Overheard at Lem's:
MamaM said...I first learned about Tussauds as a boy on the back of comic book covers. Remember this from the fabulous 1960's?
Madame Tussaud's Chamber of Horrors, visited in London when I was eleven, left an indelible impression on me.
Seeing, hearing, knowing what humans were capable of doing to each other was truly horrifying and beyond my imagination at that time. Still is, come to think of it.
The model was made and sold by Aurora Plastics Corp out of New York. The kit appeared on shelves in 1964, was wildly popular, but was subsequently banned. A reissue of the kit appeared in the 1990s. Aurora had planned a series of model kits, including Hangin' Tree.
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Evi L. Bloggerlady reminds us that Marie Antoinette was guillotined exactly 223 years ago.
10 comments:
My brother had an original when we were kids. I bought a remake of the kit in the 1990's and tucked it away, unbuilt.
Funny you should mention that today...
Holy cow, Evi -- what a historical coincidence!
BTW, an artist named James Bama did all the original box cover art for the Aurora monster kits. is what the 1990's remake kit looks like. The original 1960's kit had the Madame Tussaud's logo and name at the very top. This had to be removed for copyright reasons.
"Harmless Fun"!!
Boys love gruesome stuff.
When we were all good at reading (we're talking boys' school), Poe was a favorite author.
I visited the V&A museum back in the 1990's in London and one of the exhibits was a gruesome display of torture scenes that rocked me to the core. Cruelty on stilts.
Sawing people in half the long way - stuff like that. I cannot remember the name of the artist. Started with a "P".
ISIS has made contributions to barbarity recently. I've been to London but never visited Tussauds so I'm not sure if they have the old "Chambor of Horrors." Certainly, the recent mass drowning and burning in cages should rate. But it's Londonstan now.
Boys love gruesome stuff.
Not so much when it's done to them, would be my guess.
I saw a demonstration in wax of the use of the Algerian hook. Somewhere, not Tussauds in London. Some wax museum in Canada with the torture stuff in the basement. Vancouver maybe. It's a big hook that goes through your middle and you hang there until you die. ISIS is amateur hour, creativity-wise. in the greater historical disgusting psychos scheme of things though they are making up in volume for their lack of ingenuity. I was still in single digits at the time so it left an impression. It was a good lesson: This is what humans are capable of doing.
It's all harmless fun until someone loses their head!
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