Jaws 3-D Cards (Topps, 1983)

I previously posted about the 1980s resurgence of 3-D movies, which can be partially blamed for the existence of 1983's Jaws 3-D.

This third installment of the Jaws "franchise" casts Dennis Quaid as the now grown son of our favorite Amity Island police chief Martin Brody, but otherwise all ties are cut with the first two films as yet another shark arrives from out of nowhere to terrorize mankind, this time at a futuristic imagining of a new Sea World aquatic park in Florida.

I believe Jaws 3-D holds the distinction of being the first (and possibly only) film to show a man being eaten alive by a shark from inside the shark's mouth, in 3-D or otherwise. There was also plenty of diving poles, oars, spearguns, seaweed and fish debris being poked in your face. If you couldn't get enough of that in the theater, you could bring the experience home with you via Topps Jaws 3-D Cards & Bubble Gum. Well, sort of.

While the film was presented in full-color 3-D viewed through polarized glasses, the cards present standard (2-D) color stills on one side, and red/blue 3-D comic-book style renderings on the other. The box art promises a "3-D Viewer in Every Pack!" How is this possible? Because they're REALLY small!

Whoever selected the stills for the front of the cards made some baffling choices. Sure, there are a few cards depicting the shark in moments of excitement...

But the bulk of the set is taken up by decidedly dull entries like this...

...or this...

I don't care if it is Lou Gosset Jr.--was anyone really clamoring for a souvenir photo of the "powerful, serious-minded" Chief Executive of Sea World?

In contrast, its mostly all action on the 3-D side, with captions like "Blasted By A Grenade!", "Bloody Remains!", and "Speargun Assault!". Whip out that spare set of 3-D glasses you have stashed under your wireless router and take a look for yourself.

Silent Snow, Secret Snow (1971)

Christmas snow is well and good...but what about the other kind of snow?

Silent Snow, Secret Snow, one of my favorite episodes from the second season of Rod Serling's "Night Gallery", is an abridged, but faithful adaptation of Conrad Aiken's short story about a boy's steady retreat into madness.

Paul (wonderfully underplayed by Radames Pera) awakes one morning convinced he's heard the postman's footsteps outside his house, muffled by a layer of newly fallen snow. He delights in the belief that it has snowed overnight, and imagines various scenes of winter...


...before finally throwing back the curtain only to find that it has not snowed at all.

Visions of snow increasingly distract him from moribund reality. We realize quickly that something is not right with Paul.

His parents, while well meaning, can't understand why their son is increasingly withdrawn and isolated. The doctor pays Paul a visit, but can find nothing physically wrong with him.

Paul's defensiveness of his imagined world turns to hostility. He flees to his room, and is rewarded by a private indoor blizzard that is his alone to enjoy.

...until mother interrupts.

The story is narrated by Orson Welles, reading Aiken's original text with an almost hypnotic timbre that sometimes speaks as the voice of the mysterious snow:

"Listen!" it said. "We'll tell you the last, the most beautiful and secret story--shut your eyes--it is a very small story--a story that gets smaller and smaller--it comes inward instead of opening like a flower--it is a flower becoming a seed--a little cold seed--do you hear? we are leaning closer to you--"

Complete text of the original story can be found at Google Books here.

Director and "Night Gallery" fan Guillermo Del Toro provides a commentary track for this episode on the Night Gallery: Complete Second Season DVD, available here.

One Monster Book After Another!

I previously posted about one of my favorite childhood books, "One Monster After Another" (Mercer Mayer, 1974). Well it wasn't long after first discovering that book that I found my way to "Little Monster's You-Can-Make-It Book" (Mercer Mayer, 1978), a big (144 pages!) activity book centered around The Edge of Nowhere and its monstrous inhabitants.

Not only is it loaded with wonderful Mayer artwork (some pages are color, but most are black and white), the book itself stands as an artifact from a time when little kids could be amused for hours cutting out and coloring decks of cards, puppet parts, masks and board-game pieces.

My original copy was reduced to scraps by my having completed every page in the book. EVERY. PAGE. I recently received an untouched copy, scans of which I'll share below.

Faces of do-it-yourself Kerploppus Playing Cards:

The Stamp-Collecting Trollusk explains that his monster stamps are not valid postage:

Cut-Up appears on the back of pages left deliberately blank because of cutting requirements:
Monster Finger Puppets:

I always felt sorry for this little Useless Blob... (looks like a printing error truncated his name. He just can't catch a break.)

One of my absolute favorite pages: this picture simulates a window looking out onto the Edge of Nowhere. This hung up on a wall near my bed. The conceit that you are not merely decorating your room with a poster, but viewing an actual window to another world, creating a themed experience right in your own room, captivated my young mind.

Here's a series of details from a color board game that spreads across two pages:

Emilia Wingbat's Maze, featuring the fearsome Typhoonigator from One Monster After Another.

A flying Bombanat airplane template:

Another window-related page. You tape these cut-outs to your window to simulate monsters peeking in from outside.