When I was a kid, I saw this ad in a comic book and sent away for a “Life Size” (what kind of non-sense does that make?) Monster Ghost. The promise that it OBEYS YOUR COMMANDS was the real hook for me. If I had been a little older, I might have wondered if the Monster Ghost had a sister, but the best scenario I could envision was maybe I would be chilling outside on a lawn chair, and I could dispatch my undead butler to the kitchen to bring me a Coke. I had five brothers and three sisters, soft drinks went fast around the joint… but who was going to take the last sweet can of sugared water away from a towering creature of the netherworld? Nobody, that’s who. I allowed the four-to-six weeks for delivery, looking forward to my reign as Slave Master of the Dead.
When it came, the Monster Ghost was just a plastic tarp with a face printed on it, and two glow dots stuck on for eyes. It was instantly apparent to my young eyes that there would be no doing of my bidding, or doing of anything really, and watching my Monster Ghost collapse limply to the ground was the moment that I first heard the distant, cruel laughter of the universe…
Don Adams, you always shine a spotlight on the brighter side of life.
Now that you are part of the all-powerful Cheese Magnet, I doubt I will ever escape its pull…
I ordered one of these too. Mine was a white balloon with two eyes painted on it, a lightweight white tarp and some fishing line. Talk about a rip off. It was so lame it actually put me off ever ordering anything out of a comic book again.
Mine did have the balloon, come to think of it. My life fades, the vision dims…
The x-ray glasses didn’t work either.
The optimistic side of this, of course, is that 1 dollar for a plastic tarp is a pretty good deal.
I had higher hopes for the life-size Frankenstein. Alas, it sucked, too.
The life-size Frankenstein was just a poster, wasn’t it? I ordered that and was sorely disappointed, but at least it scared my mom when I hung it up in the living room and she got home late from work one night.
Everyone is missing the REAL point here–did you get the “Free Peeping Skeleton Hands??” I’m sure they were worth the dollar by themselves…
The Skeleton Hands were cool but a dollar was a lot of money back then. You could buy a candy bar, a 16oz Coke in a glass bottle and a comic book for a buck. Jeez, I sound like my Dad telling me he could see two movies, a short, a cartoon and a couple of newsreels for a nickel.
I bet you guys all fed your sea monkeys bananas, too.
Hey, did the Frankenstein have like that furry vest on? What am I thinking of?
I can’t remember if he had the furry vest or not — it was eight thousand years ago. Was that the Son of Frankenstein outfit, the furry vest?
Yeah, it is Son of… It seems like it did have it… but who knows? Although it was only seven thousand five hundred years ago for me…
I always considered getting the LIFE-SIZE FRANKENSTEIN!!!!! but never did. Then I went to a friend’s house and he had that flimsy poster hanging up in his basement. I remember feeling like it was such a rip-off (of course, imagining that it was some sort of giant statue) but also feeling like I was glad Chris had ordered it, and not me.
Well all I can say is after ordering the Ghost and keeping it to this day in mint condition. The Frankenstein and Skeleton which I just sold a set for $1200.00. I also Just finish paying $400.00 for the Johnson Smith version of this Ghost…What all this ads up is that my children today sit on a small fortune once I start selling everything I own, the 7 feet sub being one of them. See thelandofsecrets.com and houseoftheunusual.com and you will see. We all ordered them and somehow in back of our minds disappointed or not how much would we give just to relive only a second of our past. Hey I treasure all those days of mail-order that shaped my life and Thank God that I was part of that now gone era.