Christmas 1975 - Hugo, Man of a Thousand Faces

Of all my childhood Christmas traditions, one I really miss is spending the afternoon and evening of the 23rd with my grandparents.  Dad would go to work as normal in the morning and come home at lunch.  Mom and I would load into the car with tons of presents for everyone and head to my grandparents' apartment.  Mom and I visited with my grandparents for the afternoon while Dad went back to work.  It was only 3-4 hours, but with presents taunting me from under the tree, those afternoons seemed like an eternity.  When Dad finally did arrive, it was time for presents. 

It was December 23, 1975...42 years ago today...when  I first met Hugo, the Man of 1000 Faces.  I hadn't been aware of Hugo and had no idea this toy existed but, even at such a young age, I watched monster movies from the '30s and '40s and '50s sci-fi b-movies every Saturday morning on a tv station we picked up from Buffalo.  Far from being afraid of the monsters, I was always asking my parents how the monsters were made.  When Hugo came out, my parents (correctly) thought it would be the perfect toy for me and went out of their way to try and keep me away from any advertisements so it would be a surprise.  While I don't recall this, my mom tells me I lost all interest in opening any other presents after Hugo.

Here's happy Lee with his new best friend.  The Santa was my Dad's gifts.  He started building model kits of cars when they first hit shelves in the late '50s and still does them to this day. The boxes that formed Santa were filled with kits and supplies:

        

Just for fun, here are some of the advertisements for Hugo that came out in 1975:

                                                 

                                          

Hugo, like so many other wonderful childhood treasures, was eventually lost to the process of growing up.  What was once the centerpiece of my Christmas eventually lost its magic and became an old toy in a box that was either thrown out or donated.  This is where I consider myself lucky.  In my adulthood, I managed to rediscover that magic of childhood where so many people never do.  Thanks to a combination of Ebay and disposable income, I've been able to buy back some of my childhood.  I had to spend a pretty penny, but I found a Hugo that had never been used so all his accessories are still sealed in their packages and Hugo himself is in brand-new condition.

Hugo and his accessories were sculpted by special effects artist Alan Ormsby.  While best known for 1972's Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things, many monster kids in my age range know him best for his book Movie Monsters which so many of us got through the Scholastic Book Club at our schools.  It was a favorite book of mine and I still have my original copy:

Between Hugo and the book, I felt a certain kinship with Ormsby which is borne out by the fact we had similar (bad) taste in pants in the early '70s:

                                       

As an epilogue to this ghost of Christmas past, I finally got to meet Alan Ormsby at a convention several years ago and had him sign both my book and my Hugo.  You may think the image of a grown man walking around a hotel in Burbank carrying Hugo is somewhat ridiculous.  You would be correct, but at least my Hugo is signed now:

Happy 53rd to the Universal Horrors Line

There are a lot of little things I want to talk about, but before I get into anything I just wanted to point out it was 53 years ago this month that the world got its first look at Don Post Studios' Universal Horrors line.  These masks are still referred to as the Calendar Masks due to their use in a 1966 calendar.  I won't talk about the calendar here as that's a story for another day.   

The relationship between Don Post Studios and Universal Studios goes back to 1948 when Don obtained the license to produce masks of the Frankenstein monster.  While Don was never really a monster fan, he came to become quite fond of Frankie over the years, seeing him as another member of the line along with the clowns, animals, and old people.  When Don forgot to make a payment to Universal under the licensing agreement, he was quite surprised that Universal never reminded him.  After that, he "forgot" the next several payments to see if Universal would come looking for their money and they did not.

Fast forward to 1963 when Verne Langdon purchased part of Don Post Studios.  It was Verne who transformed Don Post Studios from a novelty mask company to a monster mask company.  The first step in that transformation was the Hollywood Horrors line. This line-up consisted of six masks; Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, Mr. Hyde, the Frankenstein Monster, and the Phantom of the Opera.  All 6 were sculpted by Pat Newman, a sculptress who had followed the Posts from Chicago to Los Angeles after WWII.       

In 1964, Langdon was contacted by David Hammond, the head of Universal’s Merchandising Department.  In addition to renewing their existing license, Hammond also wanted Don Post Studios to produce masks for their new tv show The Munsters.  Armed with the renewed license for the Universal monsters, Langdon set out to release what would be the ultimate monster masks.  Later that year, Pat Newman sculpted the line that would replace the Hollywood Horrors.  In the December issue of Genii: The Conjuror’s Magazine the world got its first look at the Universal Horrors line.  The two page spread featured a letter “From the desk of Don Post” introducing the new line and emphasizing the Universal connection and the use of original movie molds.  The letter featured a photo of Don Sr. wearing Verne Langdon’s Dracula cape and leaning on a casket, and was signed “Don Post”, however the copy was written entirely by Langdon.  The other page featured an illustration of the Frankenstein Monster against a lightning filled night sky, surrounded by small photos of the ten masks that made up the Universal Horrors line.  The ten included Dracula, the Creature From the Black Lagoon, the Frankenstein Monster, the Mad Doctor, Mr. Hyde, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, the Phantom of the Opera, the Hunchback, and the Mole Man. 

The co-operation from Universal was quite significant during this period.  Rather than simply allowing Don Post Studios to use the likenesses of their monsters, Universal also gave Post access to their make-up department.   As indicated in the advertisement, Post was given access to any of the molds he wanted.  In 1964, these molds were all stored inside sound stage 28, in a loft several stories above the stage where Lon Chaney Sr. filmed Phantom of the Opera in 1925.  To retrieve the molds, Don Sr., Verne, and Universal’s make-up department head Bud Westmore had to lower the molds using a system of ropes and pulleys.

Of the ten masks released in the Universal Horrors line, only the Mole Man and the Creature From the Black Lagoon used the movie molds for their entire run.  The first version of the Frankenstein Monster in the Universal Horrors line was made by making a mold from a prop head that was created for a dummy used in the climactic scene of Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein where the monster, set aflame, falls through a pier.  This mask was too small and did not fit properly, so Langdon had Pat Newman sculpt a new version, which is the one seen in the calendar.  The Mr. Hyde was also initially released using the mold from the mask as seen in 1953’s Abbott & Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.  There were two masks used for the movie; one for Boris Karloff and one for his stunt double.  The problem was that Karloff’s mask was only a ½ mask and his stunt double had a small head so his mask was too small.  The Karloff ½ mask was claypressed and the back of the head filled out for the Post mask.  It was still on the small side and was resculpted by Pat Newman within the year.

The masks themselves were extremely high quality and found themselves making cameo appearances in episodes of popular television shows at the time.  The most popular of these is the McHale's Navy episode "The Vampire of Taratupa".  The episode featured the Mummy, Hunchback, Phantom, Wolf Man, and (briefly) the Creature From the Black Lagoon.

Most of us know the Universal Horrors line from the advertisements in the back of Famous Monsters.  Not being born until 1972, I missed a lot of issues when they first came out.  Fortunately, even in Canada, issues from the 1960s were readily available and I got caught up rather quickly.  Like many monster kids, old issues of FM were my monster education and the mask ads were my first exposure to Don Post Studios.  Most of the advertisements featured the calendar photos of masks which weren't really accurate as Verne custom finished those copies for a series of photos (did I mention the calendar was a topic for another day?). 

This advertisement, known as the "sweater ad", shows the copies as they were actually produced. Yes, the Wolf Man was painted green. I've seen an original and confirmed it.

Let's be honest, the calendar masks are huge to mask nerds like me (and probably you as well if you're still reading this) so this isn't the last you'll hear of them from me.  I just wanted to point out that it was 53 years ago this month that they were announced.  Everything else is my mind bouncing around like an 8 year old looking for a popsicle. 

The Edmunds Zombie

I've been gone for a while, finishing the Distortions Unlimited book, and now it's time to get back to having some fun.

The Distortions book could have easily been 500-600 pages, however I was capped at 300 which means a lot of material was either abbreviated or cut altogether.  One of the stories that had to be abbreviated was the tale of the Edmunds Zombie.

For years, collectors have been tantalized by this photograph from the early 1980s, which shows a mask on the wall (directly above the Methuselah sculpture that Ed's working on) that resembles the iconic Zombie mask sculpted by Verne Langdon.

Writing the book gave me the opportunity to ask Ed about this mask during one of our many conversations.  When it comes to collecting, I'm more of a Don Post Studios guy than a Distortions guy.  That being said, I had a lot more fun writing the Distortions book than the DPS book for one reason.  Where Don Post Jr. saw himself as running the family business and would have been equally content if Don Post Studios made golf carts, Ed Edmunds is a monster kid through and through.  Like the majority of you reading this blog, he grew up on a steady diet of monster movies and reading Famous Monsters magazine.  It was through FM that Ed became aware of the Langdon Zombie.

Ed was enthralled with the mask from the first time he saw it. Unfortunately, within a very short period of time the mask turned up in the ads with a "Sold Out" banner.  Like many of us, he waited and waited for the mask to be available again, but it wasn't to be.  What we know now is that, after the initial run of less than 30 orders, the masks were produced and that was the end of the Zombie.  There was no intention to produce any more.  The reason the mask kept appearing in advertisements was simple.  When the advertisement was laid out, there was a single spot left blank so the Zombie was inserted with the "Sold Out" banner as a space filler.

At the time, Ed was a teenager in Long Grove, IL, and had been learning how to make masks.  When the Langdon Zombie didn't become available, he decided to try his hand at making his own version of the Zombie.  The mask accompanied Ed from Long Grove, to Pueblo, CO, and on to Greeley where Distortions was founded.  The mask was captured in the above photograph in Distortions' early days, however it eventually disappeared as the decades passed and Distortions moved several times.  The mask wasn't rediscovered until the summer of 2017 when Ed found it buried in a desk drawer when he was looking for something for the book.  It's looking worse for wear these days, however it is a one of a kind example of Ed's pre-Distortions work and is likely the first ever Langdon Zombie Tribute mask.

As an interesting side note, in the 1980s, Ed discussed licensing the Zombie to be produced as a Distortions mask.  Verne was agreeable but set the price at $5000 which Ed thought quite high.  At the time, Ed was spending licensing money of masks that were widely known for appearing in films.  Where Ed didn't see the Zombie having that mass appeal, he couldn't justify spending the money.  While he didn't license the Zombie, he did pay tribute to Verne's icon in choosing the color scheme for the Distortions Zombie in the late 1990s.