Island Of Doom (Hanna-Barbera GODZILLA, Season 2 Episode 12, 1979) Turner Screener VHS Tape!

Get ready, because here is one of a pair of amazing items! This is a VHS "screener" tape made for internal use by one of the Turner networks.  I believe this to be from, most likely, TNT, because as you'll recall, they were the first to air the Hanna-Barbera GODZILLA for many years, before Cartoon Network even existed.  Another reason is that the Cartoon Network tapes that I have seen identify themselves as such, like this one:

In fact, this particular CN tape is what started this whole chain of events! I bought it from a super-nice Ebay seller in Georgia (that's important to our story, as that is where Turner's networks are located), who had bought a lot of about 40 such tapes at an estate sale, held at the estate of a person who worked for Turner Broadcasting System.  The seller thought--as I did--that the tape contained an episode of the Hanna-Barbera GODZILLA, but it actually turned out to be the 1998 animated series made to support the first American film! I had no idea that CN had ever even shown that series.  

About the time I am discovering this, the seller reaches back out to me, saying they had discovered two OTHER Godzilla tapes in the lot, and this time they were indeed the HB show! They were nice enough to take the CN tape back, and a deal was struck, for which I'll be eternally grateful! So.......let's get right to it, and then you can see it for yourself!

One strange thing about this tape is that there are no opening credits.  In fact, it begins choppily in mid-title card! Another interesting characteristic of this recording is that there is a 20-second gap where each commercial break should be, where the screen goes black for that duration.

This is the penultimate episode of the series, and it's a notable one I had forgotten about, for several reasons.  It's all about a renegade criminal pseudo-military organization with their own island base (and nuclear reactor, naturally), who shoot down a weather satellite with a fancy missile:

In fact, you should probably recognize the organization, because it's none other than...

COBRA! (Or "Cobraaaaaaaaa!" as you probably remember it). And here is Cobra Commander:

Okay, it's not THAT Cobra.  But still.  So they blow up the satellite, and the crew of The Calico gets involved.

Of course, you wouldn't see this without freezing it, but: interestingly, if you look closely at the cursive on this map, the (identically-spaced) lanes of water are labelled "STRAITS," "OCEAN," and "CHANNEL."  Huh. Aparently I am not the only one who had a D in Geography, it seems.

They go to investigate--before this, Pete and Godzooky are arguing over crates of vegetables:

Godzooky wants to eat them.  Looking closely reveals the large crate behind Pete is labelled "PRUNE." In the name of all that is holy, people, do NOT let Godzooky eat those!

So they get to the island, and immediately all get captured by the Cobra guys.  At this point in the tape, I need to point out that the soundtrack had a bit of decay, or possibly magnetic damage.  For a few minutes, there was a volume drop and lots of loud static.  However, I restored the missing few minutes of audio using an extraction from the official Toho YouTube upload, and it matched perfectly, which amazed me, I have to say.  I really expected to have to pitch-correct something, but it fit perfectly.  So, the good news is that the episode is intact.

Cobra puts everyone in the same jail cell....EVEN GODZOOKY.  This is nuts. If you ask me, this is the 1979 equivalent to having Minya ride in the guy's truck in FINAL WARS.  It is at this point that the episode goes into overdrive.

In fact, what strikes me about viewing this episode now (rather than when I first saw it at 6 years old) is that this is the one episode of the entire series that is most like a vintage Godzilla movie.  Because the last third of the episode is Godzilla going on a rampage and destroying the entire island base, wading through launching, exploding missiles, swatting down airplanes, smashing buildings...the whole works.  You could dub in the sound effects and the roar from the Heisei film of your choice, and make it very convincing. It's pretty awesome.

"Oh look! That Jana of the Jungle is finally over! Get the Big G sampler pack and some bowls!"

After which, Godzilla grabs Cobra's overloading nuclear reactor (which represents the stakes in the story) and stops it from exploding by throwing it into the ocean to cool it off....and thereby probably creating some sort of massive environmental hazard, but hey, who's counting?

Another cool aspect of this episode is that Doug Wildey (as in JOHNNY QUEST and lots of other awesome things) as designer got to flex a bit and design some really cool weaponry and stuff for Cobra, which is a lot of fun to see (on the right:  the original model sheet for the laser turrets, which Godzilla completely MELTS into goo, by the way).  

So, if you aren't convinced yet, I have converted, restored, and uploaded the episode for you to enjoy, and you can download it right here:

GODZILLA - Island Of Doom (1979)

Stay tuned, because we still have one more Turner screener tape coming! 

Godzilla Jumbo Puffy Magnet #5 (of 6) Added To The Collection!

Last year--actually in this post--it finally dawned on me that all of these Godzilla Puffy magnets and magnetic keychains used the same 6 images over and over, so therefore, where the giant ones were concerned, there must also be 6 different styles (see that post for my full personal epiphany). 

Here are those 6 designs:

Up to that point, I had accounted for three of these, in their original packaging.  A fourth turned up in a quarter machine display header card that I purchased:

And now, a 5th has joined the group!

This one measures 6 & 1/2 inches in height.

SO, for those of you keeping score at home, I just need to find "Magnetic Godzilla Character TV & Cartoon Pals" design #4, which looks like this:

It would be friggin' Godzooky, because of course it is. Oh well, the search continues. Stay tuned! Meanwhile, I have to update the Godzilla guide.

From the Aurora 1970 Dealer Catalog (Aurora Plastics Corp, 1970)

 

I haven't looked, but I am assuming that this entire book exists somewhere on the Internet, probably on archive.org or something, as Aurora fans are both legion as well as ravenous AND insatiable.  Therefore, we will not waste time here with every page of sailing ships, airplanes, and model cars, but cut right to the chase! It's what you came here to see anyhow!

Godzilla (and King Kong) make a cameo appearance in this group shot, which is right inside the cover.

And now the monster section, in its entirety, at last! 1969 (the previous year) introduced the first famous "glow kits," wherein Aurora reissued monster kits with new, glow-in-the-dark parts.  This page here gives us a full-page look at the Frankenstein artwork!

The crown jewels of the glow kits being Godzilla and Kong, of course.  I have said this before, but it must have been pretty sweet to get tucked into bed at night, and have the Godzilla model you built watch over you with glowing head and hands, as you fell asleep!

We conclude with the second-most-interesting section of the catalog!

Note that The Penguin is included under the "Heroes" title, which I guess should've read "HEROES......and also one villain."

As always, good stuff from Aurora, the definition of a truly timeless brand!

Is There A Game Tonight?

 

Brief one today...this was hanging in a flea market.  I can't quite imagine how this would all work (as a sport?) exactly, but it passed for entertainment in those days.  If you think about it, it's doubtful this was ever allowed inside a real gymnasium or court.  As I recall from PE class, they were really maniacal about the wrong types of shoes on the court....much less hooves.

By the way, what is the official name of this sport? I would like to submit "Ass-ketball" for consideration. Anyone?

I had to clean it up a bit in  Photoshop, but there is no AI nonsense involved here.

ULTRAMAN TARO: GREAT MONSTER THE 30 (Bandai, 1991)

 

Here is an item that took me by surprise.  You may recall that we reviewed both the ULTRAMAN and ULTRASEVEN "Great Monster the 30" figure sets, a while back, but I didn't know this existed!

So these are 30-figure sets that are basically "keshi," a category of soft rubber, gashapon-type Japanese figures (sometimes even including erasers). Each set includes the hero Ultra, and 29 kaiju from his series.

To American eyes, these are highly reminiscent of the awesome M.U.S.C.L.E. 28-packs that we had over here (and hey, those were connected to Bandai too, so there you go):

Back to our set at hand, here is the back of the box:

While the previous two sets included a die and a colorful game board, enabling you to play a board game with the figures (because Japan), this one does not, and instead gives you a heavy sheet of die-cut labels:

Interestingly, there isn't very much "Taro" content in the stickers...in fact, all of the kaiju pictured are from other shows.  There is good reason for this, because by this point in the lineage, the shows were beginning to show some fatigue, and the enemy designs were starting to suffer.  There were still some high points, but some were just forgettable. Lots of feathers and dangly things.

Here are the contents of the set.  How many can you name? The answer for me is, "precious few." And I will admit it!

After puzzling over these, I went to the booklet for the blu-rays, and then realized lots of the spellings are pretty knackered up, so I resorted to correcting as many of these as I could via online sources...so here are the names:

So my main take-away from this is:  does this mean there is a RETURN OF ULTRAMAN set (Jack, that is) that exists somewhere? If so, sign me up.  The first three shows were the best. It makes me wonder how many of the classic shows had sets in this line.  It's extremely hard to find any information online about these, but I am digging away.

As you can probably tell, I have sort of a love-hate relationship with the last few classic Ultra shows.  They tend to be hit-and-miss sometimes.  With Taro, it seems like he is always having to be rescued by his mama. I was still very happy to discover this one, though.  I will always take more classic Ultra!

GODZILLA vs. THE THING Unused Ad Mat #203 (AIP/National Screen Service, 1964)

 

This is another brief one today, but here is an UNUSED vintage Ad Mat (or Ad Mold, or even "flong," which some people call them) from GODZILLA vs. THE THING!

We have looked at a few of these over the years, but if you are new here:  these were ordered through the pressbook, and were made of molded wood pulp.  The idea was that molten lead was poured into them, and added to a block of wood to make a newspaper ad printing block! As such, this destroyed the mold, so as you can imagine, unused ones rarely pop up!

The entire piece measures 4 & 5/8 by 3 & 3/8 inches, but that is including the large border around the ad.  Through the magic of "having the pressbook," we can compare the ad mold to the actual finished product, below!

This of course plays off of the legendary Reynold Brown artwork for the half-sheet poster of this film, which is a masterpiece.  

This ad mold has been added to the newest edition of our Guide to Vintage American Godzilla Theatrical Promotional Items, which you can download for free and see this and much, much more!

Godzilla & King Kong Aurora Model Kits Retailer Order Form! (Aurora, 1964)

A quick one today, but the image speaks for itself. Here is an original retailer order form (measuring 8.5 x 11 inches) that is announcing the 1964 King Kong and Godzilla Aurora model kits, which will run you the princely sum of a buck-forty-nine apiece!

This piece has an even cooler story in its provenance.  I purchased this from one of the top Aurora model collectors in the world, and it actually came from the personal collection and estate of Andy Yanchus (1944-2021).  Yanchus was a colorist at Marvel Comics for 17 years (he even colored the AMAZING SPIDER-MAN issue that was the Hobgoblin's first appearance!), but before that, he actually worked for Aurora for over 10 years, designing kits and rising to the rank of Aurora Project Manager.  As you would expect, he left Aurora with a huge collection of artifacts and artwork.

This is an awesome piece with its connection to Godzilla history already, but knowing the "rest of the story" makes it even better!

Godzilla DOOM ISLAND Spacegodzilla (and carded figures) Trendmasters, 1997

 

I recently added this beauty to my collection, completing my set of carded DOOM ISLAND action figures (which is what Trendmasters referred to as "6-inch action figures," even though they are really closer to 5).  

If you don't know the story, DOOM ISLAND was the third and final Godzilla line made by Trendmasters, which unfortunately was cancelled before it could be completely realized. What was finished was never officially sold in the United States, as retailers like Wal-Mart simply passed on the line, signaling that the Trendmasters Godzilla line had run its course.  It's too bad, because the premise of the line was incredible: Godzilla and friends fighting dinosaurs!

Six carded figures were produced and packaged, which was good and bad--on the one hand, they were the sculpts we had seen previously,  in the KING OF THE MONSTERS and GODZILLA WARS lines...and now with no option for sound...but on the other, all of them were now improved with different paint, and accentuated by a dark wash, which made them look super-cool. (The two Godzillas still retained their battery-powered "Atomic Plasma Eyes," though.)

Here is a high-resolution scan of the backing card, which shows lots of amazing entries in this line, both made and unmade (some of these exist only as prototypes):

We have taken in-depth looks at the four "Battle Armor" figures on this site before, which you can view here:

Battle Armor Godzilla

Battle Armor Kumonga

Battle Armor Mecha King Ghidorah

Battle Armor Anguirus

Back to the six carded figures, they were: Godzilla, Supercharged Godzilla, Baragon, Megalon, Varan, and Spacegodzilla.  For some reason, you will see an occasional Doom Island Godzilla appear for sale, but the others are very hard to come by--especially Varan and SpaceG!

I had custom acrylic cases built for mine, so I could hang them on the wall:

If you want to know lots more about the DOOM ISLAND line, check out our Guide to Trendmasters Godzilla Products 1994-97, where you can see concept art, prototypes, and much more!