What Happened to the AURORA MODEL KITS?

What Happened to the AURORA MODEL KITS? video by Dan Monroe / Movies, Music & Monsters.

Summary:

Dan Monroe explores the history of the Aurora Plastics Corporation, tracing its origins from a simple injection molding shop to a pop culture icon. The discussion covers the evolution of their legendary monster and sci-fi model kits, their massive commercial impact on youth culture during the 1960s, and the factors leading to the brand's eventual closure.

I bought my first Aurora monster model kit at the 1961 Los Angeles County Fair which was Frankenstein sculpted to look like Boris Karloff. I still have it. I had most of the Universal monsters but they broke over the years. I did buy the Polar Lights Dracula re-issue model kit a few years ago. It is sculpted to look like Bela Lugosi.

I bought further monster model kits at Boys Market in Los Angeles.

Collider: "10 Greatest Monster Movies of the Last 25 Years"

Above, Cloverfield was one of the last movies I took my late mother to see.

Alright, monster fans. There have been many monster movie in the theaters (and on cable, satellite home video) over the past 25 years. 

Some are lauded as near-masterpieces and some derided as steaming piles of excrement. 

Collider has posted what they consider to be the "10 Greatest Monster Movies of the Last 25 Years, Ranked".

They begin with:

Some will hear the term "monster movie" and immediately think of a black and white King Kong, where the ape scales the side of the Empire State Building, or Godzilla, where the kaiju rises from the ocean. Although those iconic creatures are some of the most well-known examples, countless movies in the modern age use monsters as the star attraction. Industry-leading filmmakers are using original monster creations to explore topics such as governmental oppression and the brutality of war.

From horror to sci-fi to family movies, monsters are running all over modern films, snatching box office victories and proving there’s still life left in the genre. The following films are the greatest monster movies of the last 25 years, ranked by their use of monsters big and small and their lasting appeal to moviegoers. It’s important to note that the concept of monsters is open for interpretation, so even though the list could include vampires, werewolves, or personal injury lawyers, this list will stick to creatures that defy easy categorization.

For those of you who are Godzilla fans, Godzilla Minus One made the list. 

To see the 10 greatest monster movies list, go here.

Hot Bench Has A Roku Channel

Above, our appearance on Hot Bench nine years ago.

While perusing the directory of stations on Roku television, I saw that the courtroom show, Hot Bench, has its own channel.

There are many channels on Roku including Universal Monsters (1931's Dracula with Bela Lugosi was just on), westerns, news, crime, Cheaters and others. 

Denise Santos and I were on Hot Bench nine years ago (season 3, episode 55). Although the verdict by the three judges was mixed, overall, it was a win for me. It is hard to believe that nine years has been reached. Yeesh!

Since I already have a copy of the Hot Bench episode we were in, I needn't bother watching for it.

WSJ: Where Our Monsters Come From

Above, a Universal publicity photo for Son of Frankenstein featuring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff.

Halloween is only days away and it is the perfect time to see where our monsters came from.

The Wall Street Journal has an article that does just that.

They begin with:

The Halloween season is upon us again and, with it, all the lurid paraphernalia of
assorted ghosts, ghouls and goblins. It’s all in good fun, but our favorite seasonal terrors
also say something deeper about what scares us and why. Halloween itself we owe to the
ancient Celts, whose festival of Samhain marked the beginning of the dark part of the
year, when the souls of the dead revisited the earth, but many of our current monsters
reflect more recent anxieties. 

Most anthropologists date the beginning of civilization to the institution of funerary
rituals and designated cemeteries, and it is hardly surprising that our imaginations,
even now, dwell on the disquieting line that separates the living from the dead. In many
cultures, too, ghosts are often angry because they represent, in guilty consciences, those
who been murdered, forgotten or somehow improperly laid to rest 

Religion also played a part. When the Protestant Reformation did away with the concept
of purgatory as a transit point to paradise, it opened the doors still further for unsettled
ghosts to roam the earth. Disputes between Protestants and Catholics over who could
best invoke angels and keep demons at bay ensured that those emissaries from the
invisible world would continue to be vivid realities for many believers.

Can you believe that 15 years from now the Universal Pictures horror classics Dracula and Frankenstein will be 100 years old?

To read more, go here.