and give it a try some time. Just remember, I OWN the doggie-game idea.

Eternal Beauty at Monster Bash

Ok, this is a follow-up to my previous blog about Monster Bash 2011. I believe I mentioned the "Hammer Girls", actresses Caroline Munro, Veronica Carlson and Yvonne Monlaur, who were guests at the Bash and who happily participated in the Saturday night "live Theatre" by Zach Zito. After the show, the Hammer Girls were kind enough to pose with a life-sized figure of Christopher Lee as Dracula, giving the fans an opportunity to snap some souvenier photos.

What continues to strike me is the way this scene played out. All these ladies were former actresses and models. When they were asked to pose with ol' Chris Lee, these mature ladies immediately worked the cameras like the pros they are. Really, it was quite amazing to watch. One minute we were watching attractive mature women talking about their past careers, the next minute the years melted away, as three bombshells gave a lesson in real sexuality! I'm not talking about the crude sort of posing that is usually accompanied by brass polls and navel piercings, I'm talking about true inner beauty exploding out from the eyes, lips and hands of these stars.

Each Hammer Girl took a turn posing between the "arms" of Chris, as camera flashes strobed out of the hundred-plus assembled photographers. I can't help thinking this is what these ladies did constantly during the prime of their careers, and by jove, they've still got it!

So let's hear it for the Hammer Girls and all the other ladies out there who know where true beuty comes from, and better for us, how to show it off.