An Absolutely Horrible Month

At least I hope so!

There's less than an hour left of September 29, 2010 as I write this. Tomorrow is the last day of September, then October starts. My Little Monster is very excited about Halloween this year (her fifth Halloween). I have decided that I simply have to watch as many horror movies as I can in the month leading up to All Hallows Eve. This isn't a bold move by any means. Many cable channels have featured 31 horror movies in 31 days for October in the past. My goal is to watch as close to 31 movies myself as possible in that period. Watching horror movies comes pretty naturally to Monster Dad, so what's the big deal? Let me explain.

Watching an average of one horror movie a day for a month wouldn't have been much of a challenge for Monster Bachelor. The same goal would be a bit more challenging for Monster Husband. For Monster Dad, the enterprise takes on a whole new twist--mainly, simply finding the time to watch that many movies.

While it's certainly true that The Little Monster has watched quite a few "scary" movies with me, I don't know how many of these movies will be appropriate for her. My definition of "horror movie" for this endeavor is going to be admittedly kind of vague, but I still don't know how many I'll be able to watch with The Little Monster. That means I won't be watching many of them during the day. The Wife is not terribly interested in horror movies, so the block of time between her return from work until her bedtime will probably not include many horror movies either. That leaves the late-night time slot as prime viewing time for this project. True, "the witching hour" of midnight is certainly an appropriate time to be watching a horror movie, but after a day of chasing two Mini-Monsters around, this forty-one year old Monster Dad can start getting a wee bit tired by that point. "Luckily" (and I mean that with a touch of sarcasm) the Red Sox aren't in the playoffs, so I won't be watching highlights/lowlights of their postseason games on the eleven o'clock news. That should allow the movie watching to start a little earlier.

"Horror Movies" in this case will include not only what one would normally expect in a horror movie, but will also include monster and science-fiction movies as well. Basically anything that I like that falls into that very general description will be eligible. To stretch things further, I'll be including episodes of TV shows too. I'm currently finishing up watching the TV series "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" (borrowed from the local library). Each of the last few episodes I have left will be considered a "horror movie" if I watch them in October. I'm also predicting that The Monster and I will soon be watching the second season Halloween episode of "The Love Boat", called "Ship of Ghouls". Yep, that will count too! Sorry purists. Hey, at least it stars Vincent Price!

While this type of viewing is no stretch for Monster Dad, I have been neglecting the genre just a bit lately. After a steady diet of horror/Sci-Fi over a long period of time, plus my recent (September 9-12) trip down to the Pittsburg area for the two-night Drive-In Super Monster-Rama (which featured eight classic horror movies over two nights at the Riverside Drive-In), I've recently taken just a bit of a break from the stuff. Recent movies viewed have included "Super Fuzz" (1980), and a bunch of recent titles like: "The Road" (2009), "The Book of Eli" (2010), "Land of the Lost" (2009) and "It's Complicated" (2009). The Wife and I even celebrated our birthdays last week with a little date night--which included going out to see the new Ben Affleck movie "The Town" (2010). With the most monster-filled month about to start, it seemed like a good time to do something interesting, and get back to what truly makes Monster Dad Monster Dad.

Here's the line-up for the awesome Drive-In Super Monster-Rama!

Stuff I'll be watching will include many things in my own collection that I've never found the time to watch, Netflix movies, borrowed library materials, and perhaps even a few things at the local movie theaters. National Amusements is running a series called "Zombie Feast". The third movie, "Resident Evil" (2002), will be shown tomorrow night. Unfortunately that one won't count, as tomorrow is only September 30. There will be two more weeks left (October 7 and 14) that I hope to make it to. October 7th will feature "Shaun of the Dead" (2004), while October 14th will be the series finale--dubbed the "Zombie House Party" and featuring the premiere of "Night of the Living Dead" (1968) in 3D! Also, on Thursday, October 28, the gang from RiffTrax will be doing a live show broadcast at various movie cinemas which will feature the Vincent Price classic "House on Haunted Hill" (1959). They don't announce locations until October 1, so I'm crossing my fingers that they'll be broadcasting to a theater near me.

While it might have been a good idea to save them for October, I've recently watched a couple movies that would have been perfect for the marathon. This week alone I saw two late-50s movies which are barely over an hour in length each: "Teenage Monster" (1958) and "The Astounding She-Monster" (1957). I guess I'll call these my "preseason games". Kind of like a little "Fall Training" for the real thing if you will.

Check back often, this blog entry will be updated regularly through the month (via the "Edit Post" feature) to keep track of how the project is going. Not sure if this will be a success, but it should be a fun ride while it's unfolding!

Stay Tuned!

To Be Continued...

This Is Only The Beginning!

UPDATES BELOW:

OCTOBER 1: Thursday's National Amusements "Zombie Feast" movie, "Resident Evil" (2002), ended at about 11:45 PM on September 30, so I wasn't able to include it in this challenge. I considered watching something upon getting home from the show after midnight, but it just didn't happen. Later on October first I was able to watch the 1978 version of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" (1). I've owned the DVD for a few years, but have never gotten around to watching it until today. It was a little special too, because I've been listening to old audio cassettes that I taped back in the early 1980s lately. The one that's currently in the player contains parts of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" from when it aired on ABC back on September 27, 1981. I was watching it once again almost exactly 29 years later! I was also able to see the "Primal Scream" episode of the series "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" (2), and later on even watched part of Ralph Bakshi's trippy 1977 animated feature "Wizards".

OCTOBER 2: Today I was able to not only finish up "Wizards" (3), but also watch the 1978 TV movie "Cruise into Terror" (4). This one was a bit of a surprise, as I had seen it as a kid and had always wondered what movie it was. I watched it today, not realizing that it was the same movie that scared me all those years ago (most likely on Friday, February 3, 1978 when it premiered--though it could have possibly been a later re-run of the movie that I saw). The busy movie-watching day concluded with seeing Saturday Fright Special's presentation of "Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet" (1965) (5) online. Saturday Fright Special is a cable access horror host show that originates in New Hampshire, but which is now seen on local cable channels all around the country and which is also streamed online.

OCTOBER 3: Watched the rather terrible 1984 "thriller" "Scream for Help" (6). I remember being excited about this movie when it came out--but only because John Paul Jones (formerly of Led Zeppelin) did the music for it. Last time I saw it (and the only time until now) was when it came out on VHS and I rented it. Even then it was pretty bad.

OCTOBER 4: Late tonight I watched part of one of my all-time favorite Bigfoot movies, "Creature from Black Lake" (1976). More on this movie when a Bigfoot blog is finally written.

OCTOBER 5: Finished up "Creature from Black Lake" (7) and also watched "Ghostbusters" (1984) (8) with The Little Monster.

OCTOBER 6: Watched the "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" episode "The Trevi Collection" (9), and later saw "The Cosmic Man" (1959) (10).

OCTOBER 7: Today The Monster and I watched the Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment of "Eegah" (1962) (11). Later I went to the Zombie Feast feature "Shaun of the Dead" (2004) (12).

OCTOBER 8: Watched an old favorite from the Creature Double Feature days--the Hammer classic "Five Million Years to Earth" (1967) (13), also known as "Quatermass and the Pit".

OCTOBER 9: Watched the 1956 Hammer movie "X: The Unknown" (14). Had never seen this one before. Pretty good.

OCTOBER 10: The first day this month I didn't manage to watch something that could be added to the list.

OCTOBER 11: Watched another episode of "Kolchak: The Night Stalker". This one was the "Legacy of Terror" (15) episode, which featured a guest turn by a pre-CHiPs Erik Estrada. The Wife watched this one with me--her first Kolchak experience. She didn't hate it.

OCTOBER 12: Pretty good day. I started it last night, but finished "The Thing that Couldn't Die" (1958) (16) today. Then figured it would make a great double feature with "The Brain that Wouldn't Die" (1962) (17). Never saw the first one before, but the second was a favorite Creature Double Feature title. The Monster and I did end up watching the aforementioned season two Halloween episode of "The Love Boat". It's called "Ship of Ghouls" (18). I know it's an iffy one to include on the list, but it does feature Vincent Price at least. Finally, I finished up the night with another "Kolchak: The Night Stalker" episode. Tonight's episode: "Chopper" (19).

OCTOBER 13: Watched "Blood Creature" (aka "Terror is a Man") (1959) (20), which wasn't all that great. Oh well, they can't all be gems.

OCTOBER 14: Attended the final night of National Amusements' Zombie Feast series. Tonight was the "Zombie House Party", which featured the premiere of the colorized version of George Romero's 1968 zombie classic "Night of the Living Dead" (21) in 3D! It was pretty fun to see.

OCTOBER 15: Watched the 1953 movie "Project Moon Base" (22).

OCTOBER 16: After attending the Rock and Shock convention in Worcester (where I bought a bunch of new stuff on DVD) I watched the "Demon in Lace" (23) episode of "Kolchak: The Nightstalker". Also saw Saturday Fright Special's take on the 1972 made-for-TV movie "Moon of the Wolf" (24) online.

OCTOBER 17: Life intervened and prevented me from watching anything for the challenge today. The New England Patriots pulled out a last minute overtime victory over the Baltimore Ravens, which could have been a true "horror" to watch if they had lost, but that's a different story.

OCTOBER 18: Watched the 1959 William Castle classic "The Tingler" (25). This was one of Castle's greatest gimmick movies. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense, but must have been very fun (and possibly scary too) for audiences to experience when it first came out. This movie is part of a William Castle double feature DVD--along with "Zotz!" (1962)--which I have from Netflix. These movies should make for a nice appetizer as the October 28 RiffTrax Live show featuring "House on Haunted Hill" approaches!

OCTOBER 19: Today I finally watched "Time After Time" (26). I haven't seen this great 1979 movie about time travel, H.G. Wells and Jack the Ripper (mentioned in an earlier blog about time) in years. Last October I met star Malcolm McDowell at the Rock and Shock convention in Worcester, MA. I decided at that time that I should see the movie and it's taken a whole year to do so. It's more of a science fiction movie than a horror, but it does feature Jack the Ripper committing murders in modern day San Francisco. Of course the "modern day" of the movie is now over 30 years old.

OCTOBER 20: In honor of the 43rd anniversary of the filming of the famous Roger Patterson Bigfoot film I decided to watch the 1978 Bigfooot documentary "Manbeast! Myth or Monster?" (27). Finished off the night by watching 1952's "Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla" (28) in honor of Bela's birthday. Certainly more of a comedy than a horror movie, but I'd never seen it and it does have Bela as a mad scientist!

OCTOBER 21: While I wouldn't call it a "waste" of a day, I watched the second part of the William Castle double feature DVD today. "The Tingler" was pretty good, but I didn't realize that today's flick, "Zotz!" was going to be such a comedy. While it did concern mysterious powers which came from an ancient coin, and it was directed by the immortal Mr. Castle, I just can't count this movie as part of the challenge (and, yes, this is coming from the guy who counted the Halloween episode of "The Love Boat" a few days ago).

OCTOBER 22: Getting back to business. Today I watched one of the all-time classics, Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" (1960) (29). I'm not a big fan of slasher movies, but this forerunner of many of today's blood-and-guts horror movies is a definite favorite. Also watched another episode of "Kolchak: The Night Stalker"--"The Knightly Murders" (30).

OCTOBER 23: With over a week to go in the month I watched the 31st entry in the challenge today! Will continue through the rest of the month though and see what happens. Today's movie was "Frankenstein's Castle of Freaks" (1974) (31), part of Elvira's Movie Macabre series from back in the early 1980s. Finished the day with a late-night viewing of "The Youth Killer" (32) episode of "Kolchak: The Night Stalker".

OCTOBER 24: Finished up the "Kolchak: The night Stalker" series today with the episode "The Sentry" (33), about a crocodile monster! This episode is notable (in a timely way) because it featured a guest appearance by the recently deceased Tom Bosley. Also watched the "Graveyard Shift" (34) episode of the old 1970s show "Circle of Fear" (originally known as "Ghost Story"). This was a special feature on the "The Tingler"/"Zotz!" DVD.

OCTOBER 25: Warning: do not attempt to watch a Larry Buchanan movie late at night. Not because it will scare you or give you nightmares, but because it will put you to sleep. I attempted to watch Buchanan's 1969 disaster "It's Alive!" (35) after midnight last night. I wasn't able to get more than about a half-hour into it. Had to finish it up today. Also got to the National Amusements' Silver Screen Classics show with my parents. Today's feature was "Bride of the Gorilla" (1951) (36), and starred Raymond Burr as the guy who turns into a gorilla and Lon Chaney Jr., who...DOESN'T play a monster. Finished up the night by watching one of my absolute favorite desert-based 1950s monster movies: "The Monolith Monsters" (1957) (37). I remember watching this one on Creature Double Feature way back when. It still holds up very well and has some of the best special effects I've ever seen in a movie (considering the limitations of the time when it was made and comparing it to other movie from the same period).

OCTOBER 26: A big day for Monster Dad and The Little Monster. I've been struggling for the past year or two to put this off until I felt she was old enough for it, but today was the day! Today we watched "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein" (1948) (38). Yes, this is a comedy, but I can't see any reason for it NOT to be on the list. It was a bit of a reunion for the classic Universal monsters (Dracula, Frankenstein's monster and the Wolfman) a few years after those three series kind of played themselves out. It is funny, but also has a lot of that classic Universal horror movie vibe to it. It's also kind of shocking to see how some of the characters get knocked off (including one of the female leads getting tossed out of a window by Frankie, the Wolfman plunging to his apparent demise from a balcony and Frankenstein's monster getting--surprise, surprise--burned up at the end). I felt this was an excellent way to introduce The Little Monster to the Universal monsters without being too scary (or potentially too boring--as I'm not sure how her attention span would hold while watching the non-monster parts of a movie from the 1930s). She seemed to enjoy it. A few scenes were a little scary to her (as expected). And she has seen a few A&C movies already so she was a;ready familiar with them.

OCTOBER 27: Got a chance to visit a couple friends tonight and watched "The Lost Skeleton Returns Again" (2009) (39) with them. This is the sequel to "The Lost Skeleton of Cadavra" (2001), and I've been waiting a long time to see it. Bought it at the Drive-In Super Monster-Rama last month and have been putting off watching it until I could get together with my friends. This is most definitely a comedy/parody-type movie, but because of the movies that it is paying homage to through its humor (1950s-60s horror/sci-fi movies) I have no qualms about adding it to the list. I was also able to watch John Carpenter's 1987 creepfest "Prince of Darkness" (40).

OCTOBER 28: I got to go to the RiffTrax Live show tonight. The guys from RiffTrax did their thing to the classic Vincent Price/William Castle movie "House on Haunted Hill" (1959) (41).

OCTOBER 29: We started this yesterday, but today The Little Monster and I finished watching "Young Frankenstein" (1974) (42). Yes, it's another comedy, but it's just such a perfect Halloween movie. I've loved this film for nearly as long as I can remember. My sister took me to it when I was so young that I actually was somewhat frightened by it. Much like "Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein", I've been wanting to introduce The Little Monster to this movie for a while--but had to wait until she was old enough to find it somewhat scary, but not too scary. She seemed to do okay with it, and didn't even have any nightmares about it last night--even though she predicted she would! I also finished up watching "Reptilian" (43), the 1999 movie that re-imagined the semi-classic monster (or its name at least) from "Yongary, Monster from the Deep" (1967). While I'd never complain about a new giant monster movie being made, I do have to admit that this one was pretty bad (and not in a good way unfortunately). I should have just watched "Yongary, Monster from the Deep" again. Oh well... Finished up the night with an unexpected treat. The Wife suggested that we watch one of my all-time favorite movies: "The 'burbs" (1989) (44). Why was this unexpected? Well, let's just say that it's not one of The Wife's faves. This one's yet another comedy, but it has enough dark elements, and is enough of a parody of scary movies that I'm going to count it.

OCTOBER 30: Headed up to Keene, NH today for some pre-Halloween fun. Saw 1954's "Creature from the Black Lagoon" (45) in 3D at Keene State College. What a great experience to finally see this classic Universal monster movie the way it was meant to be seen! Later on I was able to go to the Colonial Theatre for Spooktacular V. This is the show put on by the people behind the horror host show Saturday Fright Special. The movie for this show was "Return of the Living Dead" (46), the "unofficial" 1985 sequel to George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead". Finally, although I already saw "Psycho" earlier this month, the only real disappointment of today was that I wasn't able to get back to Keene State for their 11:00 showing of "Psycho". All in all, a great way to finish off a month of fun movie/show watching.

OCTOBER 31: Halloween. There wasn't a chance to watch anything that could be added to the list today, the last day of the month, but it was a very good Halloween and I have to say that I'm pretty happy with the results of the challenge.

The final score for the October challenge is: Monster Dad-46, October-31!

Monster Dad vs. Time

For nearly as long as I can remember I've had a rough relationship with the concept of Time. I know it's something real, and I know I can't do anything to stop it ("Time stands still for no man"), but still I hurl my anger at it--much like Don Quixote forever tilting at windmills. Unlike Mick Jagger and The Rolling Stones, Time is definitely NOT on my side.

I'm not exactly sure when my realization that Time was against me occurred, but it was certainly much too early in life. I'd venture to say that many people don't really start thinking and worrying about Time until they're nearing, or passing, midlife. In my case it's been something haunting me since childhood. The first real example I can remember was when my grandfather died while I was in the second grade. It's the first time death touched me personally. To be honest I think I was a bit too young to really understand what was going on as we went to the funeral and everything else that was happening, but it crystallized in me the notion that we are ALL growing older (as a direct result of Time) and we are all going to die at some point because of that same shadowy Time figure. It didn't matter if you were a little kid like I was or an "old" person, like my older siblings and parents--at some point Time would catch up with you. Of course now I realize that not everyone dies of old age, but I was only in the second grade at the time, so that bit of naivete can probably be overlooked.

The death aspect of Time was the most extreme part of this phenomenon. I suppose that, because of our mortality, it all does eventually leads to that, but most of my battles with Time were over smaller matters. I distinctly recall lying in bed before the first day of school and being unable to get to sleep while trying to figure out just how Time had managed to rob me of yet another summer. Then every week during the school year would present me with the problem of Sunday. My absolute favorite part of the week was the moment I got home from school on Friday afternoon. It was the point which marked the longest amount of Time before returning to school on Monday morning. Friday night and all of Saturday were carefree zones. However Sunday night was all doom and gloom as I felt Monday creeping up on me with the help of Time. At first it was simply Sunday night that caused my dismay.But then it eventually spread earlier and earlier until I associated the entire day of Sunday with the end of the weekend. Of course that meant that late night Saturday became the moment of the beginning of the end of the weekend. Geez, if that had gone on much longer I would have been miserable for the entire weekend.

Music has only fed my fear of Time over the years. I remember, even as a kid, finding the song "Puff, the Magic Dragon" incredibly sad. It's not a sad song overall, but the line "Dragons live forever, but not so little boys" really struck me hard. It not only reflected Time's effect on children, but also hinted at another thing I find very sad--the inevitable loss of child-like imagination that comes with growing up. To this day I still have a difficult time listening to "Puff, the Magic Dragon". I know that sounds silly, but it's tough too, because I'd love to listen to it with my daughter--who likes dragons and dinosaurs--but just can't seem do it.

Listening to Jim Croce's "Time in a Bottle" was always a gut-wrenching experience for me as a kid. "If I could save time in a bottle"--that pretty much says it all. I always wished I could do so, but knew it was impossible. I loved "The Muppet Show" when I was little, but had a hard time watching this segment which featured the song.

A little later I discovered that Pink Floyd was also well aware of the problem that is Time. Check out these lines that always get me from the song "Time" off the "Dark Side of the Moon" album.

You are young and life is long

And there is time to kill today

And then one day you find

Ten years have got behind you

No one told you when to run

You missed the starting gun

AND (even more to the point)

And you run and you run

To catch up with the sun

But it's sinking

Racing around

To come up behind you again

The sun is the same

In a relative way

But you're older

Shorter of breath

And one day closer to death

The whole song really captures the futility I feel when thinking about Time. The Pretenders also touched on the topic with their song "Time the Avenger":

Thought that time was on your side,

Now, it's time the avenger.

Nobody is permanent,

Everything is on loan here.

Heck, even Cyndi Lauper, the girl who just wanted to have fun, sang the touching song "Time After Time". And Harry Chapin's "Cat's in the Cradle" is mainly a tearjerker about a father not being there for his son, only to find out that the son eventually turns out to be "just like me". But there's no doubt that Time fuels the changes that make the song so tragic and sad. It's a sad song that has only grown sadder to me now that I'm a parent myself.

Monster Dad is obviously interested in movies, and there have been more than a few movies that I've seen which speak of the battle with Time. The following three examples deal specifically with time travel and are among my favorite movies. George Pal's "The Time Machine" (1960, remade in 2002)--based on the H.G. Wells book of the same name--isn't particularly sad, but it does show a man winning the battle against Time--at least for a while. Along the way there are certainly melancholic moments, and it culminates with the mind-boggling topic of the distant future and philosophical questions about Time itself. "Time After Time" (1979) also deals with time travel, and is also partially based on H.G. Wells' work (the main character in the movie is H.G. Wells himself--and he does battle with Jack the Ripper in modern day San Francisco). "Somewhere in Time" (1980) deals with Time and time travel in a way that makes for a very sad and touching movie.

While a truce has never been agreed upon, and true peace between the conflicting parties probably won't come about until I'm resting in peace myself, I do have to say that my battles with Time had become relatively few and far-between until recently. The passage of Time has seemingly continued to increase in speed as I have aged. Every day, week, month and year seems to pass faster than the one before it. This didn't really bother me or cause me undue stress until about five years ago--when I learned that Time and parenthood don't mix very well. The birth of my two daughters, and the process of watching them grow up before my very eyes, has reminded me of the cruelty of Time once again. I still consider my first daughter to be my "baby". But now she is almost five years old. It's so strange to look at this tall, imaginative pre-schooler, who is growing more and more every day, and try to comprehend that she was that little helpless baby we brought home from the hospital not so long ago. I'm now starting to see bits of myself as a young boy (from around the time that Time first started to become a problem for me) in her. My younger daughter is now almost a year-and-a-half old. Suddenly I'm witnessing her hit many, many milestones that I remember daughter number one doing not so long ago. It all just goes by too fast, and there's nothing I can do to stop it--or even just slow it down a little. The battle continues...

Epilogue

As a kid I envisioned Time as a massive machine. I guess this was my youthful mind's attempt to comprehend something as big as Time itself. This gargantuan machine (which I believe was located in a giant cave) would loudly process Time and make a product out of it (The Past). A conveyor belt would take unprocessed time (full of possibilities and potential) into the mouth of the machine. This ethereal, unprocessed time was "The Future". The main part of the machine, the part that mashed, mangled and manipulated this raw material, was "The Present". This portal represented the Now that we are all constantly living in. And the final product (or by-product if you will) of the machine's machinations, which looked much like the remnants of crushed garbage or old cars that come out of those giant compactors found at junk yards, was "The Past". We are always stuck in "The Present", as the machine processes what is happening Right Now. We can't reach the unspoiled promise of "The Future", and "The Past" is simply what we see coming out of the back end of the machine. It could be observed, but it was what it was and couldn't be changed.

Today I turned forty-one. Forty-one years have passed since I entered this world. Much has changed. Much remains the same. The one real constant seems to be that time continues to pass with little to no regard for our feelings. A year ago I turned forty. This seemed like a big number at the time, but at least I was merely a "forty-year-old". Now I'm not forty, but "in my forties". For whatever reason, that sounds worse and makes my battles with time from here on out feel more and more urgent.

And, of course, my lifelong forty-or-so year battle is less than the blink of an eye and totally inconsequential when it comes to Time...

Baby Names: Part 2

Some of my nicknames for my two daughters were chronicled in the blog Explanation of the Unexplained. It seems like a good time for an update.

The first daughter is now almost five-years-old. Her nicknames are still evolving, based on many factors (things she says, things she does, certain traits I see in her...), but for the most part her main nicknames are still based on the word Monster. It was one of her first nicknames and the word still seems to fit her perfectly (see photo).

The newer edition is now a little over a year old. Her nicknames are still very much evolving. She does still share variations on the the name Monster (The Monster, Little Monster, Cuteness Monster, Precious Monster, Mini-Monster, Micro-Monster...), but she's really started to get her own identity--nickname-wise. As detailed in the last blog on the topic, one of her monickers is Insane Beast. Beast is still the base of many of her personal nicknames, mainly because she STILL is constantly pushing the envelope when it comes to mischief and getting into trouble. She still only seems to be interested in things she shouldn't be interested in (breakable, small, pointy and otherwise dangerous objects for a one-year-old). Her walking has continued to improve, and her height and reach are constantly expanding. This has lead to more climbing of things that are too high and more reaching of objects that were previously safely out of her reach.

All of this had lead to a new name that has been added to the Monster and Beast canon for the little one. She is now frequently referred to as a Creature. Some new variations include the combinations Beastly Creature and Creature Beast (pretty imaginative, huh?). She is also called Destructive Creature, a Creature of Mass Disruption and (of course) a Creature of Mass Destruction. Seeing as I am Monster Dad, it may not come as too much of a surprise to learn that she has also earned a few names that come from old monster movies. Some movies that share a name with my daughter include "Creature of Destruction" (1967), "The She-Creature" (1956), "The Beast with Five Fingers" (1946) and "She Beast" (1966).

Speaking of monster movies, I have also given the two girls a single, collective name to refer to both of them at the same time. This one should ring a bell with anyone who was around the New England area in the mid-1970s to the mid-1980s. Their new collective name is... Creature Double Feature!

And, finally, just to prove that all my nicknames for the girls don't have a negative-sounding connotation, another name I've recently bestowed upon both of them when they do something particularly cute (which is often) is Cuticle--as in "Cute-icle". Another newish one is Mini-Kins. Take that all you negative-nillies out there!

Happy New Year 1976!

I recently solved a long-time mystery. Sorry, this has nothing to do with the meaning of life or anything as groundbreaking as all that. No, this is a rather mundane mystery, but solving it meant a lot to me personally. Please bear with me...

I come from a rather large family, and am the youngest of nine children. I have seven sisters and one brother. By the time I came along my family already had many long-standing traditions. One of these was a big New Year's Eve party at my parents house. There probably hasn't been an "official" New Year's Eve party there in over twenty-five years (due to children growing up, leaving the house, starting their own families, and starting their own traditions...) but they were still going on strong when I was a young lad. Beyond the obvious celebration of the end/beginning of the old/new year these parties were best known as feasts of interesting and odd foods. My father enjoyed supplying a number of delicacies that we wouldn't normally see or eat that he would discover and share with us. To be honest I don't remember what many of them were (or didn't comprehend them at my youthful age), but I'm sure my fondness for the idea (if not the actual practice) of heating Vienna sausages over a can of Sterno (not unlike how we'd heat up items from our Pu-Pu platters at the China Pacific--our local Chinese restaurant) came from these parties. And I've also heard that one year featured chocolate-covered ants or grasshoppers.

Back to the mystery. For as long as I can remember I've had some rather specific memories of one of these New Year's Eve parties, but could never be sure how accurate my mind was remembering it. Could it have been bits and pieces from several different parties? Could part of what I remembered been from an event that had nothing at all to do with New Year's Eve? Could I have been imagining it all together? Sadly, because of the way the mind works (see the various studies suggesting that eyewitness testimony is very unreliable in court cases) all of that could have been the case.

So what exactly were these memories? This may have been too great of a build-up, as the memories are actually pretty simple. I mostly just recall being pretty young and enjoying the food and games that were part of that particular New Year's Eve party. The main thing that stood out was that we settled in late at night to watch a horror/monster movie of some type. Of course, this detail would be very important to a person who would eventually be calling himself "Monster Dad". I remember sitting on our old green couch with my mother and being pretty scared as this late-night movie spooled out. The only details of it I recall (imagined?) concerned some people from a boat walking through the jungles and rocky ledges of a small island and encountering a large white ape or gorilla. Not a heck of a lot to go by when trying to figure out what movie it was. It seemed very likely that the movie was in black & white (though I'm pretty sure that the TV we would have been watching it on at the time was a B&W set). I also always remembered the movie having something to do with King Kong for some reason. This was the aspect that seemed the most likely part of my memory to be faulty. As a little kid I probably would have associated any movie with a large ape or gorilla in it with King Kong.

Those fragments of memory weren't much, but it has always been a pleasant thing to remember that party and the little details that I thought I remembered from that night. I never really thought about doing any kind of research to see if my memory had been realistic or faulty. If I had thought about it, it might have seemed like a good idea to leave well enough alone and to just enjoy the memories I had. Then last fall while my father was undergoing his first round of treatments for cancer I found myself thinking about that party once again. Fall always makes me feel a bit nostalgic and even sad about the past; The weather changing and moving away from summer toward winter. The leaves changing color and ultimately falling and making a brown blanket over the rapidly cooling ground. The days getting shorter and shorter, and darkness arriving earlier every day. Returning to school for another year and all the stress that went along with that... Anyway, I got to thinking about that party and felt like I wanted to know if it had actually happened as I remembered it. But where to start? The only thing I really had that was quantifiable in any way was the bits and pieces of the movie I thought I remembered. So I figured I'd try to figure out what that movie was.

I didn't know what year this particular New Year's Eve party took place. I knew I had been pretty young--but just how young? The one thing I did know for sure was the date of the party--December 31st. If I was indeed remembering a New Year's Eve party then that's the only possible date it could have taken place on. The Worcester (MA) Public Library has microfilm of the Worcester Telegram & Gazette newspapers. These were the main newspapers we got our news (and TV listings) from when I was growing up (along with the Woonsocket Call and the Milford Daily News). I was very familiar with the Telegram microfilm because I had been working in the Worcester Public Library at the time and had looked up literally hundreds of obituaries for genealogists over the past eight years. I also used the T&G microfilm for my own research into the old Boston channel 56 (WLVI) show Creature Double Feature, but that's a different story for a different blog...

I had a date and only needed to read the TV listings for a few (I hoped) New Year's Eves until I found the right year. I started out going through the late 1970s and into the early 1980s when I would have been between eight- and 12-years-old or so. Nothing seemed to match up. I went back a year at a time: 1979, 1978, 1977. Just about to give up I tried 1976, which would have made me only seven-years-old. Nothing. Then I decided to try just one more year. I checked the listings for December 31, 1975 (when I would have been only six-years-old) and struck gold! At 9:30 that New Year's Eve WLVI channel 56 ran the movie "Son of Kong" (1933)--the lesser-known sequel to 1931's "King Kong"--as the second part of a double feature with "Gog" (1954)--a movie occasionally aired on Creature Double Feature. Now, I had remembered watching the movie in question very late at night (like just before, or more likely after, the stroke of midnight). 9:30 seemed a little early until I realized the movie didn't end until 11:00 PM. And, more importantly, to a six-year-old boy, 9:30 PM would have felt very late indeed, even if it really wasn't.

The only thing left was to confirm that "Son of Kong" was indeed the movie I had remembered bits and pieces of for well over thirty years. Clips of it on Youtube seemed to indicate that it was the right one, but the final proof came very late (really this time) on New Year's Morning of 2010. "Son of Kong" was released on DVD at some point and Netflix had it available for rent. My wife and kids and I spent New Year's Eve with some friends. Well after everyone else had gone to sleep (around 3:00 AM) my best friend and I put in the DVD and watched "Son of Kong". It had the same feeling I remembered. It had the same island and people walking around I had remembered. And, most important of all, it had the same large white gorilla that I had remembered for the past thirty-four years!

True, I still couldn't be absolutely sure if the other memory fragments I had from that New Year's Eve party were reliable or not, but the biggest piece of the puzzle had been solved. I don't really know why it was so important for me to confirm my memory and put an exact date to it, but it was very rewarding nonetheless. To think I had watched "Son of Kong" on the night of December 31, 1975 and then never saw it again until the early morning of January 1, 2010. It was just a nice personal moment for me and gave me a bit of a feeling of...well, closure might be too strong a word, but it was a good feeling, whatever it was.

As a postscript, I just got an issue of the Eastern New England edition of TV Guide for December 27, 1975 to January 2, 1976 a couple of days ago. I've been collecting TV Guides from around this time for a while now, looking for ads for Creature Double Feature and other neat Boston-area TV stuff. When this particular issue arrived I opened it up and was initially disappointed to not find a Creature Double Feature ad. There wasn't even an ad for the Saturday 6:00 Abbott & Costello movie that Worcester's channel 27 (WSMW) used to run at the time. I was still happy to be able to read the listings themselves, but the ads would have made it that much more enjoyable. Then I flipped through the rest of the week. The date hadn't occurred to me, but that Wednesday (the 31st) was New Year's Eve of course. Scanning the pages I suddenly saw something that made the issue exremely interesting. WLVI channel 56 was running a "New Years Double Feature" and they put in an ad very similar to the ones they frequently put in TV Guide for Creature Double Feature. The movies featured that night? Well, obviously they were "Gog" and "Son of Kong"!

Here's the ad:

Here's a trailer for "Son of Kong"

And here's a poster for the movie

Creation Convention--25 Years Later

Twenty-five years ago today (August 24, 1985) I attended what I believe was my first-ever Comic Book/Sci-Fi convention. If there had been any doubts that I was a certified geek, that day obliterated those doubts. I had read about these conventions in Starlog and other science-fiction magazines, but as a fifteen-year-old I wasn't able to actually attend any of these meccas for nerds.

All that changed when I received a brochure for the Creation Convention coming to Boston the weekend of August 24-25, 1985. This brochure came in the mail. What a quaint notion in this online-first world we're living in (especially so for comic book and science-fiction fans of today). I must have been on a mailing list because I also had a subscription to Starlog (courtesy of the meager earnings of my paper route).

I had a small group of three best friends in 1985. These same three guys remain my best friends to this very day. Two of them went to the convention with me. Actually, I should say that one friend and I accompanied the other friend. His mother drove us in to Boston so we could attend the convention. This friend pretty much HAD to go to this show, because Wendy and Richard Pini were going to be there. They were the husband and wife (or should I say wife and husband?) team that was responsible for the Elfquest comic book series (nowadays it would probably be classified as a graphic novel rather than a comic book). Elfquest was a HUGE thing with this particular friend, and he really wanted to meet his hero, and unrequited love interest, Wendy Pini--Elfquest's creator.

Two of my friends were big comic book fans. I read certain comics from time to time (Micronauts, Swamp Thing, Sgt. Rock, The Haunted Tank...), but never could really get all that into them for some reason. My big thing was movies and TV shows--especially science-fiction ones. This convention featured special guests that wouldn't seem all that "special" today, but who were pretty interesting at the time. If you had heard that there would be guests from Star Trek and Doctor Who, you might have visions of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy (or at least Nichelle Nichols and Mark Lenard) from Star Trek and Tom Baker from Doctor Who. Well, it wasn't quite that cool. The Star Trek guest was Judson Scott. Who? Well, that name doesn't mean all that much today, but at the time he was reasonably well known as Khan's right-hand man in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" (1982). I believe he was the only member of Khan's followers who spoke any lines in the movie (could be mistaken on that one though). Mr. Scott had also recently been the star of his own short-lived Sci-Fi TV show on ABC, "The Phoenix" (1981-82), and was currently featured in the series "V". He hasn't done a heck of a lot recently.

The Doctor Who "star" was less familiar to me. His name was Mark Strickson, and he played the sidekick of the Peter Davison-era Doctor Who. Thanks to PBS I was a big fan of Doctor Who--but specifically the Tom Baker-era Doctor Who. I didn't really know any of the doctors that came either before or after Tom Baker. My friends and I certainly lined up to get autographs from these guests, even if they weren't exactly what we would have considered "A-Listers". Our friend who didn't make it to the convention was the biggest Doctor Who fan of the four of us, so we decided to get Mark Strickson's autograph for him. Our friend seemed a little perplexed when we gave him the photo the next day. This was not only because of the fact that he probably wasn't exactly sure who Mark Strickson was, but also because the personalization on the photo was a bit tough to read and appeared to say: "To Kurt, Love: Mark Strickson". You know, we had a great time at that convention in general, but that little quote specifically has actually managed to become part of our lives that we still use to this very day. It's become such a tradition between us it's almost hard to believe that its origins can be traced back to that moment when Mr. Strickson scribbled that personalization on that photo in 1985. Even today, that quote, "Love: Mark Strickson", is frequently used as the sign-off when we write e-mails to each other. I guess you never know which little moments will be special and stay with you for the rest of your life!

The rest of the convention was fun too. We enjoyed watching the costumed freaks walking around (there but for the grace of God I could have easily been one of those "freaks"). The tables of merchandise were a sight to behold for a teen at his first convention. Thousands of comic books, books, novels, manuals, movie blueprints, posters, movie props, toys, action figures and very expensive VHS tapes (this was 1985 of course and DVDs were still years away). A couple of us got our own "Buckaroo Banzai" ID badges that had our photos on them. I'm sure we checked out the old Star Trek blooper reels (from the original series of course, Star Trek: The Next Generation was still two years away) that were a mainstay of these conventions. Of course we sat through the talk/Q&A session from Wendy and Richard Pini. I believe there were a couple other semi-well-known comic book artists there too. And, one of the staples of a Creation Convention back then was the big, no-minimum-bid auction. One of my most exciting moments from that day was when I got into a bidding war for a communicator prop from the original Star Trek series. I thought at the time that it was actually used in the show, but now I'm pretty sure it was just a fan-made version. It was still pretty cool. Anyway, I had limited funds (as most of my money came from my modest paper route--I wouldn't get my first "real" job until September when I started working as a bar boy at the Cocke 'n Kettle restaurant) so the rapidly escalating bids for the communicator were starting to scare me. I was just about to give up when the gavel fell and I had won the bidding war at $55.00 (a king's ransom of money for me at the time). I still have that communicator and count it among my prized possessions.

The reason I remember the date of this convention is because within the past year, while visiting my parents, I found that very same brochure for the event that I received in the mail during the summer of 1985. What a neat item to behold after so many years. It's amazing to see how much has changed since those days. The brochure is a black and white job on paper typed out on a word processor (maybe even a typewriter?) with various photos of the guests and drawings of many science-fiction and comic book characters sprinkled throughout. It's nothing fancy, glossy or even professional-looking. I haven't been to a convention like this since the mid-1990s. At that time they really hadn't changed much since my first one in 1985 (and probably long before that too), but I'll be they are a completely different animal these days. Every company, movie, actor, comic book... has it's own website now. Everyone is online and has cell phones. Twitter, Facebook and other social networks are the preferred mode of communication. DVDs have replaced VHS tapes. a LOT more neat stuff is available (at a cheaper price too) and easy to find on DVD today compared to what was around then. It's much cheaper to dupe this stuff, rip it, share it, store it on computers or iPods... I can only imagine the madhouse that is Comic-Con these days. Now instead of being merely the realm of geeks and nerds, all kinds of stars, directors and producers make appearances to promote their latest movies/projects. It's all online (which didn't exist in 1985 of course) and it's everywhere. Like the brochure for the 1985 show, the convention itself seems positively quaint compared to today's mega-events.

Interestingly enough, it appears that Creation is still around and still promoting conventions. I don't know how directly this Creation Entertainment company is related to the old one that sent me that brochure all those years ago, but it's kind of nice to see the name still around out there today!

*For more on this convention, please read my follow up blog: Creation Convention Part II: Geeks on Parade. A lot of questions raised by this entry are answered in that one after more "evidence" was uncovered.

Love: Mark Strickson

Unemployed Munchkins

Here's Monster Dad's random thought process for the day. While we were out for a walk today The Little Monster wanted to play "Oompa Loompas"--which is her way of saying she wants to play Veruca Salt while I play either an Oompa Loompa or Willy Wonka being angry at her for stealing a goose that lays golden eggs.

Anyway, the thought occurred to me that in this politically correct and technologically advanced world we're living in we have possibly done a disservice to "Little People" (the politically correct term for dwarves, midgets and other vertically-challenged people). I've heard many stories about how badly the Munchkins were treated on the set of "The Wizard of Oz" (1939), and I'm inclined to believe them (supposedly, the dog that played Toto was paid better than the Munchkins for instance). 1939 was a different time after all and that's not exactly a surprise. On the other hand, the movie gave great opportunities to a large group of people who were marginalized (at best) or considered "freaks" (at worst). I'm sure there were movies before "The Wizard of Oz" that made use of Little People, but I'm not too familiar with them. The movie opened many doors for the former Munchkins. True, they weren't necessarily always portrayed in a positive light, but they did find pretty steady work if they looked for it. Casting calls for Little People must have been like little (no pun intended) reunions to many of these people for many years after "The Wizard of Oz".

One of the most successful of the original Munchkins would probably have to be Jerry Maren. He played the member of the Lollipop Guild who hands Dorothy the giant lollipop. He not only continues to work in Hollywood to this day, but he was also Buster Brown (from the shoe company) and Little Oscar (as in Oscar Mayer), making appearances around the country for those companies.

"The Terror of Tiny Town" (1938) was a western that featured an all-Little People cast. The movie has long been considered a cult classic. And that's not really a bad thing--at least not to a fan of odd movies like myself. Was it exploitation? Perhaps (actually, most definitely so), but also a great opportunity for many of these people to get more exposure in Hollywood. How many waiters and waitresses working in Hollywood today, looking for their big break in the business, would kill for such exposure?

"Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory" (1971) gave employment to a number of Little People as Oompa Loompas. The Oompa-Loompas are now classic movie characters beloved by thousands of people who love the movie--not unlike the Munchkins of "The Wizard of Oz", just on a somewhat smaller (again, no pun intended) scale. George Lucas created another Wizard of Oz-like boon for the Little People with the original "Star Wars" (1977, 1980, 1983) trilogy in the 1970s-early 80s. The bulk of the Little People roles were for Jawas and Ewoks, but many others were sprinkled throughout those movies (the most obvious and popular being Kenny Baker's R2-D2). Lucas wasn't done with Little People after "Star Wars" either. Don't forget about "Willow" (1988), which features Warwick Davis as the title character. Other notable movies featuring Little People over the years include: "Time Bandits" (1981), "Legend" (1985), "Labyrinth" (1986) and even the Chevy Chase flick "Under the Rainbow" (1981)--which features some of the Munchkins from "The Wizard of Oz" playing actors playing Munchkins in the making of that very movie! Another hotbed of Little People activity was the Sid and Marty Krofft kid shows of the early 1970s that featured many roles for these actors ("H.R. Pufnstuf", "Lidsville", "Sigmund and the Sea Monsters"...).

More recently the roles seem to have become a bit more scarce for these people. The show "Seinfeld" featured some Little People actors in a few memorable episodes in the late 1990s. It also gave us a comical look into the community of Little People who work in show business. The movie "The Station Agent" (2002) made Peter Dinklage a star and he's gone on to quite a few other roles. But his success has been an example of the exception rather than the rule.

This is where the political correctness and technology problems come in. Because of political correctness we are not supposed to think of "Little People" as being different. While this is a noble gesture it also has an unfortunate and unforeseen side-effect. It is no longer okay to cast Little People in movies the way they used to be. Peter Dinklage has found success playing more-or-less "regular" people who just happen to be small in stature. I can't imagine a movie getting made these days which would need a casting call for a large number of Little People in the roles of Munchkins, Oompa-Loompas or anything else that might be considered a "freak". Thanks to modern technology, there's not even a need to worry about what someone might say about the less-than-politically-correct casting of Little People anymore. When a movie requires characters that are too small for "regular" actors to play, those roles can now be filled by computer generated imagery (CGI) effects--think Gollum from the "Lord of the Rings" (2001, 2002, 2003) trilogy. Gollum and the hobbits of those movies were played by "normal"-sized actors, and various old and new types of special effects--from forced perspective to CGI--were used to portray them as being much smaller in stature.

A perfect example of what has changed (what has gone wrong?) for Little People is "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (2005), Tim Burton's recent remake of "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory". I suppose he wouldn't consider it a remake so much as a "re-imagining" or something, but it's still a remake to me. Anyway, rather than cast a bunch of Little People as Oompa Loompas he did the politically correct thing and cast only one--Deep Roy. Then he used computer generated special effects to allow Deep Roy to play ALL 165 Oompa Loompas in the movie (there were only about eight in the original). An impressive feat, but also a lot of potential lost jobs for all the Little People looking for work in Hollywood.

Maybe I'm thinking too much...

Yet Another Proud Moment!

So yesterday I described how my Little Monster made me proud by recognizing the voice of Tom Servo (see previous blog). Well, she did it again this evening! You know the three-part episode arc of "The Brady Bunch" where they went to Hawaii and got into all kinds of trouble after Bobby finds the supposedly bad-luck tiki idol? Well, The Monster likes the show (poor thing) and loves the Hawaii episodes the best. And who doesn't? I mean, you have a mysterious tiki, Greg showing his mad surfing skills, a giant tarantula menacing Peter, Alice throwing her back out doing the hula, a great guest in the immortal Vincent Price and even a cameo by Don Ho!

Tiki Idol

So what was today's moment of Monster Dad pride? Well, we had hot dogs and baked beans for dinner tonight. I made some innocent reference to the baked beans, and The Monster--without missing a beat--said: "You saved my beans, boy"--which is a quote from Vincent Price in the Hawaii episodes of "The Brady Bunch"! A small moment, but a great one for me personally.

Vincent Price's Beans

This is a scene from the episode in question (via YouTube). It doesn't have the exact quote, but he does mention his beloved beans.

Here's one more recent Vincent Price moment that relates to this. While The Monster doesn't really know who Vincent Price is, per se, she is gradually becoming more familiar with him. I showed her the old commercial for the 1970s game Stay Alive that features Vincent a couple days ago. I asked her where she knew "that guy" from, and she said "The Brady Bunch". Good job! Eventually I'll introduce her to more of Mr. Price's work, but for the moment I don't want to show her anything her little four-year-old psyche can't handle...

Stay Alive commercial

I'm indeed very proud of The Monster, but have to admit that I worry about her a bit too. We don't have cable, so most of her TV-based entertainment comes from her Monster Dad's collection of DVD materials of stuff that he loves (most of which comes from a different era). What's going to happen when she goes to school and everyone else is talking about Hanna Montana, Spongebob, and the latest hip stuff on The Disney Channel, Nick, and whatever else kids are watching these days? She'll be talking about Godzilla, Ultraman, The Love Boat and The Brady Bunch. Will her classmates think she's crazy? I hope not...

A Proud Moment for Monster Dad!

My Little Monster done me proud today and I had to share the news!

A couple months ago I watched the movie "Missile to the Moon" (1958) for the first time. It was just another in a looong line of old horror/Sci-Fi movies I'd never seen. I don't know if I'll ever be able to work my way through all the movies I want to see, but I'm pecking away at them one at a time. "Missile to the Moon" wasn't a great movie, but it was pretty fun. I watched it by myself but brought the Little Monster in for a few scenes that I knew she'd enjoy (namely the scene where the Moon rock monsters make their initial appearance and the scene where one of the earth people, named Gary, gets burned up by the sunlight on the Moon). She did like these scenes and, on sunny days for a couple weeks afterward, would yell "Gary, stay out of the sun!" to me while I pushed her and her sister around in their stroller on walks every time we'd head out of a shady area into a sunny area.

Here's Gary being chased by the rock monsters, about to go into the deadly sunlight!

Yesterday I got the Rifftrax version of "Missile to the Moon" from Netflix. Rifftrax is similar to the show Mystery Science Theater 3000. In fact the guys who do the riffing on the movies are former MST3k personalities. My daughter woke up from her nap in time to watch the best parts of the movie with me. I hadn't explained to her that this was Rifftrax's version of the movie and that it was their voices making the comments over the film. Suddenly she turned to me with a serious look and asked me "Daddy, is Tom Servo in this?" Well, the thing I haven't mentioned yet is that one of the members of Rifftrax is former MST3K member Kevin Murphy--who did the voice of robot Tom Servo on that show! The Little Monster recognized his voice and remembered the Tom Servo character--who happens to have the same voice as Kevin Murphy of course. I was extremely proud of her in that moment! To top it off, she then asked if we could watch "Eegah" (1962), a former favorite movie of hers. I introduced her to "Eegah" a couple years ago because it's the movie featured in my all-time favorite episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 (as well as simply being a great bad movie in general). She knew that we'd be watching the MST3k version of "Eegah" with Joel, Crow T. Robot and (of course) Tom Servo! How great is that I ask you?

Tom Servo

If you'd like to see a little of what this movie "Missile to the Moon" is all about, check out this clip from YouTube. We have not seen this colorized version, but it looks pretty cool (blue Moon-chicks and all). Keep an eye out at the end for Gary's demise. When The Monster first watched this scene and saw Gary turn into a skeleton she made the remark "Now they're gonna put him in a museum."

"Missile to the Moon"

Boston Children's Museum - Then & Now

Recently we took our two Little Monsters to the Boston Children's Museum. The oldest had a great time, and the other was only about nine- or ten-months-old at the time so she was pretty much oblivious. But rather than delve into this recent trip itself I'd like to talk about a little mystery about the museum that had bothered me since our visit, but which has now been partially solved.

Before the trip to Boston, the wife and I discussed our experiences with the museum from when we had visited it ourselves as kids. She remembered a room where kids would try on all kinds of clothes. I didn't recall this from my visit (probably around 1980 or so), but I remembered a computer room which had a bunch of "modern" computer terminals that would let you play neat-o electronic games and activities on them. The thing that drew my attention was a bank of switches and blinking lights along one wall. This unit had clear plastic strips over the switches so you could see them but not touch them--but the small hand of a ten-year-old could easily slip past the plastic. I was having a grand ol' time playing spaceman until I noticed that the kids at the computer terminals seemed to be getting very frustrated. Just as a museum employee started heading toward me I realized that this unit wasn't part of the exhibit and wasn't supposed to be touched. Apparently I was randomly resetting and otherwise messing up all the computer terminals. It must have been some sort of 1980s-era server unit of some sort. I left the vicinity before I could get yelled at. Why would you have a big, inviting wall-o-switches and blinking lights in a museum where you were encouraged to touch everything and then not expect kids to touch it? I didn't see any signs saying "Do Not Touch" or anything like that. Oh well.

Anyway, my other main memory from that day (not counting having orange soda come out of my nose when I laughed while eating lunch in the McDonald's restaurant in the museum) was a big exhibit of old cars and other transportation objects that we visited. The funny thing was that you were supposed to look at, but not touch, these exhibits. This seemed a bit strange when everything else was so hands on. It was like something from a completely different museum. I kind of thought that maybe my memory of this part of the day was faulty--but it seemed so clear. Similar to my favorite part of the Children's Museum (the forbidden switch panel), this exhibit had a section of a big jet airliner's control console. It was a big, tall section (taller than the ten-year-old me) of a bunch more switches--many with those cool red safety covers over them--that I had another grand ol' time playing with (though I'm not sure if I was supposed to be playing with those switches either).

Panel similar to the one I played with

Needless to say, when we went back to the museum with the kids after all these decades it had changed drastically. The giant Hood Milk bottle was still out front, but nothing inside rang any bells with me or my wife. Obviously a lot of things have changed in the world of children's museums since the early 1980s, and in a place where touching and interaction are encouraged the objects themselves can't possibly last for very long before they have to be replaced. I certainly understand why the computer room was gone. In an age where kids grow up with the internet from birth and having access to computers in their homes, at school and pretty much everywhere else they go, a room like that would be pretty boring and obsolete. Actually, a room like that would fit in rather nicely in a display of historical technologies in some kind of computer museum I think, but I digress...

Where was the dress-up area my wife remembered? Where were all the antique cars and stuff I remembered? Nothing in this children's museum felt familiar in any way to either of us. We just chalked it up to being former kids now nearing middle-age who are a bit out of touch with what goes on in today's children's museums.

Then a couple weeks ago I found myself in the Worcester Public Library doing a little research on some old local TV programming when a neat little coincidence happened. While looking through microfilm for the Boston Globe from 1979 I stumbled across something that solved the two biggest mysteries that were bothering me about the Children's Museum. The Sunday July 1, 1979 Globe TV Week section had a photo of Mary Richardson and Captain Kangaroo on the cover. What were they doing together? Why, they were hosting a show about the opening of the brand-new Boston Children's Museum in it's new home on the waterfront of course! Seems like the museum had moved from its former location and was set to open on that very day. It was quite the event, occurring a couple days before the Fourth of July and warranting two TV specials and quite a few pieces in the newspapers.

The articles on that day and the next described much of what was new and exciting in the museum. It featured an exhibit called "Grandparents' House", which had a "Grandfather's Basement" filled with tools and stuff for kids (obviously mainly meant for boys in that more innocent and less PC age) to play with. The "Grandmother's Attic" featured...all kinds of clothes that kids (obviously geared more toward girls) could try on! Hey, Mystery Number One solved!

But what about my kooky memory about the antique cars and stuff? Well, it turns out that wasn't in the Children's Museum, but... The same renovated building that housed the Children's Museum also happened to be the new home of the Boston Transportation Museum! Mystery Number Two solved!

I wonder how many thousands of kids went to both museums like I did and were confused and frustrated by the fact that, after playing with hands on exhibits and stuff all day, you suddenly found yourself in a place (in the same building) full of cool stuff that you couldn't touch. The Boston Globe write up on the opening of the museums actually brought up this confusing conflict of rules. Check out this excerpt from page 16 of the Monday July 2, 1979 issue of the Globe written by Terry Ann Knopf:

"But with two museums housed in the same building, comparisons are bound to be made. And, whereas the Children's Museum emphasizes participation, the Transportation Museum tends to be preachy. Significantly, one irate father kept ordering his son to read the signs around the cars. For all its thoroughness and attention to detail, the Transportation Museum is more of a throwback to the standard collector's museums and lacks the cleverness and imagination of its sister on the floors below.

Nor are matters helped by the fact that all of the displays but one are strictly hands off. After experiencing the Children's Museum, youngsters are bound feel frustrated, if not cheated, upon learning they cannot board a car or go up and down on an elegant Victorian elevator. Essentially, all they may do is look."

The Children's Museum has changed a LOT over the past thirty-plus years. The Transportation Museum is long gone and the Children's Museum has greatly expanded over time. Not only has all the "stuff" I saw long since been replaced, the layout of the whole museum is completely different. The same 1979 Boston Globe article referred to the "fabulous outdoor glass elevator which provides a stunning view of Boston". This elevator is still there, but it is now inside the building due to all the expansion.

It probably seemed like a good idea at the time to pair the Transportation Museum with the Children's Museum in the same renovated building. The Transportation Museum probably figured they'd draw in many people who had just visited the Children's Museum--kind of piggy-backing on the drawing power of it. I certainly enjoyed seeing all the cool transportation-related exhibits there when we went way back then. But at some point it must have become obvious that a hands on museum and a static one weren't meant to share the same space. I wonder if the Transportation Museum decided to leave, or if it was forced out by the successful Children's Museum's expansions over the years. I guess that's another mystery for another time...

TV Guide Time Machine

...Not to be confused with the Hot Tub Time Machine!

I don't consider that new, glossy Hollywood-gossip and trash magazine to be TV Guide (despite the familiar logo). The old ones were the real TV Guides. This new "version" barely even has TV listings in it anymore. And they don't cover local programming at all--just what's on the major networks, cable channels, PBS...

A couple years ago I started looking at old TV Guides from the Boston/Worcester/Eastern New England regions. I wanted to see the listings for the local TV stations from back when I was a kid (roughly 1975-1985) and when WLVI TV56 played Creature Double Feature on Saturday afternoons. In fact, CDF was the main reason I wanted to check these old issues out. But then I discovered that the old TV Guides can act as a sort of time machine (at best) or at least a time capsule (at worst) for someone who watched a goodly amount of TV as a kid. Old TV Guides have now developed into a bit of an obsession for me.

I did spend a lot of time playing outside as a kid, and enjoyed a variety of other activities besides sitting in front of the tube. But I did enjoy sitting in front of the tube too! In the mid-80s I used to love racing home from school to watch the old 1960s "Spiderman" cartoon on channel 25. After that I'd watch Force Five and Star Blazers. That would give me enough animated excitement to last until the next day.

The weekend was the best time of the week for a kid of course--both TV-wise and otherwise. My absolute favorite part of the week was the moment I got home from school on Friday. It was the longest possible time until I had to go back to school. A perfect TV weekend would include watching the standard cartoons listed above after school on Friday afternoon, and then watching "The Incredible Hulk" and "The Dukes of Hazard" later on channel 7 (CBS).

Saturday would start with cartoons--at least until I got my paper route and never seemed to manage to get up early enough to do the route AND get home in time to watch cartoons. That was okay though, because at 1:00 in the afternoon channel 56 would roll out Creature Double Feature--a twosome of some of the scariest (to a little kid at least) and most exciting monster, horror and sci-fi movies that a geeky kid could ever ask for. After a Godzilla movie (or something similar) at 1:00 and another spookfest at 2:30, WLVI 56 would run it's 4 O'Clock movie. Sometimes this would be something cool like a Don Knotts comedy ("The Reluctant Astronaut", "The Shakiest Gun in the West", "The Ghost and Mr. Chicken", "The Incredible Mr. Limpet...), but was more frequently a Doris Day comedy or an Annete Funicello/Frankie Avalon beach movie--not really my cup of tea. Things would perk up at 6:00 though when Channel 27 would air it's weekly Abbott & Costello movie. I'd always hope for one like "Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein", "Abbott & Costello Meet The Mummy" or "Abbott & Costello go to Mars", but pretty much any Abbott & Costello movie would suffice. Saturday night would close out with "The Love Boat" and "Fantasy Island" on WCVB Channel 5 (ABC).

So, back to the TV Guides. I originally wanted to look through them to see the ads that WLVI sometimes put in for Creature Double Feature, but then I started seeing all the other great programming that was on TV--even in those dark days before cable and having hundreds of channels with nothing good to watch on them. I haven't even mentioned WSBK TV38 and all the monster movies that they'd play. Or the fact that channel 38 had Dana Hersey and The Movie Loft, and it was the channel that introduced me to "The Twilight Zone" on late nights in the mid-80s when I was supposed to be in bed!

Leafing through those old TV Guides isn't like entering a real time machine of course--it's not like you can check what's on and then flip on the TV, adjust the rabbit ears, and start watching those same old shows. But it's a pretty neat and nostalgic thing to do just the same. Now that almost EVERYTHING is available on DVD, one could conceivably re-create a day's programming from the TV Guide if one really wanted to I suppose.

I'm now doing a little collecting of TV Guides from certain specific periods of my youth (namely that same 1975-1985 range mentioned earlier). I'm hoping to scan some of the neat ads that appeared in them for movies and TV shows. Most likely I'll be writing some blogs that will be based on these listings in some way in the near future. Not sure exactly what the format will be, but Stay Tuned.

...Same Bat-Time, Same Bat-Channel!