Shocktober 10/8/22

And now? The Mego Frankenstein Monster from Mel Brooks' classic comedy, Young Frankenstein.

Shocktober 10/1/22

I can't think of a better way to kick off Shocktober 2022 than with a Mego action figure--in this case, The Reptile (from the Hammer film of the same name)!

Shocktober 10/21/21

And now? Mego's latest--and, I believe, greatest--Frankenstein Monster figure.

Their first shot at the character back in the 1970s looked more like a jaundiced James Garner than the product of Doctor Frankenstein's laboratory, and their more recent effort looked sort of like Glenn Strange, but also sort of generic, like they hadn't acquired a license for anybody's face in particular.

This one? Is a spot-on likeness of Boris Karloff. And I'm proud to add him to my collection.

Shocktober 10/12/21

Doctor Frankenstein: "Give my creation liiiiiiiiiiife!"

Igor: "..."

Doctor Frankenstein: "..."

Igor: "Um...well..."

Doctor Frankenstein: "LIIIIIIFFFFFFEEEEE!"

Igor: "Er...you sure you wouldn't rather have a copy of Time instead? It comes out more frequently and is much more reader-friendly..."

Doctor Frankenstein: "..."

Igor: "Um...or maybe a bowl of Chex or Raisin Bran?"

Doctor Frankenstein: "..."

Igor: "..."

Doctor Frankenstein: "LIIIIIIIIIIFFFFFFFFFFEEEEEEEEE!"

Shocktober 10/6/21

And now, to help keep those unruly monsters in line, we have the Mego Van Helsing! The spitting image of actor Peter Cushing, this action figure is ready to get to the heart of the matter--as in driving a stake through a vampire's heart!

Shocktober 10/2/21

Mego's Hammer Dracula would like to know what you think you're doing.

Every Picture Tells a story 8/26/21

Now appearing in the workspace: Mego Ultraman.

Every Picture Tells a Story 1/26/21

This li'l Creature wishes the fabulous JB a Happy Birthday!

Shocktober 10/15/20

 

And now? The Mego Nosferatu figure.

Shocktober 10/21/19

And now, one of my oldest and most treasured toys: The mighty Mego Wolf Man!

Shocktober 10/8/19

Straight from the 1970s...The mighty Mego Mummy!

Shocktober 10/4/19

The Mego Dracula I showed you last week was something I'd hunted for for weeks. This guy? Was a complete surprise. Didn't know Mego was reissuing their Fury of the Wolfman figure--with flocked hair, no less. But there he was, dangling from a peg at my local Target, so home he came. Wonder what my Original Mego Wolfman thinks of him? Hmmm...

Shocktober 10/2/19

I searched long and hard to find this fellow, but find him I did--at the Target in the old Carson Pirie Scott building at State and Madison after of day of wandering the book fair in the South Loop. (Or was it Dearborn Park? I can't keep Chicago neighborhood names straight anymore.)

Anyway...I'd been looking far and wide for the new generation of Mego action figures, and had been modestly successful at finding the 14-inch DC superhero dolls--Superman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Batman. But the smaller, 8-inch horror figures? Not so much.

But on a sunny Saturday morning, I found Bela.

I haven't let him loose from his package yet--waiting until I have a home of my own, where he can be properly displayed. (Right now? Mom's cats would have him on the floor and torn up five minutes after I walked out the door.) But now that I'm working again, I hope that day will come relatively soon.

Every Picture Tells a Story 8/18/14

Ernest Borgnine wishes you a Happy Monday!

Friday is Bring Your Starship Captain to Work Day

Lately, I've been taking requests for Bring Your Action Figure to Work Day.

Last week, one of my esteemed co-workers asked specifically for Mego Batman (the removable cowl variety, who always looked to me like a little kid playing in a Batman costume two sizes too big for him) and Robin (the version with the painted-on mask; the removable mask version looks like he's ready for his cameo in Eyes Wide Shut), and I was more than happy to accommodate. I parked the boys on either side of my computer monitor, and they were much admired throughout the day--even though they're both wearing oven mitts.

This week, someone asked for Star Trek figures. And, again, I was pleased to oblige.

Mego produced a full line of Star Trek figures back in the mid-1970s, including most of the crew of the Starship Enterprise (except for Sulu and Chekov, both of whom had figures planned, but never produced) and a variety of aliens for them to fight with. Above, you can see Captain Kirk, smirking ever so slightly like he's checking out an alien babe and thinking, "Hey, how you doin'?" even though he's pointing a less-than-intimidating powder-blue phaser at nothing in particular. (Out of frame are his buddies, Spock and Dr. McCoy, both looking on their commander with a typical mix of awe and irritation.)

Flanking the good captain on the left is the Gorn, an alien that appeared on the original Star Trek TV series and took on Kirk in solo combat. Mego made their own Gorn as part of their original line, but he looked nothing like the TV version: They took the head from the Lizard, a Spider-Man villain they'd produced as part of their World's Greatest Super Heroes line, changed the color to brown, plunked it on the same body and uniform they'd used for the Star Trek Klingon figure and called it a day. Mego fans still debate to this day whether or not the Mego Gorn is charming or abominable. (Count me in the latter category.)

EMCE Toys, which began reissuing Mego's classic Star Trek line a couple of years ago, has since expanded the line beyond what Mego produced (including the never-produced Sulu and Chekov figures) and now have even gone back to make a TV-accurate Gorn. And the masses rejoiced.

The figure on the right, though, is something of a mystery.

Mego named him the Neptunian, even though no such alien race ever appeared on either the original series or the later cartoon version. Co-workers have been somewhat befuddled, one asking if he was a Sleestak (referring to the reptilian monstrosity from the '70s Saturday-morning staple "Land of the Lost") and another remarking that he looked like the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

The latter may be closer to the truth than the co-worker realized. There's a long-standing rumor that Mego planned to make a Creature figure for their Mad Monsters line (which already had Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolf Man and the Mummy), only to discover that Universal owner the rights to the character. Rather than pay a licensing fee, the story goes, Mego scrapped their idea for a Creature figure and used the hands and feet they'd created for the Neptunian instead.

Whatever the Neptunian's origin--unique creation or aborted effort--he's still kinda cool looking. And Captain Kirk will still totally kick his ass. 'cause that's how he rolls.

Friday is Bring Your Fertility Symbol(s) & Savior to Work Day

Today is Good Friday, though, as an agnostic, I've never understood why it's "Good," since it's the day Christ was crucified. (Perhaps one of my Catholic or Lutheran friends can explain this to me.)

It is certainly "Good" in the sense that it is Friday--which means the week ends (one hopes), it's Easter weekend (bring on The Ten Commandments!) and, of course, it's Bring Your Action Figure to Work Day.

Little Bunny Froo Froo, who has served as an Easter decoration at La Casa del Terror for quite some time (I think Mom got him as some sort of fabric softener premium and passed him on to me) and has been contentedly munching his carrot at my workstation all week, though the Pez dispensers are a brand-new addition.

(Isn't it interesting that the two holidays devoted to Jesus--Christmas and Easter--have appropriated so many pagan fertility symbols, like evergreens, eggs and rabbits?)

A less obvious, but vitally important, participant in today's display, however, is an action figure of the Man himself, tucked subtly onto the shelf of my cube so as not to offend coworkers who might think I'm being flip or disrespectful by bringing in a Jesus doll to work.

I intend no such disrespect, especially with this figure who, though He wasn't actually manufactured by the legendary Mego Corporation, was made using molds left over after Mego went out of business in 1983, and therefore is a pretty high-quality representation of Christ. He looks gentle, wise, friendly--just how I how I'd hope He would be.

Friday is Bring Your Boxing Legend to Work Day

Tomorrow is the conclusion of Black History Month, and I can't think of a better way to end that month than with an action figure of one of the greatest athletes of all time, Muhammad Ali.

Ali was the reigning world champion when Mego made this 9-inch toy, which should have some sort of trigger device on its back to make the champ's arms swing in a punching motion. Unfortunately, the trigger had long since vanished by the time I picked him up on eBay.

The figure does not, in fact, float like a butterfly, nor sting like a bee. However, the face sculpt is a very nice resemblance to Ali, and he still looks imposing standing on my shelf at home (or, for today, atop my workstation).

The Month in Photos: January 2009

Let it never be said that i don't learn at least some small things from experience: After waiting almost exactly a year to download the photos on my digital camera onto a CD, I waited less than a month to do so again. So here, for your viewing pleasure, is a random assortment of the images thus captured and preserved. Enjoy.

Silent Night

A friend/coworker of mine recently wrote on her Web site a long, detailed account of what it was like to experience Christmas while growing up Catholic. Another good friend, JB--one of my oldest and dearest friends, in if truth be fully told--read that account and agreed with much of its detail.

My holidays had no such structure. Mom was a "lapsed Catholic"--a necessity, as Dad had been married and divorced before and the Church frowned upon such unions. So we never went to Christmas Eve mass or sang carols with the choir or any such community activity.

Instead, we had simple rituals. We'd open our presents Christmas Eve morning, amassing enormous piles of wrapping paper and bows for the (many) cats to savage. Then, Christmas Day, we'd go visiting. Grandma lived in a small cottage off of Western Avenue in Bucktown--a ten-minute bus ride on a good day, a half-hour walk on a bad one. Mom would bring dinner. If we were lucky, it was just ham or turkey. But if we were truly unfortunate, it was the kidney stew that took hours to cook and made the whole house smell like a sweaty foot. And Grandma would spend most of the time offering her food to me, my brother and her cats.

Mom and Grandma would spend much of the time bitching at one another. Grandma was a master packrat, saving the likes of toilet paper rolls and empty cat food cans in drawers, under dressers, etc. And Mom would go on continuous "search-and-destroy" missions, throwing out the salvaged bits of plastic wrap and the wrapping paper carefully preserved from the previous Christmas and whatever else she could find. (Yes, theirs was a complicated relationship, and my mother has, in her later years, become much more like Grandma than she'll ever admit.)

After such frolic, the family (minus Grandma, who had badly swollen legs and rarely left her cottage) would walk over to the house of some family friends who also lived in Bucktown. They often had large gatherings on Christmas Day, with children tearing through the house while adults stood in clusters, beers in hand, telling dirty jokes and laughing about how much bigger the kids were this year than they were last. And every year, the family friends would set up the coolest Christmas tree on the planet: a tall, wide aluminum tree with a color wheel rotating at its base, making the whole living room sparkle in blue, then red, then yellow, then its natural silver. (Try going into a hipster vintage store these days and buying an aluminum tree; if there's anything left in your wallet when you walk out, I'd be damned surprised.)

Our tree, by comparison, seemed downright frumpy. Mom always picked out a nice "live" tree (as "live" as any tree that's been cut off at its trunk, stuffed in a truck and sold in a grocery store parking lot could ever be), but then attacked it with lights, beads, tinsel and ornaments until the tree itself was no longer visible to the naked eye. Our cats still managed to find it, though, swatting at the lower branches and knocking loose glass balls or unlucky angels.

One year, my own personal cat, a Russian Blue who never did have a proper name beyond Gray Cat (a long story for another time) and managed to live to be 20, clambered up the middle of the tree and, being surrounded by a veritable fortress of festive decoration, couldn't quite make good her escape before Mom, returning home from her job at the plastics factory, stared into the center of the tree, only to find it staring right back at her. (All of our cats were declawed shortly thereafter.)

We followed this routine, year in and year out, through bountiful holidays when we young ones got whatever toys we'd pleaded for (like the Mego Fonzie doll with "thumbs-up" action, or the huge rubber gorilla that my brother later operated on with a very, very sharp knife) and through lean holidays with gifts wrapped in aluminum foil and the mistletoe-accented carton of Salems waiting for Dad under the decoration-clotted pine.

But years passed, as years have a way of doing, and things changed, as things always must. The mom-half of the family friends passed away, and the dad-half, some time later, remarried (to her twin sister--yeah, that sounds weird, but they're happy to this day, so who am I to say shit?) and moved to Iowa. Grandma died not that long after, and the little cottage was gutted by fire the following February.

So we just spent the holiday with ourselves, worried that each would be the last with Dad who, after too many years of too many beers and almost as many cartons of Salems, was in fragile health, with his heart rebelling every few months or so and his kidneys trying their damnedest to give notice as well. For Christmas in 1994, I gave Dad a couple of CDs: Hank Williams' Greatest Hits (Hank Sr., NOT Hank Jr.) and a collection of songs by Johnny Cash. Dad was from Alabama, so country music had always filled our house. And since Dad couldn't get out much anymore--he walked with an aluminum cane, and just making it to the end of the block was a chore--he'd often just rest in bed, Hank Sr.'s voice warbling out "Your Cheatin' Heart," singing my father to sleep.

Those CDs wound up being the last Christmas gifts I gave Dad. He died the following June.

Now, the routine is simple: Go to Mom's house Christmas Day, spend a few hours petting the cats and hugging her when she cries because she misses her husband and her mother, and head back north with a bag full of leftover ham or turkey (never kidney stew). I walk up the three flights to my apartment, shoo the Girlish Girls out of the way on my way in, and head for the living room, where I turn on the red pepper lights and the small, fake pine tree Grandma always had in her window. Then I light a candle, say something as close to a prayer as an avowed agnostic can manage, and feed the Girls before they attempt to gnaw off my leg.

And, usually, I sit in the dark for a while, letting the red glow of the pepper lights duke it out with the twinkle of the tree and the unsteady flicker of the flame. Maybe I'll spend a few minutes contemplating the years already passed and the one about to join them in memory. Or maybe I'll feel like I'm being a fucking drama queen, blow out the candles and surf the Web for porn. But in those few minutes in the not-quite-dark, memories will come and go, and I'll either laugh to myself or cry to myself, all the while petting Lottie and Ms. Christopher, who no doubt concluded long ago that their guardian is either an idiot or a weirdo--or, most likely, both.

But when all is done and said, I can't complain too much. I'm alive, employed, and blessed with wonderful, eloquent friends. No, things aren't what they used to be and can never be so again, for bad or good. And no, things aren't as good as they can get. Not yet, anyway. But things aren't too bad over all. And that's good enough for me.

Happy holidays, people, and peace in the approaching New Year.