Hello again, and welcome back to The Ghostly Grotto! I have a very odd but interesting visual treat for you today: it's a collection of Haunted House ads from the 60s and 70s.
These showed up in local newspapers or in pamphlets and flyers, advertising a local haunt for the Halloween season. Enjoy!
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Welcome back to another Old Time Radio Show of the Week! Today, we'll be looking at and listening to a 1936 episode of a lost series titled "The Devil's Scrapbook". Excusing the mislabeled year on the picture above, The Devil's Scrapbook was a 1936 radio series much in the same vein as The Hermit's Cave, and was actually narrated by the same man who played the Hermit on the West Coast. His name was Charles Penman. The premise was pretty simple- the Devil, himself, would introduce each story as if it were a lovely memory out of his own scrapbook (ala Mr. Applegate in the musical Damn Yankees), and the story unfolds before the audience's ears. While it was an interesting concept, the show did not last long and fell into obscurity, with this being the only surviving episode. Perhaps in 1936 the idea of the Devil himself narrating a story seemed unattractive to many people, since this was a delicate time in American history and radio censorship was becoming more common. At any rate, this story is one of the most eerie radio show episodes I have heard in a long time. Sit back, relax, and let the Devil tell you a little story about a man named Mr. David Rugg... Listen below-Gretting, Ghostly Grotto readers and welcome back for a holiday-themed post that I know you're going to DIE for. Puns aside, I'm pleased to announce that I will be posting again on a semi-regular basis (hopefully at LEAST twice a month, but I make no promises) and that means much more content and many more entertaining and exciting terrifying tales. But enough prefacing. Let's get down to business- What is a Monster Kid?According to MonsterKidsOnline.com, a "monster kid" is a person who grew up watching horror movies, reading ghost and horror stories, and falling in love with pretty much all things spooky and ghostly. Not only that, an enduring monster kid is a person who has held onto that imagination and wonder their whole lives. For many monster kids, Christmas was one of the best times of the year. For although Halloween was the season for witches, ghosts, goblins and all things that go bump in the night, Christmas was a season for giving. And for getting. There wasn't a monster kid alive who didn't put at least half a dozen ghoulish items on their Santa lists. Some went above and beyond (asking for a shrunken head, crawling hand, etc.) but goodness knows that no self-respecting horror loving juvenile would have turned down something as wholesome as an Aurora guillotine model kit or an Uncle Fester Magic Lightbulb. Come on, it was Christmas. There was no harm in asking. And maybe old Saint nick would come through and bring the little freckle-faced boy who asked for a Voodoo kit what he really wanted because he had just been that good of a boy. Parents of the 1960s- wondering what to get your monster kid for Christmas? Well, there's one sure-fire place you can always turn to: the advertisement pages of Famous monster of Filmland Magazine! And here, through the glory of the website http://www.mrfink.com/mm_ads/, you can peruse these ads and see what you want to get your little monster for the holidays: How about this lovely little specimen? A monster record player! How would you like to be able to play horrifying sounds to raise the dead with this $1.98 gem? And best of all, it's portable so you can take to "all joyous occasions: seances, funerals, executions, morgues and monster parties". Most surprising (and suspicious to an analytical mind), the record player does not run on batteries, electric power, or any sort of charge. All one has to do is "turn the handle" and the record will play before your blood can curdle. One may wonder how well this record will play with the only power being generated by a child's hand. I would show a picture of what it really looked like, but I can't seem to find any actual images of it out there today. I suppose that says something about its durability... How about the Famous Monster Yearbook? Plenty of fun looking through your favorite moments in horror film history in those little beauties. And, among all the glorious black-and-white images of the greatest monster to grace the silver screen are ads for even MORE things to buy! The vicious cycle begins anew after New Year's! I won't continue giving you the sales pitch- you can read the adverts for yourself on http://www.mrfink.com/mm_ads/ or see a selection down here: As for the rest of the holiday, there were two record that every monster kid should have had- Len Maxwell's 1964 masterpiece "A Merry Monster Christmas" and the 1970's Peter Pan "Monster Christmas Mash". As of yet, I haven't found a copy of either of these records to add to my collection, but I'm always in search of them. A Merry Monster Christmas the brainchild of a great voice actor, Len Maxwell, and was recorded on the 20th Century Fox label in 1964. It was re-released on CD awhile back, but it was severely edited and made almost unbearable with all the terrible new things they out into it, but iTunes released a digital download a few years ago and I bought it. If you've never listened to it, you really should give it a whirl this year. Here it is on YouTube: (the full album as a playlist) https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mBOeFOs7F82Lp-6_jOLLnWsbyvn0TGiF0 The second album, which you saw as the header of this article, is not nearly as good as A Merry Monster Christmas. Though it satisfies the average monster kid's spooky sweet tooth, it's not exactly the same caliber. Ah well, at least it tried. Here it is in all of its glory: https://open.spotify.com/album/3uJQZhBFyqUGcNIUSJRu9e Well, that's all for today's Ghostly Grotto post. In all seriousness, I hope you all have a lovely holiday spending time with your friends and family, and here's to a happy New Year as well! Below are a few more Addams family ads, and the link to the Christmas episode of the show as well. https://www.dailymotion.com/video/xuaimGreetings, Ghostly Grotto readers. It is with great grief and a deep sympathy that I remorsefully apologize for my absence. My current schedule is very busy, but I will now be posting on a semi-regular basis (hopefully at least one every month). And now, a few little Halloween treats! Since i missed it yesterday, here's some spooky gems: 1. Halloween Home movie Footage 1969 Here's a fun treat from archive.org: some rare footage of a Halloween in 1969. Notice The Munsters playing on the TV in the background: https://archive.org/details/ChristopherMWallWALLHOMEMOVIES--1969October31--HalloweenandTrick-or-Treat 2. A Spooky Radio Show Another episode of a great but sadly forgotten radio show 'Theatre 1030' entitled The thing in The Hall: https://archive.org/details/theatre1030thethinginthehall 3. A Lost Episode of the Alfred Hitchcock Hour https://archive.org/details/AlfredHitchcockPresentsTheSorcerersApprentice Well, that's all for now! Happy late Halloween! Welcome to another installment of The Ghostly Grotto. Today, I'm sharing a very rare and very special treat: the original 1969 underscore for the TV series "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!" which was composed by Ted Nichols. As a bonus, this post will also includes music from "The New Scooby-Doo Movies" and "The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour," composed by Hoyt Curtin who also composed for the series "Jonny Quest". "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!" will have first aired 50 years ago come September 13th, and what better way to celebrate than sharing this rare audio treat with all you Scooby fans? Here's the link: archive.org/details/tednicholsunderscores As another bonus, I'm sharing as many storyboards and production pieces as I can from the original 1969 series, in no particular order. All works belong to Hanna-Barbera Productions and their parent company Cartoon Network. Enjoy! The original "Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!" series can be purchased here: https://www.wbshop.com/products/scooby-doo-where-are-you-the-complete-series-dvd And "The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour" can be bought here: https://www.wbshop.com/products/scooby-doo-dynomutt-hour-the-the-complete-series-dvd-1 And "The New Scooby-Doo Movies: The (Almost) Complete Collection" can be bought on Blu-Ray here: https://www.wbshop.com/products/the-new-scooby-doo-movies-the-almost-complete-collection-bd Hello again, faithful readers, and welcome back to The Ghostly Grotto. I've got another terrifying short film for your enjoyment today. It's a horrifying tale called "Teeny-Tiny And The Witch Woman".
One would not expect a children's fairytale (much less a Scholastic Video adaptation of it) to be actually scary. However, those who came in expecting just another 'Georgie' or 'There's Something Under My Bed'(which is also a hidden gem and I will talk about on a future Friday) were either happily surprised or utterly terrified by what they saw.
Fun fact: A long time ago, after we watched this short film, my brother and I used to freak each other out late at night in our bunk beds by doing the Witch Woman voice and calling out "WHOOOOOO IS AWAKE? AND WHOOOO IS ASLEEP?" Never failed to scare the heck out of me. The plot is similar to Hansel And Gretel: three kids are playing in the woods (which their mother tells them EVERY DAY not to do), when the trees eerily start to close in around them and block their path home. Creepy. So, they follow a light to an old cottage deep in the woods in a clearing, which is occupied by none other than the Witch Woman herself! Only Teeny-Tiny is wise to what is going on, but his brothers refuse to leave because they're tired and hungry. Will they escape? Or will they become part of the Witch Woman's fence of bones that circles her house? Yeah, I forgot there's this fence of little children bones around the Witch Woman's house. It's actually kind of terrifying. Enjoy!
Welcome back, dear listeners, to The Ghostly Grotto. Pull up a rock and listen while I tune in my old squeaky 1932 radio to KPFA-radio in California, and we'll listen to one of the best and most underrated radio shows of all time... The Black Mass was not technically an "Old Time Radio" show, since it aired in 1969. Nevertheless, it was a very well done show which initially featured only one actor doing all of the narration for the stories. In fact, I say stories since most episodes of this series were direct readings of classic ghost stories by such famous authors as H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, and the author of this week's story, M.R. James. (My apologies for the image used to the left here. As far as I searched, I could find no newspaper clipping, advertisement, or other related photo which came directly from this series) "The Ash Tree," written by M.R. James and initially published in 1904 as part of James' Ghost Stories of an Antiquary. It tells the story of a woman who is killed for witchcraft but vows an ominous revenge by swearing to her murderers that "there will be visitors at the hall" of the man who sentenced her to death. Some very eerie things happen, but I don't want to give them away. This episode is one of the best, if not the very best of the series, and I've even seen it on some lists of Top 50 Scariest Radio Show Episodes, so there you are.
Here's the link to the episode, courtesy of Archive.org: archive.org/details/blackmassashtree Enjoy! And pleasant dreams!... Ah, dear reader. Welcome back into the chilling, thrilling Ghostly Grotto. Sit down, won't you? Ah, that's better... First of all, I would like to apologize for my lack of posting lately. This post has been awhile in the works, and I've had a lot on my plate lately. So, I'll be posting more regularly now. Sorry! Recently, I've been adding to my large collection of horror literature (see photo at left), and some of the little gems I've ordered online or found in used bookstores are very quaint little collections of ghost stories from the 1970s. As you can see, I've also finally acquired a set of first editions of the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark series, which I might touch on later in another blog post. But these strange books, the ones on the bottom of the image, are the focus of today's post. They're ghost story collections published from the 1950s to the 1970s, and they're published by Scholastic (though two of them claim to be published by Arrow). Some of the stories inside are strangely spooky and interesting, and some of them are not. But, they're vintage horror related, so I bought them and I mostly enjoy reading them. But, in preparation to make this blog post, I stumbled upon a treasure trove of other Scholastic Halloween books that were published around the same time (1970's), and so I decided to briefly touch on two of them here today. THE ARROW BOOK OF GHOST STORIES, published in 1958, is the oldest of the Scholastic horror books. It features several entertaining stories that fail to deliver a real shock rather than just a chuckle or a giggle. The best story in here is not in because it is scary, just entertaining. "King O' The Cats," (known to some who may have listened to the Troll record Weird Tales Of The Unknown as The Cat That Didn't Purr) is a clever tale of a band of cats who a man meets in the road, then tell him to let his cat know that one of them has died. I won't spoil the ending, but it's very clever. THE HAUNTED HOUSE AND OTHER SPOOKY POEMS AND TALES was published in 1970 by Scholastic, and it may be my favorite of all the books published. It's not extremely spooky, but it has several very good tales in it, along with quite a few poems and legends. Most of the stories are from other authors such as Ogden Nash, Ann McGovern, E. V. Rieu and many others. This book was one of the best of its kind for the time. In fact, the litany at the beginning was borrowed by Alvin Schwartz when he wrote Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark: Parts of the book were released onto a 7 inch vinyl record by Scholastic the same year. Though it's not impossible to find, it's hard to find with its original picture sleeve, as seen below: Here's a link to one of the stories from the record, the title story "The Haunted House". A very spooky story, not scary but eerie and very atmospheric: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHHUEFsYdYE
Welcome again, dear listener, to The Ghostly Grotto. Pull up a chair, won't you? And listen to one of the greatest horror radio programs ever to air... oy and, pleasant dreams? Hm"Dark Fantasy" was an interesting little show which aired on NBC out of WKY, Oklahoma City in the early 1940s. It's also a special series in the fact that all but four of the episodes of it survive. It featured a very well written series of scripts, and some very talented voice actors performing the stories with just an edge of mystery and interesting angles that can't be described. The show ran for a short time (only 30 episodes plus a re-run), but it did do well with the public and was given great reviews. The story tonight is the best one out of the series, and was performed a second time on the show after its initial release. So, here, without further ado, is The Demon Tree! Click the link below to listen free on archive.org! archive.org/details/DarkFantasy411205TheDemonTree Enjoy, and... Pleasant dreams? Hmm hmm hmm... Ah, dear viewer. Welcome into The ghostly Grotto for our first spine-tingling installment of a new feature in here which is called Film Study Friday. In the shipwreck which just crashed upon the beach a few miles away last week, I found these two old 8mm and 16mm film projectors, and every so often I run out to the site and scurry back into our lovely little hideaway to collect more of these old, faded, warped films. Sit down, won't you? You seem nervous. This week, our short film we will be discussing is a 1976 adaptation of The Raven, produced by Texture Films and directed by Lewis Jacobs. I can sadly find almost no information regarding this widely-forgotten version of the Edgar Allan Poe story, but I do know that it's one of the better and more atmospheric versions of the tale I've seen. Short, sweet and sinister, it doesn't need to add a load of new material to make it interesting. And the weird, warped out audio strip makes it even scarier, as do the washed-out purple and green colors of the strip. There's a link below to go watch it on Archive.org, and I strongly suggest you do. It's very short, and narrated by Gregg Morton, whom I have never heard of before but does a very good reading of the macabre text. It also has one of the coolest end title cards I've ever seen in my life. Well, sorry for the short post, but at least there's a fun little film you can watch with it. Here's the link: archive.org/details/theraven_20170314
That's all for now. Until we meet again... Good night. And, do watch your step as you climb back into your boat... The blood makes the rocks a bit slippery when the wind is blowing and the tide is rising... Hee hee hee... Pleasant dreams? Hmm hmm hmm... |
AuthorA Halloween fanatic, scary story vinyl collector, and ghost story teller extraordinaire. All self-proclaimed titles, however. Archives
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