I'm very excited to say that after ten to twelve years, I have finally tracked down a copy of the last Godzilla pressbook that I needed for my collection...which was the very first. This 11 x 17 beauty is the largest pressbook of the group, and a thing to behold. It's also pretty stinking rare.
If you notice a difference in some of the picture quality, it's because some of these photos came from my personal archive...this thing was difficult to photograph well.
As you see from the above page, this is an unusual pressbook because the film had already played in several places when it was printed ("It stayed 3 Weeks!"). It unfolds into a giant tri-fold, and we are treated to several images of decorated theatre fronts and marquees, as you can see in the next couple of photos, below.
At the right of the montage above, don't miss the photo of the child gazing up in admiration at the film's poster...best photo I have seen in YEARS.
But, there's another first inside of the center spread as well. Right between the articles and photos is this image:
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we are looking at what is probably the very first printed cartoon depiction of Godzilla...who knew, at the time?!
Next time, we will look at the equally-impressive set of ad slicks that were included with this pressbook!
Here is the middle of our set of vintage Star Wars Theme Covers, and it's the slowest of the bunch, but not completely without interest. These tracks fall into the second category of SW covers, namely orchestral re-treadings of John Williams' score. Now, if we are being fair, we should mention that the soundtrack album was a huge seller, and the idea of some of these cover albums was to entice you (or your penny-pinching parents) to buy the cheaper LP, which no doubt worked very well.
One such album ended up being the only thing I knew existed that couldn't be tracked down for this project: "Music from Star Wars Performed by The Silver Screen" is actually an album-long, one-disc remake of the film's score, but apparently it's just not anywhere to be found. Four people claim to own it on Discogs, but it's never been sold there, with zero copies for sale. Should it ever turn up, there's room on this disc for it to be added.
One item placed here to break up the monotony was the second of two (yes, two) Star Wars LP's starring pipe organs. The one featured in an earlier volume utilized a large church organ, but this one (entitled SPACE ORGAN, which is living proof that I will not always take the obvious joke) starred a "theatrical pipe organ," which, at the time, was the largest in the world. It was built into the very walls of a restaurant in Portland, Oregon called "The Organ Grinder," and it must've been more than a little unsettling when your dishes and salt and pepper shakers kept vibrating off of your table. According to Wikipedia, the restaurant developer's goal was to acquire every type of pipe and voice ever manufactured by the Wurlitzer company--which he did--as well as include some non-traditional effects, including "a dive alarm from a submarine." Unfortunately, the restaurant closed in 1996, but on this disc, we have a 13-minute medley of more than just the Star Wars theme, in fact including other parts of the Williams score, as well as "Close Encounters of the Third Kind." It highlights the organ's many voices and sounds, and is certainly the high point of this volume...yes, because the rest of it is so boring. Work with me, here!
If you are intrepid enough to hang on, AND if you enjoy the Star Wars disco interpretation by Meco, then you are going to love the concluding two volumes of this series, so stay tuned...
Thanks to Sean Linkenback for alerting me to the presence of this dealer's catalog from 1980 that was recently discovered! Among the many vintage sleeping bags offered inside, right between Dennis the Menace and The Pink Panther, was this one:
A Godzilla sleeping bag? That includes Godzooky? From 1980? With completely original artwork? It's almost too good to be true. Which leads me to point out, occasionally these sorts of dealer catalogs would present items that never actually went into production. On our Chronological List of American Godzilla Items page, we have a couple of such examples at the bottom of the list.
So now, the race is on, to actually find one! If anyone has any info, please drop us a line!
As a footnote, here is the next most interesting page of the catalog!
This page is full of interesting concepts. Somehow, I never ran into "Super Jrs." (which is a terrible name). Wikipedia says they "first appeared" in 1982 style guide, but here they are in a 1980 catalog, with a 1978 copyright date.
Seeing what the Doritos bag looked like when I was a kid engulfs me in a wave of nostalgia.
Flash Gordon and Popeye are interesting to see (although it strikes me that the Flash Gordon sleeping bag could've at least used artwork from the then-current Filmation animated series, and it would've made more sense (like Mighty Mouse did, above).
I swear I knew somebody who actually had the Tootsie Roll sleeping bag.
Lastly, the generic "SPACECRAFT" bag, with it's Millennium Falcon and R2 ripoffs, is pretty hilarious, and showed that the Star Wars-mania was still going strong at the time.
Over the years, there have been a few Godzilla "resurgences" in the USA, and the time period of 1977-78 was certainly one of them. Marvel had launched a new GODZILLA title, Mattel was cranking out some show-stopping toys and games, but that wasn't all (see it all here at our chronological list of American Godzilla merchandise!), not to mention Hanna-Barbera's animated series that was about to start. This album was part of that wave of merchandise. I've said this before, but in short, it was a good time to be alive.
If you are a fan of the old Power Records/Peter Pan/etc., book-and-record type dramatic stories, you will enjoy this. It's not an easy task to produce audio stories about Godzilla, when the main character can't talk, narrate to himself, or interact directly with the cast. It would be a little easier if this were one of the products that came with a book or comic, but we don't have that luxury (or budget) here. All in all, the cast and writers do an admirable job.
Another characteristic of the 1977-78 time period was that the image used for this album cover (Herb Trimpe's cover for Marvel's GODZILLA #1) basically became Godzilla clip art, and was used in lots of places. It's an iconic piece of art. (I've always thought that the man in the lower right-hand corner looks a lot like S.H.I.E.L.D.'s "Dum Dum" Dugan, who actually made several appearances in the comic, so who knows.)
Two different, side-long adventures are presented, each less than 14 minutes: "Godzilla vs. Amphibion," and "Godzilla vs. The Alien Invasion." It would have been interesting to have included some sort of artwork showing us what some of this looked like, especially with Amphibion, an invention made just for this album.
This LP was re-released in 1998 (another "resurgence" period, because of the dumb American in-name-only movie) on CD by Golden Drive, which included some tracks of rather dull techno music to fill out the already-short disc. This disc went out of print, and may have been re-released in 2001 according to Amazon, but is once again believed to be out of print...if I'm wrong about that, the link you're about to see will disappear, and this post will become an "album review," so here goes:
Do you ever start a project, and wonder why you started it? Do you ever start a project, and wonder if it will ever end? After many, many hours of work, and a four month delay, we are pleased to reveal this new project, at last.
The question was this: How many vintage covers of the Star Wars theme exist? The song was everywhere in the late 1970's, and it seems like everybody had a go at it. The subject is covered in various books and articles, although they all seem to include different material in their lists. Like our earlier project of Star Wars rip-off songs, I wanted to stay in the original era, and go no further than the first sequel. As it turns out, the answer was "a whole lot;" in fact, about 268 minutes' worth, and 5 discs!
Thinking back, when I was a young kid, it always irritated me when I obtained a record with a cover version of a song, and the cover didn't sound exactly like the original song (which is what I was after in the first place, no doubt). I now know this was simply musical immaturity, but it makes me laugh to think about, because I later learned that a well-done cover is one where the artist puts something of themselves into it, and translates it somehow into a new-ish sort of thing. And, that is the case with the best of the tracks here...why would you want to listen to bands parroting John Williams' original theme note for note, more than 50 times?
This is a good place to explain that covers of the Star Wars theme fall into three categories. First, we have general interpretations of the theme, which are all over the map in styles (which makes for a fun listen). These tracks are contained in Discs 1 & 2. Secondly, we have what I have jokingly referred to as "Boring Orchestral Covers and Suites," because that's what they are (see above comment about listening to copies of the original track 50+ times). Luckily, these tracks only take up one disc, which is Disc 3. Lastly, we shouldn't underestimate the phenomenon that was Meco and his disco interpretation of the John Williams score, because he spawned myriads of covers himself...so many, in fact, that they take up the entirety of Discs 4 & 5! And it probably goes without saying, but lots of these tracks were specific to individual countries, and have never been re-released since their original vinyl outings, with no signs of that ever changing.
So is this collection complete? Far as I know. Are there more, somewhere? Could be. I'm always amazed at how the amount of vintage media, which should be quite finite, continues to grow...which, is pretty much a paradox.
Here are the first two discs, which give you thirty tracks displaying the original theme in just about every way it can be done. It's really not like listening to the same song over and over, and if you agree, then it means this was a successful project...that I barely lived through!
Here is an item that I bet you are likely to know something about, since you are a visitor to this site. Somehow I have neglected to do an official post on this iconic game, all these years, and it's time to rectify that omission!
Now, the title says it all; this was the companion landmark item to the Shogun Warriors Godzilla that same year. Kids either: had this game, new somebody that did, and/or wanted it desperately. Before we jump in, rather than use this video as an afterthought, let's lead with the famous (in these parts) TV commercial:
That ad is still so exciting, it makes me want to buy another copy of the game! As we saw in the commercial, players would take turns spinning, and flying some of their 24 colorful spaceships around the galaxy by turning a large wheel. The suspense builds because, what they don't know is whether Godzilla will strike at any time, suddenly chomping their ship and showing no mercy!
One thing you will see here (at the end of the post) is the instruction sheet, which is pretty rare for some reason. What I found really interesting was the opening paragraph:
"The evil Godzilla is raiding the galaxies, bent on revenge for having been driven from the planet Earth. Now he is hiding behind an asteroid (a small planet) hurtling through space. You've got to maneuver your spaceships around the asteroid and avoid the horror of being caught in Godzilla's radioactive jaws. The last player to have spaceships on the wheel wins the game and lives to fight the monster another day."
Interestingly, while the game alludes to some continuity by insinuating that Godzilla is out for revenge and "driven from" the Earth, it doesn't quite jive, considering he was Earth's defender in his last several films...not to mention, the helpful sidekick to a boat-crew of humans in the animated series that started airing that fall! There is a bit of continuity to be found though; hold that thought...
What I never grasped, for all these years, was that Godzilla was supposed to be popping out from (or "hiding behind") an asteroid. I mean, if you look at the artwork for the game, you can see the round edges of a green planet-looking shape, but it took finally obtaining the instruction sheet for me to understand exactly what was going on. What a strange concept, especially for the time (even though most everything was space-themed in 1978, for the obvious reason)...we wouldn't see anything even close to that idea in an actual film until, what, SPACEGODZILLA? Sort of?
The instructions have some amusing artwork, especially at the bottom of the first page, where happy kids' faces show you where you are supposed to sit...with a large DO NOT SIT HERE, which, you'll note, is exactly where the overacting girl is who steals the show in the commercial!
And, there's a little more strategy involved than I knew of as a kid. If the spinner stops at a blank space, you are required to move one of your spare (not on the board) spaceships to that space before taking your turn. Conversely, if the spinner points to one of your own ships, you can actually trade places with one of your opponent's ships "if you think Godzilla is about to strike"!!! We always played the "Quick Fun Game" version, listed at the bottom of the second page, where you replace a ship from your own inventory as soon as it's been nabbed by Godzilla.
Back of the box...hey wait, is that kid on the right in the DO NOT SIT HERE position? Rulebreaker!
Also, note that Mattel would actually send you an entire spare set of 24 more spaceships for a measly two bucks...and it doesn't say anything about shipping and handling!
The game boasts some incredible, striking artwork, and besides the front of the box, there are three additional portraits of Godzilla to be found around the base itself!
Now, take a close look at that third panel of artwork...do you notice anything interesting?
On the side of the spaceship is "P-1"...now where have I heard that before? Then it struck me:
The P-1 is the name of the spaceship in MONSTER ZERO! My mind is blown. Now, I should point out that there was a real-world P-1 that blew up on the launching pad in 1959, but clearly our game-makers, or at least the artist, are true fans.
I can't top that, but here are the scans of the instructions, as promised!
I utilized some down time last year to get to the bottom of this particular and unique Godzilla collectible. We scratched the surface on this subject in our series of Godzilla in the 1960's posts, but now it's past time to complete the discussion, and, once and for all, put these into their proper place on the calendar of Godzilla collectibles. (You often see these films referred to as being from the decade of the 1960's, because people assume that they were released close to their theatrical release dates, but this is not even close to true. Only two of the films on this list were made available in that decade!)
Home movies were the very first way that you could enjoy a motion picture in your own home, on your own schedule. Not only that, but for the first time, you could own it. Granted, these early 8-millimeter films were black-and-white, silent (often with added subtitles), and only excerpts, but film collecting as a hobby had begun.
Ken Films was only one of the companies who issued such films. They were probably the smartest, because they endeavored to make as many licensing deals with major studios as they possibly could. Their catalog was large, and they survived into the early days of the VCR.
Five of the seven releases were are going to examine were available in two lengths: 50-foot reels (which lasted around 3&1/2 minutes) and 200-foot reels (which lasted about 14 minutes). It is important to point out that the box art, from a front view, is completely identical between these two sizes. If you are looking at an Internet auction, and you are shown no other items to compare the scale, you will have no way of knowing what you are trying to buy, unless you can see (or ask for) the item number on the spine of the box. The 50-foot reels had numbers that always started with the digit "5," while the 200-foot reels always began with a "2."
The invention of the Super 8 format in 1965 added variant editions to the films that were released, meaning that there were now four releases for each film (50 and 200 foot versions of both 8mm and Super 8). You might suspect that the arrival of color and sound created even more editions of each film, but this is not the case. In fact, by the end of our list, Ken Films had dropped the 8mm format completely, as you will see.
1) Rodan the Flying Monster (Ken Films #229 & #529, 1964-65).
8mm: 50 and 200 feet; Super 8: 50 and 200 feet.
You'll notice that Ken Films often merely used stickers to indicate a Super 8 edition. In the mid-1970's, they changed this practice and began printing a red SUPER 8 box in the upper-right of the artwork (as I said, they dropped 8mm completely at this time, so it made sense). Not all of the films on this list were reprinted, but I have seen a couple that were, thereby creating another variant, if you are so inclined!
2)Varan the Unbelievable (Ken Films #236 & #536, 1965).
8mm: 50 and 200 feet; Super 8: 50 and 200 feet.
This version of this film has not had an official release since mid-90's VHS!
3) Ghidrah the Three Headed Monster (Ken Films #261 & #561, 1973).
8mm: 50 and 200 feet; Super 8: 50 and 200 feet.
Subtitled "Monster of all Monsters," it's a little confusing, since there are two GHIDRAH releases (the other is often referred to as "Ghidrah Battles"), meaning Ken gave you more of this movie than any of the others (there's even a YouTube video where somebody's edited both together!).
4) Godzilla vs. The Thing (Ken Films #262 & #562, 1973).
8mm: 50 and 200 feet; Super 8: 50 and 200 feet.
This film was obviously a good seller, because it was also reprinted later when the 8mm version was dropped.
5) Ghidrah the Three Headed Monster Battles Godzilla, Mothra and Rodan for the World! (Ken Films #263 & #563, 1973).
8mm: 50 and 200 feet; Super 8: 50 and 200 feet.
And now you see why people call it "Ghidrah Battles!" 1973 was a banner year for Ken Films kaiju, though!
6) Destroy All Monsters (Ken Films #277, 1975).
Super 8: 200-foot B&W silent, 200-foot B&W sound, 200-foot Color sound.
Here is the most unique film on our list, because it was only available in three types, and all of them were the larger 200-foot versions. Ken Films wisely realized they had to treat this one right, and God bless them for it (although that's one of the worst depictions of Rodan I've ever seen; he looks like one of those bobbing drinking bird toys). This compact edition of the Toho classic (featuring the original AIP dub of course) was so good, it was even restored and included on the Tokyo Shock Blu-Ray of the film...which Toho later ruined by pulling all of the Special Features (booooo!). The color and sound version is an expensive film, if you can find it today.
7) Frankenstein Conquers the World (Ken Films #278, 1975.)
Super 8: 200-foot B&W silent, 200-foot B&W sound.
The only other Toho film that Ken released with sound was the beloved Baragon's initial outing, but they did not take it all the way to glorious color, as they did with DESTROY ALL MONSTERS. Unfortunately, they merely paid somebody to reproduce artwork from American posters (which was a common Ken Films practice, to varying results), which meant that nobody actually watched the film first, and realized that Baragon was supposed to have ears!
We conclude with a handy chart, showing all of the Ken Films releases we've discussed:
If you're keeping track, that makes a total of 25 films altogether.
Here is a fun album I picked up recently for a dollar. Wes Harrison was a comedian who was able make incredible sound effects, using only a Shure microphone. This self-released LP contains his nightclub routine, and it's a lot of fun. Some are pretty amazing, in particular, his "train" routine. My copy looks exactly like the one pictured, in that he hand-signed practically every album he ever sold. According to Wikipedia, he was even hired to supply sound effects for PETER PAN, 20,000 LEAGUES UNDER THE SEA, and some Tom and Jerry cartoons! Enjoy!
Isn't this an interesting image? Last year, I saw an Ebay seller who kept offering these amazing vintage Kenner Star Wars figures (namely, C-3PO and the Death Star Droid) that were "de-chromed" through a supposedly special process. He kept ending up with interesting examples such as these:
Which were multi-colored, much as the highly-coveted Kenner prototype figures are, meaning they were made of leftover plastic from various (and test) items.
From my own experience, any such figures I had ever seen where the vac-metalization had rubbed off were beige in color underneath, so I was curious to perform such an experiment myself, to see if I could get so lucky. I researched it, and there are several chemicals that you could choose from to accomplish this.
From a website about model car parts, I learned that regular household bleach was the easiest to obtain (since I didn't have any brake fluid lying around), so I went with that. I figure anything too strong would damage the plastic, anyway. I first stripped a damaged Death Star Droid I'd ended up with. It took a few days, and even then required some working over with an old toothbrush. He ended up completely off-white, as I'd suspected.
The hardest part is to keep the figure submerged, because they are incredibly buoyant. For my second go around, I found a heavy ring that was part of a lanyard (I think) for nametags, which had a clip, so I attached a loop to the clip that would loosely hold the figure's leg, and still keep it completely under. This time around, for the C-3PO, I left the figure marinating for a few days longer. As you can see from the photo, the gold flaked off and turned rust-colored in the bleach, and was quite unappealing.
For those who may try this stunt themselves, I had to add some extra bleach after three or four days, and all I had the second time was a "splash-proof" brand that is formulated to pour easier...I don't know what they do to it, but it foamed quite a bit, and stayed that way. It could have been a reaction to the action figure or something, but bleach is something that you want to behave when you are working with it, so I'd recommend the normal variety.
In the end, the C-3PO was completely beige as well. I would say "go figure," but that would be a bad pun, and that is frowned upon around here.
