From My Gathering Memoirs. ©2010. Robert J. Kuntz
My friend David L. Arneson moved to Lake Geneva to work for TSR in 1976. He originally roomed at the same complex as my brother, Terry Kuntz (who also worked for TSR as the first manager of the DUNGEON Hobby Shop). David soon relocated to an apartment on Wisconsin Street .
As I lived on Madison & Wisconsin and EGG still lived on Center & Wisconsin, I would often stop into David's on my way to Gary's house (note map, below).
This was often on weekends, and invariably if I didn't find Dave reading or writing, I'd find him watching his favorite Japanese monster movies. He usually had a big bowl of popcorn and was just laughing like a kid at these things; and in retrospect they were so bad they were funny. Here are some photos and links to the movies that made the designer of so many historical and fantastic games chuckle.
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| ONE OF DAVE"S FAVORITES, GAMERA THE "ATOMIC TURTLE" |
Links @ Wikipedia/Other:
My brother and I used to watch the "Not So Great Movies" on City TV out of Toronto every weekend when we were kids. I loved all these terrible, wonderful monster movies. I still do. :)
ReplyDeleteAs an unrepentant G-fan I can tell you Kaiju and Roll-playing go together like Reese's and Icecream.
ReplyDeleteWar of the Gargantuas! I haven't seen that one in ages. These movies are all classics. Why'd Toho even bother to put the human casts in anyway? The monsters were the real stories.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the glimpse. Please, keep on gathering! Love to read more.
Ciao!
GW
Pretty cool stuff
ReplyDeleteI used to watch them on WCIX' presentation of Creature Feature on Saturdays.
ReplyDeleteYeah, funny stuff all around. I updated the post with the "Safety Dance Gamera" in honor of Dave's favorite from these. :) Worth a look and a few laughs...
ReplyDeleteThat's one of the things I miss - all the monster movies that used to be on TV in the afternoons around 30 years ago, along with shows like Ultraman and Johnny Sokko's Robot. :D
ReplyDelete...Ah the Creature Feature days
ReplyDeleteCount Gore De Vol from Creature Feature was also Captain 20, hosting Sci Fi movies on channel 20 in the Washington D.C. area. I remember being a proud member of the Captain 20 Club around '75 - '76. :D
Great stuff Rob! I love seeing the map showing where you guys were all living. I will have to check out all of these monster movies now :)
ReplyDeleteThat neighborhood map is incredible.
ReplyDeleteI miss the Saturday afternoon horror/sci-fi shows.
For those interested, there's a great B-Movie podcast on iTunes here:
cultofuhf.squarespace.com
I live in downtown TO (I remember CityTV's Not So Great Movies) and I love that this all started in Lake Geneva. The map of where people lived and the Horticultural Hall, where the first GenCons were, is nifty. It's all so small town. People didn't seem to think they needed to move to New York or L.A. to succeed. I love that about this story. What's that American word... Midwestern. This story is so Midwestern. I think it's more inspiring, because of that.
ReplyDelete@brasspen: I completely agree. I don't think anything like TSR could've been born in a busy city.
ReplyDeleteThere is an element of 'hunger for new worlds' in all of it - an extension of the archetypal farmboy dreaming of distant lands.
Through TSR's role playing games, Pulp fiction and all of its exoticism and majesty, somehow came to life and made us all instruments of its flight.
i used to love those movies when i was a kid. king kong vs godzilla was one of my favorite!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PBbK8tkTE8
I am glad that this has stirred so much discussion and thought; and that Havard even linked to it from his blog and "stole" (his wording) my improvised map, too; shame, shame, Havard... ;)
ReplyDelete