JMichael Roddy's "MonsterKIDS" -- The Trailer in Independent Films and Documentaries Forum

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JMichael Roddy's "MonsterKIDS" -- The Trailer

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Rakshasa		#21	[-]
Jul 29 09 11:03 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Don Glut wrote: So, in my opinion, the first -- original -- official "MonsterKid" would have to be (ta da!) Bob Burns. Because Bob was doing things in the 1940s and early '50s (just read his books) that the rest of us didn't do until years later. Bob's (& Tom Weaver's) book MONSTER KID MEMORIES is my very favorite go-to comfort book. I've read it cover to cover many times and usually take it with me when I travel. Bob is the best. Links To All The Classic Monster Stills I've Posted: http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/topic/30758
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TomWeaver999		#22	[-]
Jul 29 09 11:10 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Tim Lucas calls him "Monster Kid #1" in writing fairly regularly. Around here we call him "Numero Uno Monster Kid" (or "Monster Kid Numero Uno" -- I forget) on birthdays and anniversaries. And also "Monster Kid COUPLE #1" -- let's not omit the wonderful Kathy! Yes, Bob (and Kathy) are the best!
TomWeaver999		#23	[-]
Jul 29 09 11:12 AM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	... although I've always wondered if perhaps we were slighting Ray Harryhausen, who'd certainly be a contender too. Another contender MIGHT be James H. Nicholson, who as a teen loved horror movies, had a horror/sci-fi fanzine, rented movies from some local place and showed them in his basement (charging admission), etc. Last Edited By: TomWeaver999 Jul 29 09 12:06 PM. Edited 1 times.
Scaremail		#24	[-]
Jul 29 09 1:54 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Without question... Bob is the number one Monster Kid even though he calls himself the "Old Monster Kid." Someone like Don is one of the original Monster Kids who was around during early monster fandom and watched Marvin on Shock Theatre, picked up the first monster magazines and made his own monster movies, went on to write books etc. Hey, that's why I voted for him year after year until he finally got into the Monster Kid Hall of Fame and eventually finally even received his physical Rondo. If someone would have contacted me at MONSTER BASH, here's a few of the things I would say make a Monster Kid. Personally, I don't care for the term and said so in one of my intros in SCARY MONSTERS. I just consider a person who reads SCARY MONSTERS and is interested in monsters, a monster fan or perhaps a Real Monster Fan. Anyway, here's some of the things a Monster Kid use to do or still does: Search all the corner drugstores, mom and pop grocery stores, bookstores and newsstands for the latest monster magazines that had titles like FANTASTIC MONSTERS OF THE FILMS, FAMOUS MONSTERS, MAD MONSTERS, HORROR MONSTERS and CASTLE OF FRANKENSTEIN. This Scary Kid would also study his TV listings each week searching for and making note of the monster movies that would be showing that week. This kid would more than likely for sure cut out the ads and perhaps even the listings themselves. This is a very small sampling of what a Monster Kid did that was special. It is also very surprising that no matter what part of the world you were born in many monster fan/monster kids have similar MONSTER MEMORIES growing up as have been published in SCARY MONSTERS over the last 18 years.
Bill Warren		#25	[-]
Jul 29 09 2:06 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Scaremail wrote: Someone like Don is one of the original Monster Kids who was around during early monster fandom and watched Marvin on Shock Theatre, picked up the first monster magazines and made his own monster movies, went on to write books etc. Hey, that's why I voted for him year after year until he finally got into the Monster Kid Hall of Fame and eventually finally even received his physical Rondo. Science fiction fandom contains a group called First Fandom, people whose fanac (fan activity) began before 1940 (I think that was the date; it might be earlier). Don Glut and I once wondered how you could identify monster movie First Fandom, and decided (arbitrarily) that someone had to have their name in Famous Monsters before issue #15. Our names first appeared in the same issue. But on the other hand, my name appeared in Forry's "Scientifilm Marquee" column BEFORE Famous Monsters. But Bob Burns was there before either Don or me.. There was at least one Monster Kid before Bob Burns--Hugh Hefner. He made amateur monster movies in the 1940s; he was born in 1926, so he was a teenager when he made those films. (Which I understand he still has.) Last Edited By: Bill Warren Jul 29 09 2:14 PM. Edited 1 times.
Rakshasa		#26	[-]
Jul 29 09 2:07 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Personally, I don't like the notion of "I'm a monster kid. You're not a monster kid." We're all Monster Kids. That's why we're here. Links To All The Classic Monster Stills I've Posted: http://monsterkidclassichorrorforum.yuku.com/topic/30758
Bill Warren		#27	[-]
Jul 29 09 2:08 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	modpro wrote: MONSTERPALOOZA was advertised and talked about all over this site. You can't blame MONSTERPALOOZA for you not making the effort to go to it. . Oh yes I can. I can blame them for not sending a few eMails to fans in this area, announcing the convention. And they did not do that. I wasn't saying that I hadn't >heard< of Monsterpalooza, only that they seemed not to have heard of me. Or Don Glut, for that matter. Does this indicate I have an inflated opinion of myself? I don't think so, or rather, I don't think the indication is entirely accurate. I do take some pride in what I've done. And I'm not going to apologize for that. There were several other reasons I didn't o, including a *very* strong desire to avoid encountering a particular person. Last Edited By: Bill Warren Jul 29 09 2:25 PM. Edited 2 times.
Bill Warren		#28	[-]
Jul 29 09 3:45 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Well, the devil damn me black for a cream-faced loon to think that I could simply be honest here. I didn't expect to get a free pass to Monsterpalooza for all my manifold works, but I DID expect to at least be told about it by the people putting it on, maybe by eMail, maybe by snail mail. But I wasn't, and neither were several other Monster Kids hereabouts.
Victor Frankenstein		#29	[-]
Jul 29 09 4:59 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Rakshasa wrote: You know what? Just today a fellow board member was looking for a copy of a rare movie, so I PM'd him, got his address, and sent him my copy to watch. I've been fortunate and blessed to have other board members do that for me from time to time, so it was my pleasure to give back to someone without. To me, that's what being a Monster Kid is all about. Not some inflated sense of entitlement because I made a movie or wrote a book, but because I love monster movies and I love being pals with other guys who love monster movies. The rest? You can keep it.
Scaremail		#30	[-]
Jul 29 09 5:41 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Rakshasa wrote To me, that's what being a Monster Kid is all about. Not some inflated sense of entitlement because I made a movie or wrote a book, but because I love monster movies and I love being pals with other guys who love monster movies. The rest? You can keep it. The entire point of this isn't a sense of entitlement but doing your homework when you are doing a documentary. Hey, I'm going to be at MONSTERPALOZZA and MONSTER BASH and I should see if I can meet up with Don Glut, Bill Warren or Dennis Druktenis and should contact them in some way and not just interview my friends or random people or guests at the convention. Sure, we're all Monster Kids here but if you are doing a doc on them let's get it right and get some experts as well as fans... I don't know J Michael Roddy and have never heard of him but I'm sure he has the right intentions in doing this documentary.
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Bill Warren		#31	[-]
Jul 29 09 5:47 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Scaremail wrote: The entire point of this isn't a sense of entitlement but doing your homework when you are doing a documentary. Yes, and when you are putting on a convention. Don't worry about the "entitlement" comment--just consider the source.
JerWolf		#32	[-]
Jul 29 09 6:51 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I'm just happy to find some people that share my love of these old movies. It is special to find someone else that grew up loving these monsters as much as me. I didn't even have that kind of friend as a kid. I never outgrew my love for these movies. In fact that passion grew as I did. I just chalked it up to me being pretty much different than everyone I knew. When I read a post I am able to view a scene I have seen countless times through a different pair of eyes. I can see things fresh and notice things I never saw as important or relevant. It is great for me to read that someone else likes the same movie or scene as me. It is redeeming when someone else asks the same questions of a character or plot. I look forward to reading the serious commentary and history about movies made almost 80 years ago. Describe as a Monster Kid if you want. It matters not. I am just happy to find someone else that loves those guy as much as me.
Scaremail		#33	[-]
Jul 29 09 7:16 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Bill Warren wrote: Scaremail wrote: The entire point of this isn't a sense of entitlement but doing your homework when you are doing a documentary. Yes, and when you are putting on a convention. I really don't blame the convention promoter because he has his hands full planning the convention but the documentary maker more. I'm sure the filmmaker has asked the convention promoter for permission to film at the convention and perhaps who will be there but that's really probably it. I don't think he asks who else is in the area that perhaps we can get to come and meet me at the convention. The documentary filmmaker should have planned all of this in advance and contacted the people he wanted to interview to give them time to answer the question properly and ask if they will be attending the convention.
Bill Warren		#34	[-]
Jul 29 09 7:36 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	JerWolf wrote: I'm just happy to find some people that share my love of these old movies. It is special to find someone else that grew up loving these monsters as much as me. I didn't even have that kind of friend as a kid. I never outgrew my love for these movies. In fact that passion grew as I did. I just chalked it up to me being pretty much different than everyone I knew. Doubled here. I grew up in a town of 500 people; there weren't a whole lot of kids my age, much less kids who liked the same kinds of things I did. Sure, all the kids went to some movies, read some books and comics, but not like me. I became gripped by an obsession with SF movies when I saw THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL at the age of 8. I began reading science fiction books when a tie-in paperback of WAR OF THE WORLDS was published to coincide with Pal's movie. And I loved comic books from a very early age; I remember at least one story reasonably clearly that I must have read when I was five. I was the only person I knew, including when I went to high school in a larger town nearby, who >loved< this stuff. And I was often razzed for it, or offered comments that I couldn't even fathom, like monster movies were worthless because they were impossible and couldn't happen. To me, that was a reason to LIKE them, not dislike them. When Sputnik went up, one kid said that now there would be no more science fiction. Even at college, I was constantly derided, laughed at and insulted because I loved these movies, just had to see every one, mounted stills from the movies on my dorm wall (bless you Movie Star News). I was very gratified when we moved to Los Angeles and I joined LASFS--and then found that most science fiction fans disdained most science fiction movies. The reasons for that attitude weren't unreasonable--there really weren't very many SF movies at that time that were both good movies and good (i.e. reasonable) science fiction. But that didn't matter to me. Finally I met one guy at LASFS who was crazy about, at least, TWO of my fave raves, and we became close friends. Then I met Don Glut, also crazy about two of my interests (but not the same two as the first guy). And I met lots of other people at Forry's who were as hopelessly in love with all this stuff as I was, and am. There's an old saying in SF fandom, "It's a proud and lonely thing to be a fan." It's such a relief when you find others out there in that lonely field.
Andrew Kidd		#35	[-]
Jul 29 09 8:23 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I recognized some familiar faces there. Was that Ed French at 2:14?
taraco		#36	[-]
Jul 29 09 8:35 PM Burgomaster Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	This is one of the more absurd 'controversies' I've encountered in quite a while. There is no way any filmmaker could possibly include everyone who should be in a documentary about Monster Kids. And in my encounter with J Michael Roddy, and as is evidenced in the trailer, it seems he has made an honest and open-handed attempt to reach out to the monster community. No one should be expected to know every in and out of who we are, who wrote what, who lives where, or who knows about a convention or doesn't. Someone tipped Michael off to the fact that I wrote an essay about "Monster Kids" and he contacted me. I'm honored, but had I not be included that would have been fine, too. In the end, as anyone who has ever written or filmed anything knows, you only need what you need to make your creative point. This is not the ultimate who's-who of monster fandom, a complete compendium of fans. No, it's simply a cross-section of voices and faces needed to get across to a larger audience that monster fandom is very alive and very well. The fact is that the documentary exists. It obviously has a good heart and a good spirit and I look forward to it. This whole argument seems very strange and not becoming to those involved. (As for Monsterpalooza and who invited who or whatever, obviously there's something more personal going on out there because to not know that convention was happening seems just about impossible). Anyhow, let's please not take a good thing -- this doc -- and make it into another silly fan food fight. As Bill Warren often reminds us, the roots of fandom can be traced to the earliest days of sci-fi fans in the L.A. area, and they often nearly self-destructed on slights real or imagined. No repeat is needed when the fan culture remains so fragile and beset on all sides. Solidarity, my friends. david 'There you have his mad dream.' Last Edited By: taraco Jul 29 09 8:37 PM. Edited 1 times.
taraco		#37	[-]
Jul 29 09 8:44 PM Burgomaster Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Also, I've deleted some of the harsher comments. This is a thread about documentary, not the trivialities of personal attacks. Sometimes people should realize what that kind of nonsense looks like to most CHFB members who might want to read about the topic of a thread, not inside-the-moat battle royals. Thanx.
taraco		#38	[-]
Jul 29 09 8:46 PM Burgomaster Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	Also, to pick up on a question someone asked, can anyone identify everyone in the trailer? I know Bob Burns is there and Daniel Roebuck and Tom Savini but there's also many folks I don't recognize. So any IDs helpful. Thanx. david (the second guy in the clip)
Don Glut		#39	[-]
Jul 29 09 8:59 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I honestly did not hear anything about Monsterpalooza until a few days after it was over, even though it was held just blocks away from my home -- but, again, I was in Chicago at the time. You bet, Hugh Hefner would indeed qualify as a MonsterKid in the classic sense. Besides making amateur horror movies, he also published a fanzine and wrote/drew his own comic books. Sound familiar? And there were others besides Hef. The difference concerning Bob Burns is, however, is that what he was doing as a kid eventually influenced us directly, particularly those of us who'd bought those early issues of FM off the newsstand, were watching the original SHOCK THEATRE movies (pre-CREATURE FEATURES), etc. We read about Bob and his monster-related activities in FM and his own magazine FANTASTIC MONSTERS OF THE FILMS. And many of us were inspired by Bob and emulated him. At the time that we older MonsterKids were still just that, I doubt any of us were really aware of what Hef had done in his pre-PLAYBOY youth. So, in my opinion, Bob Burns is still the first "official" MonsterKid ... or, as we might say in paleo, the ProtoMonsterKid. Bill mentioned how such fans in SF circles are known as "First Fandom." I suggest that we monster-movie fans of that 1st generation be considered (in a tribute to FJA) "First Fiendom." Don PS to Bill -- Just what were those two things we were both crazy about? You mean there were just two? Last Edited By: Don Glut Jul 29 09 11:34 PM. Edited 1 times.
TomWeaver999		#40	[-]
Jul 29 09 9:05 PM Reply Quote More My Recent Posts	I luv Bob but I'm still voting for Ray Harryhausen.
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JMichael Roddy's "MonsterKIDS" -- The Trailer