Gary Fox and the Radio Reaper just can’t stay out of the water…
Since 2-D wasn’t enough to bring the terror close, Jaws 3-D made those shark chompers sharper for popcorn-loving audiences. Or, at least, that was the intention. Released in July of 1983, This “third dimension is terror” outing pumped up a soggy script with gory optics. Being a Jaws nut no matter what, I did watch this, with friends, in the theater. The 3-D glasses gave me a headache but I persevered. Besides, I loved Louis Gosset Jr. as much as Lea Thompson (I know, right!) and with a team of female water skiers, the Sea World park backdrop, and Brody’s son all growed-up to face a mother shark and her baby–with help from “plucky” dolphins, what’s not to love? Well…although they hired Richard Matheson (yeah, that guy) to turn in a top-notch script, some bright bulbs decided to revise it to his dislike. Of course, audiences (including me) ate it up anyway as much as the sharks ate up the people. To get the lowdown on Jaws 3-D, read Just When You Thought It Was Safe:A Jaws Companion by Patrick Jankiewicz. One tidbit I gleaned from the book: Because of the 3-D process, the original hope was to use it for a Creature From the Black Lagoon sequel, headed by director John Landis. Sid Sheinberg, head of MCA, saw the test and opted to do Jaws 3-D instead. Ouch.
The radio spots provided by Gary and Radio Reaper include the Advance Promo and Preview Trailer.
Once again the mysterious Radio Reaper strikes with radio spots from Jaws 2…
“Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water” is the tagline we can never forget. While Jaws 2 may be the best of the sequels, given that it has Roy Scheider returning as Chief Brody, Lorraine Gary as Ellen Brody, and Murray Hamilton playing the mayor again, it began the sequelitus money-grab of the franchise. But who could resist? There is something about watching a huge shark chomping on people–especially teenagers–that riffs off what makes horror movies so appealing. This time the director, Jeannot-Szwarc, gets the credit after replacing the original director, John D. Hancock. Scheider returned to fulfill a contract obligation, but wasn’t too happy on set. Once again, the problems with salty water mixing with a mechanical shark led to delays and a ballooning budget expense. In spite of the director differences, script rewrites, and technical problems, Jaws 2 was another box office winner. (ScreenRant has something to say about it.)
The Fourth of July Weekend is coming, and you know what that means….
Welcome, all lovers of all things intense and terrifying! I’m the Radio Reaper. Welcome to my Radio Spot Reliquary.
It was back in the summer of 1975 when I saw a movie that scared me to death! I would never go swimming in the ocean again! Despite many production problems the movie went on to become one of the top grossing movies of all time and put the name Steven Spielberg on the map.
From the horrifying opening to the explosive climax, the terror doesn’t stop.
“May be too intense for younger children.” Hell, may be too intense for adults! Just listen to these exciting spots from 50 years ago!
Poor Chrissie! Poor little kid on the rubber raft! The bitten-off leg! You’re gonna need a bigger boat! Chief Brody! Quint! Hooper! Bruce the shark! JAWS!!!
Jaws Re-release Spot
ZC Note: Jaws was the original summer blockbuster, ushering a whole new terrortainment into the theaters. Who could enjoy the beach after that movie? While the fictional town of Amity Island was located off the coast of Long Island, the movie was actually filmed at Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. Jaws was the first major movie to be filmed on open waters instead of studio water tanks, which caused numerous issues for Bruce, the mechanical shark. They had so much trouble with Bruce that, although Stephen Spielberg originally planned to show Bruce eating up more screen time, he relied instead on John Williams’ score to use music to drive the now unseen terror.
The town of Amity may have been fictional, but some of the details come from real events. Quint (Robert Shaw), the experienced shark hunter, was based on Frank Mundus, a shark fisherman from Montauk, New York. Benchley used Mundus’ experience catching a gigantic great white shark off of the New York coast as inspiration for writing Jaws in the ’70s. The story itself was also loosely based on the Jersey Shore shark attacks of 1916, a time when five people fell victim within two weeks in early July. ScreenRant
Welcome, all lovers of all things weird and wonderful! Welcome to my Radio Spot Reliquary.
I was visiting with Granny Creech the other day when she noticed all the radio spots I had rearranged in my Reliquary and she wondered when I was going to start sharing them here on Zombos’ site. I told her I didn’t want to steal her thunder and, besides, I don’t have the way with words like she does. She chided me and told me that it would be OK. She said she concentrates on spots from the fifties and sixties, with a few later exceptional exceptions, and it would be cool for me to bring out those from the seventies and eighties. She said they were still good and fans would like to hear them. No detailed introductions would be needed just present them. So, I thought about it and decided that it could work. But I would need some help.
I’m no historian and I hate researching things, so I asked our old buddy Zombos if he would be able to help me. I aroused him from his usual stupor and, after much coercion and the promise of two cases of Guinness, he agreed to be my backup, filling in where I needed some help.
So, here is to the first of what promises to be a long series of classic newer radio spots, presented in no particular order, just however the mood strikes me. I’m sure you will enjoy them, as collecting them has been a labor of love for me. They are some of my favorite titles and I want you to hear them. …
The Mysterians is a very colorful movie, at least as far as scenes shot in their dome base.
Uncle Oscar called me the other day and invited me over to Witchwood Cemetery to see all the new spring flowers. The cemetery was in full bloom, he said, and presented a lovely sight.
I headed on over there and he was right. Bright colors were everywhere and presented a glorious picture. It was quite the contrast from the usual dreary and bland landscape the late fall and winter seasons presented. It was quite cheerful.
We walked around, enjoying the beauty and saying hello to old friends who were actively engaged in some much-needed spring cleaning. We made our way to the back part of the cemetery and came across The Radio Reaper’s large crypt. The Reaper greeted us as he swept out a large pile of trash.
“Greetings, Granny and Uncle Oscar,” he said. “How are you two? Beautiful day for cleaning out the cobwebs.”
“Yes it is,” I said. “What have you been up to?”
“Oh, just cleaning, rearranging, and sprucing up. In fact, I’m glad you came by. I found something you might be interested in,” he said.
He went into his crypt and soon reappeared, a large record in hand. …
How the squid fight was done! Using newly-built Stage Three, technicians built a full-size replica of part of the Nautilus and a giant squid, operated by hydraulics, overhead wires and compressed and vacuumed air in the tentacles. Wind machines, wave makers, water cannons and dump tanks rented from MGM Studios supplied the storm effects. The actors were really fighting against the elements!
My grandson Big Abner called me the other day, cussing and fuming and about ready to have a conniption.
“Granny,” he said, “I am so tired of doing plumbing! It’s one thing after another. As soon as I get one leak stopped, I turn the water back on and there’s a leak somewhere else! I hate plumbing.”
Abner and his wife Hortense have just recently purchased a fixer-upper house, a beautiful 1889 Queen Anne-style Victorian just off the town square in Squirrel Hollow. It was in excellent shape, just needing some touch ups here and there. Evidently the plumbing had seen better days and Abner was spending most of his spare time down in the basement and crawling around in the cramped crawlspace. And, if you know Abner, any crawlspace is going to be cramped! …
How the scene appeared in single-strip anaglyph 3D in the 1972 re-release. The single strip method eliminated the problems associated with two-strip projection systems where two projectors had to be synchronized precisely or the images were out of alignment. Headaches and eye strain could abound! Grab your old pair of red/blue glasses (red lens over your left eye, blue over your right) and see the miracle of proper 3D!
I was rummaging around in Cousin Estil’s footlocker the other night when I came across a rare find: two pairs of 3D glasses. One pair had one red and one green lens, and the other pair had two gray-colored lenses. I knew exactly what I was holding in my hands and in a sense was a telling history of the use of 3D in the movies.
Ahh…3D. People either hated it or loved it. I remember my first 3D movie when I was a little kid. It was House of Wax with Vincent Price. I remember all the ballyhoo about the 3D effects, especially concerning the paddleball sequence where the fellow was hitting them into the audience. That effect brought ooohs and ahhhhs from the audience members. I was too young to really appreciate the effect and what it meant from a motion picture standpoint, I just enjoyed the movie. Oddly enough, that is the only 3D movie I recall seeing, well, that and its companion Phantom of the Rue Morgue. I don’t know if my parents weren’t impressed enough to go see any others or what. The next 3D movies I saw were September Storm in 1960, and The Mask in early 1962. …
The beautifully detailed mother dinosaur given life by Jim Danforth. Model in front of a Ray Caple glass painting with rear-projected image of Victoria Vetri and egg shells skillfully blended through careful painting and lighting. The image is projected on a translucent screen located about one foot behind the glass painting which is located behind the model on the animation table. Through creative focusing and the body language and eye lines of the model, the image appears in front. A split screen adds in the foreground. Movie Magic at its finest!
Move over, Ray Harryhausen…there’s a new kid on the block!
I remember it was back in 1971 when a bunch of us went to the movies and saw the newest dinosaur feature. When we came out, we were dumbstruck and nobody spoke. Finally, my brother, Ambrose, said, “I can’t believe what we just saw. I never thought I’d see dinosaurs that realistic that weren’t animated by Ray Harryhausen.”
We finally came out of our stupor and began to discuss what we had just seen: intricate blue-screen composite shots; the most realistic dinosaurs we had seen in a long time; flawless split-screen Dynamation-type scenes, and the most realistically animated mother dinosaur. The movie? When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth. …
The Ratbatspidercrab monster…actually a 15” high marionette brought to life by Bob Baker…in Cinemagic!
Hello, My Children –
I’ve been sitting here going through Cousin Estil’s footlocker, uncovering many treasures from the golden age of radio, especially the Top Forty era when all of us teenagers had our ears tuned to our transistor radios jammin’ to the latest hits from the local Top Forty Survey. It was a magical time and we each had our favorite artists and groups. Mine were Ricky Nelson, The Four Seasons, some guy named Elvis, Ral Donner, The Tornados, The Beatles, and The Dave Clark Five. Cousin Estil had saved many hits by these and others in the footlocker, as well as old 78s, commercials and radio copy. As I told you last time he also saved some radio spot records from movies he liked, I guess.
The first one of his I have chosen to highlight is actually one of my favorites, as well. It’s from 1959 and is called The Angry Red Planet. It was written by Sid Pink and directed by Ib Melchior.
Artwork doubles as Martian scenery…in Cinemagic!
I remember seeing this in the theater in early June, 1960, and was enthralled by it. It was filmed in a process called Cinemagic and I was impressed! It really made you feel like you were on the Red Planet. It had nightmarish Martian creatures and a cool Martian, too! The creepy music and sound effects gave it an alien atmosphere. I thought it was neat!
4’2” Billy Curtis in the Martian costume…in Cinemagic!
Ah, Cinemagic, a process discovered quite by accident. When it was decided to change filming from color to black and white to save money, a reel that was shot was accidentally mis-developed, either by an errant exposure to light or through a chemical mix-up. When viewed, the negative film took on a solarised effect where parts were in the negative and parts were positive. Shadows became white, and various elements shifted and glowed. The look appealed to producer Norman Maurer (The Three Stooges’ Moe Howard’s son-in-law) and director Melchior, and they decided it gave the perfect look to scenes shot on Mars, especially if the film were dyed red. It also would help disguise the cheaply-made studio sets. So, it was decided to shoot the non-Martian scenes in color and intercut the two.
Despite working with a restricted budget and a nine day shooting schedule, the producers came up with some creative visuals using rear projection with effective miniatures, a full-scale claw of the Ratbatspidercrab monster, an eerie amoeba monster, clever artwork for distant scenery and half mile-high Martian buildings, and a horrifying costume for the giant Martian. Everything looks so other-worldly that it is difficult to not get caught up in the reality of it all. I find it interesting that the on-set vegetation pieces and some of the flowers were actually real props, built and painted to look like they were drawn figures which blended in perfectly with the artwork used as backgrounds. Even the wonderful amoeba model, which was constructed so it could be manipulated to look like it was breathing, was painted to look like a drawing. The special effects and visual effects technicians as well as the set designers are to be commended for their work.
A clever rear projection shot with the actors in front of the screen showing the model amoeba in a tank backed by a drawing of the half-mile high Martian city…in Cinemagic!
The cast is good with Les Tremayne adding his expertise and great voice to the proceedings, and blue-eyed Nora Hayden adding the feminine pulchritude. Gerald Mohr and Jack Kruschen are the strong alpha types taking leadership roles. The scene where Kruschen’s character gets absorbed by the giant amoeba is chilling.
I watched The Angry Red Planet the other night and was still impressed by it all. I thought it was atmospheric and well done. I was somewhat surprised to see that American International’s publicity department released only two radio spots for it – a sixty and a thirty. There was so much more they could’ve done if they would have had sufficient money in the marketing budget. So, from Cousin Estil’s footlocker of forgotten treasures, join me as we venture to The Angry Red Planet!
Mark Forest with sword-and-sandal regular Mimmo Palmara in Goliath and the Sins of Babylon. The Italian production was originally titled Maciste: The Greatest Hero in the World. Maciste, pronounced “muh-CHEES-tay”, is a strongman from early Italian cinema, renamed Goliath for American audiences who could better recognize this name associated with size and strength.
Greetings, Lovers of Radio Spots and all things collectible.
I hope this week’s installment finds you doing well.
This year has gotten off to a bittersweet start for me. My very distant cousin, Estil Yancey, passed away early last week, and, since I was the only surviving relative, I was called on to help put his final things in order. He was 104 years old and I didn’t know him that well, having only seen him a few times in my life. He lived over in Possum Hollow so it was quite a ways away.
I grabbed Uncle Oscar and we made the three-hour journey over to the funeral home to make final arrangements. We met with his lawyer and the funeral director, a gaunt-looking fellow named Phineas Grimm. He looked so nice, so natural. He showed us Cousin Estil’s insurance policy and I couldn’t believe all the extra charges the funeral home had tacked on. These places really make a killing! I had to come up with an extra $100 to cover the overages. Uncle Oscar and I made plans to pick up Cousin Estil’s body in two days for interment in Witchwood Cemetery. We planned to have a simple memorial service before he was laid to rest. Uncle Oscar said he would handle everything. It was a serious undertaking.
The lawyer told me that I was the sole heir of Cousin Estil’s estate and that everything in and including his house was mine. He told me that Estil had been in poor health for most of last year, but he was still bright and alert. For some time he had volunteered in the geriatric ward at the local hospital because “he wanted to help the old people.” I told him I had no use for the house and he said he would take care of getting it listed on the market.
Before we left to go to the house, Uncle Oscar and I got to see Cousin Estil. Poor old critter. He was skin and bones. The lawyer told us that neighbors had helped bring him food and that nurses had checked on him everyday at the end. It was a grave situation. One day he fell and broke his hip, was taken to the hospital, and died of pneumonia a few days later.
Cousin Estil’s house was a modest little cottage with few things. After we saw what was there I decided to give his possessions to Goodwill. However, we did find a large footlocker in his bedroom which contained a treasure trove of valuable memorabilia. For much of his life Cousin Estil had worked in radio, serving as a DJ, a program manager, and in management. We found stacks of old 78 rpm records from artists like Kay Kyser, Glenn Miller, Perry Como, Dean Martin and others, as well as 45s and LPs from the rock-and-roll era. We also found old transcription disks of vintage commercials, lots of scripts and copy, and, believe it or not, a few radio spot records.
Double bill advert for Goliath and Samson movies.
Uncle Oscar and I loaded up his things, dropped off most at the Goodwill and headed home. I spent a few hours that night going through the footlocker, reliving the past and playing some of my favorite Kay Kyser songs.
The radio spots were priceless and you’ll hear them over the next few weeks. Since I remember Cousin Estil being a fitness buff and in the prime of life back when I knew him, I decided to choose a sword-and-sandal double feature to honor him in this week’s installment.
So, from early Spring, 1964, listen as Paul Frees tells us about the American International combo Goliath and the Sins of Babylon, with Mark Forest, and Samson and the Slave Queen, with Alan Steel. Thank you, Cousin Estil, for having the foresight to save this and the others for me to share on my site all these years later. Rest In Peace, and may “the hits just keep on comin.”
Mighty Lou Degni (pronounced “DANE-yee”), known to fans as Mark Forest, as Goliath.Samson demonstrating his great strength in a scene from Samson and the Slave Queen, an Italian production originally called Zorro Against Maciste. (Sergio Ciani, an Italian bodybuilder better known to fans as Alan Steel.)
Sergio Ciani (Alan Steel), who body doubled for Steve Reeves, appeared in peplum films as Samson, Ursus, and Hercules.
This is it! Our first look at the full-size time machine accompanied by Russell Garcia’s magnificent music intro.
Happy New Year!
Land sakes! Here we are in January already. It just seems like yesterday when we were opening presents around the Christmas tree and enjoying fun with family and friends.
I was thinking back to 2024 and all the things that had happened to us, good and bad. Good memories were made, and things happened to make us wonder what life is all about. The older I get, the faster time goes…suddenly it’s a new year and the past slowly fades and memories dim.
I was over at the Witchwood Cemetery the other day talking with Uncle Oscar about the new arrivals to the cemetery we had received over the last year, and we both agreed time is moving way too fast. We agreed how memories are important and that we should cherish and hold on to the good ones.
Uncle Oscar said he appreciated my radio spot articles and the memories they brought back to him. I told him I appreciated Ol’ Zombos for giving me the chance to preserve them for posterity. They bring back memories for me, too, I said. I got to thinking which spots I should highlight this time around and the choice became obvious. Suddenly I was back in September, 1960, and was going to see The Time Machine.
Ah, yes: George Pal’s wonderful movie– poignant, sentimental, adventurous and hopeful. It makes one appreciate old friends, wonderful times, and times that can’t be recaptured. Or can they? With a time machine anything is possible.
In fact, you have all the time in the world.
Notice the detailing and color of the machine, designed by MGM art director Bill Ferrari and built by Wah Chang.
Richard Crane sees Beverly Garland after his full accidental transformation.
Ugghhh…
Hello, Children. You’ll have to pardon me. Your old Granny is feeling the after-effects of an over–indulgence of candy, pies, desserts of all kinds, eggnog and food, food, and more food that I have had since the holidays started back in late October. All this yummy stuff was too good to pass up! I’m sure there are a lot of you out there suffering from Holiday Hangover. But, it was all worth it! It’ll just take a few more days to recover.
I just love the holiday season. Cool weather means Halloween, then Thanksgiving and Christmas. And then the anticipation of a new year and all the good things to come. There is just something magical about this time of year and I look forward to it with eager anticipation. It’s just a time for family, friends, sharing, and good times.
And speaking of good times, this past Halloween’s Monster Bash was a hit. We all are still talking about it. An added treat for me was when “Me and My Mummy” from the album Monster Mash was playing and The Radio Reaper approached me and asked if I could follow him back to his crypt. I did, and it was then he handed me a dusty old record of radio spots he had found buried at the bottom of his reliquary. I looked at it and commented that I had forgotten about these two features from the ‘50s that were released together as a double bill. I thanked him for the record and we hurried back to the party. I was anxious to hear the spots and present them to you. So, enjoy the spots for Return of the Fly and The Alligator People. …
