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Dr. Dorkenstein Meets the Daughter of the Pillsbury Doughboy
'tis the season for things that go bump in the everlasting night of my semi-sentient mind, and in addition to all the other ghosts and goblins, I found myself once again haunted by the thought, "What in the name of unholy Hell was going through the minds of those guys at Aurora?!!"
For those who don't follow the discussion at the plastic modeling blogs and forums, or who missed my original 'toon on the subject, to recap: in the early '60s, Aurora Models releases a line of kits of the old Universal Studios movie monsters, which instantly become one of (if not THE) hottest selling line of kits ever and, along with their Model Motoring slot car line, become the mainstay of Aurora's profits; in the early '70s, hoping to score again in the same genre, Aurora releases a series of kits called "Monster Scenes", featuring both medieval and modern torture devices, a mad scientist called Dr. Deadly", a Frankenstein monster, the popular comic book bloodsucker Vampirella, and a Hippie Chick/Happy Hooker (depending on your outlook) female figure called "The Victim"; feminists, parent groups (the ones that push the kind of "educational toys" that only their own weenie-wimp kids could be brainwashed into believing are fun to play with), and religious organizations predictably go ballistic; Aurora takes a stab at damage control by changing the name of the "The Victim" to "Dr. Deadly's Daughter", apparently believing that protesters upset by the sadism can be mollified by throwing in a little incest as well; Nabisco, which has just bought Aurora from the retiring Abe Shikes, spends a few days wondering WTF kind of hornets nest they've stuck their head into, then fires the entire Aurora management team (and, in a real horror chiller nightmare monster scene, starts making weenie-wimp educational toys).
Or, at least, that last part is the conventional wisdom. And it's probably right, but the Occupy Wall Street and Occupy Chicago and Occupy Everywhere Else movement (yesterday at Boo-Ha-Ha I even saw a genuine leftover '60s hippie carrying a sign for Occupy Tulsa) got me to thinking there might be a more heartwarming explanation. In the time-honored tradition of giant corporations taking over small private companies, Nabisco would have undoubtedly fired Aurora's management and replaced them with their own suits anyway, with or without the Monster Scenes as a handy excuse. And, maybe, just maybe, seeing the deal coming, in one of those Last Great Acts of Defiance, the guys at Aurora thought, "Well, if they're going to come in here and put us out of work, let's just let that bunch of cookie-pushing crumbs find out they bought more than they bargained for!!!"
Like I said, it probably didn't happen that way, but even if you know it's probably no more real than the little witches and devils that will be ringing the doorbell Monday night, just the thought of that kind of trick is a nice treat.
Comments and faves
dungeonguy_59 added this photo to his favorites. (7 months ago)
r8r (7 months ago | reply)
I was a pre-teen Aurora model kit fan back then, and I think I had all of those plastic kits. I think the 'The Victim', except for Vampi, was about the only regular female figure in the line. Or was there a Witch figure in there somewhere too?
Sir Basil Birchbottom (7 months ago | reply)
Thanks, GORDO-8. And, yes, I will definitely have to check those out!
There was a an "Old Witch" (I think that was the name of the kit), r8r, but she was one of the later additions to the larger-sized "Famous Monsters" series, not one of the "Monster Scenes". There was another Aurora female figure in the same scale with The Victim and Vampi, the "Cro-Magnon Woman" from Aurora's series of prehistoric scenes that also came out in the early Seventies, and who undoubtedly ended up suffering alongside The Victim in more than a few little sadists' Monster Scenes.
Hmm... GORDO-8...? r8r...? Are you guys rel8ed?
mariomaster added this photo to his favorites. (7 months ago)