Life Size Animatronic of The Fly

On display at the Spooky Empire's May-hem and Transworld's Halloween Extreme in Orlando was this wonderful little fella, an original take on the 1950's version of the Fly in glorious life size, head turning animatronic wonderfulness. Check out the video below.

STOP, (Mego) Hammer Time!

If you've been here before you know I like monsters, heck it's in my name, and you also know I love Mego style figures especially the old Mad Monsters and the new Universal Monster Mego style figures. But I also love me some Hammer films, they were my dad's preferred version of the monsters especially Christopher Lee's Dracula, so when I learned there is a company making Mego style Hammer monster you can bet I was a happy little monster.

The company, Distinctive Dummies has produced some great short run figures in the past in 12 inch scale like The Thing from Another World, Vincent Price in House on Haunted Hill and the Curse of the Werewolf among others but now they have turned their attentions to the 8 inch Mego scale with some stunning results.

Lets take a look at the figures produced so far starting with Christopher Lee as Dracula, Prince of Darkness

First we have a reasonably good likeness of the actor, post a recent feeding. I think the choice of having him post meal with the blood on his fangs and around his mouth clearly sets this as a Hammer version of the character. It always seemed and my dad was quick to point out that the Hammer films had blood while the Universal ones did not. Moving on to the costume, the long red lined cape seems more impressive then the kind of short cape the Diamond Select Retro Universal Monsters Dracula has. I'm willing to bet one could slip some thin wire into this cape and pose it into some cool action poses. Also I have to point out that it's nice that the skin tone between the face and hands of this Dracula match, the Diamond Select mismatched hands and face just drive me up the wall. The packaging is very nice, reminiscent of the Mego Mad Monsters with a nice movie poster shot on the front and the lineup on the back and a blue theme for this monster. A really nice figure that at this time is unfortunately sold out .

Next we have Christopher Lee again as the Mummy in Hammer's The Mummy. Another great likeness here

in the face and the body has the dried out hollow husk I remember from the film where the Mummy had holes torn into him. I'm not a big Mummy fan but this is one version I can appreciate alot. The figure sells for $75.00 and is limited to 500 pieces

The most recent release is Christopher Lee as the Frankenstein Monster in Curse of Frankenstein. I l like different takes on the Monster that vary from the Karloff version and this is one of the more famous variations on the Monster. The head sculpt features the lumpy patchwork had of the monster with his jagged scars and the body has a nice reproduction of the long coat worn in the film. I so want to add this figure to my collection. Like the Mummy he is selling for $75.00 and limited to 500 pieces.

Now as much as I love this version of the monster, part of me hopes there is a series two so I can get the other version of Hammer's Frankenstein...the block head one....

 

The last figure planned for the line according to the packaging backs is a real favorite of mine, Oliver Reed as the Werewolf in Curse of the Werewolf. I have no pictures of what they have planned for this figure, but if we go by their previous 12" version and the customs of the character out there we are in for a sweeeeet werewolf

 

ZOD Talks: Subjects worth Subjugating

Absolutely hysterical!

Wacky Races Live!!!

Check out this commercial and then someone explain to me why Hanna Barbera won't give us a new Wacky Races

Guest Blogger - League of Extraordinary Bloggers - Things I Hate about Pop Culture

Hey folks, long time no blog, sorry about that, got busy with other things but I figured I'd dust off the blog and take part in the League's theme this week... well actually I was going to but then my work partner Lord Bad Guy decided he wanted to write this post so ummmm... here's Lord Bad Guy...

"Move over you small minded pudge butt, go play with your monster toys and leave this to a genius to handle. Hello, cowering citizens it is I, the great and terrible Lord Baron Dr, Prof Bad Guy, World Conqueror, Super Villain and Karaoke Champion at the local TGIF.

The assignment put forth to this so called League of Extraordinary Bloggers was to details what it was that they hated about Pop Culture growing up. Well. I'm an expert on hate, I hate alot of things... but you know what I hate the most about the "Pop Culture"... the damn good guys. Always the good guys in pop culture are showered with cheers and praise but what about the villains hunh? If it wasn't for us GI JOE would be working as crossing guards or off fighting the Taliban, He-Man would be a steroid case with a fancy sword, the Thundercats would be stray kitties squatting on a planet that isn't theirs. Yeah, see, you 're getting the picture now aren't you, the gears are turning in those heads out there, I can smell the smoke of your petty brains starting to grasp the bigger picture. 

You see the cartoons of your pop culture presented a very warped view of what exactly went on during the 80's. To you, He-Man always beat Skeletor, the Joes always triumphed over the cowardly, bumbling Cobra Commander, the C.O.P.S. always stopped the CROOKS. I hope you enjoyed that sanitized account of the events because that's not what happened. Sure, I'll grant you some of my fellow card carrying member of the Lodge of Evil were less then successful... I don't want to mention names or anything... okay, you twisted my arm... Gargamel, that bumbling dumbass wanna be wizard and Mon - Starr, intergalactic crime lord. Gargamel spent years wandering around the same damn forest and couldn't find the bunch of giant mushroom houses with the little blue monsters living in them? Oh and by the way, Smurfs taste friggin' awful, never saw what he thought was so great about eating them, like some awful cross between sardines and spam. Mon - Starr had an entire gang of super powered villain henchmen and he couldn't kill a bunch of idiotic sky diving cyborgs with bird fetishes? The guy had a robotic Minotaur that could grow in size! A shape changing henchmen! A master weaponeer and he still couldn't off these clown... gimme mt death ray and I'll get rid of all of them. Of course they were fighting over a section of space that had a giant flashlight as it's sun so not much of a prize there to be had anyway.

But I digress, you see the villains, most of them anyway, were actually much more successful then the shows let on, Hell, we had a lot of fun with that Weather Dominator. You haven't lived until you've skied on three feet of fresh snow in Hawaii or sunbathed poolside in the 102 degree heat of Siberia. The cartoons made it seem like Cobra had the Dominator for a few days before Joe stopped them and destroyed it. Let me clue you in, CC had that thing for years, Joe never stopped them, thing got fired up every vacation until it's power cell ran out and no one could figure out how to make another so it got junked. Skeletor was and still is a master sorcerer, do you understand the kind of intellect it takes to achieve that? The cartoon would have you believe that He-Man was always outwitting Skeletor and his troops and that Skeletor was a cackling idiot that sat on a throne made of of pointy bones petting a big purple cat. In reality He-Man was lucky he could dress himself, that overly muscled meat head. He wore those furry underpants because he couldn't master pants. Skeletor had a sweet leather easy chair and some matching couches, one was a pull out bed. I know because I crashed on it one New Years Eve. Oh and let me assure you Shredder and Krang served up a mean turtle soup at least twice that I know of...four turtles HA!, more like a bulk bin of 'em mutated by that rat every time one got froggered or skewered.

Even the lesser villains like Big Boss were no slouches, c'mon he was named Big Boss, you don't get them from getting busted by a bunch of gimmicky lawmen every time you pull a job. No, you earn  it by pulling off major heists and holding a major metropolitan city in your metal plated grip of terror! Dr. Claw was never bested by a nine year old girl and her talking dog...there was never an Inspector Gadget to even try and stop him. The people at DIC created that Inspector Gadget character because they were afraid no one would watch the Dr. Claw and Madcat show let alone get any merchandising money. Personally I think a Dr Claw armored fist toy inside a happy meal is much better then a go go gadget ass scratcher or whatever the Hell they sold.

Okay okay I'm rambling... the bottom line is I HATE the good guy and I HATE the way the cartoons represented us villains. So the next time you sit down to watch your favorite bunch of do-gooders smack their villainous opponents around remember...

He-Man is a dolt
The JOEs couldn't hit the broadside of a barn
The C.O.P.S. arrest records was pretty light
Inspector Gadget isn't real
Smurfs are ugly little blue freaks that look like those thing in Del Toro's remake of "Afraid of the Dark"
The Silver Hawks were glorified sky divers
The Thundercats are ill behaved strays
The Turtles live in Poo Water

I could go on but instead I'm going to call up all my villainous buddies and go grab a few drinks, maybe plot a team up to take over the world or something... youjust ponder what I've told you here and uh... watch your backs...."

Now Go check out Bubba Shelby, he knows the score on the Real American Zeroes

And if you're super cool you'll come check me out as I conquer the world....again...slowly....painfully slowly

Custom Lego Fly Minifig

My display case of monster minifigs needed another classic b-movie monster so.... a few parts later and we have The Fly

Rudolph + Police Mashup = Perfection