GODZILLA vs. THE THING Radio Spots (American International, 1964)

 

Here is one of my latest acquisitions! This is the single-sided (sort of, we will get to that in a minute) 45 r.p.m., 7-inch record of radio commercials for 1964's GODZILLA vs. THE THING! There are just 120 fleeting seconds, but they are really good ones!

Several of the earlier Godzilla films had specially-made radio spots for their release in the United States, each done by the individual companies who released the films. There was no uniformity in how the ads were issued...and by the way, just how many Godzilla movies even had special radio ads? Well, all of these questions will be covered in a post I'm working on now, because, dear readers, I have the answers...but we are here today to look at just one release!

Now, I said this was a one-sided release, and there is indeed content on only one side of the disc.  If you are a record collector, you've probably run into one-sided discs, which have been around since the days of 78's, and usually mean that the reverse side is completely flat, or possibly has a texture or pattern instead of grooves.  In this case, however, there are actually grooves on the second side, which is very unusual.  In fact, when you play them, they contain almost 2 and a half minutes of total silence! There is a label on the other side as well, which is completely blank!

But, let's get back to the other side.  How cool is it to see AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL PICTURES as the record company on the label!? (By the way, the "tenth anniversary" refers to the tenth anniversary of A.I., and has nothing to do with the movie.)  As you can see, we are treated to three different radio spots, one 60-second and two 30-second ads.  They are dynamic and full of the usual bombast and ballyhoo you'd expect, and in retrospect feel like you're being invited to attend a public hanging, and not the movie (and the Mothra) that we all know and love.  But, that was the magic of old-school Hollywood publicity...which is dead and gone today.  

One further point about the radio ads:  if you think you recognize the voice, you probably do.  It's an uncredited Michael Rye, whose voice boomed "DRAGON'S LAAAAIR!" out of the arcade machine of the same name, and who I knew most of all as Green Lantern in all of the old Superfriends cartoons.  And what a voice it was!

Wrapping up, I know one or maybe two of these ads has been "out there," in places like YouTube, but maybe not all three (as people tend to hoard these things), so I hope I'm once again offering something that you can't get anywhere else.  At the very least, it's a brand-new and higher quality conversion (lossless, I might add), so that's something! So, enjoy this riveting two minutes! I can promise that it will make you want to see the film again!

GODZILLA vs. THE THING Radio Spots (1964)