Thursday, April 4, 2024

Space Monster

Okay, here's a vintage 50's or 60's kid's Halloween costume that I've never seen or even heard of before-- Collegeville's kooky Space Monster! In the box he might be sorta Creature from the Black Lagoony, but once you take him out of the box he's clearly more freaky frog than anything else (maybe even a little bit old school gremlin!) If you don't look at the image on the smock frock, he totally reminds me of something else that I can't quite put my finger on, (help, anyone?!) maybe a comic book alien, I think, possibly from some old DC science fiction story. Whatever he is, he's pretty cool, and the owl box with die-cut body window is something to really hoot about! Hoot!

6 comments:

Brian Barnes said...

That's absolutely adorable! It doesn't ring any bells for me, though, but it is generic space-alien-y enough that it's possible there's a lot out there like it.

I can understand why the mask doesn't have the antenna so that's just a nitpick.

The smock illustration is 10 out of 10. The pumpkin like spaceship? The wiggly arms? The moon? The bemused expression on the alien? All great. I love this thing!

Mr. Cavin said...

Yeah, that smock is aces, though the slice of Earth freaks me out a little. I love the groovy space colors, and kind of wish that teal trim had been used on the mask's pointy parts, too. Those are curious in and of themselves. On the illustration they look like ears; on the mask they look like a high collar. I'm going with the latter.

I guess the facial design here looks a bit like a kappa from Japanese folklore (just needs a head saucer). Of course it also looks a little like a Ninja Turtle.

JMR777 said...

The frog spaceman looks a bit like the type of interstellar villain that Space Ghost had to face and defeat.

Mr. Karswell said...

Now that you mention it JMR, I think it actually might be a Toth designed character I’m thinking of… the investigation is on!

JMR777 said...

I had also thought that the greenie meanie might have been a villain from The Mighty Heroes, anyone remember that cartoon?

Edit, I knew I had seen this green face somewhere, it was hiding in THOIA under the one pager Demon Count-

https://thehorrorsofitall.blogspot.com/2020/06/hand-of-glory-demon-count.html

Could a Collegeville mask designer recall this one pager from their youth? A mystery for the ages.

Mr. Karswell said...

Loved The Mighty Heroes, and still have a few VHS pre-records actually... not really seeing a resemblance to that story you linked though. I'm sure the one I'm thinking of will spring up one of these days, they always do. Thanks for the comments!