IN PRAISE OF WOMEN IN HORROR

Besides the obvious inclusion of Mary Shelley, lots of women have been notable contributors in the field of horror as this article from the September-October issue of the SATURDAY EVENING POST attests. Included are comments by Final Girl, Jamie Lee Curtis.

TV HORROR HOSTS WE KNEW AND LOVED

While there are still a few left, us Monster Kids from back in the day look back in fond remembrance of the TV horror hosts that gave us all those late nights with our favorite monsters. Remember, this is when there were no videos, DVD's or streaming services so that we could watch these movies whenever we wanted. Instead, we had to wait anxiously for a whole week until the next one, and sometimes we'd luck out and see a re-run of a particular favorite.

Relive those golden times with this article from THE SATURDAY EVENING POST (Sept.-Oct., 2023).

WHY DO WE LOVE DINOSAURS?

What is it about dinosaurs that fascinates us? They are a source of awe and wonder from childhood to adulthood, and for some, the obsession leads to a career in paleontology where the discovery of ancient fossils becomes up close and personal.

This article, from THE SATURDAY EVENING POST attempts to answer this question, albeit it in a somewhat light-hearted way.

King Kong battles a pterodactyl in this classic battle of beasts.

Why We Love Dinosaurs

What is it about dinosaurs that continues to fascinate?

By Cable Neuhaus

Any conversation about our culture’s embrace of all things dinosaur must, unfortunately, confront the issue of Barney. Yep, that Barney — the confoundingly cheerful Tyrannosaurus rex who starred in the Barney & Friends kids TV series from 1992 to 2009.

There’s a little bit of nasty business I need to address up front. It turns out that David Joyner, the actor inside the Barney costume through most of those years, took a sharp career detour following the show’s end. I’m both sad and astonished to report that Barney — er, Joyner — currently runs a tantric sex clinic in California ($350 per session). His old job and his new one have one common denominator, he has said: “Love heals.”

Dinosaurs still live in the Valley of Gwangi.

Well, no argument there. Barney was undeniably a positive inspiration to a generation of young Americans who learned something about love from the big purple guy. It is what propelled him to stardom, after all. Co­incidentally, and notably, Jurassic Park, the Steven Spielberg blockbuster film, was released almost concurrently with the launch of Barney on TV. However, its computer-generated velociraptors were decidedly scary. There was no love.

Together, Barney and Jurassic Park brought dinosaurs back into our lives. Suddenly, reptiles that went extinct 65 million years ago were relevant again. Dino-mania was a thing.

“Dinosaurs are inherently tragic figures because it is hard to think about them without thinking about the fact that they’re not here anymore.”

Raquel Welch gets carried away by a pterodactyl in One Million Years B.C.

So what is it about dinosaurs that continues to fascinate? Why are they everywhere in our pop culture? (My favorite item is the Egg-A-Matic that molds hard-boiled eggs into the shape of dinosaur heads.) Theories abound. While it’s not often acknowledged by academics, I would venture that dinos’ size and their scare-the-pants-off-you comportment play major roles in the phenomenon. (Barney, as ever, is the outlier.)

Another plausible point of view: Dinosaurs are stuck in our headspace because of the drama of their demise, a meteorite strike so powerful that it disturbed the very ecology of our planet and killed off the reptiles of that era. “Dinosaurs are inherently tragic figures because it is hard to think about them without thinking about the fact that they’re not here anymore,” science fiction writer Seth Dickinson once said in an interview. A rather romantic point of view. I like it.

My quest to explore why dinosaurs simultaneously terrify and captivate took me one afternoon to see Robert DePalma II, a paleontologist at Florida Atlantic University. “Understanding dinosaurs is a window into the future from the past,” he told me. Studying the long-gone creatures “could be predictive, might help us understand what other life forms might be like elsewhere in the universe.” The scientist quickly added that of course other life exists out there.

The Beast of Hollow Mountain.

Lately, to educate curious civilians and young scientists alike, DePalma has done live video feeds from excavation sites. (One of his projects unearthed an 18-foot Mosasaurus sea dragon that a wealthy physician purchased from a landowner and, with DePalma’s expertise, suspended from the ceiling of his Massachusetts house.)

With all the other disciplines he might have pursued, I asked DePalma why he chose devotion to dinosaurs. He hesitated for but a moment; he had, it seemed to me, a ready answer: “They’re monsters — weird and strange. Incredible creatures. A ‘wow.’”

There is a boyishly obvious truth in that. Dinosaurs are bound to forever be a “wow!” Aside from everything else, they feed the powerful Jurassic Park-ish fantasy of scientists one day bringing the beasts back to Planet Earth. The stuff dreams and nightmares are made of.

In the last issue, Neuhaus wrote about Amazon’s disruptive influence on American habit and culture.

This article is featured in the March/April 2019 issue of The Saturday Evening Post.

For more about dinosaurs see this previous post HERE.

THE 8 MONSTERS OF CHRISTMAS

Welcome to the more sinister side of Christmas. Many ancient legends that center around this time of the year involve monsters. Here are eight of them revealed in an article in none other than the Saturday Evening Post!

The 8 Scariest Christmas Monsters

Christmastime is Monster Time!

By Troy Brownfield | December 16, 2019 | saturdayeveningpost.com

From the Christian celebration to elements of Yule and images drawn from advertising art, literature, and more, the idea of Christmas in America comes loaded with its own set of stories and symbols. However, one bit of lore that hasn’t quite made the transition to the States is the existence of an entire class of Christmas monsters. That’s right; to you, it might just mean Santa and elves and reindeer, but in many other countries, Christmastime means Monster Time. Here’s a bestiary of beings that lurk in the silent night.

1. The Krampus

The Krampus has become the king of the Christmas monsters. He’s has broken in America in a big way in the last couple of decades, notably with comics and a handful of horror films. A counterpart to Santa who punishes bad children, Krampus has his roots in the eight Alpine countries (Germany, Austria, Italy, etc.) stretching back to at least the 1500s. Represented as a demonic humanoid with goat horns (recalling the pagan “Horned God”) and cloven feet, Krampus frequently carries chains, bells, and branches (which are used to whip the bad kids). Krampusnacht, December 5, is the night before the Feast of St. Nicholas; this is recognized in a number of European communities with activities like parades. “Krampus Walks,” featuring attendees in costume, are becoming more popular in the U.S.

2. Knecht Ruprecht

Not so much a monster as another thrasher of naughty children, Knecht Ruprecht is a sidekick of Saint Nicholas in German tradition. Varying versions of the story have Ruprecht leaving nuts or treats for good children, while leaving switches (for their parents to beat them with) for the bad. Still other versions cast him as more of a helper than a punisher. He’s usually depicted in dark robes and carrying a bundle of sticks. The similar character of Belsnickel appears in other traditions, and has many traits in common with Ruprecht.

3. La Befana

Sometimes called The Christmas Witch, Befana rises from Italian folklore to give gifts to kids on Epiphany Eve (January 5). Befana is said to fly on a broomstick and leave treats and presents in stockings, while leaving behind sticks or coal for bad children. Interestingly, while the story has been known for some time, the Befana traditions weren’t really subject to widespread practice in Italy until the 20th Century. Frau Perchta is a similar personage that may have been inspired by Norse myths; she fulfills the same function as Befana while alternately appearing as either a beautiful maiden or old woman (although she’s given to sometimes cutting open bad kids and stuffing them with straw).

4. Gryla, The Yule Lads, and The Yule Cat

Iceland brings us one of the more elaborate Christmas monster mythologies, which stem from Yule lore. Grýla is a trollish giantess who lives in a cave with her large (and LARGE) family. There’s Jólakötturinn, the monstrous Yule Cat. There’s her lazy husband, Leppalúdi, who mostly doesn’t leave the cave. And there’s her 13 sons, the Jólasveinar, popularly known as the Yule Lads.  On the whole, their reputation rests on their willingness to devour people, including children. Jólakötturinn, specializes in eating people who didn’t get new clothes before Christmas Eve (which ties back to a tradition of people getting new clothes as a reward for being good). Each of the Yule Lads has a particular prank or form of harassment associated with them that they perpetrate on the people, from stealing food to candles. Stories of the family go back centuries, but the 1932 poem Yule Lads by Icelandic poet and politician Jóhannes úr Kötlum set the canon for the names and behaviors of the Lads as they’re perceived today.

5. Père Fouettard

His name means Father Whipper in French, and he comes by it for good reason. Another companion of St. Nick, Fouettard is said to journey with the jolly man on Saint Nicholas Day and dole out beatings to the bad children while Nick rewards the good ones. Usually depicted with sticks and reeds, Fouettard is also described as frequently wearing a wicker basket on his back for the capturing of naughty children. He’s also traditionally shown as bearded, bedraggled, and dirty, as if having soot on this face. Unfortunately, the soot in recent years devolved in the use of blackface by cosplayers and parade-goers, stirring controversy in a manner similar to Zwarte Piet (Black Peter).

6. Zwarte Piet (Black Peter)

Black Peter first appeared in a Dutch book in 1850 and became a popular companion for Sinterklaas (aka Santa). In the book and later writings, the character is a Spanish Moor that becomes Sinterklaas’s assistant, occasionally punishing or even stealing naughty children. While it was quite common to see people don colorful costumes and blackface to depict Peter for many years, recent decades have seen a rise in controversy as various groups and celebrities have spoken against the practice. Some parades and programming have changed the appearance and the style of the character, while others doggedly adhere to what they see as tradition. Some communities and school corporations in Europe have taken to phasing the character out entirely.

7. Hans Trapp

Hans von Trotha was a real German knight in the 1400s. His story in folklore has become that of Hans Trapp. Over time, Trapp grew to be depicted as the “Black Knight” that stalked the Wasgau hills, frightening children and appearing in other legends. In the Alsace region (in northern France that borders Germany and Switzerland), Hans Trapp merged with the St. Nicholas story, replacing Knecht Ruprecht as Santa’s punisher.

8. Mari Lwyd

Yes, Virginia; there is a zombie horse of Christmas. This is a specific outgrowth of the wassailing tradition in Wales. In the States, we think of wassailing as simply caroling, but it’s more of a mix of caroling and trick-or-treating; in wassail, groups moves from home to home and sing in exchange for a drink (frequently, wassail itself, which is a hot mulled cider). In the Mari Lwyd tradition, one member of the group hoists a horse’s skull on a pole that is draped with a hood and leads the wassailers about. The Mari Lwyd group would sing and the home dwellers would respond in song; this went back in forth until the Mari Lwyd-bearers got their drink or moved on. The practice fell out of favor in the early 20th century, but experienced a revival before the year 2000. That year, Aberystwyth in Wales put together “The World’s Largest Mair Lwyd” for millennial celebrations.

BORIS KARLOFF: HOW I BECAME A MONSTER

That venerable old publication, THE SATURDAY EVENING POST was revived a few years ago. Each issue includes a department, "The Vault", that reprints stories from vintage issues. The one shown here (November/December 2019) is a short article from the November 3, 1962 issue ("Memoirs of a Monster" as told to Arlene and Howard Eisenberg) about how Boris Karloff became the Frankenstein Monster.

As always, Karloff gives credit to Jack Pierce for creating the iconic makeup. He says here that the work took a week to complete, where other sources state that the makeup took much longer before it was finalized. Nevertheless, an interesting look into the past!