Monster Cereals Return From The Grave

When I was a kid growing up in the 1970s, my favorite breakfast cereal was General Mills' Count Chocula. I can't even guess how many boxes of that sugary, chocolate-flavored cereal I consumed between 1975 (when the product was introduced) and, say, the mid-80s, when I finally stopped eating cereal regularly.

Count Chocula was one of five monster-themed cereals manufactured by the company. The most popular one, after Count Chocula, was the strawberry-flavored Franken Berry, followed by the blueberry-flavored Boo Berry. I never cared for those berry-flavored cereals, but I seem to remember my sister sometimes ate Franken Berry. Two more fruit-flavored cereals were introduced later - Yummy Mummy and Fruit Brute (immortalized in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction), but I don't recall those being sold in my area, and in any case, they didn't last long. Count Chocula, Franken Berry and Boo Berry were manufactured for decades, but in recent years, those three products have only had limited distribution, and only during the month of October.

This year, General Mills is offering all five flavors during October. The packages will apparently feature truly hideous new artwork, but the Target chain will exclusively sell the products in "retro" packaing featuring the original 70s art. I'm actually thinking about visiting Target (a store I generally avoid) and picking up one of each....

 

Anyway, I recently stumbled across this half-hour video compilation of vintage monster cereal television commercials. Man, these really bring back memories! I had just about every single toy/premium shown in the video! I don't know who voiced these characters, but the Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre impressions (for Franken and Boo, respectively) in the early spots are terrific!

Weekend Creature Double Feature... in 3-D

A couple of my all-time faves!

You'll always have a home here....

Happy birthday, Bela, wherever you are....

Wednesday Cover: Bela Lugosi's Tales From The Grave!

In celebration of the great Bela Lugosi's birthday (he would be 128 today!), this week I present the cover of the first issue of Bela Lugosi's Tales From The Grave, painted by the legendary Basil Gogos, of Famous Monsters fame.

This new comic is on sale this month, and features stories by a slew of talented creators, including my pals Martin Powell and Terry Beatty, among many others.

Happy Birthday Bela!

The immortal Bela Lugosi would have been 127 years old today.

Born October 20, 1882, as Béla Blasko in Lugoj, Romania, the handsome actor gained screen immortality as Dracula in the 1931 Universal film of the same name. Although his career had more than its share of peaks and valleys (or, perhaps more accurately, "peaks and chasms"), Lugosi's filmography is an embarrasment of riches for the dedicated horror movie fan.

Regardless of the quality of the production, Lugosi nearly always delivered a memorable performance, and, in potboilers like Bowery at Midnight, The Invisible Ghost, Voodoo Man, Scared to Death, The Corpse Vanishes or Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster, it is often only Lugosi's presence that makes them watchable at all.

With Halloween around the corner, it's the perfect time to pay tribute to the legendary actor by watching one or more of his remarkable performances. May I humbly suggest White Zombie (1932), The Black Cat (1934), The Raven (1935), Son of Frankenstein (1939), The Return of the Vampire (1944), or Abbott & Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948)?

"...When The Autumn Moon Is Bright..."

I'm a big fan of the old Universal Monster movies of the 30's and 40's (end even the 50's; i.e. The Creature From The Black Lagoon). I haven't written much about that particular pop culture obsession in this blog because, well, over the last few years, there hasn't been much new and interesting to discuss. All the major films of the cycle hit DVD long ago, and even the collectible market's been kinda thin the last few years. (And even if it hadn't been, I couldn't afford to buy any toys nowadays, anyway....)

When it was announced a year or so ago that Universal was remaking The Wolf Man, well, frankly, I didn't much care.

After The Mummy "remake" turned out to be more of an Indiana Jones knock-off than anything resembling the Karloff (or Tyler or Chaney) original(s), followed by the fetid abomination that was Van Helsing... well, I didn't have much confidence in the studio doing justice to the character and film that's probably my favorite of the original Universal Monsters series.

In recent months, though, I have to admit, I've started to allow myself a little hope. Plot synopses online suggest that this one really is a remake of the original film's storyline, and the casting sounds interesting, with Benicio Del Toro playing the Lon Chaney Jr. role and Anthony Hopkins assuming Claude Rains' role. And further fueling my burgeoning – if cautious – optimisim, this past week, photos were released of Rick Baker's reimagining of the classic Ken Pierce Wolf Man make-up...

... and I like it.

I mean, I'm not surprised that the make-up's great – this is Rick Baker we're talking about, after all – but I'm impressed that they're using make-up at all, instead of going strictly for a CGI cartoon.

I understand that Del Toro's a big fan of the original 1941 film, and is also a co-producer on the remake. Dare I hope that this one will be respectful and be a worthy remake of a legendary – and damned fine – horror classic?

We'll see....