SPOCK FEAT

Today marks the one-year anniversary of the death of Leonard Nimoy. In his honor, Your Humble Narrator wrote this short “fan fiction” parody/tribute to Mr. Spock for New Times blogs.

This weekend I also crossed a long-coveted title off of my sci-fi bucket list: Courtesy of the one-of-kind Friday movie nights of a film historian pal, I got to see, projected from an actual celluloid print no less, the 1930 sci-fi musical comedy Just Imagine.

Set in the far-off date of 1980, when people have numbers instead of names and commute in little airplanes instead of cars, this lavish tale of romance and a trip to Mars is probably best known for supplying futuristic stock footage to sci-fi serials like Flash Gordon and Buck Rogers. It’s pretty corny and not exactly crisply paced, but it looks great, has some slightly risqué or otherwise topical pre-Code gags, and a likable cast led by El Brendel as a funny Swede who’s been revived from fifty years earlier. It also has some good songs, the best being “The Drinking Song” and “Never Swat a Fly.”

TRIPLEHEADER

In memory of Leonard Nimoy…

Monster-of-the-Week: …this week’s honoree is the giant three-headed snake that Mr. Spock, with oddly un-Vulcan-like aggression, zaps with his phaser in the 1972 Aurora model—the very first Star Trek “character” kit. The box art was exceedingly cool...

…but the paint job I gave this kit back in the ‘70s ruined it, as my abject manual skills ruined most of my beloved models back in those days.

The Spock kit has been reissued recently, and my pal Stan kindly sent it to me for Christmas, but I’m afraid to attempt it—I doubt my painting skills have significantly improved since I was 11.

COFFIN/KING

We’ve been doing Draculas for the last few weeks so…

Monster-of-the-Week: …let’s wrap up this most monsterish month with one of the all-time greats, probably the first supernatural monster of the sound era, the great Be1a Lugosi in the title role of the 1931 Universal version of Dracula.

Happy and Safe Halloween everybody!

BLOOD LISTER

Continuing our Dracula theme from last week…

Monster-of-the-Week: …let’s give the nod to Dracula as a superhero, in this short-lived 1966 title from Dell Comics…

He’s just one selection on my Topless Robot list of the “18 Strangest Versions of Dracula.”

BUG, THEN BUNNY

Recently I recounted the turbulent construction of a Monster Scenes “Giant Insect” model kit by The Kid and myself. Well, we have obtained a second monster kit, from Dencomm, based on the Aurora Monster Scenes kits. This one is another product of mad science, a Saber Tooth Rabbit…

MODEL STUDENT

Among my birthday presents this year was a lavishly illustrated tome entitled Aurora Model Kits by Thomas Graham.

It’s an interesting read cover to cover, but of course its principal fascination for me is its chronicle of that company’s many monster and horror kits, including the notorious “Monster Scenes”—models of torture chambers and mad scientist equipment—excoriated by editorial writers of the early ‘70s.

The book got my juices flowing for the happy days when I would ineptly and impatiently ruin these kits myself on a regular basis. I found a reissue kit online of the Monster Scenes snap-together “Giant Insect” (originally released only in Canada) and ordered it...

...thinking that I could share this experience with The Kid. So one slow Sunday not long ago we dug into it, and I quickly remembered how frustrating the hobby of model-building can be when you have poor motor skills and organizational habits.

In the case of the Giant Insect, I broke the poor creature’s transparent wings loose from the plastic frame before checking their letters to see in what order they ought to be attached to the body. I assumed, very wrongly as it turned out, that this made no difference. This added considerable time, and coarse language, to the project. In the end, however...

Monster-of-the-Week: ...we managed to get the big dragonfly-earwig hybrid together.

He’s now standing guard on my dresser. Even assuming he’s actual size, he would still constitute a Giant Insect.

WALK LIKE AN EGYPTIAN

Here are Your Humble Narrator and The Kid in front of the Luxor, where we stayed in Vegas this past weekend…

The sphinxes, jackals and obelisks put me in an Egyptian frame of mind, so…

Monster-of-the-Week: …let’s give the nod to one of the all-time greats, The ambulatory Mummy from the Universal stable, as realized here in the marvelous ‘60s-era box art by James Bama for the Aurora Famous Monsters model kit…

RATTLETALE

We’re still in the thick of Chinese New Year festivities ringing in the Year of the Snake, so…

Monster-of-the-Week: …let’s give the nod to this gigantic rattler menacing the space travelers in this Aurora model kit tie-in with the ‘60s TV series Land of the Giants…

As far as I know, this scene never occurred in the two-season series, but the box art is pretty awesome.