Pod Stallions 83: Creature from the Black Lagoon

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It's October and that means nothing but monsters and horror and we kick it off with a discussion of one of our favourite monsters ever, the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

But, we're us and we veer off into a million directions with discussions about Monster Cereal and Christmas displays being put up too early.

ALSO, we're joined later in the show by David Weiner, regular third chair and director of the upcoming In Search of Darkness Part 2, we discuss the sequel and how you can get involved and then we just start talking horror movies in general, it's a lot of fun.

In Search of Darkness Website

https://80shorrordoc.com/

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[Falstaff13]

As always, these are a joy to listen to.

My history with the Creature is an odd one. When I was growing up, a local station ran old movie series every Sunday afternoon, and that's how I saw everything from Universal Monsters to Thin Man to the Saint & the Falcon. For some reason, this syndication package never ran the three Creature films (or the Lon Chaney Mummy films), so I didn't see all of Universal Horror until I was in college. In undergrad, the film committee ran a "Dive-In Double Feature" of The Creature Walks Among Us & Jaws 3D at the swimming pool, and that was the first of the trilogy I ever saw. I then saw Revenge of the Creature (along with Monster of Piedras Blancas, another fun but odd double-feature) before finally seeing the original, so I definitely came to them a little backwards. I agree the Creature has an amazing and iconic design. Perhaps it's a good thing that you didn't discuss "Abbott & Costello Meet the Creature," but that does have Ben Chapman in the Gill-Man costume and Glenn Strange as Frankenstein's Monster.

And I know that John Carradine's Count isn't great in either of the monster rally films, but I think there's potential there. He does seem to fit the novel's characterization, and that works well with Carradine's style. They used his Dracula in an episode of McCloud, where he played an old horror actor who might really be a vampire (and used footage from the Universal films in clips). In the 1950s, he played Dracula in a live episode of Matinee Theater that is now lost (no kinescope apparently was made), but I understand it shows a more full version that might suggest just how good Carradine could have been.

[Wee67]

Wow! I fell like I just finished the John Saxon one. This is great!

[PNGwynne]

Good, if meandering. So glad you guys mention Milicent Patrick's essential contribution and the lasting effectiveness/impact of the Gillman's elegant design.

I din't see CFTBL until around 6-8th grade I suppose, but I knew of the creature years before from books and merchandise. I also coveted the Penn-Plax monster, but I made do with the Aurora glow kit (a birthday gift). Later I unsuccessfully tried to break apart the kit and graft it onto a Mego as a shell, shades of AHI.

I'm a huge fan of both versions of The Monster Squad, so I enjoyed the mention of the very good gillman design in that film, too. The design there is by Stan Winston, I believe.

[toyhunter1970]

great podcast

[Earth 2 Chris]

Fun show. I prefer the original Creature movie, only because the hero (Richard Carlson) was more compassionate, and his concern for messing with nature jibes more with modern thinking. Plus, the mistreatment Creech suffers in the first sequel upset my daughter enough that she walked out when we were doing our Universal watch-through. When we told this to Ricou Browning at a convention, he got a kick out of it.

I'm mixed on John Agar. I know Derek M. Koch of one of my favorite podcasts Monster Kid Radio loves the guy. As THE prototypical scientist hero of 50s atomic mania movies, he's hard to beat. He's so...square, despite always being a bit too concerned with romance when there's horror going on around him. I prefer the more thoughtful Carlson type, I guess.

There's one more significant appearance by the original Creature. He actually debuted on the Colgate Comedy Hour with Abbott and Costello. This was during their run of "Meet the Monster" films, so think of this as an official tie-in, like a Disney + mini-series to a modern MCU film.

The documentary sounds fascinating. I need to check out part 1! I've heard about the sci-fi one as well. I'm intrigued!

Chris