I’ve always loved parties and used to throw a lot of them. In 1985, to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of the first Godzilla movie, I threw a spectacular party in the “Big G’s” honor, the “Godzilla 30th Anniversary Party.”
The photo at left shows movie and TV model builder Tom Scherman with the huge Godzilla prop he created for that party.
The Godzilla party’s success gave me the idea to host more theme parties, the most obvious being a “Prehistoric Party.” My house and backyard already had the ambience for such a bash and the theme suggested that guests “dress prehistoric.” The “Prehistoric Parties” – with punch served from a smoking volcano (another Tommy Scherman creation), “molten lava chili, appropriate music (including, of course, Dinosaur Tracks, a “hot” performing cavegirl fire-eater (actress Debra Lamb), a costume contest (judged by actor Richard Moll in photo below, center) and, on my TV screen, a constantly running montage of clips from old dinosaur movies.
Almost as much fun (and work) as putting on these events was preparing the invitations. At first I used existing artwork for the invitations. Then, knowing a lot of attractive actresses and models, I got some of them to pose as cavegirls with some of the prehistoric items in my collection. The photos I took of them were then incorporated into the invitations.
I hosted 10 of these “Prehistoric Parties” from 1988 to 1994, the last one coinciding with the completion of shooting my movie Dinosaur Valley Girls.
Don’t forget to RSVP!
I loved having theme parties! In 1986, I also threw a “Fantasy Party” (photos below) in which prehistoric giant gorilla King Kong was the main attraction — represented by both a big Kong inflatable, and also an arm from the inflatable Kong that was attached to the top of the Empire State Building as publicity for the 1976 remake of King Kong.
