I remember the original King Kong, although it was already an old movie when I was a kid. The stop-motion animation used was incredible for its time, but already pretty dated by the 1960's when I first saw it. The guy who pioneered that technique was Willis O'Brien...and he coached and mentored another huge animation superstar, Ray Harryhausen.
Harryhausen did a boatload of films, using the stop-motion animation technique but much more sophisticated than in O'Brien's day. This was the guy whose movies I grew up watching and re-watching. Jason and the Argonauts...the Sinbad movies...The Valley of Gwangi...The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms...Mighty Joe Young...20 Million Miles to Earth...the list goes on and on. Ridiculous and campy by today's standards, of course...but, wow, were they fun back in the day.
No better way back then to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon than watching goofy sci-fi and horror movies with my dad. As a kid, my favourite afternoon schlock-movie host was Sir Graves Ghastly, who was eventually...and thoroughly!...replaced by the inimitable Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. After her show sadly ended, we morphed to Ron Sweed, alias The Ghoul...but it was never the same any more. Only kids can truly appreciate the innocent nonsense of shows like those.
Harryhausen did a boatload of films, using the stop-motion animation technique but much more sophisticated than in O'Brien's day. This was the guy whose movies I grew up watching and re-watching. Jason and the Argonauts...the Sinbad movies...The Valley of Gwangi...The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms...Mighty Joe Young...20 Million Miles to Earth...the list goes on and on. Ridiculous and campy by today's standards, of course...but, wow, were they fun back in the day.
No better way back then to spend a rainy Sunday afternoon than watching goofy sci-fi and horror movies with my dad. As a kid, my favourite afternoon schlock-movie host was Sir Graves Ghastly, who was eventually...and thoroughly!...replaced by the inimitable Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. After her show sadly ended, we morphed to Ron Sweed, alias The Ghoul...but it was never the same any more. Only kids can truly appreciate the innocent nonsense of shows like those.