All right!!! King Kong! I remembered seeing the poster showing the mighty Kong perched atop the Empire State Building in a comic book ad. But the whole idea of a magazine devoted to monsters piqued my interest - I just had to pick it up the sole copy and beg my mother to buy it for me. I don't even remember opening it up to check out the contents. My mom fortunately gave in and had to face the lady cashier and hand over this monster mag for her beaming son. The cashier camped it up by gasping and shrieking "Oh my!" while she checked out the giant ape artwork. I couldn't wait to get to the car to see more of Kong and the monsters that lay within those pulp paper pages.
As we pulled onto Gault, I opened to the editorial page and much to my surprise.....
....there was the Frankenstein monster posing in front of a Christmas tree for some yuletime silliness. I was taken aback by this photo since I had only seen the monster as a frightening image in comic book poster advertisements. I remember the poster showing the Karloff creature standing in the doorway and the amazing 6-foot monster with furry vest that would amaze and scare all your friends. This was in fact the man who would corrupt me and thousands of other kiddos with his extreme knowledge of monster movieology - Uncle Forry J. Ackerman himself. He would introduce us monster kids to the Wolf Man, the Mummy, the Incredible Shrinking Man, Prince Sirki, Sinbad, Siegfried, Maria the Robotrix and Robby the Robot, Aztec Mummies, and the like. And in my very first issue of FMoF, I got my very first glimpse of.....
Bela Lugosi! Yes, Mr. Count Dracula himself. I had seen Lugosi in his Dracula garb in the back of my comics, but I had no idea of the man who put on the cape. I was even more enthralled that the article was a memoir of a magician's encounter with Mr. Lugosi during the 50s, since I loved magic shows and never missed a Doug Henning special on NBC. But those stills....man oh man! Just look up there at Lugosi as the Frankenstein monster with the nasty gash in his forehead. And his classic cape-spreading Count pose, to boot! Oh, and I almost forgot what drew me to the magazine in the first place....
The Mighty Kong! I was enthralled with shots of the giant animatronic ape surveying the crowd of terrified New Yorkers. I was too young to detect the editor's warning that this movie should most likely be avoided. I didn't catch how this new Kong was a pale imitation of the original. There was a lot of venom spiked words in those writeups that I didn't pick up on until I got a copy of issue 132 off eBay a few years ago. I did talk my parents into taking me to see it on New Years Eve, but I was very disappointed and didn't feel any magic in the big monster proceedings. I didn't let that get me down, though. I had years of Shock Theater ahead of me to give me my fill of the good old time thrills and chills. And I eventually gained an appreciation for the '76 Kong as I grew older. It's really not all that bad.
Then Uncle Forry would put you on the spot and test your monster movie mettle with a Mystery Photo:
That white faced mummy with claws stood out to me. Little did I know that ugly fiend mixed it up with my three favorite knuckleheads. Can you figure it out? Of course that's Johnny Carson down below.
I must have paged through that magazine a hundred or more times. It fostered my interest in classic and not-so-classic fantastic cinema, as well as the movies playing at the drive ins and multiplexes at the time. I then had to stay up late to catch all the Shock Theater programs and go to the newstand to see if I could find another edition of FMoF. Eventually I got a subscription and looked forward to its arrival every month or two. I eventually outgrew Famous Monsters, but now I look at back issues with a joyous sense of nostalgia. And I give Uncle Forry credit for my endearing love of what he termed "fantafilms".
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