Deadlineup

We're writing these under the gun
Such pressure each day isn't fun
With no time to tarry,
like cable guy Larry,
our slogan becomes "git-r-done"

Gogos-a-gogo

His paintings, made famous on covers
are loved by all horror film lovers
With colorful flair
they're rendered with care
On each one a film monster hovers


Art by painter Basil Gogos, best known as the
cover artist for Famous Monsters of Filmland.

Verti-gogo

You're dizzy, your head starts to spin
You're stuck, your resistance is thin
You stare into eyes
that soon hypnotize
A vortex is sucking you in

The Frozen Ghost, an Inner Sanctum Mystery (Harold Young, 1945)

Logo-a-gogo

Orbs spin, waves emit and planes soar
All symbols of what lies in store
The target is hit
Get set, this is it...
Don't make 'em like this anymore

Wake This Slob and Love It

A lightning bolt triggers a spark
igniting electrical arc

The monster is stirred
and Frankenstein's heard...
"It's alive!" was his famous remark

For our big finish we went back to the beginning. Colin Clive,
Dwight Frye and Karloff's arm in Frankenstein (James Whale,
1931). It's alive all right, but the torch-bearing mob has chased
Frankenstein Fortnight out of town--and Limerwrecks.



Finally, we left off two of Universal's films that featured
Frankenstein. Above: A candid set photo of Jane Adams
and Glenn Strange in House of Dracula; Below: Strange in
a publicity still for Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Mass-Scare-a

They're slimy or pasty or hairy
so make-up for monsters will varyBig bolts in the neck
or hairdos from heck
The thing these things share is they're scary



Another thing they share is Universal Studios' make-up artist
extraordinaire, Jack Pierce, seen here applying his magic to
Lon Chaney Jr (top) and Boris Karloff. Make yourself into amonster and scare the kiddies. Happy Halloween!

Cerebrummed Out

How can I say this in a kind line?
These monsters contained not one fine mind
The docs tried their best
but feebly confessed
they could not create a Frank Einstein

Death be Not Shroud

By torch bearing mobs he was fried
He blew himself up with his bride
His ends were unequaled
but Frankenstein sequeled
and therefore, he'd not really died

Each screenwriter tried to devise
a clever and monstrous demise
But viewers were certain
at each closing curtain
the lumbering lug never dies

Ygor coaxes the monster from the sulfur pit: Bela Lugosi and
Lon Chaney, Jr. in Ghost of Frankenstein (Erle C. Kenton, 1942)
Photo courtesy of Monster Hunter.

House Crawls

The yelling and screaming grows loud
Inside of the house there's a crowd
To Wolf and hunched back,
Add monster and Drac
It's more than the health code allowed.


House of Frankenstein (Erle C. Kenton, 1944). This is where I should link to a song by Crowded House. Photos, from top: Boris Karloff as the mad doctor, with Glenn Strange as the monster (Doctor Macro); Karloff and John Carradine as Dracula; Strange, Karloff and Lon Chaney Jr. as Larry Talbot, aka the Wolf Man. You may recall Glenn Strange as bartender Sam Noonan on the long-running Gunsmoke television show.

When Hairy Met Pale-y

It certainly ain't a "meet cute"
'tween monster and Wolf Man, hirsute
With grunting and growling
and at-the-moon howling
I'd call their acquaintance "meet brute"


Lon Chaney, Jr. is the Wolfman, and Bela Lugosi plays the monster
in Frankenstein Meets the Wolfman (Roy William Neill, 1943).
Photos:Top: Shadow Clad; Middle: The Grim Cellar; Below: Dr. Macro

Leopold and Lobe

Mad doctors will never go far
without a fresh brain in a jar
The mind is the feature
without which their creature
will find its IQ is sub par

Ghost of Frankenstein (Erle C. Kenton, 1942)

Playing a Hunch-back

The ghost of the doc implores son
to finish the job he'd begun:
Replace monster's brain
with one that is sane
But to Igor a bad brain's more fun



Lon Chaney Jr. as the Monster, Bela Lugosi, Lionel Atwill and Cedric Hardwicke in The Ghost of Frankenstein (Erle C. Kenton, 1942). Top photo: Shadow Clad

Father's Brittle Dividend

To father's old home the son came
to try and restore their good name
Thought Ygor, "What fun!
Like father, like son
We're back in the old monster game!"


Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Basil Rathbone in
Son of Frankenstein (Rowland V. Lee, 1939).