GODZILLA 1985 Promotional Items (various)

There are a few years that stand out for their sheer amounts of American Godzilla material.  1978 is one, followed by 1985 and 1998, although that last one certainly wasn't all roses.  1985 was one of the biggest, though, and if you knew where to look, Godzilla was all over the place.  There was a fun Dr. Pepper campaign, and also an onslaught of toys and products from Imperial (all of these items can be seen at our Vintage American Godzilla Items page, by the way).

For some reason, though, we haven't ever discussed the many other promotional items that were made for GODZILLA 1985, so let's remedy that now.  These are basically associated with the theatrical and/or home video release of the film, so you wouldn't have found any of these in retail stores:

Theater Standee: we all know the famous poster, but did you know there was a large cardboard standee, measuring 45 by 71 inches? There was a time that such large displays were commonplace, but it seems like you don't see nearly as many today. Come to think of it, when's the last time I went to a movie theater?

Video Store Standee: This is actually the exact same item as above, with a sticker placed over the NEW WORLD PICTURES, making it NEW WORLD VIDEO...I kid you not!

The Love Theme from GODZILLA 1985:  I mentioned this somewhere on this blog in the past, but yes, there was a single released for the American version of the film.  It's pretty rough.  And, pretty rare.

"Godzilla Beach Patrol" Safety Vest: I know what you are thinking, because I am still thinking it to this day, and it consists of  lots of "how the...?!" and "why?!" exclamations.  We may never know why this existed.  My feeling is that it was tied to an event, and probably a local,  one-time event, somewhere.  

The back has the slogan of "Have You Seen The New Godzilla" that appeared in a couple of places during 1985, and you can just make out a tiny "New World Video" underneath.  All I can tell you is, the G.B.P. (even though they had a sweet logo) has never reappeared.

Video Store Poster:  1985 was the first (and only, I guess) Godzilla movie to have a separate video store poster, which...wasn't too different from the theatrical one.  It was the same 27 x 41" size, though, and sometimes sellers get them mixed up.

Video Store Standee & Sign:  Some video stores went the extra mile, and had a counter-top-sized small standee, as well as a hanging sign.  Ah, remember video stores?

New World Video Mug: I have actually done a post about this item before, and since it does specifically say "New World Video," we can feel confident that it was promoting the home video release rather than the theatrical one. 

There was also a magazine ad campaign (where you will see a lot more of the "There Goes The Neighborhood" tagline), with full-page color ads of the poster art in magazines like Rolling Stone.  There were also numerous versions of television ads, and I've seen two mentions in print that radio ads existed, although none have ever surfaced!

Audio Avalanche!

Before we return to our latest Godzilla revelations, let's catch up on some audio that I've laboriously purchased, digitized, and cleaned up.  The work is all done, so it would be a shame to let all that go to waste...speaking of waste, do you have some time that needs wasting? I'll help you. Here we go (in no particular order):

1) The Age of Television (RCA, 1971)

This is not one of those "clip show" records, but rather a well-made documentary. Don't let the year of 1971 put you off; this is captivating stuff, and its interspersed with candid interviews with the likes of Milton Berle, Arlene Francis, and Steve Allen, and some of their anecdotes are hilarious.  You'll be glad you did.  The record came packaged with a large book (which isn't necessary to enjoy this). Recommended!

LINK: The Age of Television

2) If Someone Had To Fill Your Chair Tomorrow, Who Would It Be? (Fails Management Institute, 1977)

This piece of unmitigated crap is a one-sided 12-inch record that I found at a Game Exchange of all things.  I will admit that once I saw "THE FAILS MANAGEMENT ISNTITUTE" on the sleeve, I was buying this.  Unfortunately, they failed to manage the fail that was this record, which is nothing more than an advertisement to attend an expensive seminar "at two beautiful locations!" Also, the "Fails" is one of the old guys' last names...no, really.  They take turns droning on about boring business things, and actually do manage to leave us with a couple of funny samples, which I have cut out and gotten you started with, as you will see if you bother to download this...thing.

LINK: If Someone Had To Fill Your Pants

3) Bed Time Tales (Rosicrucian Recordings, date unknown)

And then we have this, which is obviously from the 1950's.  A stodgy old Fred Mertz-sounding character, who clearly doesn't want to be there, reads four meandering and pointless "tales" to the listeners, but he sounds like he'd rather start thrashing them at any second.  When you look at the back cover and see the other titles in the series, which were about the "Science of Mysticism," and "Attaining Cosmic Consciousness," you realize that Mommy and Daddy were having way more fun.  But do I run into any of those titles at the Goodwill? Nope.

LINK:  Bed Time Tales

4) Oceanography (Educational Activities, Inc., 1969)

Remember filmstrips in school? Remember your teacher struggling with loading the projector, while you made fun of her? Remember her cueing up a record or tape incorrectly, while you made fun of her? Remember being so glad when the lights finally went out, so you could sleep...or better still, watch the filmstrip, and make fun of it? (I got in trouble rather a lot.)  Well, here is the audio to two educational--and quite strange--filmstrips about the next frontier for man to pillage and leave full of discarded Lee Greenwood albums and Ho Ho's wrappers. We don't have the actual filmstrips, but I did include the Teacher's Guides for you to peruse.  The most fun, though, is the list of recommended class activities on the back cover, where we read suggestions like "Investigate the commercial fishing industry and locate important fishing grounds."  

    "Billy, where are you going in that overcoat and dark glasses...and is that your father's revolver?!"

    "Aw, gee, Ma, I'm just going to finish my expose' and blow the lid offa Big Fish...the National Enquirer is waitin'." 

LINK: Oceanography

WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS & MONSTER ZERO Radio Spots (UPA, 1970)

 

I am equally pleased and shocked to say that we have another (partially) lost set of Godzilla radio spots to bring out of the lost media category!  I decided to look in a less obvious place for radio spot records, and lo and behold, was able to bring this back home, from Finland, no less! How it got over there is a mystery.

I wasted no time in capturing this glorious minute-and-a-half.  These ads are some of the very best Godzilla radio ads, and they were smart enough to use real sound effects from the films (which wasn't always the case).  You can download them below, and I'll also add these to the recent Godzilla radio spot masterpost.

WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS & MONSTER ZERO Radio Spots

Postscript:  I'm always interested in the reverse sides of one-sided records, and I can report that this one does indeed have grooves (and a blank label) on its B-side, only instead of being empty and silent, they are cut in a reverse spiral, and farther apart...meaning, if you drop the needle somewhere in the middle, it shoots away and flies off the record before you realize what's happening! Nutty!

Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster Ad Slick Sheet (American International, 1972)

 

Ordinarily there wouldn't be much to say about these vintage sheets, meaning what you can see is pretty much what it is.  But what I find weird is the way they filled leftover space on these things.  You will often see a cropped/doctored graphic, or even a photo, used to fill the space, and some of them are baffling as to what their exact use would be.  

Here is an example of what I'm talking about:

Cropping out this Godzilla required some retouching, but somebody thought it was necessary, or even useful. It leaves the end user with a filler piece that doesn't even have a movie title.  Even stranger still:

This time, somebody had to crop out Godzilla's arm to allow it to move like a paper doll would, and...poke Hedorah in the eye, like a Terry Gilliam animation.  I mean, ok, if that's what you were going for, then you succeeded.  It's pointless for me to say "and this is before the days of digital manipulation, kids," but I guess I just said it.  It's very strange.

Godzilla: Destroy All Monsters Melee (Atari, 2002)

 

GameCube Art (US)

We've been told that this year is the "Year of Gigan," and not much has happened in that direction yet (we haven't officially wrapped up the "Year of Hedorah" at this point, but hey, what's the hurry), but there is another Godzilla anniversary coming up this fall, and that is the 20th anniversary of the DESTROY ALL MONSTERS MELEE video game!

XBox Art (US)

Only the 7th Godzilla video game to be released in the United States, Pipeworks Software did everything they could to deliver the Godzilla game that everyone had always wanted:  not platforming, not strategy, not a puzzle game...but pure unadulterated kaiju combat, including 11 different monsters (plus Mothra could be summoned for an attack). 

GameCube Art (Japan and UK)

Was it a perfect game? No; in fact, lots of people prefer the sequel (SAVE THE EARTH), and I'd probably agree with that, but it was super fun, obviously a labor of love, ground-breaking in the history of Godzilla video games...AND had an equally ambitious ad campaign.  

We could talk all day about this game, its soundtrack, concept art, etc., but it's this ad campaign that I want to focus on today.  I only recently found out (20 years later) that the poster included with Nintendo Power was completely different than the one included with other magazines! Here is the front of both fold-out posters:

My kind of centerfold.

And here is the back of the poster, if you bought NINTENDO POWER Vol. 162 (November 2002):

And here is the back of the poster if you purchased another magazine (in this case, GAMEPRO #170, also from November 2002):

Who knew? Not me, for a couple decades anyway.  As you can see, it has the clever Japanese newspaper-style artwork that we will see more of in a moment.  I originally thought the alternate back must refer to the XBox, but it turns out that the game wasn't released on XBox until the following Spring of 2003! 

Now, onto the newspaper-style ads, which actually began at the E3 convention that year.  Above is a poster/flyer announcing the game, which I just recently added to my collection.  It measures 13 x 21", is printed to look like a newspaper, but on much heavier stock, and was apparently only distributed at the E3 show.  Here is the back:

The attention to small details really sell the concept--here are some close-ups of some of the photos and their captions:

These design elements were also used for comic book and magazine ads at the time.  It's unclear exactly how many there were; I've always intended to buy out lots of comics from 50-cent bins from late 2002/early 2003 and see if I could track more of them down, but it's a daunting task (made worse by the lack of 50-cent bins anymore).

There was a television commercial, as well, which you can find on YouTube:

Also, there was a Stategy Guide book released for the game, by Prima.  Remember strategy guides? This was the only Godzilla game in the U.S. that had one.

Finally, mention should be made of the companion GameBoy Advance title that was simultaneously released in 2002, but despite what anyone says, it's not the same game, or even a port.  GODZILLA DOMINATION utilized the same cover art, and the same basic concept, but was completely its own animal...er, kaiju.  And was tons of fun.  You could be Mothra in that one, though. 

Of course, Pipeline/Infogrames/Atari would return a couple years later, for a sequel, but that's another story, for another anniversary!

Mrs. Miller's Greatest Hits (Capitol, 1966)

 

Take a good look at the album cover above.  You've probably seen it in your life in your travels.  If you are a connoisseur of awful music, you definitely know about it.  I learned of the existence of Mrs. Miller way back in my Dr. Demento days as a kid.  The whole record only adds up to maybe 26 minutes of content, but what a content it is!

There have been several novelty-record examples of people singing badly over the years, some for different reasons.  Depending on what you read, it's unclear whether Mrs. Miller was in on the joke completely or not.  In one interview she later claimed to have been purposefully conducted to sing off-rhythm, and while that sounds good on paper, I'm not sure how believable that is, in reality.   She was obviously somebody who loved and wanted to sing, and because of this record she was everywhere for a short time, going on all the variety and talk shows you could name...and you can only do that for so long before you go full-on Florence Foster Jenkins and believe that you're good.

Apart from the rather dated examples chosen for this, her first full LP, which was ironically titled "Greatest Hits" as a joke, you'll quickly come to realize her...uniqueness.  If you need an example, I would venture that you could play her "A Hard Day's Night" to just about anyone, and enjoy their face changing as they slowly sink into revulsion as it plays out...but to me the ultimate Mrs. Miller song is the awful "A Lover's Concerto," which is a terrible song in its own rite, anyhow, but taken to new operatic heights under her prowess.  Petula Clark's "Downtown" is a close second, only because she breaks into bird calls and whistling at the end, unbelievably.  There are some moments of complete, sappy dreck, such as "Shadow of Your Smile" or "My Love," which in my opinion was just Capitol Records using tracks which didn't cost them any money.  

And then there are the other moments, the ones you came for.  Somebody thought it would be a hoot to have Mrs. Miller sing the chimney sweep song from MARY POPPINS--straight--and drop her h's while doing so.  Good 'eavens, I thought Dick Van Dyke's version was bad.  Also, don't miss the other timely pop moments for the swingin' youngsters:  if she's bewildered at the Four Season's "Let's Hang On," she sounds completely befuddled in the Motown wanna-be "Gonna Be Like That," as if she'd wandered into a Tamla recording session with dead hearing aids.  But my greatest moments of dread were reserved for, you guessed it..."These Boots Are Made For Walkin'," where some producer coaxed Mrs. Miller to act sultry, in which my skin actually crawled.  It's nothing short of staggering.

I usually say something about enjoying the download.  It's just not the right word, in this case.

LINK:  Mrs. Miller's Greatest Hits

GODZILLA vs. MEGALON Newspaper Advertisement Printing Block (1976)

 

We have talked about these before, and looked at both ends of the process, but in short, this was how newspaper ads used to be made.  This is a wooden block which has a metal slab connected to it, which was then set by a typesetter, forming the layout for a a vintage newspaper page! Here is another view, which better illustrates what I'm describing:

This one measures 3.5 x 5 inches, but they of course were all sizes.  The printing surface was made by pouring molten metal into a mold (I was under the impression that lead was used, but in this case the seller told me it was actually zinc), which was actually made of paper pulp and looked like this:

To see more views of this KING KONG vs. GODZILLA ad mold, see my post about it.  The metal piece was then attached to the block that you see, and embossed with a code number on the side.  

Here is the image flipped, showing us what the ad looked like:

In fact, it's very close to this ad, from the MEGALON pressbook:

But, interestingly, not quite identical.  Apparently the ads in the molds were often unique?

It goes without saying that these things were often thrown away.  I'm sure any molds that survived do so only because they were unused.  I can only imagine how busy a vintage newspaper printing facility was, and probably had ads and their molds running out the windows. At one time, I bet you could obtain dumpster-loads of these sorts of things...now gone and forgotten!

Godzilla TelTel Pet (Bandai, 1989)

 

Wouldn't it be cool if you had a cute and chubby plush Godzilla that would let you know when you got a telephone call, because you're always wearing headphones and drinking wine? It would, wouldn't it? Well, Japan to the rescue, once again!

This is exactly the kind of help that Bandai provided to us (well, not us, people living in Japan, I guess) in 1989, with their "TelTel Pets" series.  

If you recall, landline telephones in 1989 weren't too different than phones in previous years.  Touch tones had come in to stay, answering machines were rapidly becoming affordable, and things like Call Waiting and Caller ID (look them up) were on the horizon.  Long distance was a big deal.  Bandai needed a way to accessorize your telephone in a new way, which they did.

This device included a splitter which plugged into the wall jack, allowing your normal telephone to connect, but also providing an 1/8" headphone-type jack for Godzilla to connect to.  When you received an incoming call, Godzilla would roar, getting your attention, somehow, away from all of the distractions of modern life, as you can see on the box below:

Also available were TelTel puppy, kitty, bird (I get it, the "pet" theme), and...hey! That's Ultraman! I wonder if he SHUWATCHed when a call came in?

It's pretty clear from the box that having Godzilla connected means that it stops your actual phone from ringing, because having him try to roar and compete with a ringing phone would be dumb, and who would buy that.  

Also, the length of the cord provided with Godzilla meant that he could be around the corner from the actual phone, in case for some reason you couldn't hear your telephone when it rang, due to your Super Sentai shows being turned up so loud.

This Godzilla is not only adorable, but very unique, and I'm glad I worked out a deal with the seller, because I've never seen one of these come up for sale, and how do you even begin to value him? 

The downside (besides the fact that he takes two D batteries) is that I really can't try him out.  I was one of the last stragglers to divest myself of a landline telephone, so I can't even find out if he still works.  I like to imagine he does. Oh well!