Star Wars Funmeal

Here are two Burger Chef Star Wars Funmeal packages from 1978 for your viewing pleasure. The Funmeals didn't come with a toy, but the packages are printed with punch-out vehicles that you could put together.

First is Luke's Landspeeder...

... and don't forget the parts on the bottom of the package.


Next is next the X-Wing Fighter...

... and the bottom.

Burger Chef's mascots were the Burger Chef and his young protege Jeff. On the vintage tray liner below Burger Chef explains to Jeff how the salad was invented...

Gee, who knew primitive cave people were dumber than rabbits. How did the human race ever survive?

To close this post here's a Burger Chef commercial featuring Burger Chef and Jeff and their new "Works" and salad bar.

Halloween Horror Double Feature

For Halloween let's have a "Horror Double Feature" with a couple of movies by some hometown boys (well, my hometown) who made good.

Here's an article about Evil Dead (1983) by the Detroit Free Press from May 3, 1983...

Please click to enlarge if you wish to read (I probably didn't need to say that)

... now let's jump to April 10, 1987 for another Detroit Free Press article, but this time it's about Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (1987). As an added bonus the movie review is also included...


If you were some of those lucky collectors out there maybe you picked up one of these cute, but rare Evil Dead Haunted Cabin toys back in the day...

The Wasp Woman Animated Poster

I wanted to animate this poster for The Wasp Woman (1959) for two reasons - first, if you check out the trailer below, the actual wasp woman in the movie looks nothing like how she appears on the poster...


... and secondly, this is practically the only time a man is the "victim" in posters like these. Enjoy...

A Scary Tale From Novi

This short video from 2001 was the last "creative" production I made for local government access television...



I had super high hopes to make this into a special half-hour show, but it never got off the ground. Former Novi Police Chief Lee Begole had done a show years earlier called Scary Tales From Novi where he simply recounted various local ghost stories and mysterious tales. I thought it would be great to reenact some of those stories for a new show.

I tried to get other city production staff excited by the idea because this was too big to do on my own, but unfortunately nobody really shared my enthusiasm. Even getting this modest little short completed was a chore.

I don't know what it was, but nothing seemed to go smoothly. It's always hard to get actors together for free, and this time I also needed someone with an old car. I wanted to actually show police officers searching the weeds and finding the graves stones, but I couldn't find costumes that looked like 1950's police uniforms. When it came time to do the BW grave stone shots I couldn't property use my tripod due to a missing mounting plate. I remember feeling that this project was cursed.

In the end it turned out OK. Although I think my narration kinda sounds like Criswell from Plan 9 From Outer Space (1958). I don't remember if that was intentional or not.

Music Videos from Hell: Part 3

Now it's time for my last scary music video post. These posts have been so exceptionally popular that Vh1 has contacted me, and I've agreed to turn them into a series of specials. Please look for Music Videos from Hell right after Lindsay Lohan's new reality show WTF Am I Doing to my Life? airing sometime in 2011.

Anyway let's look at a scary video now. In Between Days by The Cure is another one of those videos that's accidentally creepy. The song is very happy, but the trippy florescent makeup is spooky. I don't know what the stop-motion socks are all about.

The Cure - Inbetween Days from feelthemonster on Vimeo.

Let's jump from 1985, to the present day and take a look at Kids by MGMT. This video is a depiction of a small child's nightmare. I'm sure the band has gotten some sharp criticism for apparently terrifying a toddler thru nearly the entire video. (FYI: the actual song starts about 1 minute in)



I'm pretty sure the kid is OK, and wasn't traumatized by the experience in the slightest. Although those monsters were nothing compared to the horrendous futuristic wardrobe the band wears. Silver clothing is so unflattering.

Well I've save the scariest video for last. So if your nerves can take it, brace yourself for the most frightening music video ever...


I don't blame you if you had to look away. The horror... the horror...

The Killer Shrews Animated Poster

The Killer Shrews is a ultra super low budget horror film from 1959 that's surprisingly about giant mutated killer shrews. Let's look at the trailer...



The shrews are mostly played by dogs dressed in what looks like burlap and discarded hula skirts. There's also a puppet sometimes, but neither the puppet or dogs look much like shrews. So for my animation I've used actual shrew art...

The Troubled Town of Woodsboro

Maybe you heard about this since it's gotten a lot of press over the years.

The town of Woodsboro was the unfortunate home of a series of horrible murders in 1996, 1997 and 2000.

I just happened to visit the tragic town this past summer. Although Woodsboro is in California - nearly 2000 miles from where I live, the trip felt as close as my own hometown or maybe the town next to mine. Weird.

Anyway, as you can see from these banners, Woodsboro has an active arts community...

... and if read the center banner, Woodsboro is "Hometown America" not "Stabbing Town America."

For some reason the Woodsboro Police Station was a popular tourist spot. Parents were taking pictures of their children in front of the station. I hope it doesn't have anything to do with the murders because that's kinda ghoulish.

Well, with last murders happening 10 years ago I think it's safe to say the town of Woodsboro can put those ugly events behind them, and look towards a bright and psychopathic murder free future.