Greetings, Bio-exorcists!

Happy Hallowe’en, everyone!  Tomorrow night’s the night, when all the ghouls, witches, and monsters come out to grab your treats.

Or teepee your trees.

But hey – who’s actually does the latter anymore?  I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.  If you guys are going traditional like the wife and I, all you have to worry about is getting up every other minute to hand out candy goodness (unless you’re one of those people I mentioned a few articles ago who hand out demon candy).  You probably won’t have to worry at all about toilet paper in the trees.  Or, eggs on your car.  Or, soap on your windows.  Or, a dead body stuffed in one of your bushes.  Maybe a rejected animal experiment gone wrong on your porch.  Couple of looneys who recently escaped from the local mental hospital standing in your bedroom while you’re trying to curl up with a good book.  Riverdance.

Nah.  Nothing to worry about.  Hallowe’en is about one thing – acquittals.  No.  It’s about trick-or-treating in zany, cool, or scary costumes.  And for my final entry in the “Office of the Don” Hallowe’en series, I wanna share with you a little-known costume kit series from the ‘80s that the five year old me went nuts about… for the brief time it was popular.

Submitted for the approval of the Midnight Society, I call this one… The Tale of the Kooky Spooks!

You know, it’s rather interesting.  Whenever I write up articles where I’m telling you readers about stuff I’ve come across in my travels, I usually do a little research so that I don’t come off as a total buffoon (too late), as well as to give you a little background before I get my geekasm squee gook all over you (you missed a spot there.  No there.  Other side.  Got it).

My attempt at researching Kooky Spooks came up with almost zilch, save for a couple of personal blogs that each did an entry about them.  Looks like these things faded into obscurity quicker and deeper than I thought.

So, I’m gonna wing this a little.

From what I could gather, Kooky Spooks came out somewhere around the late ‘70s/early ‘80s.  There were about three or four different costumes in the series, including a black bat, a yellow goblin, and a green alien.

What set this group of costumes apart from the rest was that, instead of a normal mask and cheapo plastic one-piece (typical of the time), these revolutionary masquerade garments consisted of a poncho and matching, inflatable headgear.

Don’t believe me?  Think I’m making it up?  Take a gander for yourself:

Crazy, huh?  Now, there’s one thing missing from the picture.  Each costume also came with matching face paint.  See, the point was to cover your face up with make-up so it blended in with the head gear to look like the neck that went to the inflatable head you we’re wearing on top of your noggin!

Yeah, that indifferent look on your face totally sells my excitement.

From the rest of what little info I could get on these awesome accoutrements, Kooky Spooks were also an attempt in the early ‘80s to promote safety for the Hallowe’en season.  Each costume came with a reflective strip to put on the back of the poncho that made kids visible during the night time hours (when kids were still allowed to go trick-or-treating at night).  Another safety feature was that there was no mask to obstruct the child’s view.

The five year old me?  Didn’t care an ounce about safety.  I don’t think I even knew what that word was.  I just knew that these things were great!  I was running around the neighborhood with a giant, inflatable head bobbing up and down on my own kindercranium that would eventually deflate into a colorful plasti-flap by the time the night was over.  The world was my oyster (another word I had not been introduced to yet).

It wasn’t long before the novelty of Kooky Spooks faded.  And quickly.  I think the costumes were only around for two or three years.  After their demise, I was back to the classic hard, plastic mask fastened by a rubber band and flimsy, plastic uni-suit.  Well, until I had my dad put together a kick-ass homemade Freddy Krueger costume for me in junior high.

 
But that’s… another story.

I really hope you all enjoyed my Hallowe’en series, everyone.  I hope to do this again next year.  Until then, watch out for spooks and spectres, beware the ghouls and monsters, and steer clear of the haunts and horrors.

In other words, keep your light off and the kids won’t come to your house asking for candy.  Kidding!

Happy Hallowe’en!!

 
The Grim, Grinning Don comes out to sew shawl eyes.

This bit of machinima is pretty neat, it’s a World of Warcraft political demographics poll.
Regardless of who you’re voting for, it’s a fun watch.

The Secret of Superhero Movies

(WARNING: He is quite opinionated)

Katy found this and forwarded it to me, and I think it has a lot of interesting ideas (some of which I disagree with) when it comes to modern super hero movies.

For example, I disagree with his belief that Watchmen will flop, but this is something we’ll have to wait and see on.

Meanwhile, I’m still working on the Blizzcon post, things have been crazy at work. It’ll be up soon, I hope.

Greetings, Crypt Keepers!

The weather outside is finally starting to get cooler.  Night time is starting to log in more hours on the time clock.  Makeshift cemeteries are starting to show up outside people-dwellings.  Decorations of dark and ghoul are still maintaining their dominance amongst the ever-growing light of elf and snow.  That filthy, raving lunatic is still outside the front door with a chainsaw and it seems perfectly normal and routine.

Yep.  Hallowe’en is getting closer.

With only a week and a half away, Office of the Don continues its Hallowe’en series with this entry spotlighting the “Horror Host”.

Depending on how old you are (Which Madonna are you more familiar with – Material Girl or Britney Kisser?), your childhood memories may include vegging out in front of the TV on Saturday afternoons to spend some quality time with your favorite, local horror show host.  Not every town in America had them, but most local broadcast areas had at least one spookster who dominated the air waves for as little as two to as much as six hours.

Sure, Elvira made the “Horror Host” thing popular in the ‘80s and early ‘90s (“Elvira who?” you ask.  I weep.), but it was these original, home town homemades during the ‘60s and ‘70s that got America’s youth hooked on horror.  As a child of the ‘80s, I was able to latch on to this wave in the early part of the decade and ride the euphoria until the bottom began to fall out by the time the Grunge Era was in full swing.

For those of you unfamiliar with this cherished piece of Americana, let me give you a brief rundown:

Starting sometime in the 1960s, “Creature Features” (the blanket term for this kind of phenomena) were local broadcast shows that would air for a block of time on weekends, showcasing old Universal monster films, as well as other classic and not-so-classic horror and sci-fi fare.  Usually, these shows had a host of some sort who was garishly dressed as some kind of macabre character who would pop up in between segments of the film and offer bad cheesingly awesome horror puns and sometimes do little skits.  Every host was unique in his outfit and personality, and every host was usually greeted with insane glee on the other side of the tube by its viewing audience (which was made up mostly of older kids and teens).

I had the pleasure of discovering one such “Horror Host” at the age of six when my family lived in Florida for a couple of years.  Now, where I lived our channel line-up had two different channels that each aired its own horror show.  One was called “Shock Theater”.  It was okay, but was one of the few offerings that had no host.  The other channel was channel 44 out of Tampa.  This would quickly become my permanent home on Saturday afternoons.

The show – “Creature Feature”, with your host, Dr. Paul Bearer.

Nationally recognized as the longest-running horror show host on television, Dr. Paul Bearer had it all: ghastly pallor, greasy hair parted in the middle, evil-looking mustache and goatee, mortician-style suit, and he drove a hearse!  And the best part?  Actor Dick Bennick had a glass eye in real life that made Dr. Bearer look crazy-eyed.

So, for the next two years (until we moved back to Pennsylvania when I was eight), I never missed a Saturday dose of classic or cheesy horror.  Dr. Paul Bearer guided me on my weekly journey through the macabre, injecting his signature dark wit and antics throughout.  In fact, Creature Feature was one of the main influences on me as a kid that got me into horror in the first place.

Sadly, in today’s society with your gull-dern internets and your 300 bull-pucky Hi-Def channels and your fancy-schmantzy Blu-Ray, the horror show host is a dying breed.  Sure, there are still some out there – like Dr. Madblood here in Virginia – fighting the good fight to bring decent, wholesome horror to the pre- and post-pubescent masses, but a lot of the greats have disappeared.  Attention spans have shortened and started looking elsewhere.  Networks aren’t keen on buying syndicated horror flick packages like the ones that fueled the horror show craze.  Hell, even Elvira is getting long enough in the tooth to warrant cobbling together a reality show (poopy reality shows) to find her successor.  All of this is slowly forcing the creeps and ghouls we all knew and love back into their coffins.  Only this time, it may be for good.

Any of you readers got any “Spookmasters” you remember from your childhood?  Feel free to share in the comments section below.  In the meantime, here’s a website that features a comprehensive list of all the horror show hosts that have ever graced the tube, past and present.  Check it out.  You may find the one you remember.

Lastly, I leave you with this – one of the promo openings for “Creature Feature” with Dr. Paul Bearer:

The Don is “lurking” for you.  You dropped your wallet.

…I’m so… startled!

Not much to report on today, so I guess a little stream-o-conscious posting is in order.

“Bakemonogatari” is a RECENT (as of today) discovery, and takes the 2008 award for one HELL of a character name — a vampiress named Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade. I wish I was joking… so I could say I came up with that first!

Bakemonogatari’s make some early waves Stateside with the light novel crowd. Prolific author NisiOisin (Nishio Ishin,) who penned the likes of XXXHolic & Another Death Note came up with this supernatural romanti-comedy, and signs are looking up for it to be a noteworthy series. Shaft and director Akiyuki Shinbo (Negima!, PaniPoni Dash, Tsukuyomi Moon Phase) + character designer Akio Watanabe (The Soul Taker, Popotan) are on the reigns for this one.

( fan art by Maro Nie)

Again, “Kissshot Acerolaorion Heartunderblade!?”  キスショット・アセロラオリオン・ハートアンダーブレード. Yeah, I’m down with this one.

For a while now, I’ve had the good fortune to have the guys behind Skullgirls as close friends. Alex “o_8″ Ahad & company’s snappy doujin versus fighter is best summed up as an Art Deco cute-horror all-girls slugfest. Check it out, and by all means, they’re looking for anyone who can help them out in the development department. They already have a working alpha version of the game and are closing in on a servicable beta.

Lastly, there’s More Information Than You Require out there. Here, of course you can be filled with a sweet pop culture crunch, but should you get too many crumbs in the Beards of Our Forefathers, you Spwug-faithful out there can get a healthy serving of the real world — and all the many, many, many interesting flavors therein.

Yes, I’m alive. Barely.

I’ll be posting about last weekend’s Blizzcon this week. Maybe even with pictures.

This post should be up this weekend.

Thanks to all of our loyal readers (all seven of you) who are still reading Spwug.

Greetings, Dream Warriors!

I’m back with my continuing series celebrating the unholiest of awesome holidays – Hallowe’en.  This week I delve into the two films that kick-started my love for those rotted fiends of nonliving.  Out of all the monsters and creatures to grace the mediums of film, TV, music, and literature, these gruesome ghouls are at the top of my list of most favorite.

That’s right.  I’m talking about the living dead.  Zombies.  The zed word.

The year was 1986.  I was in the sixth grade.  By that point, I was very familiar with the horror film genre.  And I was hooked on it.  Any chance I had to snag a horror film on VHS or to see one on TV I took with supernatural excitement.  The films scared the bejeebus out of me, and I loved it.  I had not had the chance to see the original Night of the Living Dead, but I knew of it.  A friend of mine in school had seen it and told me that I needed to.  That was all the encouragement I needed.

On a random trip to our local supermarket one weekend (our supermarkets had small movie rental sections in them), I decided to look for this enticing gem of a film.

Sadly, I would not find it that day.

What I did find, however, was another film of similar content.  I struck gold!  I know this because the back of the box said one important phrase…

“…picks up where Night of the Living Dead left off…”

I grabbed that sucker immediately.  The film?  The Return of the Living Dead.  Luckily for me, from the time I was ten my parents were pretty cool about letting me watch almost any horror film I handed them.  This one was no exception.

We got home and I shoved that tape into the VCR immediately.

The Return of the Living Dead

Even now, at the age of thmvirhsdftkjythksuwroaee, this remains one of my all-time, favorite zombie flicks.  Part of the reason is because this was my first dip into what would become its own genre.  It had it all – gruesome make-up effects, an awesome soundtrack, boobies… although my parents, despite letting me watch horror movies at a young age, still insisted I “turn around” during any nude scenes.  When the scenes of taboo had passed, I was allowed to turn back around.  Of course, that didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the film at all.  I soaked in every ounce of gas-huffing, brain-eating, send-more-cops-calling glory.  This movie scared the crap out of me, which meant it was excellent.  And with a few elements of humor sprinkled in, I found myself fully immersed in what I still think is one of the finest pieces of cinematic zombie horror to this day.  And you know what?  This was the first original film to showcase the fast-moving zombies we see in the modern genre.  It would also be the film that would kick-start my first recurring dream – which I still have at least two or three times a month to this day.

The second film that made me the zombie-lover that I am today is just a few years older than the first film I saw.  This one also happens to have a connection to what would become the elusive Night of the Living Dead for the ten year old me.  In fact, this film is the second installment of George Romero’s Dead series:

Dawn of the Dead

Not too long after I had seen The Return of the Living Dead, I began to actively seek out more movies that featured undead corpses rising from the grave to feast on the living.  That’s when I discovered this.  Where Return was just a full-on onslaught of the gruesome, Dawn was more about atmosphere and the chill-factor.  The claustrophobia and isolation fears introduced in Night are expounded upon and developed further here.  Return illustrated how a zombie attack affected a small group of folks in a small town.  Dawn gave us a glimpse of the zombie apocalypse and how it affected the world (or, the very least, the US).  And, it gave me my first taste of slow-moving, shuffling zombies.

Even though I was too young at the time to know that Romero’s intent with Dawn was a social commentary on consumerism and social decadence, the themes Romero illustrated with this film resonated with me and through me.  The gore wasn’t as intense as Return (although it’s still pretty gory), but the psychological aspect of the flesh-eating horrors contained therein would haunt me for quite awhile afterward, culminating in this being my favorite film of Romero’s Dead series.  Plus, I just thought it was damn cool to be able to live in a mall.

Over the years, I’ve seen dozens upon dozens of zombie flicks.  I even managed to finally view that elusive classic Night of the Living Dead.  Some of them are exquisite little entries in the genre, while others are eye-gouging offenses to the soul.  Either way, my love of the zombie film keeps me looking for the next great offering.  And the current resurrection of the genre (little zombie humor there) that has taken place over the last couple of years has supplied the landscape with a veritable smorgasbord of delectable tasty treats.

Mmmmm… brains.

When there is no more room in Hell, The Don will stay at the Motel 6 down the street.

Blizzcon was this past weekend.

I went to Anime USA instead!  Angry Viking Press was part of the guest list!  Hyatt Regency in Crystal City is renovating!  For East Coast convention regulars of the past eight years, the Hyatt Regency has been one of the most consistent anime con hosts (for better or worse)  Their guest suites are rather NICE — best sleep on a couch I’ve had… ever!  I would give the blow-by-blow, but really all you need to know is that it was fun, the panels were interesting to participate in, and OMG I JUST SENT A MAKESHIFT DOUJINSHI TO JAPAN FOR PERUSAL!  This is more exciting than the second piece of footage of Thunder Force VI, the Mega Man 9 OST, the inSANITY of our sixth week of football (ARE YOU JOKING?! Arizona? Indy on a Baltimore blowout?!  The BROWNS winning on the GIANTS?!) or the third episode of >spoiler alert< Heroes (and Heroes won my fandom back with that episode.  I mean, seriously.  You had me at Sylar and Bennett.)

So to (re)establish dominance on Wednesdays and whet the palate for The Don tomorrow, ART.

By the title I am, of course, referring to my lack of posts lately, and the fact that this one is mostly just an apology for same. Naturally I’ve got all the usual excuses: hella busy at work (hi, I’m contracted to a bank right now.. yeah.) I’ve been ill (mmm… flu season in southern California. I’ll have mine with a side of ‘oh shit, everything’s on fire!’) and then… well.. I managed to be alive long enough to hit a short convention nearby. Just a small con thrown by a local company, which I’ll tell you all about later. For now, I’ll give you a hint.

Children descended from a by-gone era, are looking to unlock the secrets of their clandestine world, lit only by lamps and fires that threaten to permanently fade out and plunge their city into permanent darkness.

A visitor from far away embarks on a goodwill mission, but is met with the nervous and violent resistance he’s come to suppress.  While he maintains the notion of peace, he has been given a powerful tool to erase the society that may threaten life itself.

 Decades after a miraculous discovery, a powerhungry civilization arrives, looking for the last remnants of that secret which drove even an artificial mind insane.  Forced to revive said rogue creation, a battle for survival begins anew — with help from an unlikely ally.

What could I be talking about?   Think you can put titles to these stories that are due out this fall?  Which of these is not like the others?