Empire Strikes Back Lobby Card (1980)

The Sphinx re-opens once again, this time I have an oddball entry for you. This is a lobby card for THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK, and it's a really cool semi-off-screen shot of the Rebel base hangar on Hoth. I love this picture--there are lots of neat details to see. It almost quallifies as a behind-the-scenes shot: is the person tending to the astromech droid, or setting up a prop for filming? There's a Treadwell droid and lots of other cool details to see as well. Also, there's an interesting bit in the fine print that says something along the lines of "This lobby card must be destroyed"! Indeed!

Godzilla Lobby Cards (part one)

And now we come to the Lobby Card area of the Collectibles Storage-Unit that I call a house. On this part of our tour, we will look at a few vintage Godzilla lobby cards. All of these are framed, which explains the matte around them. This first one is from my favorite film, DESTROY ALL MONSTERS. It's a non-movie paste-up that Toho was good at doing, and they got seven monsters AND a UFO in one scene!

Here's a Mexican lobby card for GHIDRA THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER. Mexican lobby cards are prized for their unique artwork and vibrant colors, as well as being primers in Spanish for the uninitiated. You can keep your Mona Lisas and your one-eared Van Goghs...this is one of the most beautiful works of art I've ever seen.

You may know it as MONSTER ZERO, but it's INVASION OF THE ASTRO MONSTER in some parts of the world. This Mexican lobby card is not only gorgeous, and not only includes the scene of kaiju being transported in UFO bubbles, but it contains the word "vomitando" which, in my childishness, cracks me up endlessly.

Godzilla Movie Poster Collection (part two)

Time now for part 2 of my gallery of original American Godzilla movie posters!

Pardon the string bass, but here is the stunning artwork for what I daily refer to as my favorite film of all time, 1968's monster slug-fest, DESTROY ALL MONSTERS. Where else can you see eleven, count them, ELEVEN of Toho's finest in one place? One interesting thing about this poster is how some of the monsters are spot-on, and some are sort of improvised--namely Godzilla and Minya! Squint, and you will notice blood dripping from Angilas' claws!

I always knew this film as GODZILLA vs. GIGAN (1972), but here in the U.S. it was released as GODZILLA ON MONSTER ISLAND, which is actually now the rarer title card. I like the comic-book-paradigm of making one character huge and grabbing others, but as the movie features an amusement park with a giant observation tower in the shape of Godzilla, this art works both ways!

And here we have the much-maligned GODZILLA vs. MEGALON from 1973. Here each monster is perched atop one of the Twin Towers, which is a complete misleading of anyone heading into the movie theater. Helicopters swarm around the foes like flies, and the air is filled with explosions. I am not ashamed to say it, I love this film, and I love this poster.

Yes, there are better Godzilla films, but it's fun! And that's what's missing from many of the later films.

Skipping all the way up to GODZILLA 2000, we find the last Godzilla film to play in American theaters, and the first poster in my collection that is double-sided (with a reverse image on the other side, since posters are intended to be displayed in light boxes.)

Next time around, we'll look at some various lobby cards from all over the place.

Godzilla Movie Poster Collection (part one)

And now for another article on the various Godzilla collectibles I have found over the years. I have several original, theatrical Godzilla movie posters framed throughout my house. Not only are they historical, very cool, and full of great art and graphics, but I love the thought that these actually were used in movie theaters across the US when these films were released.

This 1959 poster for GIGANTIS, THE FIRE MONSTER is the oldest one I own. Sure, it's a far cry (and four years) from GODZILLA RAIDS AGAIN, but it's the only way we got the film in the United States. I love the red-on-black, almost woodcut imagery. Sure, they would be the best of friends later, but when they first met, Godzilla and Angilas went to the mat!

Another stark image, this time black-on-yellow, is this poster for 1964's GHIDRAH THE THREE-HEADED MONSTER. Ah, the first appearance of my very favorite Toho monster. At least, my favorite of Godzilla's foes. This is one of the all-time great Toho films, the best part being where Mothra convinces Godzilla and Rodan that they should work together to defeat Ghidrah. The defeat was so humiliating that Ghidrah had to change his name from the shame of it, although all he did was add a letter "O," as if no one would notice.

And then there was the summer of love in 1967, and the psychedellic, pop-art feel of the times was perfectly expressed in the poster for SON OF GODZILLA. ("Roar!") This one is really a conversation piece, and everyone that sees it can't help but really like it. Godzilla's hands are huge, and the jungle girl swinging on the vine is almost invisible because of the interesting layout--as you are looking at the poster, she just emerges all of the sudden. Movie posters as a rule are 27"x41", but this one was an inch or so bigger all the way around and had to be custom-framed.  This one is actually Toho's International poster for the film, as this film went straight to TV in the USA.

More sloppy photographs of great posters to come!

Some of My Personal FAILs (part one)

FAIL as a meme of the Internets makes me laugh. In fact, I guess I will never get tired of it. Probably because we are all surrounded by so much FAIL in everyday life, and it just serves as some sort of philosophical reminder that we will never attain perfection.

As for my own self, I have submitted a few of my real-life encounters with FAIL to the official source, and I thought I would share them here (in no particular order of FAILness):

1) Vending Machine Card Game FAIL

This is one that I found in a deck of cards I bought out of a vending machine in a pizza parlor several years ago. What I don't know is whether I still have the game or not, someplace. This one always cracked me up, and actually predates the FAIL phenomenon.

2) Disgusting Moldy Cheese FAIL

So they open a brand-new store in my town, and I rush in to see the newness: the shiny aisles, the clean floors...and this cheese on the very front of the peg. Bleah.

3) Toy Tag FAIL

And in that SAME store, many months later, I found this in the dollar section. I noticed the other day that it has since been corrected.

4) Website Calendar FAIL

And the other day, while trying to get into a website I use at work, I was greeted with the revelation that it was indeed the year 1 B.C.

5) Action Figure FAIL

This is my particular favorite. Packaged with his mighty shield covering his other arm, we know now what Captain America has been trying to hide all these years by carrying it! The painful scorn of being born with two left hands. Word is, the new Hollywood movie is going to use CGI to portray this, as they had no luck with casting calls.

But seriously, I have heard of quality control, but this is ridiculous. Imagine your seven-year-old opening this in the backseat while you are trying to drive:

"Dad, something's wrong with his hand!"

"I'm driving; let your brother fix it!"

"Yeah, let me...uh....um..."

DIE, KAIJU! volume 2: BIG G CEREAL (Leaping Fox)

Boba Fettucini - Godzilla, King of the Breakbeats (2006, Mon Mothma)

I recently discovered this one, and I had to dig deep to find a store that still had a vinyl copy for sale (which is how DJ "battle records" are released, which is what this is, so no CD's apparently). This is a newly opened vinyl copy, ripped on the first play, enhanced, and ready for your enjoyment.

This is a short (both sides are 16 minutes each) but entertaining foray into Godzilladom--which is a land I sort of live in--with ample quotes from KING OF THE MONSTERS, GODZILLA'S REVENGE, with a little MONSTER ZERO and TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA thrown in, as well as a few other surprises. I also scanned the back cover and the record label, which is really cool.

Nothing makes my day more than a knowledgable Godzilla fan's audio creation, and I hope you will enjoy it too! If you do, you are my kind of people.

UPDATED UPDATED LINK: Up From the Depths!

Tom Lehrer Discovers Australia (1960) and Songs By Tom Lehrer (1966 remake)

POST #100: So, you have the REMAINS OF TOM LEHRER boxed set, and you also have my 5-disc remastered version of TOM LEHRER RARITIES (available on this very blog)...what else are you missing to "have it all"?

Just this. This is a 2-for-1 package made by Neilytones, which Mr. Neilytone himself was kind enough to send to me, and I indicated to him I would be sharing it with the Lehrer fans who trapse through here! If you have any of their other releases, you know that they are always excellent, and this one continues the tradition.

These are the two rarest Tom Lehrer albums out there. You can find an LP of his 1966 remake of his first album, SONGS BY TOM LEHRER, but it's never been officially released on CD, and it never will, since Mr. Lehrer considers them inferior versions of these songs, what with little lyric changes and updates he made here and there.

However, one album you will NOT find in used shops, online auctions, or bit-torrent download sites is the second part of this disc. TOM LEHRER DISCOVERS AUSTRALIA was a live album recorded just for that country, from his tour there. While the songs are pretty much the same--and half of them were included on the AMERICAN version of TOM LEHRER REVISITED*--the introductions and monologues he did especially for the very responsive Australian audiences are purely delightful, making this essential to own.

Indeed, I was going to incorporate these albums into my RARITIES set, but as they stand on their own so well, and as this is such a high-caliber release, there really was no need!

*Not to muddy the water, but the official CD release of TOM LEHRER REVISITED was the Decca one, recorded entirely at MIT. If this makes your head hurt, don't worry. With DISCOVERS AUSTRALIA, you have it all.

The good news is, these files are entirely FLAC! Link:
Tom Lehrer Discovers Australia/Songs By Tom Lehrer (stereo)

VOICES OF THE DEAD - The Evolution of Recorded Sound (Leaping Fox)

Sometimes, I get interested in something audio-related, and begin researching it...then, I start collecting, converting, and piling up files...then, I find myself cleaning up, declicking/denoising, and remastering these files...then, before I even know it, I'm making artwork, and I have another Leaping Fox compilation to share on this blog!

A recent interest was the history of recorded sound: did it begin with Edision? A long while back, I posted a couple of "oldest recording ever" files on this blog, and it was pointed out to me in the Comments that there were more to consider. Mark my words: what follows is the worst sound quality of any disc you will ever download here--but also the most historically important. I've done my best to improve each track (and some are just beyond help), and many are dramatically improved.

What follows are some unofficial liner-notes for this disc. Interested parties are encouraged to mine the Internets for further information. Oh, and before we get started, the rather morbid title actually comes from a quote from the Scientific American in 1877, when Edison provided them with a live demonstration of his new invention. This quote is included in the artwork, too.

1-5) PHONAUTOGRAMS: 1859-60
In the 1850's, a Frenchman with about seven names invented a device whose sole purpose was to make a physical picture of sound. The Phonautogram had some sort of diaphragm that moved when you spoke into it, and vibrated a bristle, which in turn made marks on a piece of smoked paper (or later wax, I believe). Anyhow, the whole point was to illustrate that sound had a shape, but it's important to point out that these recordings (a loose term here) were not meant to be played back...indeed, it wasn't possible, until a few years ago, when some clever scientists figured out a way. The result is less than stellar, but how many sounds from BEFORE THE CIVIL WAR have you heard today?

6) ENTER EDISON

Meanwhile, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877, and sort of forgot about it for a while during the development of the incandescent lightbulb. This clip is from a speech he gave in the 1920's, retelling the famous first words he recited, about Mary's lamb. Strangely, I read on two sites that his first recordings--done on tinfoil by the way--did not survive, and could not be played very many times anyhow, yet I was surprised to find the snippet I put at the end of this track. The owner claimed it was the real 1877 recording, but I am prone to believe it could easily be a re-enactment from a childrens' record or something. At any rate, it helps us imagine that breakthrough day in 1877.

7) CHARLES BACHELOR PHONAUTOGRAPH (1878)
Here's a strange track. Edison sent this guy to record the Metropolitan Elevated Railroad in New York City, because of local noise complaints, and use the Phonautograph (maybe Edison's version?) to chart the noise level. Why is this important? Because technically, it's the first "recorded" American sound in existence. You have to use your imagination to really hear a train here...sounds like crap to me.

8) FRANK LAMBERT'S TALKING CLOCK EXPERIMENTS (1878)

1878 was a busy year in sound development. Meanwhile, this guy was trying to develop a talking clock (which supposedly used a disc instead of an Edisonian cylinder), as if a clock wasn't complicated enough on its own. Right in the middle of this recording, you can hear him listing off the times ("four o'clock, five o'clock, six...") and then the recording returns to what sounds like avante garde Yoko Ono sound collage.

9-25) VARIOUS EDISON WAX CYLINDERS
So, from the late 1870's until the late 1920's ( ! ), Edison cylinders were the primary method of recorded entertainment. After that--well, there was the Great Depression--but after THAT, an explosion of technology began, resulting in the insane abilities we have today. What still amazes me was this factoid I read: the wax cylinders were difficult to reproduce beyond 20-30 times, and singers and comedians would often hang around, recording numerous takes of the same material over and over!

There were thousands of cylinders produced, and this last chunk of material shows you what some of the popular recordings of the day were like. It includes a 4,000-voice choir with the first music ever recorded (Track 9), military band songs (Track 17), vaudeville routines (Track 18), Big Band songs (Tracks 19, 21, 24), and lots of speeches from famous figures. Some were commercially available, such as Florence Nightingale, and Teddy Roosevelt's dull but squeaky ramblings, and some were personal messages to Edison--who thought his phonograph would revise the art of letter-writing--such as the one from Sir Arthur Sullivan. Other famous figures you will hear from include P.T. Barnum, Robert Browning (who can't remember his own poem), and the first U.S. President ever recorded (that survives today), Benjamin Harrison. There's a fascinating store demo cylinder called "I Am the Edison Phonograph," as well as a rare personal message recorded by Edison himself about our boys that came home from World War I.

TOM LEHRER RARITIES revisited (Leaping Fox)

MERRYCHRISTMAS, world!

I was really, really underwhelmed with the "Tom Lehrer Rarities" disc I did a while back, and I badly wanted to re-do it. It was a quickie project...and then over the next couple of years, as new stuff was unearthed, and other, unknown stuff appeared from various sources, it became a desperate, singular mission of utmost importance!

So then, here's what happened. I have assembled every scrap of TL goodness that's "out there" and remastered it...every track has been boosted, run through filters of various kinds, and overhauled in some way. In short, the one disc of rare goodness is now THREE discs of unbelievable happiness!

Does this mean everything sounds excellent? Of course not! Given what shape many of these recordings were in (I mean, somebody set up a reel-to-reel recorder in a corner of an auditorium in 1951 to capture "The Physical Revue," after all!), miracles can't be worked on some of these...but in the case of "Revue," I can now understand the words more clearly, so it's a huge improvement! (And the first 25 seconds or so still has tape damage of the magnetic kind, so nothing could be done about that!) Everything has been re-sourced and cleaned up, and even speed-corrected where needed. (There was one Frost track that was waaaay too fast, for example). Anyhow, there's nothing else like this on the entirity of the Internets, and thanks to everyone who made this possible! Therefore, if anything, let this be three things:

1) A not-for-sale tribute to the man himself,

2) A way to have every TL recording possible, [if you own the 2000 "Remains" boxed set AND the two out-of-print LPs "Tom Lehrer Discovers Australia" and the 1966 stereo remake LP "Songs by Tom Lehrer" you have it "all"] and, finally,

3) A Christmas gift to the world!

So is there more out there? Of course! (A future post will discuss this.) But rest assured that if it ever surfaces, it will be added in the future!

Not-Too-Shabby Artwork (made for clear jewel-cases with snazzy inlays!) is included in each archive!

Stay demented, folks.

LINKS!

Volume One
Volume Two
Volume Three

Please see other posts on this very blog for VOLUME FOUR and VOLUME FIVE, and more!

MOVIE-WHEELS: Huckleberry Hound & Yogi Bear (1960)

Here's a really interesting thrift-store find I shelled out seven bucks for this week, and it's something I never knew existed. This is a product called "Movie-Wheels" that is a book-and-record set with the book built in. Actually, there's a wheel built into the cover that the user is cued to turn during the story, and a window allows for a slide-show of about 16 or so pictures to be viewed as you listen! The process is then repeated on side two, for both the record as well as the illustrations! This was a very clever item, and apparently there were others: a Felix the Cat one was recently spotted on Ebay.

Another thing that fascinated me about this item were the credits. Who would you expect to see listed doing the voices? Daws Butler, maybe? Try Jack Mercer of Popeye fame...yep, you heard me right. Mercer does his best here with what he's given, but to my ear just doesn't pull it off. But then again, could Butler voice Popeye, really? Well, maybe he could've, come to think of it...

Yet another interesting part of this are the 1960-style superlatives that the cover is littered with: "PLAY! HEAR! SEE! FUN! AMAZING NEW HI-FI THEATRE! THRILLING ACTION ENTERTAINMENT IN FULL HI-FI SOUND!" I don't know how thrilling hi-fi sound should have been at the time, but Ben-Hur this isn't. In fact, I found the recording to be tinny and filtery, and this was long before I de-clicked it, in case you're wondering. Also, it's a bit sloppy around the edges. Lest you think I was a bit abrupt at the controls, the ending music really does cut off like that on the actual record!

Not only does the cover boast "AS SEEN AND HEARD ON TV" (Imagine Billy Mays hawking this one circa 1960), but also--and this is important for Junior's educational upbringing--"AUTHENTIC SOUNDS of Count-Down, Missle [sic] Launching Satellite in Outer Space, Courtesy of UNITED STATES AIR FORCE"...Don't worry, that phrase makes no more sense to me, either, and it's a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment to be sure...but it still warranted a plug on the cover!

Lastly, the detailed instructions (for dull, Cold War-era, unsophisticated kids) state that "This MOVIE-WHEEL contains a non-toxic, unbreakable Hi-Fi miniature LP record!" In layman's terms, sans hyperbole, we call this a "flexi-disc," and that's all it is. This is something like referring to an ice cube as a "scientifically modified refrigerated hydroxide cuboid," but you can't fool kids so easily today, now can you?

Destroy All Monsters Ad Slick (1969)

Another great collecting find came in today's mail. A while back, I posted some ad slicks from the 1970's from a series of summer matinees, among them my all-time favorite film, DESTROY ALL MONSTERS. I was lucky enough to score an original ad slick for the film's 1969 U.S. release, scanned below for your enjoyment. My two favorite parts are the top left ad's tagline of a nonsensical 'The MONSTERS are in REVOLT DESTRUCTION!" (whatever that is supposed to mean), and the bottom right, where poor Gorosaurus is identified as "Godzilla" for those not in the know. Oh well, since Godzilla's art for the film's U.S. poster bears little resemblance to his actual features, I guess I should just let it go. Kind of reminds me of a Mexican lobby card I had once (see below), where Godzilla's image was borrowed from a Gamera lobby card, with plates added on his back!

Hilarious Hyundai Warning Label

Well, here's the short version. My buddy has a hatchback-type Hyundai with no backseat to speak of. Herve Villachez couldn't fit in there. Anyway, there's a small label behind the driver's seat reminding you that if you are tall enough to see the driver's headrest, you will be instantly decapitated should the raised trunk be, well, closed...on your head. Oh, and don't let your Spanish-speaking friends crawl back there, either, because unlike everything else in this country, Spanish is notoriously absent. But then again, I suppose it's not a problem in Korea. Or French, for that matter. Or Russian. Or German. Or..............?

Jackie Gleason Meets Salvador Dali (1953)

Well, I knew about Dali's team-up with Alfred Hitchcock, and I even was lucky enough to see his aborted (and recently finished) collaboration with Disney, but I had no idea about this one. File under "Recent Thrift Store Finds," I recognized the trademark Dali artistry right away. In 1953, Dali painted the cover for Jackie Gleason's "Lonesome Echo" album. He even bothered to explain his concept on the back of the jacket, comments which are pretty interesting at that. Give it a clicky to read them for yourself.

Batman Squirt Gun (1970's)

A recent additions to my personal archives: a Batman watergun. You gotta love an oversized Adam West head shooting water from his mouth like a schoolkid!

Rare Godzilla Vs. Megalon Comic Scans! (Cinema Shares, 1976)

Another cool item I recently acquired is perhaps the rarest of all American Godzilla comics. This was a theater give-away in 1976 when Godzilla vs. Megalon was released in the U.S. It is newsprint, and magazine-sized. I got an incredibly crisp, dead-mint copy, and I have scanned it here for anyone that's interested, as I've never seen scans of it anywhere on the Internets. A couple of weird points about it...the artwork is a bit schitzophrenic, it goes from really good (page 2's Megalon, for example) to really cheap. The other thing is, a couple of the names are really off. Jet Jaguar is referred to as "Robotman," which I can understand might have been a "placeholder" until they got it confirmed what the character's name was, but Gigan is strangely called BORODAN. I mean, BORODAN? That just makes no sense. Anyway, enjoy! 

Space Needle: Seattle, WA

Got to go up in the Space Needle on a visit to Seattle a couple of weeks ago. Very cool, and very nice view of Seattle from 520 feet.