Famous Monsters of Filmland #181 - Warren

March 1982 - As I've said before, I never much went for Famous Monsters of Filmland. When I came of age and got into monsters and/or horror, the genre had become "reputable" again (and, more importantly to society, profitable) and I didn't need the pun-heavy safe route to the world of monsters that FMOF provided; I could go directly to the "hard stuff"--Creepy, Eerie, etc.

But of course, without FMOF, there would be no Warren Publications, there might not even be a black-and-white magazine line (from any company) at all. Heck, without the early, corrupting influence of Forry Ackerman, who knows what kind of trouble early fans like Steven Spielberg, Joe Dante, and Rick Baker would've gotten into?

So I've been picking up issues of FMOF here and there; not so much for "review" purposes--how many different ways are there to talk about a magazine made mostly from movie stills?--but more as a tribute to the fine institution the magazine was, and of course to have a little fun in the process.

So let's start with the cover--Heartbeeps! Certainly one of the oddest films ever made, if for no other reason than a movie studio actually told themselves "Let's build an entire production around the wonderfully stable Andy Kaufman. And let's have him play a robot."

I remember seeing Heartbeeps on cable a year or two after it came out, and as a kid I could not make heads or tails from it. It was so god-darned weird, I just gave up on it and went back to watching Superman II for the fifty-fifth time.

But the film is on DVD, and it features an eclectic cast to say the least--Kaufman, Bernadette Peters, Randy Quaid, Christopher Guest, and the voice of Jerry Garcia(!). So maybe the adult (ha!) me needs to check it out again.

Anyway, one of the fun elements of looking at these old FMOFs is seeing what "future releases" mentioned actually made it to the screen, and how closely they resemble what was initially discussed:

...for my money, I would've preferred Watch the Skies to E.T., but what do I know? (Heck, someone still needs to make a movie called Watch the Skies.)

There's a couple of pages talking about current releases, and then a huge list of "upcoming releases" for 1982. Let's take a look:

The Creature From the Black Lagoon? Vampirella? Batman?--is that the Bill Murray/Eddie Murphy version?

Next is a piece on Time Bandits, and then a really cool article on Raiders of the Lost Ark, featuring a cute look at the old-timey movies that inspired it:

...no surprise, a lot of the stuff from ROTL can be traced back to classic movie serials. Makes me long for Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Annotated Special Edition.

Next is an article on fantasy films of 1940 and 1941, a piece on the new film Mausoleum, then a multi-page piece on Heartbeeps.

Then follows an obituary section (still written in that jokey FMOF style) for horror/sci-fi actors and other people connected to the genre who died in the last few months, like Don Megowan (who played the Creature in The Creature Walks Among Us), and Ross Martin, the star of The Colossus of New York, which gave the magazine the excuse to run one of my all-time favorite pieces of poster art:

Wrapping the issue up is an article on the new film Ghost Story (which I remember seeing on cable as a kid--my main memory from it being it featured way too much male nudity), and then "You Axed For It!", one of FMOF's regular features that consisted of stills from movies.

In an age where practically every movie ever made is available on DVD, getting a thrill from seeing stills from a movie seems like something from another era, as distant as radio shows or vinyl records.

Like all Warren magazines, this issue ends with a bunch of pages of Captain Company ads. Almost all of it is Star Wars stuff, but there was a little room for other kinds of goodies:

...I have since tracked down those LPs (and they are awesome, if just for the Wally Wood/Dan Adkins covers), and I want those monster board games so bad!

Those of you out there who visit this blog (all seven of you), let me know if you enjoy these trips through the pages of Famous Monsters of Filmland; I'd be happy to do more...