Monster of the Day #500

Updated on December 3, 2012 By Ken Begg 13 Comments

How many of us were sustained in our early, pre-Internet years by Uncle Forry’s Famous Monsters of Filmland? And how many of us thrilled to the vibrant covers of Basil Gogos, especially back in a day in which monsters were nearly always black and white? Let’s take a week and honor his work.

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  • Flangepart

    Sun Demon, Hideous. Pvt. First Class.

  • Classic FM covers, yes!

  • Gamera977

    Well, it makes me want to see the movie!

  • Cullen Waters

    I’ve never seen this movie, but always wanted to.

    I have also never seen a Famous Monsters of Filmland issue. Well, maybe one with Godzilla on the cover, sitting in a magazine rack. Not quite sure. But clearly I lead a deprived childhood and should be pitied even more than for the obvious reasons.

  • Gamera977

    I’ve never seen a copy either, did meet Forry Ackerman at a con years ago. Sad that he passed away, a really charming, funny, hell-o-a-guy.

  • Ken_Begg

    I wonder what a representative issue would look to your eyes today. The thing back in the day, of course, was that it was about the ONLY source of monster movie news and reminiscence. There were occasional upstart magazines like Castle of Frankenstein, but woe betide anyone trying to find an issue, unless they lived in proximity to a particularly well-stocked big city news stand / magazine store. FMoF was popular enough that it was found not only in most bookstores, but in 7-11s and the like.

    Pre-Internet, FM was about the only mechanism through which you might hear of obscure old monster movies (by which I mean, anything that didn’t get TV play).

  • Sounds like a good idea, those were some amazing covers!

    Why does the Sun Demon have a nose bleed?

  • I was born in ’81, and I’ve lived in the Ozarks all my life, so FM played a big part in my life as well. Pop was a monster kid back in the 60’s and 70’s, so he would tell my Brother and I all about FM. Fortunately, even while I was still a kid, Pop found a place selling backissues through the mail and we found a few more issues in junk stores we used to visit when out of town. Yes, they really were magical, and FM was a HUGE part of my childhood. I tried a few times to produce my own monster mag, and that last incarnation of The AMAZING MONSTERS OF HOLLYWOODLAND was pretty slick (but in the end I couldn’t cover production costs). Funny, now all I’d need to do is start another blog….

    I still have a stack of FMs. It’s mostly for the pictures, though. After a while, you start to catch on to quite a bit of misinformation. Plus, I think it’s FM’s fault (or more specifically Uncle Forry’s fault) that puns turn my stomach to this day.

  • Ken_Begg

    He probably got it from climbing that oil storage tank.

  • I read it was Clarke himself who threw the dummies off that tank. I can get a little buggy around high places, so I give him a lot of points for bravery!

  • The Rev.

    You haven’t missed much. It’s pretty meh, although props to Clarke for running around in that make-up in…where was it filmed? Arizona? California? Somewhere pretty hot, as I recall.

  • Ken_Begg

    Yes, I think the monster rig was built over a wetsuit, so that must have really, really sucked.

    Sort of like John Agar wearing those silver-painted contact lenses for Brain from Planet Arous.

  • sandy petersen

    I will say that FMoF was one of the seminal influences of my childhood that made me the man I am today.