Fortune Cookie

Vintage toys, memorabilia and popular culture

[sandandglass]

[popularhistorian]

Jacob’s Top 15 Favorite Movie Musicals

#12: Little Shop of Horrors

[xombiedirge]

Grow For Me: Audrey II Model Kit by Joe Dunaway / Website

[moriartea-cup]

Feed Me Seymour

[moriartea-cup]

Print option available at Society6 »Here«

A gift for my father who shares the love of this Musical with me. 

[hqtran]

The carnivorous plant from Little Shop of Horrors. All the colors come from melting wax from other crayons. This is a part of the Kings Of Cult art show at Hero Complex Gallery in LA which celebrates the work of Roger Corman and Joe Dante. The show runs until June 8th. Check out more crayons on my Tumblr, follow me on Facebook and visit my shop.

[cryptofwrestling]

Butch Patrick is tired & bored on the set of The Munsters

(1964)

[the-munsters-deactivated2021110]

[milftank]

[thebristolboard]

Trio of original hot rod illustrations by Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, 1963.

[vintagetoyarchive]

TOPSTONE: 1960s HOT ROD MONSTER Masks

[cryptofwrestling]

Detail from a vintage monster mask catalog (1967)

[brudesworld]

Steve Ditko, 1961

[vintagetoyarchive]

DESSART BROS.: 1950s FLUORESCENT Vinyl Halloween Masks

[weirdvintage]

Masks, c. 1940s (via)

[kyle-marffin-deactivated2015010]

Out already (or shipping soon): Dennis Prince and Andrew Yanchus’ Aurora Monster Scenes - The Most Controversial Toys Of A Generation. Don’t know about that ‘most controversial’ part, but they ended up being pretty troublesome for an already troubled East coast toy and model kit company Aurora, which was wrestling with the sharp decline in the plastic model kit marketplace as the 50’s/60’s kids grew up and discovered cars, music, beer, weed and sex. Mr. Yanchus was actually the project manager of this line back in 1971, which aimed to follow up with something new and different for the oft-romanticized line of Baby-Boomer favorites, the 1/8th scale Aurora Monster Model Kits.

Aurora’s Monster Scenes were “Rated X For Excitement”, as they said, but it apparently never occurred to anyone that it was one thing for little Johnny and Timmy to be up in their room merrily gluing together and slopping hobby paint all over a relatively benign and so-so plastic version of Universal’s Golden Age classic horror film monsters, while these kits might understandably offend parents organizations, women’s advocacy groups, toy safety boards, feminists, and frankly, anyone who might have a problem with marketing mysoginistic torture devices and ‘women in peril’ toys to eight year old boys. 

They’re not a part of my childhood, I’ve never had any of these, am (fortunately) immune to most collectibles, and always wonder why the kits can’t look halfway as exciting (or gruesome) as the package illustrations. Nonetheless, I’ve long been intrigued by the whole monster and figure modeling hobby, whether it’s kids cobbling together inexpensive plastic kits, or deep-pocketed adults making near-works-of-art with limited edition beautifully sculpted resin models costing hundreds of dollars a pop. I’ll likely get this book, which sounds like it could be a fun trip through some wacky seventies kitsch and ‘Monster Kids’ history.

[wonderful-strange]

New book about Aurora Monster Scenes. Available for purchase here.

[universalmonsterstribute]

Revenge of The Creature (1955)