Memories Dreams Reflections 5: Creature Feature

As a child, I was obsessed with Japanese monster movies, especially any that were related to Godzilla, who was (and still is) my favorite movie monster. Starting in the mid-1980’s one of the local TV stations in my area would often play such films on Saturday afternoons, and these creature features were usually bookended by humorous skits that were hosted by a horror host named Morgus the Magnificent; I believe the official title for these skits was Morgus Presents. Morgus himself was played by a New Orleans actor named Sidney Noel Rideau, and he looked like an eccentric mad scientist with a crazy hairdo, black eye shadow, and a filthy-looking lab coat. It’s been years since I’ve seen any of those skits but I recall that he was a remarkably unattractive man, something my mother was always commenting on. In true mad scientist fashion he had his very own dimwitted assistant, a tall and lumbering mute named Chopsley, whose face was hidden from sight by a brown executioner’s hood. There was also a talking human skull attached to an Apple computer. Eric, that was the skull’s name. The way it would work is that the first skit would involve Morgus and Chopsley preparing some well-intentioned but utterly ludicrous science experiment. Then that day’s film would start, and at the end of the film, there would be a second Morgus skit showing how the experiment ended up: almost always disastrously. I remember that one of these experiments had Chopsley removing Morgus’ head and attaching it to some kind of super computer.

While I found these skits enjoyable, my main interest in these programs was still the actual monster movies themselves. Every now and then they would show classic American monster movies, such as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms (1953) and Tarantula (1955), but I much preferred the Japanese monster movies, like Gamera the Giant Monster (1965) and, in particular, any of the movies associated with the Godzilla franchise. Most of the Godzilla films I saw were the ones that were released during the franchise’s so-called Shōwa period (1954-1975): Godzilla (1954), Godzilla Raids Again (1955), King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962), Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964), Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964), Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965), Ebirah, Horror of the Deep (1966), Son of Godzilla (1967), All Monsters Attack (1969), Godzilla vs. Gigan (1972), Godzilla vs. Megalon (1973: as a personal aside, this one was one of my favorites, I really loved the “Jet Jaguar” theme song), Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla (1974), and Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975). I also saw Return of Godzilla (1984), though we had to rent that one on VHS from the local video rental store. It seems odd to me that I never saw Destroy all Monsters (1968), which I had read about in a Godzilla book and which sounded like a very fascinating film (I finally got around to watching it in 2017: sadly it didn’t exactly live up to the hype). Years later I would also see the American versions of Godzilla, first the decent 2014 film version, and then, shortly after that, the lesser 1998 version (which I skipped the first time around).

As you can probably guess by this point, I hold the kaiju film genre in high esteem, though it should be noted that in recent years the USA has also released some of their own great films in the genre: two that come to mind are Cloverfield (which I saw in theaters in 2008 and which blew me away) and 2013’s Pacific Rim.

The first Godzilla film I saw was, appropriately enough, the very first one from 1954, though the version I saw was the 1956 “Americanized” one featuring Raymond Burr. At the end of the movie, Godzilla is defeated by a device known as the “Oxygen Destroyer,” and you see his corpse beneath the ocean, a corpse that is quickly reduced to that of a skeleton. The first time I saw this scene, probably around 1986 or so (when I was 6), I was so saddened by the spectacle of Godzilla’s death that I burst into tears. I recall that the first time I saw Jaws I also started crying at the end of the film, when the titular shark was killed. What can I say? When it came to these monster movies I was pretty much always on the side of the monster.

Anyway, while on the subject, here's my favorite Kesha song:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PBFwWY-BZA