Rudy Panucci On Pop Culture

The PopCult Toybox: ShockaCon presents the History of Monster Toys

motomon2As a wise Eskimo once said, “That’s the one I’m did.” Yes, this is the panel at ShockaCon on which I appeared with Tim Arnott of Third Floor Antiques, and longtime toy collectors (and Ghostbusters, WV Division members), Jeremy Hatfield and Lee Harrah. In our forty-five minutes or so, we tried to cover the history of monster toys from the 1950s, when Baby Boomers fell in love with the classic monster movies on television, to today, where Monster High is a billion-dollar brand name all by itself.

We take you from Famous Monsters of Filmland to Creepy Crawlers, AHI Mego-style Monsters, Kenner’s Alien and to today’s McFarlane and Sideshow Toys along the way.

It’s a pretty huge topic to tackle in one panel, but I think we did a good, if sketchy, job of it. Of course, when we were wrapping up and talking about our favorite monster toys, I blanked and couldn’t remember the name of the Motorized Monster Maker, by Topper, which is why there’s a picture of it accompanying this post.

Be sure to stick with PopCult all week, as we bring you tons more panels, events and cool stuff in video form from ShockaCon.

3 Comments

  1. Roy Jones

    awesome

  2. tim starkey

    Great job guys. I’m sure it was difficult keeping it moving with the crowd being loud but very entertaining. I was immediately impressed with the panels knowledge of the history of all things monster.

  3. Leea

    Wow, this was SO much fun! I can’t wait till next year! Rudy YOU ROCK!

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