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:
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