Classic Ads: MONSTER Size Monsters!

To every kid, Halloween is the ideal season for scary practical jokes, right?

WRONG!  Every single day of the year was ripe for scaring the living daylights out of friends, parents, sisters and/or brothers, grandparents, neighbors, pets...well, you get the picture. Stoking this mischievous spirit of childhood were the countless prank and novelty merchants who hawked their wares in dense-packed comic book ads...priced right and promising to trigger gales of laughter or screams of fright.

One of the ads that really got me reaching for my piggy bank was this classic specimen...the towering menace of the MONSTER-SIZE MONSTERS (click on the ad for a larger view):

Let's examine the masterful Honor House sales pitch:

I don't remember my exact reaction as a kid, but I think it went something like this: "Seven feet tall?  Wow...that's taller than my DAD!  Also, who's this 'Polly Ethelene' person?"

Um...yes?  Okay, here's where the pitch wandered off into the tall grass.  Listen, I wanted to scare people with Seven Foot Frankie...not talk to him!

"Aweful"? So they couldn't spell or proof read at Honor House...big deal?  After all, who needs good spelling skills when you've got seven foot monsters to share with the world?

Ahh, but what if I order one or both of the monster-size monsters and I'm not satisfactorily horrified?

As if sensing my wavering skepticism, Honor House drives home the point:

"Shivers of delight"?  Before puberty? I'm sold!*

*Sadly, I wasn't allowed to order either of the Monster-Size Monsters.  Maybe because my mom was secretly terrified of their giant-sized menace. That, or the prospect of me talking to them while experiencing prepubescent shivers of delight.

Comments

[byrneward]

Sadly, I *was* allowed to order giant Frankenstein. The scariest part as I recall was the possibility of being smothered by fourteen square feet of polyethylene sheeting.

[suedenim]

Ooh! So did you talk to it? How aweful was he?

One of my stupid websites from Dream's Library has Amazon.com style reviews of all the various and sundry products that have been advertised in comics, by people who actually ordered them.

[Mark Engblom]

Wow....I'd love to see that website, suedenim. I've always wondered what some of this crap really looked like.

Byrneward: LOL! A little buyer's remorse there?

[suedenim]

It would be great to see some of that stuff. Oh, the bottom line is no doubt the same for most of it: "Disappointing crap that didn't live up to the advertising," but it'd be fun to see all the varieties of crappiness....

[Richard]

I never got the Frankenstein, but I did get a "four foot high monster that talks!".

The "monster" was a balloon (which popped in a day or two), and it came with a plastic thing that was supposed to let you "throw your voice". Needless to say, it didn't work.

Remember ads for playsets with "exploding" tanks? A friend of mine got one of those. The tanks were in two pieces held together with an elastic band. When you pressed on them, they snapped like a mouse trap. That was the "explosion".

[Mark Engblom]

"sappointing crap that didn't live up to the advertising," but it'd be fun to see all the varieties of crappiness...."

The full Crap Spectrum, if you will.

"The "monster" was a balloon (which popped in a day or two), and it came with a plastic thing that was supposed to let you "throw your voice". Needless to say, it didn't work."

LOL! I remember seeing those ads, too! Any chance we could all put together a class action suit against all of those hucksters? No? Well, I suppose the statute of limitations has long passed us by.

[suedenim]

The "exploding tank" is actually slightly better than I imagined. I was picturing something even lamer, like a tank with a crude "explosion" effect painted on it.

[mangog]

I had the Frankenstein's monster. It hung on the inside of my bedroom door for years. The giant 'animated' ghost was a terrible disappointment. A balloon with a smiley face (a SMILEY face!) , a sheet of plastic and some fishing line.

[EDDIE]

CHECK OUT THIS SITE IT WILL SHOW WHAT THE GHOST LOOKED LIKE.

[EDDIE]

www.thelandofsecrets.com

[Craig Gustafson]

I had the Frankenstein. It was printed on what appeared to be rejected material from the Hefty trash bag factory.

[Bill]

I too was enthralled with this ad as a boy about 1970. Imagine a like size skeleton I could own. I begged my parents for the skeleton - my dad, always skeptical, looked over the ad and told me polyethylene was plastic sheeting. He surmised the thing must be inflatable. Well, I was a little disappointed at that - an inflatable skeleton didn't seem right. So I decided to get the Frankenstein. It arrived, and of course was just a plastic poster with stick on "glow in the dark" eyes. I was angry and from that day, I think I saw every ad in my comic book as being nothing but a fake. I think that experience inoculated me in regards to advertising in general. Probably well worth the dollar twenty five.

[Monsterman]

I ordered both the Frankenstein and Skeleton. Fully aware of what I was going to get! My best friend ordered first and I got to see his before I ordered. I was a little dissappointed that it wasn't some kind of huge statue... but for a buck I was pretty satisfied! The colors were a sick, vibrant green, and frankenstein looked scarier than hell! They included some glow in the dark stickers to put in his eyes. I took the rest of the glow in the dark sheet to give him teeth that glowed! I cut out the background of both to make them appear to be less like a poster. 7 foot tall Images of Frankenstein and a skeleton in my bedroom? You Bet! I would pay big bucks to have them again!

[Kurt]

This scam was a pivotal point in my child hood, so much so, that I wrote out the entire sordid episode in excruciating detail. I did so to allow future generations (assuming Earth lasts much longer) to vicariously experience the shock and awe of unleashing that 7 foot monstrosity as well.
http://www.monsterwax.com/comix.html

[Daniel Pace]

I was disappointed with my 7 feet tall Monster Sized Monster as a 9 years old boy back in 1974 because I waited six weeks for what was really just a plastic poster you could tack to the door. The ad said he would be "so lifelike you'll probably find yourself talking to him. Won't you be surprised if he answers?" Well, he didn't do anything at all.