The Brides of Frankenstein

What a great painting! You might have seen it before, but I thought it was worth another view as early October appears in the Autumn night sky like a big orange harvest moon. And the tagline "more fearful than the monster himself" might have been true; especially when it was that time of the month.

The First Family of Halloween, The Munsters. Also a good way to kick off the official Monster Month. It's funny, but as a kid watching the show, somehow I missed the seemingly obvious fact that Herman is indeed the actual Frankenstein's monster, and Grandpa was the one and only Count Dracula. I just thought they were similar charicatures spoofing the originals. But in the movie "Munster Go Home" I learned that Herman, after being created by Dr. Frankenstein, had been adopted by the English Munster family. Which is how he got his name, and he later married Dracula's daughter before relocating to America.

It's good to know that the old Universal monsters ended up living happily in the land of opportunity, rather than constantly hounded by torch-waving villagers in the Old Country. But one still can't help but wonder; as Herman is lying there next to Lily, does his mind ever go back to his first love... the innocent, original Bride?

And Lily may have some deep dark secrets buried in her past as well... after all, little Eddie hardly resembles Herman, but is more like the old family acquaintence, the relunctantly hairy Larry Talbot. Does she still carry a torch for him hidden in the crypt of her heart? Seeing Eddie's hirsute face must remind her of him constantly...

UPDATE: Sometimes the comments are just too good to leave in the comments area. Especially when such an informed writer as Jeff O'Boyle chimes in! So for the true story of Eddie's parentage, and the various Munter relatives, go to the post page and read his comments. A true Munsterphile!

"Cramped Quarters" Halloween book

Today's Monster Memories are of:
The "Cramped Quarters" children's book
(Click on any images to view full size.)

Although "The Crowded Coffin" would have made a better title, it might not have sold as many copies to the overprotective parents.

I bought this for my daughter in 1995 for Halloween of that year. She was 11 at the time, and enjoyed the Halloween-related things we did all during October. This coffin-shaped book was fun because of the monster artwork, and the lights and sounds that accompanied it. Two LED's went through the eyeholes in each monster's face, and blinked when you turned the page, while a banshee-like scream sounded. I thought you might enjoy seeing it, so I took photos of each page on a seasonally-appropriate background to spice things up a bit.

The Monster's new Nikes made him a little more approachable for the children. Throwing them in lakes was much easier now!

The Count breathed in the fresh air as he shoved the Monster out. It was a little known fact the Frankenstein's farts were real killers!

The Teenage Werewolf's case of claustrophobia made it get a little hairy when he found himself in such tight places.

The Mummy, never wrapped too tightly in the first place, was freaking out over the rats burrowing in his bandages.

The Swamp Thing, ticked over being confused with that idiot Man-Thing once again, was itching to get out and call DC about copyright infringement.

Glad to be rid of the smelly compost heap, the skeletal pirate swore he'd never be first into the coffin again.

The major Universal monsters are present, in the usual order as they are mentioned; Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolfman, Mummy... but where you would logically expect to find the Creature from the Black Lagoon next, they substitute Swamp Thing. Strange! But at least they saved the best for last; the always dependable Pirate Skeleton. I look forward to reading it with my three-year-old grandson this Halloween season!

Here's a photo of this year's indoor Halloween village I set up. It's one part of the living room decorations, but not all of it. More pictures to come!

Thrills & Chills Issue #2

Today's Monster Memories are of:

Scholastic's "Thrills and Chills" magazine #2

Published in 1994, the "Thrills and Chills" magazine by Scholastic was made available for ordering to schoolchildren. My daughter was in the second grade when she got three issues second hand from a friend who was through with them. We put them with the Halloween books that we saved and put out each year with the inside decorations. I thought I'd scan some pages in of those three issues we have for your enjoyment. The pages scanned this time are from Issue #2. The riff on "American Gothic" with the Monster and the Bride is genius!

A note here about my posts; I have just about become paralyzed lately when it comes to posting. You want to know why? Well, I'll tell you. I would go through my stuff and think 'here's a neat item to share" and scan it in, or write a blog on a certain subject, and then I'd find out that someone else in the circle of blogs I regularly visit had already done a post on it! They would either have posted the exact same item, or written about the same topic, and usually better. And I'd end up deleting the post I had prepared, or in some cases already posted. It got discouraging. I felt I'd come too late to the party, and someone else had already given the same present I brought to the birthday kid. It happened again with this post, and I said, "another blog entry down the toilet!" I had my hand on the handle ready to flush, via the "delete" button.

But then I realised that if I kept on doing that, I'd never post again, because it's almost impossible to post something completely unique. Someone, somewhere has already done it. But that doesn't mean I shouldn't. Perhaps I could bring some slightly unique perspective or memory to the table, and maybe my readers simply hadn't seen the other already.

So, I'm not going to avoid a subject or item because another blogger has already done it. I'm not going to worry about it or become paranoid. If they did it, well, I'm doing it too. Hope that's alright with you.

Halloweephemera:To the right is a candy bag I saved from a party I went to as a kid.

A Halloween card I got some years ago. I save them all and display them each year. I'll share more with you over the month of Halloween... I mean, October. And I'll also share many of the books in our Halloween bookshelf, as well as photos of our decorations. Hope you enjoy it!