Aurora Monster Scenes Store Display!

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We've got an incredible treat this Friday before Halloween in the form of this incredible Aurora Monster Scenes store display, courtesy of my pal Matt, who will take over from here with the editorial.




This was actually assembled and painted at the Aurora factory, and then shipped built up to hobby stores.
Frankenstein doesn't come with the set. He is a vintage one from my childhood



There is little I can say about the Monster Scenes that hasn't already been said except that, in my opinion, they are the single greatest monster toy line to come out of the 1970s.
They surpass even the Ahi monsters, as far as I'm concerned. If ever a toy line typified the early 1970s, this was it.



Only in that decade could you get a model kit that was an action figure with a diorama that you built in order to reenact scenes of torture.

No other decade would dare market a toy to kids rated "X" as a double-entendre. No other toy was made in that decade that so simply and directly tapped into that pre-adolescent boy mindset-- that transitory period where one is on the verge of transitioning away from loving "kids stuff" like monsters, and starting to think about girls...

No one else has ever released a toy with that same cheerful mix of innocence and sadism. One would consider such a feat to be near impossible. But Aurora did. And it was the rock upon which they sank.



Here is the set with a random assortment of boxed Monster Scenes-- including the rare package variant "Victim" renamed as "Dr Deadly's Daughter" for Canadian markets.


Thanks to Matt for being so awesome and sharing this piece of 1970s gold. Happy Halloween Everyone!For more Fashion Mockery and 70's toy love visit us at Plaid Stallions.com


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[Hedji]

That is one of the most beautiful things these eyes have seen. Thanks for sharing.

[Earth 2 Chris]

That's all kinds of awesome! The Monster Scenes have always fascinated, not only for the controversy, but also because, sculpting wise, they are actually more primitive looking than the earlier 60s Aurora kits. Was that due to a change in sculptors?


Chris

[enyawd72]

That's all kinds of awesome! The Monster Scenes have always fascinated, not only for the controversy, but also because, sculpting wise, they are actually more primitive looking than the earlier 60s Aurora kits. Was that due to a change in sculptors?


Chris

It was more of a conceptual change Chris. The Monster Scenes kits were more like DIY action figures than model kits. They had poseable arms and heads and were meant to be interchangeable with the environment. The dynamic poses and diorama style bases of the earlier kits were abandoned in favor of playability.

[LordMudd]

How tall were they?


CCC.

[Hedji]

About 6 inches, smaller than the standard Aurora 8 inchers.

[Mikey]

The girl seems very Wonder Womany

[ZMOQ]

Wow, thanks for the shout-out! I had not checked their official site http://monsterscenes.net/main.htm
in quite a while, and only tonight, I found out 3 things:

1) They have a coffee-table book of Aurora's Monster Scenes. Came out last year and is still in-print.

2) They are *seriously* working on a re-issue of 2 kits that never made it to production, "The Animal Pit" and "The Dungeon" using 1972 Aurora molds.

3) The modern-day re-issues of their other 9 official kits by Moebius are now out-of-production. Those came out in 2008, and are not available anymore on the official site http://monsterscenes.net/main.htm.

Amazon.Com is beginning to show inflated prices for the kits, although ebay still has them for somewhat reasonable prices. If you like the kits, now is the time to get them. Some hobby stores may still have them on the shelves.

I have the Moebius kit "The Pendulum", but I had not assembled it or painted it yet. Bought it in 2010 for old times sake. I remember having the original Aurora kit as a kid. My Dad bought some of these kits for my brother and I back in 1971, so we'd have something to do while we visited relatives in Oakland. Of course, that kit was lost or disposed of, a long time ago, but the happy memories of Monster Scenes remain.

The kits are about 1/13 scale. The humans are about 5"- 5.5" tall. I just tested the table of "The Pendulum" and it was definitely designed for a figure that's 5" tall. Unfortunately, the girl "victim" from the series is a model kit, not an action figure, so she does not lie flat on the table. However, modern 5" action figures will fit.

[Neutron X]

To be honest these kits really freaked me out as a 6 year old, giving me the willies. I wasn't at all sure what to make of these kits but I do remember liking the skeleton and my older sister guiding me to a more age appropriate toy. Good Halloween post!

[FETT1]

...AweSome...always been a Monster Freakkkkkkk....not long ago I was lucky enough to buy a couple of Monster scenes kits.
Both were in their respective baggies and one was still in its boX!

There is a AweeeSome book out there which I do have called ?..well here's a picture...the book is GreaT!!!

[Wee67]

Yeah, the hot coals and blood tipped sword are pretty gruesome. The Vampirella scene on the cover of that book is not something you're going to see in Target's toy section any time soon.

[SpaceCrawler]

Wow, thanks for the shout-out! I had not checked their official site http://monsterscenes.net/main.htm
in quite a while, and only tonight, I found out 3 things:

1) They have a coffee-table book of Aurora's Monster Scenes. Came out last year and is still in-print.

2) They are *seriously* working on a re-issue of 2 kits that never made it to production, "The Animal Pit" and "The Dungeon" using 1972 Aurora molds.

3) The modern-day re-issues of their other 9 official kits by Moebius are now out-of-production. Those came out in 2008, and are not available anymore on the official site http://monsterscenes.net/main.htm.

Amazon.Com is beginning to show inflated prices for the kits, although ebay still has them for somewhat reasonable prices. If you like the kits, now is the time to get them. Some hobby stores may still have them on the shelves.

Amazon.com prices (from independent sellers) are usually always higher than real world or eBay prices.
Cult TV and Mega Hobby seems to still have a few kits in stock.
When these were first re-released several years back they also made cardboard store displays like you see in the original post that were available for sale. I have them, pretty cool.

Sean

[LonnieFisher]

So freaking cool!

[ZMOQ]

OMG, I found the most AMAZING website on Monster Scenes.

http://www.milto.net/the-deadly-chronicles.php

The model kits were built up, beautifully painted AND placed in multiple diorama sets, skillfully lit and photographed to tell a story (including added word balloons). After a while, you forget they're model kits and start thinking they are poseable action figures.

All of them are astonishingly beautiful. Don't miss the "Behind the Scenes" photos. if you'd ever wondered how to make playsets or dioramas, those photos are a revelation. I kept wondering how he was able to change Dr. Deadly's hand positions constantly. I thought he used multiple model kits of the same figure, but eventually I found out that he used magnets to hold the arms on, so he could swap different arms in and out.

Truly a work of art! A must-see!

[ZMOQ]

You know, with all this talk about Monster Scenes, I opened my Pendulum kit and took a look. I bought it a few years ago but never built it. There's people who are *WAY* better than I am when it comes to building model kits, so I just left mine in the box on the shelf. I've been concentrating on custom buildings, miniatures, clothing and accessories instead.

Anyway, after buying the Monster Scenes book, I noticed the scale of the figures again. 1:13, with the figures being 5.25"-5.5". So I tried out my October Toys skeleton for a fit and it turns out, he fits PERFECTLY on the pendulum's platform. He'd also fit in the Hanging Cage and on the Pain Parlor's table. The huge difference between the October Toys skeleton and the Monster Scenes skeleton is articulation. The October Toys skeleton has 26 points of articulation, and can be posed anyway you like, unlike a rigid styrene skeleton.

Here's some photos to show how well the skeleton fits with the Pendulum:






October Toys is still selling their skeletons, so if you're looking for more Monster Scenes fodder, you can buy them at:

http://octobertoys.com/shop/index.ph...=index&cPath=6