The Great Old Ones: UMAers 40 & Over

[marsattacks666]

I'm 44, and will be turning 45 in August. But everyone I meet or show my I.d. to swears I look
32-35. It's all that Rock and Roll( DEVIL music) I listen to. Plus, the fact I still dress the same
way I dressed in high school. Black t-shirts( punk, metal), VANS( tennis shoes), black Levis jeans.
I totally lok like half the teenagers on my block. Lol

[charp13]

  I was born in the year of our Lord, Nineteen Hundred and Sixty-Two, and I am proud to say, "I'm an old one".  My grandfather had stacks of Creepy, Eerie and Tales from the Crypt comics, and that's all we had to read on a cold Michigan Saturday afternoon. We would get dropped off at the grandparents' house while Ma & Pa went shopping. But only after the great Sir Graves Ghastly had left the airwaves! He was my first tv hero! That voice, that humor, that Glob!! I just recently explained the Glob to my husband, who has never seen the "upside down face on the chin" technique before! And all the Universal Monsters!! Ahhhhh! I used to have a recurring dream that they were all at the laundromat that my grandma worked at, and they scared everyone off, except me, and we hung out together forever! Which I have not dreamed about since the early 70s.....Now I dream about the TOYS!   

[BaronLatos35]

The diaper-jockeys in the under 40 thread can keep their cineplexes. They've COMPLETELY missed the romance and thrill of BEING THERE when you could find Auroras in every department store, a Drive-In in every town, and a horror host on every black and white TV.

I too grew up watching Count Gore Saturday nights on Channel 20, missed Aurora but played with AHI/Remco...missed the glorious drive ins but...nevermind, most of you all are probably asleep after hitting the Sizzler early bird 4:00 dinner special to read this now!

[Count_Zirock]

...nevermind, most of you all are probably asleep after hitting the Sizzler early bird 4:00 dinner special to read this now!

Ha! I'm more likely to just be getting up at 4PM. Hungarians tend to keep odd hours. And they don't even have Sizzlers in NC! The ancient ones (70+) hit Cracker Barrel, IHOP, or Golden Corral for those 4PM dealies.
Growing up in NJ, we had "Chiller Theatre" on WPIX Ch. 11 and "Creature Features" on WNEW Ch. 5. I got to meet both Zacherley and Lou "The Creep" Steele at the 4th Chiller Theatre Model, Toy & Film Expo, as well as Joe Bob Briggs (TMC's "Joe Bob's Drive-In Theater" and TNT's "MonsterVision"). Actually, Joe Bob's an old friend. I was the editor of the only newspaper in the entire state of NJ to ever carry his "Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In" column in it's mid-'80s heyday.

[Count_Zirock]

Oh, I also met Rhonda Shear, former hostess of USA's "Up All Night!" (Friday nights only; Sat.'s it was Gilbert Gottfried), and Elvira, at Chiller. I'd actually done phone interviews with them both for Femme Fatales magazine, but finally got to meet them "in the flesh" at Chiller.

[Inkfink]

Ha! My AARP membership is just around the corner. BaronLatos35, I hear you on Channel 20's Count Gore De Vol. I remember a time when he didn't have the mustache. Where does the time go?

[Illoman]

I'm 51 and was part of that elite group of kids whose parents would find my copies of FM, CoF and routinely throw them in the trash! I literally dug them out and hid them in my room. A couple didn't survive: I had the issues of FM with the Creature on the cover by Gogos, and the one with the close up photo of Chris Lee as Drac. Somehow I couldn't retrieve those issues. Funny how I still remember that. Also funny how my copies of Monster Times survived.

I carried around a copy of Bram Stoker's Dracula when I was in grade school (the Airmont edition) but never actually read the novel until I was in my 40's. I remember seeing Cagney's Man of a Thousand Faces and the next day in class (seventh grade) instead of listening to the teacher wrote my own bio of Chaney based on what I'd learned from the film.

My dad would buy and help us build and paint the Aurora Superman, Robin, and Bat Plane models. It wasn't until I was ten or eleven that I started my collection of Aurora monsters.

[Moonshadow]

Oh no, the army is being split down age lines? What about unity and brotherhood and all that stuff? Come on people! Yeah, I know, those darn kids started it with their thread. I think they were out on my lawn today too. I was gonna call the police but it was 4 pm and we were ready to go to the Sizzler.

Well, if we're doing this, I belong on this side. Somehow I am now 46, which just seems wrong, but that's what the numbers add up to. Grew up loving monsters, sci fi, and super-heroes, despite getting a lot of flak about it from the norms. Now I even co-write a blog on comics and pop culture of the 70s (see my signature), write articles for Back Issue magazine, and am nearly done with my first novel, which features the Frankenstein Monster. So I guess I never grew out of any of that stuff -and boy am I glad!

[Elisabeth]

Count Z.  I was born in Chicago, in the Year of Our LORD, 1953. but moved to New Jersey in June, living there for 23 years.  The Korean "Police Action" continued for 4 more months, everybody liked Ike and Lucy, and the second Elizabethan era began.  I met Boris Karloff on MILLION DOLLAR MOVIE at the age of 6,  and started right in with CHILLER THEATRE (WPIX) at the age of 7.  Not too soon after came SUPERNATURAL THEATRE, (WOR), and CREATURE FEATURE (WNEW).  My parents DESPISED horror films, (they were "cheap"), but it didn't stop me from hiding  issues of FM between the mattress and the box spring!

Count Z.  where in New Jersey were you?  I came from North Plainfield, in Somerset County.

Elisabeth 

[Hepcat]

One can never be too old to have a happy childhood I always say.

[Scatter]

Hey Doc, no giving up on the Drive-Ins for me. Here's one of the few things I love about living here in South Florida.......the Lake Worth Drive-In!!





And there's a Sonic drive-in burger joint right next door!!

[packy120353]

I'm fitty-seven and a half. My body sometimes reminds me, but I sure don't feel on the inside what I thought it would feel like!
My Dad loved spooky stuff and monsters, my poor Mom didn't but what could she do with four boys!
Today I got up at 5, worked all day, and tonight this old fart's gonna go rock out on his geetar from 9-1 at a local bar.  Hopefully meet some gals. Take that, whippersnappers! I'll feel it tomorrow though...

[BaronLatos35]

Count, that's cool you've met all those people, Ink that's cool you are from the DC area and watched Gore!, Gary I wish I had a drive through around here

Karen, that was laugh out loud funny. My wife looked at me like I was crazy...

It's all jokes people, just talking junk! Now back to my thread...

[Hepcat]

I'm ten years old.

[Moonshadow]

Count, that's cool you've met all those people, Ink that's cool you are from the DC area and watched Gore!, Gary I wish I had a drive through around here

Karen, that was laugh out loud funny. My wife looked at me like I was crazy...

It's all jokes people, just talking junk! Now back to my thread...

I knew it! I knew I saw that Latos kid sneaking around. He said something about wanting to get his ball out of my backyard, but I knew it was just a ploy to cause trouble!

I got my eyes on you.....