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!

Movie Monsters Figures (Palmer, c.1964)

 

Let's start October off right, by taking a look at some classic, vintage monster toys! These awesome figures were made by Palmer Plastics around 1964 (some sources say the date is unknown, while some state 1964 as the year they were made--there are no markings or years on any of them), and they stand about 3 inches tall.  These are what some people call "dimestore" toys, but they were also sold in packs of 10, which we will see in a moment.  They were available in red, yellow, green, and even a rare blue color, which is the hardest to find.  Somehow, all of mine are the red and yellow varieties (red on yellow, kill a fellow), but I'm planning to acquire some examples of the other colors next.

 

Here is a look at each figure; there are some surprising choices in this set!

Dracula - This one works pretty well, and you know right away who it is. He kind of has a Count Chocula stance!

Cyclops - This one is a curve ball--this is actually Ray Harryhausen's Cyclops from 1958's THE SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD! I didn't see that coming.  Of course, there is rather a scale problem here, but the coolness makes up for it.

Frankenstein('s Monster) - This one works very well, and is a lot of fun.  Imagine a world where the first Universal movie was titled FRANKENSTEIN'S MONSTER, and maybe everyone would be referring to the creature by the correct name, all these years later.

King Kong - Here is one of my very favorites.  This is such a well-done figure.  Lots of people don't know this, but this figure actually came with a tiny Fay Wray, who was attached by a sprue when you purchased Kong. You can actually put her in his hand! But, as you would imagine, she was very easily lost....and as a result, a complete figure can be several hundred dollars.  Still, though, I gotta get me one of those someday:

Werewolf - To me, this is one of the least-effectively-executed sculpts in this line, because it's not super easy to tell what's going on.  At first glance it looks like an old-fashioned zombie.  It also reminds me of Bela's Ygor with the broken neck in GHOST OF FRANKENSTEIN! However, the name given on the multi-pack is "Werewolf," so that is the final answer.  

It! The Terror From Beyond Space - On the header card for the 10-pack of figures, this figure is called "It Came From Outer Space," which is the wrong movie (which was 3-D and from 1953).  This is actually the alien from IT! THE TERROR FROM BEYOND SPACE (which I believe is a Martian?), from 1958, which lots of people cite as the blueprint for ALIEN, etc.  Another unusual choice for this line!

Gorgo - YES! Freaking GORGO! Well, let's be fair, this could also be an Ogra figure (his mama)....but the package says Gorgo.  Somehow, the title monster from this 1961 British attempt at a kaiju film was included in this great line.  This is my favorite figure in this set.  I am a gargantuan GORGO fan and even own the original one-sheet poster.  (I will also be the first to admit to you that, in the interest of fairness, the movie has too much reliance on military stock footage, which does bog it down...but otherwise it is a damn fine movie, and I will cut a man who says otherwise.) Sorry, I got a little carried away, there...come to think of it, I need to get this figure in green.

Creature From The Black Lagoon - This is another one that is hard to see, at a glance...it almost looks skeletal, but when you zoom in, it dawns on you what's going on (this one would also work better in green).  

This is a spectacular set of figures, with loads of personality and charm...and oddly enough, NO Mummy to be seen anywhere!  I do wish there could have been a second series.  That would've been fun.

Lastly, here is the photo of an unopened 10-pack that goes around (I think it came from Pinterest, but I do not know the origin of this photo, or I would give the appropriate credit--it's not mine):

One thing to point out is that technically, the proper name of these figures should probably be "Unbreakable Movie Monsters"...? 

Also, check out the artwork on the header card, showing a groovy Frankenstein's monster leading Gorgo around on a chain! 

One last thing that jumps out at me.....is that you could buy 10 of these for 98 cents! What a deal!

KING KONG vs. GODZILLA Unused Ad Mat #102 (Universal/National Screen Service, 1963)

 

It doesn't look like much, and it's only the size of a trading card, but you are looking at a piece of history. 

Here is a rarity that would confuse most people today.  This is an unused Ad Mat (called Ad Molds in some places) for a smallish newspaper ad for KING KONG vs. GODZILLA.  These were shallow trays made of wood pulp, which were designed to be poured with molten metal (often lead) and attached to a wooden piece, creating a printer's block that could be added to the layout of a newspaper page...which looked like this:

It goes without saying that this process would destroy the Ad Mold, and printer's blocks themselves were rarely saved at all, as the lead would be re-used.

As a result, unused Ad Mats are rare as hen's teeth; Godzilla ones even more so.  

This particular Ad Mat isn't cut from a larger piece, but is exactly as it arrived 62 years ago! Amazing.

(Reverse side)

When a theatre owner received the pressbook for an upcoming film, it would often show all of the different permutations of ads that were available (each with a number), and Ad Mats could then be ordered from the National Screen Service Exchange.

This one is "Ad Mat 102," and since we have the actual pressbook at hand, we can show you exactly what that finished ad looked like in print, and how much space it would take up on the page:

You can see an entire unused Ad Mat with multiple ads--ironically, for the same Godzilla movie--at this post here from a few years ago.  If you like this sort of thing, we have an entire page of Vintage Godzilla American Theatrical Promotional Items that collects everything in one place!

Announcing The Sphinx GODZILLA GUIDE VOLUME 5: U.S. Theatrical Promotional Items!

 

I lost track of how long this project took (maybe three years or so, off and on), but after a long period of concentrated effort, the entire series of Sphinx Godzilla Guides is finally complete.  

This fifth and last volume covers vintage promotional theatrical material from the original series of Godzilla films, plus GODZILLA 1985 for good measure, and because there is a huge amount of stuff for that film.

It's hard to represent this guide in a screenshot or two, but the premise was to use all of the vintage pressbooks (as we have done sporadically in this blog over the years) as a guide, and take a deep-dive look at each one of them along the way, showing all of the known materials that exist for each film. Another little-examined corner of Godzilla history is the vast amount of crazy suggestions that the various distributors made for theatre-owners to promote and exploit the film...some not even legal!

In addition, we will look at ad slicks and ad molds, radio and television spots, and any and all other ephemera produced--several films even had unique items only made for them, such as a mask, a comic book, even a safety vest in one case. We will see examples of finished ads as they ran in newspapers of the day, as well as trade ads and the occasional news stories. It's not only a fun read for the Godzilla fan, but can also serve as a checklist of sorts for the hard-core collector, as nowhere in collecting history has anything like this ever been attempted. I am not sure how interested Toho really is at preserving the history of Godzilla in America, as they seem to be extremely disorganized in their efforts, but here it all is (call me sometime, Toho; let's do lunch).

Of course, these volumes will continue to be updated as new discoveries are made, especially in the Home Video and Comics areas, which are ongoing. I'm always more than happy to receive corrections and additions for any of the volumes, and I hope they are used and enjoyed, because they will be here in perpetuity and at absolutely no cost.  Enjoy! You can download all five at the Sphinx Godzilla Guides page.

Now, on to the next large-scale project; stay tuned!

GODZILLA ON MONSTER ISLAND stand-alone ad slick (Cinema Shares, 1977)

 

More catch-up here, with a one-page, letter-sized ad slick for GODZILLA ON MONSTER ISLAND.  This came by itself, and has no staple holes, so it certainly appears to be  a stand-alone issue. Ad slicks were weird like that.

Stay tuned, because both big forthcoming announcements were each about three years in the making, so you know it's going to be good!

GODZILLA vs. THE THING stand-alone ad slick (American International, 1964)

 

A little catch up work today, as we prepare to finally release the 5th volume of the Sphinx Godzilla guide, which covers theatrical promotional material.  

Here is a stand-alone, 8.5 x 11 ad slick for GODZILLA vs. THE THING.  It is actually a variant of this one below, which I think may have come first:

American International held onto the film for a while, and offered re-releases and package deals with other features, so it's hard to know exactly what the dates of origin are.  I just know the waving Godzilla photo cracks me up.

Stay tuned, some big announcements are forthcoming...

(Another) GODZILLA 1985 Ad Slick Set (American Screen Accessories, 1985)

 

Here is a second set of ad slicks for GODZILLA 1985, comprising 5 pages measuring 11 x 14 inches.

Comparing these to the previous set that we looked at a few years ago, one thing jumps out right away:  while that set had a light-colored background behind Godzilla, this set has a dark one, making for a solidly black ad with white text.

This gave the newspaper personnel a choice, I suppose...the dark one is more striking, but in smaller sizes it might have looked like a big smudge on the page.  What do you think?

And speaking of, some of the most interesting ads are usually the smaller ones:

GODZILLA vs. MEGALON Theatre Ad Slick (Donald L. Velde, Inc., 1976)

 

There's not much to this one, but here is an ad slick of modified small ads that appear to be custom-made for "SBC Management Corporation and affiliated theatres."  It measures 8.5 x 11 inches, and was issued on April 20, 1976.  The ads were even assigned designations with SBC in the name. Comparing these to the pressbook, you can see which ones were altered to make these.

This theatre group just, apparently, needed ovals!

Speaking of MEGALON, when I was recently updating our Godzilla Home Video Guide, I set aside all of the MEGALON releases on VHS to make a group photo...even I was surprised!

GODZILLA KING OF THE MONSTERS Vintage Newspaper Ads (1956)

 

Here are two local newspaper ads for KING OF THE MONSTERS, both from the same city.  This first one is important because it gives us the date:  September 26, 1956 (and the ad tells us it's the very end of the run for this film).  Below that, an orphaned snippet of an article where you can tell that a guy got in trouble for owning and using a police siren.  You mean going around sounding off and pretending to be a police car is frowned upon?

Next, it's "American Legion Party Night" that teases: 

?A BIG CHANGE?

But the smart people that night were at the Sky Vue (which was a DRIVE-IN, how cool is that?), seeing this movie.  There's good news and bad:  first, the good--two color cartoons are guaranteed!  Takes the edge offa the death and destruction a bit.  Now, the bad--it's a double feature! It's another abominable snowman movie, but.....it's just a Jerry Warren film.  Too bad.

Now, the smaller of the two ads, from the MALCO theatre.  You'll note the snow on the theatre logo; this denoted the theatre was equipped with AIR CONDITIONING, which was used as a draw to pull people away from their television sets.  Good grief though, who would've wanted to miss KING OF THE MONSTERS? I'd have been there a few times a week.

And now to the real head-scratcher.  Take a look at the text added to this piece.  It's a dumpster fire of elbow typing.  We've looked at lots of ad slicks that were already available for this movie, and yet somebody decided to hand type this mess.  It's just baffling!  "A monstrous seat beast" is my favorite part.  

I'd of course watch that movie, too.

DESTROY ALL MONSTERS Giant Ad Mat (1969)

 

It's unfortunate that it's been so long between posts, but we at The Sphinx are hard at work on the next editions--and last volume--of our GODZILA GUIDES, in which we attempt to cover all vintage American Godzilla items...which may be a test of sanity.

Anyway, today we look at an unusual "ad mat" or set of ad slicks for DESTROY ALL MONSTERS. This particular one measures 23 by 35 inches! That's nearly as big as a movie poster.  It's one-sided, and as you can see in the photo above, it's really two sets, because no matter how you turn it, one is always upside down.  

At least we can look at the two halves, separately.  Here is a list of what's included (handy for setting up your newspaper page layouts):

Here are the two halves of the ads:

Hard to photograph, impossible to scan, but great stuff! Stay tuned for some big things coming up...we are of course still doing our annual Countdown to Spooky Month, which will start soon (somehow there is still more we haven't shared yet)!

"Manda mangles London"?

GODZILLA 1985 Ad Slicks ("Mini Ad Sheet") New World Pictures, 1985

 

Very cut and dry today, but here are ad slicks for GODZILLA 1985.  (We also have looked at a completely different, 4-page set in a previous post.) These are presented on one 11" x 17" page called a "Mini Ad Sheet."  It came folded anyway, so here are nice scans of both halves.  

Just think--now you can place a nice-looking ad in your local paper...if you can find one, come to think of it!

M.U.S.C.L.E. (Mattel/Bandai, 1985-87)

I didn't know it way back in the day, but yet another of my favorite toy lines also came from Japan (doesn't everything?).  Back then, the whole line was shrouded in mystery, but today, we know its complete origins.

In 1985, completely out of nowhere and in the middle of a toy world dominated by 4-inch action figures, Mattel suddenly launched packages of 2-inch, flesh-colored, non-posable rubber wrestling figures, and a new toy line was born.  They christened it "M.U.S.C.L.E.," and went so far as to make it an acronym, standing for "Millions of Unusual Small Creatures Lurking Everywhere." Their permutations seemed endless, as did the amount of different figures available.  After all, they said "Millions" right there in the title! 

As it turned out, Mattel had entered into a partnership with Bandai (which wasn't their first) to bring figures from a popular Japanese franchise, Kinnikuman, to America.  Kinnikuman encompassed comics, animated series(es), toys, and much more, and had run for years (and still does).  Every figure had a name, and was a character from the long-running series' universe.  But instead of adopting the property, they simply dumped the figures on the toy-buying public.  They did bother to change the lead character to "Muscleman," and rename a character "Terri-Bull" to serve as the bad guy, but everything else, including the allegiance of each character, was up to you.  And you know what? It worked.

Like many folks, I prefer adaptations that are as accurate as possible for Japanese properties brought over here, but the lack of any information with this line really sparked kids' imaginations. You made your own teams; it was wide open for interpretation.  "Hey, this guy is a light bulb; this guy is made of bricks!" (One guy was actually a urinal, but we didn't know that at the time, and neither did Mattel, I'm sure.) One thing that Mattel/Bandai did right was to make the figures harder rubber, and much more durable.  In Japan, they were part of the "keshi" craze; soft rubber, eraser-like figures that come out of gashapon machines [see this post for an awesome Godzilla keshi set].

So how many figures were there? In that first year, a mail-order promotion began appearing, allowing you to order your own poster checklist, which revealed that there were 233 figures.  However, this wasn't the whole story, because the Wrestling Ring playset included 2 exclusive figures, and there is also one rare non-poster figure that somehow got in (and in recent years has been proven to exist in sealed packages), setting the officially-accepted count for a complete flesh-colored set at 236.

And, an entire set of 236 fits in an "oversized-shoebox" size archival box! We should do a post on everything we've learned about how to store things safely long-term (yes, they are all individually bagged, but don't buy your ziploc bags at Michaels or Wal-Mart. You want polypropylene, NOT polyethylene. 

[3/2024 UPDATE: And here is what a complete set looks like on display--turns out it takes up quite a bit of room to display 236 figures:]

After the first year, Mattel could've kept adding new figures, but instead the decision was made to re-issue existing figures in new colors.  Sometime during that second year, kids' interest waned, and the line folded and blew away in the wind.  It would've been interesting to see the animated series adapted and new figures issued, but it wasn't meant to be.

There is quite a bit of confusion over the colored figures; for example, not every figure is available in every color (in fact, far from it). Also, counting the original flesh color, there are ten different colors available, as can be seen below:

The light purple color is mega-rare, because only five figures were made that way, which we will get to in a moment.  First, let's talk about the ways that the M.U.S.C.L.E. (I hate typing that) figures were sold.

Four-packs were the most popular, because they were the cheapest, AND you could see what you were getting.  Much allowance was scrounged and maximized to buy as many four-packs as possible. Yards were mowed.

10-packs were sold in an opaque garbage can.  I never cared for these as a kid, because I couldn't see the figures I was purchasing (especially with the wrapper on).  The trash can may seem random, but it's actually another Bandai carry-over.  In Japan, assortments of keshi figures (usually Ultraman enemies, from what I've seen) were sold this way.

There were four different 28-packs, and they were the top of the line, and obviously the most expensive.  Unlike the other sizes, they were not randomly packed, and included figures you could get nowhere else.  This is a second-year example that included colored figures:

While the back of the 4-packs sets up the hero and villain, it was the back of the 28-packs that gave us the closest thing to a backstory, with an included comic strip! I suppose no other item in the line had enough room on its packaging:

Speaking of Bandai and keshi, the 28-packs always remind me of their awesome Ultraman sets (which are sets of 30 figures):

Every great toy line needs a playset, and the crown jewel of the M.U.S.C.L.E. toy line was what every fan wanted:  the wrestling ring.

It wasn't even that large of a playset, but the concept of joysticks to move your figures and make them fight was brilliant.  On paper. Unfortunately, it's probably for the best that I didn't get one that Christmas, as they are pretty fragile.  The plastic clips that hold the figures tended to break easily (intact examples usually have white stress marks, at the very least).  But that wasn't all:  the orange cardstock that served as the floor tended to get scratched up quickly, AND the elastic bands that made up the ropes around the ring were prone to breaking or getting lost.  

Bandai produced this item themselves for Mattel.  Notice that the back of the box shows a prototype version of the playset with different joysticks, and, most notably, different clips to hold the figures! Too bad we ended up with the fragile ones. (They really should've been metal.)

We mentioned the rare light-purple color.  There was also a board game, which included ten figures.  What's important here is that, while light green was already an existing color, the five lavender-colored figures in the game are the only ones ever produced that way.  Because of this, complete examples of the game can be tough to come by.

We have already mentioned the mail-away poster, but for completeness, there was also an NES game, a FREE figure in select jars of Nestle Quik (that was awesome), and something called the "Battlin' Belt" that was the Kenner Chewbacca Bandolier Strap of the M.U.S.C.L.E. line.  I see what they were going for, but I thought it was dumb, even as a kid.  However, these are the types of items that always end up worth a fortune, because fewer people bought them originally.  

All in all, one thing you can definitely say about this toy line is that it causes hardcore nostalgia.  It's certainly one of my favorites from the 1980's.  Discovering its origins and finally getting questions answered through some great websites (links below) has been extremely rewarding over the years.  I've noticed in recent years that you just don't run into the figures like you used to.  It used to be commonplace to see a couple in a random bag of toys in a thrift store, but that never happens to me anymore.  I'm sure they are being hoarded, because prices have been climbing! 

If you are interested in learning more--much more--about M.U.S.C.L.E., here are some places you should go:

The University of M.U.S.C.L.E. - This is the definitive website on the subject.  Do you want to know which figures were available in which colors? Are you curious which figures make up the different 28-packs? They have the answers.

Nathan's M.U.S.C.L.E. Blog - Jump to each figure by number, and see exactly how and where it was available! Great in-depth info also on each type of item in the line.