The Godzilla 30th Anniversary Party, held in 1985, was a spectacular event, complete with pretty Asian “Geisha Girl” hostesses, Japanese food, appropriate music, a Godzilla-decorated anniversary cake (candles lit and extinguished. respectively, with a Godzilla cigarette lighter and Godzilla water pistol, both of which you can see among my many Godzilla collectible items) and so forth. Best of all, my friend Tom Scherman (photo below, left, of Tom and his creation), a movie prop builder, created a huge Godzilla mock-up for my roof, which I enhanced by a continuous recording of the monster roaring. As I live on a hill and the figure was well lit, I could be seen from below, prompting a visit from a hovering Burbank Police Department helicopter!
The party was in celebration, not only of Godzilla’s anniversary (first seen on screen in Japan in 1954), but also of the movie The Return of Godzilla made in 1984, but was released in the USA in 1985 (hence, the new title). Photo below, left, is of a prop from that film.
Movie prop maker Tom Scherman’s (photo below) big Godzilla prop, made of Styrofoam and wood, became a great addition to my collection – while it lasted. Suffering wear and tear courtesy of the elements (add to that complaints from a few neighbors who were obviously not “Big G” fans), the figure gradually deteriorated.
For added effect, I recorded eight hours of continuous Godzilla’s roars — dubbed off from two record albums of music from Godzilla movies, seen in this more recent photo — and blared them out from Tom’s mockup into the backyard.
Below and below, left, are more recent photos of the Godzilla lighter and water pistol, still in my collection, that I used to light and put out the candles on the Godzilla anniversary cake.
To enhance the Japanese ambience at the party, my friends at the Kaiyodo company, who were visiting about a week before the event, gave me a number of resin Godzilla kit models, already professionally assembled and painted.
After residing on my roof for several weeks, largely due to neighbors’ complaints, I took Tom Scherman’smonster down. For a while, in fact months after the party, I displayed just the salvaged head and claws of the progressively deteriorating Godzilla mockup figure in my backyard – a nice “photo op” for visitors like my Mom and, with yours truly, Night Court TV star, actor Richard Moll. The figure also survived for another few theme party appearances (photos below).
Over the years I attempted making my own “Godzilla collectibles” – like the clay stop-motion model in my amateur movie Son of Tor and also a “Snowzilla” in my Mother’s backyard during a Chicago winter – but not with the spectacular results of Tommy’s creation. But, like Tom’s model, neither of these survived for very long.
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