Happy Birthday to The Gill Man

 Only three days from Halloween and we celebrate a man behind a mask, of one of the most iconic monsters in cinema history, actor, Ben Chapman, who would have been 93 today.

Chapman was born in Oakland California on October 29th 1928.  He would serve in the 1st Marine Division of the United States Marines and becoming a Real Estate Executive before being cast as the, Creature From the Black Lagoon.

Stories would circulate that Chapman won numerous honors as a Marine but unfortunately these would prove to be false, the origin of the stories is unknown, but he did serve his country with distinction and was awarded and honorable discharge after serving in the Korean War.

Chapman would be cast as the creature due to his large stature of 6'5", which was huge for his day in Hollywood, producers wanted a very imposing creature, and Chapman was, on the land anyway.  Local Florida diver, Ricou Browning would be cast as the creature underwater.  If you look at the picture above, you will see the chest plate of Chapmans suit, the center pieces were not there on Brownings much smaller suit, but you'd never notice the difference until you could see them side by side, of which NO photo exists.

To fans, Chapman was known, as he was with the cast, a gentle giant.  He would go on to make hundreds of appearances at conventions and collector shows, greeting fans from around the world with a smile as big as the man.

The Creature from the Black Lagoon remains one of the most beloved of the Universal Monsters franchise and is arguably the most marketed of all the monsters, he even had his own slot machine in Las Vegas casinos.

The film was unique to the franchise due to its release in 3-D and also that it was one of the first ones released to television syndication.

Along with finding it on the DVD/BluRay sets, a behind the scenes feature called, Back to the Black Lagoon, can be found on Youtube and is well worth the watch.

Happy Birthday, Mr Ben Chapman, you are still loved and dearly missed. 

Throwback Thursday : The Cartoon Booth

 In a small town, the local Wal-Mart provided little entertainment but it was the only store in town large enough for coin operated games before arcades came around.  When you got to big to ride the merry-go-round you went for the cartoon booth, usually featuring Terry Tunes (which I'll do a history on at some point) but there were others to enjoy too.  For the price of a quarter, you could sit and enjoy an entire cartoon... if it was working right 😆

They had an all-star list of cartoons... from 20 years before but they were still entertaining and fun, the company would change out the reels every three months or so.

Heckle & Jeckle were one of the mainstays of the booths.  A pair of trouble making magpies who were always looking for a new deal to get in on.

In the hero department, the resident top guy was one of the smallest of all time, Mighty Mouse.  Looking back, almost all the stories were pretty much the same but the nostalgia of that classic theme song still bring back great memories for so many of us who still have a little kid inside.

Some of the characters, like James Hound, were very forgettable.  A really back knockoff of the spy genre, James Hound had more trouble with his own equipment then he did with the bad guys he was after, luckily there was only one or two lemons like this on a reel of 12.

The Mighty Heroes, this bunch was both hysterical and fun, but there weren't that many episodes.  The team featured, Strong Man, Rope Man, Tornado Man, Cuckoo Man & Diaper Man... yes, those last two are correct.  When trouble broke out in the fictional city of, Good Haven, this team of accident-prone bunglers would burst into action and often into each other.

Betty Boop & Popeye the Sailor would also have episodes on the reels.  Not a lot of people know that Popeye first appeared in a Betty Boop cartoon.  They were classics but Betty ended up being taken out of the machine in my town, she was still to risque for good old Bolivar MO 😆

Another of the great, or not-so-great, from this crew was, Deputy Dawg, a country law man who would have all kinds of trouble from towns folk and two bear cups who liked to play hooky from school.

Like several others, Deputy Dawg ended up getting a reboot on the new Mighty Mouse show on Saturday Mornings, but only lasted one season.

He didn't make it to every reel but every so often, the man of steel, in his Max Fliescher form, would surprise you with a classic episode.  Superman was such a treat because those episodes were far longer than most of the cartoon shorts for the other characters. 

One of the biggest mainstays of the groups though, was Woody Woodpecker, he had at least two episodes on each reel, as he was still seen as the biggest cartoon star in the world that wasn't under the ownership of Disney or Warner Brothers.  And, his episodes were all over the board from the original to what the modern was at the time.

These classics are still such today, still fun and entertaining, if you can stomach the stereotypes from the ages, they are some of the purest cartoons of their era.