The monsters are coming!
No, it’s not Halloween already, although if you hung around my house long enough you would think so, with all the creepy and scary-looking relatives of mine who just drop in whenever the spirits move them. But, the monsters ARE coming, or, more correctly, the GIANT monsters are coming.
This week’s offering begins a five-part series of spots featuring giant monsters on the attack. With one exception they all feature actors in costumes representing all sorts of creatures. I’ve always been a fan of these movies because of the awesome split-screen effects combining the monster with crowds running for their lives, and for the intricate models said monster usually destroys. How they made the miniature buildings crumble as realistically as they did has always amazed me.
This week I feature spots from Godzilla, King of the Monsters, a 1956 reworking of Toho Studio’s Gojira, released in 1954. The American version features new scenes with Raymond Burr expertly inserted into the Japanese version and dubbed into English. Both versions are interesting to watch.
Aside from the movies themselves, the one thing I always appreciated about these movies was the poster art: colorful scenes of destruction with the giant beast front and center.
The spots for Godzilla, King of the Monsters are filled with excitement and energy, using the dynamic duo of Terry Turner and Don Thompson to build the anticipation. Oddly enough, Godzilla’s characteristic roar is not heard in these spots.
So, here they are…as listeners would have heard them back in 1956!
Godzilla King of the Monsters Radio Spots for 12, 50, and 100 seconds versions. Play them if you dare!
I told my grandson, Big Abner, about my plans, and told him how odd I thought it was that the spots didn’t feature Godzilla’s characteristic roar. I told him I even checked the movie trailer which featured the same Turner/Thompson delivery but didn’t have the roars either. A couple of days later, as he always does, he sent me this radio spot with a note that said, “How much better the spots would have been if they sounded like this.” Yessiree, he is so right!
Do you have any radio spots you would like to share? Contact Granny (Gary Fox) at [email protected].