Who... or what... is this? Is it King Kong's bigmouth cousin from New Jersey? A Christmas toy for bad children? A possessed urinal? What, I ask you, what!!?? I will be really surprised if anyone comes close with this one! The answer posted soon!
EDIT (Friday, Sept. 19th): The answer has been posted in the comments!
7 comments:
Aborted Japanese film project, c. 1970, great pot harvest year for Japan and acid test revival
Ha! Hey, you're not too far off!
I don't know what the hell that thing is, but it makes me realize - yet again - what a damn boring place this planet would be without those wacky Japanese! Ya gotta love 'em!
I think it's from one of the versions of Eiji Tsuburaya's "Mighty Jack" tv series in the late sixties for japanese TV. From the second series called "Fight! Mighty Jack". The creatures for shows like this and "Ultraman", etc, got progressively silly...but the previous poster is right about how boring this planet would be without stuff like this!
That's correct, Walter! The costume was originally designed for a proposed comedy tv series about "cave people" but ended up being used in the Tsuburaya Productions tv show "Fight! Mighty Jack". The photo was seen in the excellent book on Eiji Tsuburaya (the creator of "Ultraman" and many other Japanese sci-fi tv shows) called "Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters" by August Ragone (Chronicle Books). Not a lot has been written before (at least not in English) on this maverick of monster mayem and I can heavily recommend this book to anyone interested in these things. It contains an Ultra amount of information as well as some great photos!
Brian,
Thanks for the recommendation! an You and Walter are correct with identifying the beastie, called 「パッキー」("Pakki"), and the series it appeared in, Episode 16 of FIGHT! MIGHTY JACK (1968). It's also true that the creature was initially planned for an aborted comedy series about a primordial family.
FIGHT! MIGHTY JACK in relation to the original MIGHTY JACK is like comparing the first season of VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA with the fourth. Colorful, garish and juvenile, but not without its own merits. The original series of 13, one-hour episodes is a great mixture of espionage drama and super science action.
Cheers,
August Ragone
EIJI TSUBURAYA: MASTER OF MONSTERS
P.S. Check out my blog: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND GODZILLA
Thanx for the info August! Keep up the good work!
Trash fans: Check out his cool blog for everything you'd wanna know about giant Japanese monsters and then some!!
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