SSP Monsters

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I know I've done a piece on the 1978 SSP Catalog (although I have no memory of doing it), I kind of glossed over one of the cooler offerings that year. That being the Monster hot rods, all of which look like Universal Monsters but did Universal get a penny, Nooooo Sireeee they did not. Let's explore:



While the Mummy, Frankenstein and Dracula could be argued as Public Domain, there is no way in hell that the car marked "Gargoyle" is anything but the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

This copyright infringement doesn't slow my desire to own these but sadly as I've discovered, they're really tough to find these days.

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[HardyGirl]

I love SSP cars. My fave has always been the Laker Special, so I really like that Shark. That iron-on was a good promo, too.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Wow, that Creature is blatant.You wouldn't expect that from a big company like Kenner.

Chris

[ctc]

>Wow, that Creature is blatant.

Yeah.... they're not even pretending. I wonder if the Universal monsters were considered a hot (or even lukewarm) property by their owners back then. I've seen a lot of blatant rips from the 70's.... stuff that'd get clamped down on hardcore today.... but did Universal not see it as worth the effort to pursue? I know the monsters were popular 'cos of reruns on tv and such, but maybe they saw them as filler?

Don C.

[Earth 2 Chris]

Universal's interest (and copyright) protection of their monsters has seemed to have waxed and waned over the years. There were tons of Halloween items made in the 70s that had Universal type monsters with no license. From watching the special features on The Monster Squad DVD (1987), I know that Universal didn't seem to care about the characters in the mid-80s enough to greenlight the movie. It would have been a great way to revive their versions of the monsters. Instead they let a rival studio go off and get about as close as legally possible without being able to sue. Seems hard to believe nowadays, when everyone wants a property to exploit.

Chris

[ctc]

>Seems hard to believe nowadays, when everyone wants a property to exploit

TOO true! I'd been told it was 'cos of the '89 Batman film. NOBODY expected it to do as well as it did, and when it hit huge there was a race for companies to secure the rights to anything and everything since they didn't know what the next big thing would be. That's why it took so long for so many old cartoons to be released on disk: someone bought the rights twenty years ago and was sitting on them. Maybe the monsters were part of this process?

Don C.

[Wee67]

As much of an SSP lover as I was as a kid, I was unaware of these incredibly cool versions SSP's in gerneral are severely lacking in my collection.