Does anyone here remember the original run in 1974 ?

With all due respect - Kung Fu would have been a solid show to watch in between BUT wasn't it also Six Million Dollar Man night ?
My favorite grandmother watched Kung Fu - so there is a soft spot in my heart for it.
Being a "monster kid"🐙 I had no time for other forms of Americana (sports, Westerns) .
"In every dimension , there's another YOU!"

I remember Kung Fu on Thursday nights

I had almost every issue of Famous Monsters from the one with FROGS on the cover thru the one with the robot from FUTUREWORLD on the cover. I also had CREEPY and EERIE to warp my mind.
I had every Aurora model EXCEPT for the Wolfman. I have no idea why? I even had The Witch (that many other boys would avoid). I also had the Aurora "Monster Scenes" with Vampirella & Dr. Deadly! I really loved those but protest from parents ended the line by 1972. Then the Prehistoric Scenes took over (as well as Wacky Packages!) . Aurora stopped making monster models in 1974/75 BUT if you were like me you would check out all the old hobby shops and stores for left-overs!
Card stores and stationary stores OFTEN had old models hanging around only because they were over-priced (an Aurora model in a big toy store was about $1.29 or less sometimes-- in a drug store or small Ma & Pa shop -- it would have been like $1.99 or so)

By the time JAWS came out ( June 1975) "old school" Monsters were antiques and nobody cared much. Horror movies were few and far between as well. I think "The Devil's Rain" was the ONLY supernatural "horror" movie from 1975. Compare that to 1971/1972: Dr. Phibes, Count Yorga, Blacula, Tales From the Crypt, Vault of Horror, Ben , Willard, Asylum, Frogs, Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, The House that Dripped Blood, Thing With 2 Heads, 2-Headed Transplant, Frankensteins Bloody Terror, etc.

By 1977, Star Wars changed EVERYTHING-- even today! Also local TV stations lost the license to all the old Horror Movie packages (Universal monsters, Godzilla movies, etc. were falling out of fashion) -- all before cable TV.

-------------
So yeah- now Fan Boys are in control of the entertainment industry - however they are younger than us and more into the 80s and 90s (I personally despise the 1980s--everything from the political climate, the music videos and clothes down to the UGLIEST American cars ever created!)

No matter what happens to the universe and mankind -- I am happy to have grown up when I did-- in my "wonder years" 1968-1975-ish.




"In every dimension , there's another YOU!"

Was Kolchak really at ten?

= Blu-Ray Owners/Collectors -> http://www.imdb.com/list/ls073861395/

I bought all of those Polar Lights kits back in 99, still unopened. The box art is fantastic and soooo nostalgic!

Right-On again Pro-Tree.

But let me elaborate here: "Fat Freddy" Silverman was the new president of ABC and had a distain for "horror / sci-fi" programming (so it was said) . Did he help squash Kolchak? He sure did not help matters any. And yes- you are correct about Horror/sci-fi shows being revered AFTER the fact. Back then "the industry" was run by middle aged men with comb-overs , cigars, starched white shirts and briefcases. NOW the industry is run by Fanboys who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s. (Not thrilled about the 80s part of my last remark as I am not a fan. At all.)

YES the NBC line up was the ratings champ at the time on that night - and back then Friday was a difficult night when NOT presenting "family" (read: KIDDIE) programming like The Brady Bunch (or much later crap like Full House). How IRONIC that NBC was totally in the ratings crapper only 2 or 3 years later -- by 1977 ABC was number one (Happy Days / Charlie's Angels period) and NBC was vomiting up shows like , ahem, Supertrain , Time Express (a short lived series with Vincent Price and his real life wife who operated a train that would take passengers "back in time" to a point of their lives that they wanted to correct or relive again --yeah I know like an abortionists version of Fantasy Island--lasted 4 weeks) , The Montefuscos, The Invisible man, The Wavery Wonders (with Joe Namath) and other 4 week wonders. Pink Lady and Jeff would be the icing on NBC's doggie doo doo cake. I think the ONLY hit show from 1977 thru 1980 on NBC was Little House on the Prairie ?

Back to MONSTER KIDS in the 1970s:
I loved Halloweens in the 1970s. Every card shop and dime store sold those horribly awesome rubber masks made by Topstone Rubber Co. You remember The Zombie, the Witch, The Vampire , The Girl Vampire (looked like Vampira!) and the classic DEVIL MASK ! Remember Vampire Blood in the white plastic tubes ?! Vampire Blood was quite expensive at the time (for a kid) at $1.00 a tube. Meanwhile the EXPLOSION of 1973 was....WACKY PACKAGES! . My favorite board games were 1) The Barnabas Collins Game with the plastic skeletons and little coffin and 2) Which Witch with the haunted house set up! My cousins had GREEN GHOST which must have cost a fortune back then.
More cheap thrills: I collected those weird hard-to-define rubber creatures that they sold in the gum machines. Some were quite abstract and bizarre looking! I had this messed up looking bat creature with a pointy snout -- had it for YEARS!

Monster Movies on TV:
Local TV stations were still showing all the old horror and sci-fi movies from the 1930s thru the 1950s.
We had Chiller Theater and Creature Features (local horror movie slots on Saturday Nights) This was WAY before Elvira!
At any given time you would see I Was a Teenage Frankenstein on Saturday afternoon or Destroy All Monsters on at 11:00 PM at night.
The first 2 movies that ever scared the *beep* outta me was Horror Hotel and Invaders from Mars !

There is a DVD -- MONSTER KID HOME MOVIES -- it's a compilation of Super 8 movies made by kids and teens in the 1960s and 1970s-- it's hilarious and one kid made a movie that IS A SPOOF OF KOLCHAK !! A Must see !!

Monster Magazines: Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella, Famous Monsters, For Monsters Only, Psycho, Nightmare, Castle of Frankenstein . I did not read comic books back then but I did LOVE Marvels TOMB OF DRACULA. The artwork and writing were superior to any other horror comics from the 1970s.

MAD magazine was huge. In fact MAD themselves said that 1973 was the HEIGHT of there circulation / popularity. I was so happy when I heard that! I was right in there. Lost interest with MAD around high school .

Toys I was too old for that I wish I had: The ALIEN action figure and Mattel's SLIME.









"The ENEMY of my ENEMY is my FRIEND"

[deleted]

Agreed