As I was on my daily trip to KinderTruama, my wife happened to be in the room and asked me about "the guy with no skin" who really disturbed her as a kid. Of course she meant the trauma-causing Slim Goodbody, a topic that I knew that was covered HERE. So I search for good-ole afro-creep and there he was, in all his skin-tight, package-revealing wonder. As we watched the clip KinderTrauma so kindly offered up, a new memory surfaced, like a bloated body wrest free from its weights… THE VISIBLE MAN.
I can't remember the order of events, but I know that I owned a VISIBLE MAN when I was a kid. I know that I had touched all the bones, the vital organs and saw the veins and arteries. I also know that it creeped me out.
Back in maybe 4th or 5th grade I did a report on the digestive system and I can't remember if I bought THE VISIBLE MAN for this project or I just happened to have him lying around because I needed more nightmares. Well, I pulled the whole digestive tract from poor Mr. Man and glued it to some poster board, wrote some things about the organs (and of course giggled about the anus) and gave my presentation to the class.
I have no idea what my grade was for this project, but I do know that just looking a picture of THE VISIBLE MAN now makes me feel a little funny inside.
I loved The Visible Man as a kid…I was also obsessed with my encyclopedia that had the cool transparencies of the different systems of the human body…you could flip through all of them layering the human body or take it apart..like some sort of demented child god (or maybe that was just me)!
Oh, thanks to Walt's traumafession, I found this cool site this morning..it goes great with coffee!
http://yucky.discovery.com/flash/index.html
Wow…My Grandmother had one of these in her attic. The attic was where she kept all the old toys from my father, uncle and cousins for us to play with when we visited.
Know what else was in the attic? An ancient stuffed baby alligator, with the tail broken off and the stuffing leaking out.
And my Grandfather's old wheelchair…
And a couple of his old artificial legs…
wow…I thought the attic in THE CHANGELING was creepy …but Grandma's sounds even worse!
Attics freak me out. Basements too. Luckily my house has no attic, but it DOES have a basement and I am pretty damn sure Freddy Krueger lives down there.
I love those grandmas who keep all that sh! in the attic. That's the stuff you see on ANTIQUES ROADSHOW, yo!"Who the Hell wants this one yed Raggedy Andy from 1955?" ANTIQUES ROADSHOW will give you a couple of thousands for that sh!t!
I had a Visible Man too – I also had the Visible Head. Â Wasn't creepied out, just thought they were cool. Â Also really wanted the Visible Woman but never got the nerve to ask my folks for one (yes, I was a little prevert from an early age…)
Prof. & Mama,
My first apartment was an attic space in an old Victorian mansion near Stanford. Â The living area was dry walled off such that there was one good sized original attic area to one side and leading off from that, two very narrow crawl spaces. Â The lower floors had a rounded turret style extrusion which was topped at the attic level by a small cupola, which was definitely not part of my room. Â I was still fairly thin in those days so not long after I moved in I decided to go exploring. Â The cupola was my goal. Â I spent a good half hour in the crawl space muscling myself over and under brace beams and getting covered in dust and spider webs. Â A couple spots I almost thought I wouldn't fit through but I finally managed to squeeze through to the end. Â What did I find in that cupola? Â Nothing – save for a small child's powder blue painted wooden chair sitting upright in the middle of the room like it was patiently waiting for little Reginald to be sent back for another time out.
True story! Â That little chair in the attic has always reminded me of a movie but I have no idea which it might be – any help?
I don't remember Visible Man but a friend of mine had this doll that endlessly facinated me. I think only the top half showed his insides (and maybe half his face?) and when you pushed on his chest you could watch the blood pump through his veins. Does anyone know what I'm talking about?
Try THE CHANGELING, Dude! Any weird kid stuff in the atiic sends me terrified little mind right back to THE CHANGELING. What a creepy ass flick! Not a whole lot scares me (especially at this age) but THAT move does it! (There was also a slow moving movie called THE ATTIC that was sort of creepy. THAT attic actually had dead bodies in it. Brrrrrrr! And let us not forget what the attic in the original BLACK CHRISTMAS had in it! )
My mom's house had crawlspaces in it and they never creeped me out…til I saw My Favorite TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE where the guy had his little monster daughter living in a crawlspace and then I started hating crawlspaces too. But crawlspaces were great when i was a teenager- I used to hide my beer and my boyfriends in them!
MMSP & SBD – You, or anyone else who finds attics creepy should also read HP Lovecraft's "The Dreams in the Witch House." Â It's great fun!
SBD – it's amazing how a simple piece of furniture can be so spooky. Â I think because something like a chair, made for a single person to use seems so empty and longing without that person to sit in it.
BQueen – I don't remember that toy, but it sounds similar to "Gre-Gory", the vampire bat toy that I had as a child. Â http://www.x-entertainment.com/halloweencountdown/2003/september23/
As a side note, X-entertainment is my second-favorite blog (after this one of course), especially around Halloween when Matt does his Halloween countdown. Â It's not updated nearly as frequently as this blog, but when it is, it's entertaining as hell.
@ BQueen…oh, that's the most awesome, Pulsar-the ultimate man of adventure!Â
http://www.plaidstallions.com/mattel/77p1.html
I never owned one, but he always looked super cool in the old catalogs of my youth.
Never had a Gre-Gory either. 🙁
Mr. Canacorn, thanks for nailing Pulsar! Â I knew what BQueen was talking about but couldn't remember the specifics – the bat was close but I knew that wasn't it. Â Like the text says at Plaid Stallions, I had no idea WTF he was about – I just knew I wanted one from the commercials. Â Never did get him though…
Thanks Mr. Canacorn! That's exactly what I was thinking about. Hmmm now I kind of want one for my own now that I know what to look for. Although, that Gre-Gory looks sweet as well. Do kids these days have anything half as cool as we did as kids? The poor dears.