Monster of the Day #187

Updated on January 27, 2011 By Ken Begg 26 Comments

Polly want an AIIIIEEEE!

Pin It



Related Posts

  • KeithB

    I love this creature. At the time people did not realize that these guys could get so big. Now we know otherwise.

  • roger h

    Yes, I do have some fond memories of the Flintstones as well.

  • P Stroud

    Did we run out of non-animated monsters? Hoe about some real life monsters next. Stalin, Castro, Pol Pot, Justin Bieber…..

  • roger h

    The baby in the E*Trade commercials. . .

  • Gamera

    ‘Rodan Meets Doctor Strangelove’!

  • The Rev.

    “MEIN FUHRER, I can–”
    “CAAAAAAAAAAAWWW!!”
    “….er, yes. Anyway.”

  • The old man in the wheelchair looked like Race Bannon in his 80s.

  • Rock Baker

    You know what’s odd? Turu here looks a lot like the monster in that ‘Civil War Pteranadon’ photo (the “real” one, not the patch job). That would seem to indicate the photo was faked after 1964, with Turu being used as a model.

    Great episode. For a time, Pop had a 16mm print -IB Tech! It was gorgeous!

  • Ericb

    We need Civil War movies with dinosaurs.

  • roger h

    Do they have to be dinosaurs or any reptile-like critter? How about “The Monitor vs. The Merrimack!”

  • KeithB

    Would a giant chicken be OK? That was already a MOTD, IIRC.

  • Calypso

    I was so worried about being alone in my old age, but knowing one of these is waiting for me makes me feel *much* better.

    (Monitor vs Merrimack—snort guffaw!)

  • Rock Baker

    Best giant chicken I ever saw was on an episode of Dobie Gillis. It totaly blew away the giant chicken conjured up by Jeannie. If you ever run across a short called Chicken-Thing, make sure to give it a view!

  • Tork_110

    I don’t understand. Were the last three monsters connected by the Wilhelm scream?

  • sandra

    When I was a child, which is some time ago, I have a meemory of seeing a photo in either a magazine or one of those books about strange mysteries. It purported to have been taken in the 19th Century, and showed what appeared to be a dead Pterosaur, nailed to the wall of a barn. It covered the entire wall, and there were cowboys standing in front of it, to give the scale. It was taller than they were, and had to have had about a 20 ft wingspan. Has anyone else ever seen it ?

  • Rock Baker

    I haven’t seen the photo you mention, but it seems I have heard about the story. It may’ve been printed in the papers as a ‘winged demon’ if I’m keeping my stories straight. (Granted, similar imagery pops up in the movies from time to time, such as in Gargoyles, and Jeepers Creepers 2.)

  • sandra

    I have heard that photo called an urban legend , and yet I remember seeing it. This was well before Gargoyles etc. Is my memory playing tricks or is that photo still out there somewhere ?

  • Rock Baker

    I couldn’t find it doing a Google image search, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t out there. I’d be interested in seeing it if anyone else can turn it up.

    Giant birds are common folklore of the old West. The Indians called them Thunderbirds and carved a great many of them into their jewelry and totem poles. Some think that isolated pockets of pterodactyl populations survived as recently as the 19th century, leading to the widespread reports of giant birds prior to the modern age. (Interestingly, these stories were world-wide and became fewer as civilization progressed, the last of these stories -save for some reports from the Amazon and like areas as recently as the 80’s if I recall correctly, that being the key to all this- came from the American territories and died out about the time the white man had expanded to both coasts. It seems possible (not likely, but possible) that the last suriving thunderbirds died out as the West was won. Still, if that were the case, we’d have some skeletons on display…

  • sandra

    Tere wouldn’t necessarily be any thunderbird skeletons around. Dead animals are generally disposed of by predators, and there’s nothing much left of them after a few days or weeks.

  • Rock Baker

    But there’d be bones, right? I stumble across the odd bone from a pig or dog or something whenever I take a walk in the woods behind my house.

  • Sure MOST bones are destroyed by scavengers, but I’ve seen enough intact skeletons in my wanderings through deserts and even forests to know it doesn’t always happen. And since everyone knows thunderbird bones are electric, and quite probably poisonous, they tend to scare away vultures and coyotes.

  • Also Kraa is actually significantly SMALLER than the average azhdarchid. Check out this image of a Quetzalcoatlicus, which stood 15-20 feet tall, compared to a human and a giraffe.

    http://scienceblogs.com/tetrapodzoology/2007/09/it_could_look_a_giraffe_in_the.php

    They also walked on all fours, which goes a long way towards making them seem far less bird-like.

  • The Rev.

    Rock: There was also Big Bird, who was claimed to have been sighted a few times in the mid-70s here in Texas. Most reports put it at a 12-foot wingspan, although a couple put it much larger.

  • The Rev.

    Let the Sesame Street jokes commence.

  • Rock Baker

    So either we’ve had giant birds in recent history, or people seem to have a built-in interest in such creatures and thus make up/misidentify stories about them (like flying saucers). I wonder why that is. Sandy, you’re the smart one, any thoughts?

  • It is race memory from when we were all preyed upon by Haast’s Eagles.