The Kaiju Freak
November 3rd was Godzilla's 70th birthday. Toho posted a couple videos on their page concerning it, and it seemed to be a hot topic for other YouTubers now that Godzilla has gone "mainstream", with the success of 'Godzilla Minus One'.
We decided to make it our November postcard and I've been watching other content for the past week on the topic. Though surprisingly (or not), I haven't sat down to watch any of the movies. I have been thinking about the past and how, for as long as I can remember, Godzilla was this piece of pop culture that was in my life. It was a combo from my childhood of fascination with dinosaurs and Godzilla. Which came first I cannot be sure, but I feel like it was probably Godzilla.
It's an appropriate time of year too for this topic, because I also recall that a few television channels would have Godzilla marathons on Thanksgiving day. And since it was a time before widespread availability of content on home video, it was one of the few chances I ever got to see the movies. Aside from Son of Svengoolie sometimes showing them on Saturdays... Which I would always miss half of because we had to go to my grandma's every week to take her to 4:00 mass. So I'd miss the start being on the road to her place and then the end because we had to leave for church.
There was also incident after we got a VCR... a Betamax... and I taped one of these marathons on Thanksgiving, only to have my dad tape over it with a Bears game. I cried like a baby, after all I was a child, and my dad was screaming at me and to my mother, "How the hell was I supposed to know!"... I wonder if this was a normal family situation or more toxicity at play. We may never know.
I have drawings from my childhood I saved. Dozens of drawings of Godzilla and other monsters. I do wonder at my young age why I was so cognizant to save the drawings, which remained in a folder, with others I did in my early teens which were much more complex of things like the Batmobile and the DeLorean from 'Back to the Future'. I vaguely remember always drawing Godzilla in art class in grade school too, which likely didn't help the moniker I earned: The Dinosaur Freak.
I feel like I've written before about how I feel exposure to these movies actually opened my mind at a very young age to other cultures. I knew even as a child I was watching a "different" kind of people. I knew Japan was this far away country. I knew the voices were dubbed over in English and that their mouths were moving out of sync with the sounds I was hearing. I saw their food was different. Their faces. Hell, I knew even the very monster movies themselves were different than any American ones I'd seen.
It is just so interesting to think about how seeing this stuff as a child most definitely influenced my outlook on things in the future. It had to have shaped my views on race. I always talk about how my dad, who was quite prolific in his opinions on certain races/people, never said anything negative about Jewish people, so I never heard slurs about them growing up. When I did as an adult, I just found it odd and almost nonsensical when I'd hear someone ripping on Jews because I'd not had that experience of bias against them.
In the same way, he never said anything negative about the Japanese. He was stationed over there in the Air Force, so about the only thing I remember was him telling me he saw the original 1954 movie in a theater there... and that he was also thrown into an asylum by the military police for a day or two after being found completely drunk. On duty or off, I am not sure. But either way, they threw him in there to sober him up and it was apparently a terrifying experience.
Now, he did often have things to say about Koreans and Vietnamese due to the wars from his younger days. So I guess in that way, I knew there was a difference between the various people on the Asian continent from a young age.
One thing that always made me sad, in a funny way, was how there were barely any Godzilla toys when I was a child. These days there is an absolute tsunami of options out there. Bandai has about 4 or 10 different sizes and variants for every single Godzilla monster in any movie you can possibly think of. And I do think back then in Japan the toys were available, but the pickings in America were few and far between.
There was a large plastic Godzilla toy with a sliding knob on his neck that spit out a flame thing from his mouth. I never had the toy but knew of its existence. I did however have the Rodan toy I think was from the same company, Mattel. In fact, I still have the toy to this day. Most of it is in the basement and the back piece of it is in the garage. I've often thought of putting it back together and having it here in the office (whenever the office is finally redone). I also had a smaller hard rubber Godzilla, which was in the office until a few months ago when I started packing stuff up to clear it out in here so we could paint. It's an item that has traveled with me my entire adult life I think. To all my apartments and homes.
Just funny how that happens. Like with the drawings. I never really look at those, but they have been in a Trapper Keeper folder in a plastic tote in every place I've ever lived. Always traveling along with me. This random piece of childhood. And I don't think I ever kept them as a comfort thing or anything. Just like a part of my past that happens to always be in tow.
I never knew in the 1990s they were still making Godzilla movies. I recall my dad taking me to see 'Godzilla 1985' in movie theaters. I was so excited, as I'd never seen a Godzilla movie in an actual theater. It was a very intense experience. I would have been 10 at the time and I'd never watched a movie where Godzilla was "the bad guy". The imagery in it was quite shocking and terrifying to me.
I don't think it was until the very late 1990s or 2000s when I discovered that they'd been continually making Godzilla movies since then. Ex-roomate and I went and saw 'Godzilla 2000' in the theater when it was released in the U.S. in August of that year. I remember we were dying laughing the entire time and we walked out of the theater STILL laughing and wailing so hard a woman with her boyfriend asked us what on earth we'd just walked out of.
It was after the Ex-roommate years, when I was out of my studio apartment as well, that I remember really rediscovering Godzilla. I started picking up DVDs of some of the 1990 movies I'd missed. And in 2004 there was all this buzz about Godzilla's "last" movie they were coming out with, 'Godzilla Final Wars', which I got on DVD right when it was released in the U.S., and I have a very specific memory of watching it in my one bedroom apartment on Ashland.
I also started picking up the soundtracks to the millennium movies, as they were called. Which I can actually pinpoint a date on because of iTunes, so it was around 2005/2006. I'd already found a CD years before at Tower Records, in the late 1990s, of Godzilla's "greatest hits". It wasn't until around 2010 that I discovered this box set of all the scores. And over the course of this time I'd been buying all the movies I didn't have in various releases and collecting them.
In October of 2016 'Shin Godzilla' was released and I went to a theater by my new house to see it. There was an issue with the projector, of course (something that has happened to me at least a dozen times in my life... including at the end of the second and third 'Lord of the Rings' movies at two different theaters). So my 7:00 show ended up playing at like 10:30 PM. I remember not liking the movie very much upon that first viewing, but then rewatching it I found it to not only be a great Godzilla movie, but an excellent film overall.
I think all the buzz around 'Godzilla Minus One' hurt some of my interest in the film. The minute I see the masses collectively jumping on a bandwagon, it sours me to whatever that thing is. Sort of like when you like an up-and-coming band, and then when they hit it big you feel like people are invading your property.
The Sparrow would love to go to Japan, and I would actually like to as well if only to see the Godzilla hotel and some of the museums and statues they have for him. It'd be like a culmination of a lifelong passion. It's funny that I was thinking that Scooby-Doo might have been the influence behind my interest in the whole tiki culture thing, but there is a good chance it could have been Godzilla, since I know from a very young age I'd seen 'Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster', which has those South Pacific themes.
It is funny too to consider I never watched a Godzilla movie in the original Japanese until the mid-2000s when I started buying the DVDs of all the old movies. And I really do remember, and possibly wrote about it here, how it completely changed the viewing experience. Hearing the actors in their own voices emoting and such gave the films such a different layer. Though I am not a purest on this and have no issue watching the English dubs, even if they are comically bad, because it was part of my history with these films.
I have so many memories in my head, snippets and moments of time really, where I can recall watching these movies. I can remember certain emotions I felt for the first time seeing them. The magic and excitement when they would be on TV. I was absolutely gleeful when I'd look in the TV guide and see one was coming on. When I try to think of which ones were the most affecting to me I actually think 'Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster' may be on the top of the list.
That particular film, though trashed by "fans" and studio heads alike, had such an effect on my views on the environment and pollution. Not to mention it really was kind of scary for a young kid at the time. A very bleak, horror atmosphere to it. Years later the American version would completely disappear from available media. The opening song, 'Save the Earth', had almost become like a false memory to me as none of the DVDs had it, just the original Japanese song. It wasn't until YouTube came along that I was able to confirm the song DID exist. And when I hear it I am rocketed back to the late 1970s/early 1980s. I know for sure I was once watching the movie in my grandma's house. I can see myself in her living room, watching it play on Svengoolie.
I wonder what it was as a child that these movies drew me in. Was it just the chaos and destruction? Watching giant monster smash tiny models? Did the environment in my family and all the issues and toxicity I talk about have something to do with it. Did it provide some kind of escapism and outlet for my emotions, where I may have felt helpless and in some odd way it felt good to me to see giant monsters battling. Who can say.
As I've gotten older I have begun to enjoy different aspects of the movies. Like the political commentary in 'Shin Godzilla'. I also find a fascination in the model work and "suitmation" techniques used in the older films. All the various techniques they used to bring giants to life. This likely has to do with my growing disdain for CGI in movies. In 'Shin Godzilla' I felt the CGI was incredible. In 'Godzilla Minus One' I felt like it was leaning slightly too close to the dead, lifeless CGI world of modern Hollywood. Where everything looks unrealistic and flat.
If they decided to make a new Godzilla movie with a man in a suit, I think that'd just be great. And I can even see that happening in the future, when there is a renaissance for more practical effects.
I am just sitting here trying to think of any other old memories to write down. I do recall in the mid to late 1980s watching the 'Spectreman' show on channel 50 (I think). A show from the early 1970s that somehow found its way to television almost two decades later here in the U.S. It was Godzilla-adjacent enough for me to enjoy. I never knew about the existence of Ultraman and that show until years later. I know he's become a big thing again, but Spectreman was who I remember.
I am sure there is more to say and more memories to recall.
We decided to make it our November postcard and I've been watching other content for the past week on the topic. Though surprisingly (or not), I haven't sat down to watch any of the movies. I have been thinking about the past and how, for as long as I can remember, Godzilla was this piece of pop culture that was in my life. It was a combo from my childhood of fascination with dinosaurs and Godzilla. Which came first I cannot be sure, but I feel like it was probably Godzilla.
It's an appropriate time of year too for this topic, because I also recall that a few television channels would have Godzilla marathons on Thanksgiving day. And since it was a time before widespread availability of content on home video, it was one of the few chances I ever got to see the movies. Aside from Son of Svengoolie sometimes showing them on Saturdays... Which I would always miss half of because we had to go to my grandma's every week to take her to 4:00 mass. So I'd miss the start being on the road to her place and then the end because we had to leave for church.
There was also incident after we got a VCR... a Betamax... and I taped one of these marathons on Thanksgiving, only to have my dad tape over it with a Bears game. I cried like a baby, after all I was a child, and my dad was screaming at me and to my mother, "How the hell was I supposed to know!"... I wonder if this was a normal family situation or more toxicity at play. We may never know.
I have drawings from my childhood I saved. Dozens of drawings of Godzilla and other monsters. I do wonder at my young age why I was so cognizant to save the drawings, which remained in a folder, with others I did in my early teens which were much more complex of things like the Batmobile and the DeLorean from 'Back to the Future'. I vaguely remember always drawing Godzilla in art class in grade school too, which likely didn't help the moniker I earned: The Dinosaur Freak.
I feel like I've written before about how I feel exposure to these movies actually opened my mind at a very young age to other cultures. I knew even as a child I was watching a "different" kind of people. I knew Japan was this far away country. I knew the voices were dubbed over in English and that their mouths were moving out of sync with the sounds I was hearing. I saw their food was different. Their faces. Hell, I knew even the very monster movies themselves were different than any American ones I'd seen.
It is just so interesting to think about how seeing this stuff as a child most definitely influenced my outlook on things in the future. It had to have shaped my views on race. I always talk about how my dad, who was quite prolific in his opinions on certain races/people, never said anything negative about Jewish people, so I never heard slurs about them growing up. When I did as an adult, I just found it odd and almost nonsensical when I'd hear someone ripping on Jews because I'd not had that experience of bias against them.
In the same way, he never said anything negative about the Japanese. He was stationed over there in the Air Force, so about the only thing I remember was him telling me he saw the original 1954 movie in a theater there... and that he was also thrown into an asylum by the military police for a day or two after being found completely drunk. On duty or off, I am not sure. But either way, they threw him in there to sober him up and it was apparently a terrifying experience.
Now, he did often have things to say about Koreans and Vietnamese due to the wars from his younger days. So I guess in that way, I knew there was a difference between the various people on the Asian continent from a young age.
One thing that always made me sad, in a funny way, was how there were barely any Godzilla toys when I was a child. These days there is an absolute tsunami of options out there. Bandai has about 4 or 10 different sizes and variants for every single Godzilla monster in any movie you can possibly think of. And I do think back then in Japan the toys were available, but the pickings in America were few and far between.
There was a large plastic Godzilla toy with a sliding knob on his neck that spit out a flame thing from his mouth. I never had the toy but knew of its existence. I did however have the Rodan toy I think was from the same company, Mattel. In fact, I still have the toy to this day. Most of it is in the basement and the back piece of it is in the garage. I've often thought of putting it back together and having it here in the office (whenever the office is finally redone). I also had a smaller hard rubber Godzilla, which was in the office until a few months ago when I started packing stuff up to clear it out in here so we could paint. It's an item that has traveled with me my entire adult life I think. To all my apartments and homes.
Just funny how that happens. Like with the drawings. I never really look at those, but they have been in a Trapper Keeper folder in a plastic tote in every place I've ever lived. Always traveling along with me. This random piece of childhood. And I don't think I ever kept them as a comfort thing or anything. Just like a part of my past that happens to always be in tow.
I never knew in the 1990s they were still making Godzilla movies. I recall my dad taking me to see 'Godzilla 1985' in movie theaters. I was so excited, as I'd never seen a Godzilla movie in an actual theater. It was a very intense experience. I would have been 10 at the time and I'd never watched a movie where Godzilla was "the bad guy". The imagery in it was quite shocking and terrifying to me.
I don't think it was until the very late 1990s or 2000s when I discovered that they'd been continually making Godzilla movies since then. Ex-roomate and I went and saw 'Godzilla 2000' in the theater when it was released in the U.S. in August of that year. I remember we were dying laughing the entire time and we walked out of the theater STILL laughing and wailing so hard a woman with her boyfriend asked us what on earth we'd just walked out of.
It was after the Ex-roommate years, when I was out of my studio apartment as well, that I remember really rediscovering Godzilla. I started picking up DVDs of some of the 1990 movies I'd missed. And in 2004 there was all this buzz about Godzilla's "last" movie they were coming out with, 'Godzilla Final Wars', which I got on DVD right when it was released in the U.S., and I have a very specific memory of watching it in my one bedroom apartment on Ashland.
I also started picking up the soundtracks to the millennium movies, as they were called. Which I can actually pinpoint a date on because of iTunes, so it was around 2005/2006. I'd already found a CD years before at Tower Records, in the late 1990s, of Godzilla's "greatest hits". It wasn't until around 2010 that I discovered this box set of all the scores. And over the course of this time I'd been buying all the movies I didn't have in various releases and collecting them.
In October of 2016 'Shin Godzilla' was released and I went to a theater by my new house to see it. There was an issue with the projector, of course (something that has happened to me at least a dozen times in my life... including at the end of the second and third 'Lord of the Rings' movies at two different theaters). So my 7:00 show ended up playing at like 10:30 PM. I remember not liking the movie very much upon that first viewing, but then rewatching it I found it to not only be a great Godzilla movie, but an excellent film overall.
I think all the buzz around 'Godzilla Minus One' hurt some of my interest in the film. The minute I see the masses collectively jumping on a bandwagon, it sours me to whatever that thing is. Sort of like when you like an up-and-coming band, and then when they hit it big you feel like people are invading your property.
The Sparrow would love to go to Japan, and I would actually like to as well if only to see the Godzilla hotel and some of the museums and statues they have for him. It'd be like a culmination of a lifelong passion. It's funny that I was thinking that Scooby-Doo might have been the influence behind my interest in the whole tiki culture thing, but there is a good chance it could have been Godzilla, since I know from a very young age I'd seen 'Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster', which has those South Pacific themes.
It is funny too to consider I never watched a Godzilla movie in the original Japanese until the mid-2000s when I started buying the DVDs of all the old movies. And I really do remember, and possibly wrote about it here, how it completely changed the viewing experience. Hearing the actors in their own voices emoting and such gave the films such a different layer. Though I am not a purest on this and have no issue watching the English dubs, even if they are comically bad, because it was part of my history with these films.
I have so many memories in my head, snippets and moments of time really, where I can recall watching these movies. I can remember certain emotions I felt for the first time seeing them. The magic and excitement when they would be on TV. I was absolutely gleeful when I'd look in the TV guide and see one was coming on. When I try to think of which ones were the most affecting to me I actually think 'Godzilla vs. the Smog Monster' may be on the top of the list.
That particular film, though trashed by "fans" and studio heads alike, had such an effect on my views on the environment and pollution. Not to mention it really was kind of scary for a young kid at the time. A very bleak, horror atmosphere to it. Years later the American version would completely disappear from available media. The opening song, 'Save the Earth', had almost become like a false memory to me as none of the DVDs had it, just the original Japanese song. It wasn't until YouTube came along that I was able to confirm the song DID exist. And when I hear it I am rocketed back to the late 1970s/early 1980s. I know for sure I was once watching the movie in my grandma's house. I can see myself in her living room, watching it play on Svengoolie.
I wonder what it was as a child that these movies drew me in. Was it just the chaos and destruction? Watching giant monster smash tiny models? Did the environment in my family and all the issues and toxicity I talk about have something to do with it. Did it provide some kind of escapism and outlet for my emotions, where I may have felt helpless and in some odd way it felt good to me to see giant monsters battling. Who can say.
As I've gotten older I have begun to enjoy different aspects of the movies. Like the political commentary in 'Shin Godzilla'. I also find a fascination in the model work and "suitmation" techniques used in the older films. All the various techniques they used to bring giants to life. This likely has to do with my growing disdain for CGI in movies. In 'Shin Godzilla' I felt the CGI was incredible. In 'Godzilla Minus One' I felt like it was leaning slightly too close to the dead, lifeless CGI world of modern Hollywood. Where everything looks unrealistic and flat.
If they decided to make a new Godzilla movie with a man in a suit, I think that'd just be great. And I can even see that happening in the future, when there is a renaissance for more practical effects.
I am just sitting here trying to think of any other old memories to write down. I do recall in the mid to late 1980s watching the 'Spectreman' show on channel 50 (I think). A show from the early 1970s that somehow found its way to television almost two decades later here in the U.S. It was Godzilla-adjacent enough for me to enjoy. I never knew about the existence of Ultraman and that show until years later. I know he's become a big thing again, but Spectreman was who I remember.
I am sure there is more to say and more memories to recall.