You're Listening to Imaginary Worlds, a Show About How We Create Them

1 You’re listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief. I’m Eric Molinsky. When I was a kid, I used to watch something called the Creature Double Feature on Channel 56 every weekend afternoon. They were black and white monster movies from the ‘50s. The funny thing is, I didn’t really like them, but there was nothing else to watch in those days. The ones that used to freak me out the most were the movies about giant insects like “Them.” CLIP: THEM Usually on this show, I delve into genres that mean a lot to me. But I’m equally fascinated by the stuff that other people obsessed over. It adds another layer of mystery for me – like what is the cult following about? And in this case, I’m not talking about giant insects or the 50-foot woman or King Kong. There’s only one monster that matters. CLIP: GODZILLA DS: It was on Ch. 9, which is a local station in NY tri-state area, and my brother had been watching it, as with all things because I looked up to him, I started watching it, and it was like a real living dinosaur, which I also loved because I was 4 by the way who could shoot fire, I’m 43 and my feelings are still strong about this, who shot fire and destroy cities it was the best thing of all time. That’s my friend Dave Serchuck, who’s a journalist in Louisville. Dave was so excited to talk about Godzilla, he called me hours before our interview was scheduled because he couldn't wait! DS: Godzilla is exciting for children because Godzilla doesn’t need impulse control, Godzilla has the essence of a massive toddler inside him, if Godzilla gets pissed off at something or better yet someone or giant animal or being, Godzilla acts and attacks back and that is extremely gratifying. That makes sense: Godzilla is like a giant toddler, knocking over buildings in a massive temper tantrum. And he’s not human, so it’s okay. DS: He’s an animal and the more they try to spell out why Godzilla does what he does, and the more they try to make it clear what Godzilla’s agenda is, the worse the movies 2 are, but in the beginning, yeah Godzilla is mysterious, he comes from sea and he goes back to the sea –somehow they can’t ever track him, he comes and goes when he does, he’s a force of nature and I don’t think Godzilla even knows why he does what he does. And one more thing: DS: The second I hear it, I’m 5 years old again, it doesn’t matter how many times I hear it, because in a given Godzilla movie, you’re going go hear it a lot -- I love it, every single time. It sounds like the thing you love is simplicity, there’s no cannon, you don’t have to watch Godzilla and then go watch spin off movies of other main characters, if you haven’t watched, don’t know what’s going on, there’s purity and simplicity to him. DS: There is, you don’t have to watch them in order. It’s a simple thing. There’s a problem and Godzilla either is the problem or he solves problem. And that’s where Godzilla becomes intriguing because we created him. He’s our problem – our collective guilt for building a nuclear bomb, or trashing the environment. DS: Yeah, Godzilla is like if you’re feeling sadistic and down on humanity on a given day, he’s there to make you feel, well we had it coming! And that’s the way a lot of us who care about thee issues feel, you know? But I think ultimate appeal of Godzilla is the suit itself. The costume walks a fine line that separates humans and animals. The funny thing is, an actor can stand upright in a Godzilla suit because his design reflect how people thought a T-Rex would move in the 1950s, before scientists discovered that dinosaurs walked with their heads forward and their tails balancing in the back. DS: Godzilla is a complete bastardization of three dinosaurs, he’s like a stegosaurus backed T-Rex with some weird green raison skin somewhat like a Brontosaurus had, so Godzilla is like the ultimate fantasy dinosaur. There’s a video on YouTube of Haruo Nakajima, the actor who played Godzilla in the old films, trying on the Godzilla suit one last time, years 3 after he retired. It’s fascinating to watch him rediscover that inner monster through pure movement. The only thing I liked about the 2014 Godzilla movie was that the digital Godzilla walked on two feet like there a person was inside him. He wasn’t a Jurassic Park-type dinosaur, like in the 1997 Godzilla film. JF: If you were back in 1954, those guys in Japan, wanted to do clamation saw King Kong and they were like oh my gosh, this is the most amazing thing ever, they tried but they couldn’t it wasn’t practical, they couldn’t do it correctly, it didn’t work, the next best thing is let’s put a guy in a suit, if they had access to CG back then, absolutely they would’ve done that, they would’ve used the best possible method at that time that was available to them. Jim Fazar. Is part of a subculture of fans that make Godzilla suits from scratch. His introduction to the big guy was almost identical to Dave Serchuck and me. Jim was watching UHF stations as a kid with his older brother, Ron. RF: Things changed for us getting into the late ‘70s, our parents split up, and in some ways had more latitude to do what we wanted to do, and I think that’s when I pulled Jimmy into Godzilla. Jim and Ron grew up in Rochester, NY. RF: I was falling in love with baseball, our mom after the divorce, would let me fall asleep watching Yankees, she didn’t know anything about monster movies or sci-fi, things like that in fact, to this day she has a disdain for it, whenever we talk about it, she acts like we have three heads each. (laughs) She would never put that on, we would have to find that stuff on our own, but on weekends, Sundays with our father, we’d put on whatever we want. Ron outgrew Godzilla but his little brother never did. So he set out to make a Godzilla suit for Halloween. JF: I’m a web designer so everything I design and put heart into, after a month or week someone come around and destroy website and its gone, but if I build something with hands, feel it, touch it, as long as I take care of it, it’s going to stay exactly the same until the day I die. 4 JF: I even took a week off work to start building thing in September thinking two months would be plenty of time. That first week was rough starting something that massive and having no idea where to being once started, you just go. So I worked night and I was staying up until 3 in morning, going to work at 8, driving to brother’s house huge basement work again, and do it again, get there at 5, work til 2-3 morning, and just continue. RF: Then as the days and weeks passed, night after night, see different supplies showing up, chicken wire, glue, all different kinds of glues, foam rubber! JF: It’s so much foam, fabric, I have cardboard in there, I have chicken wire in there, I have speakers inside the chest so if I tap my right hand, my palm little button that makes one roar, classic roar, and if you tap the other palm, it makes a smaller roar. So adding those special effects was kind of fun. I know Godzilla changes from movie to movie, did you choose a particular Godzilla? JF: I was aiming towards ‘70s Godzilla like Godzilla vs. Gaigan or Megalon, that kind of era because something about him, my brother and I used to call him Disco Godzilla because he’d do that little dance, and it’s like he knew what was going on. I would take pictures and blow them up in Photoshop. I used a projector to put on wall and I got it to be the exact height to fit in and I drew out the exact shape of every spine or spike which is, there’s about 40 of them including little ones down the side and the big ones, so the shape is dead on, I think. Jim was so consumed with building Godzilla -- his girlfriend broke up with him during that time. But after a while, she showed up at Ron’s house where Jim was still working on the costume. JF: And she came over to mend Godzilla and mend our relationship at the time. It worked out – they got married. But the costume was more difficult. JF: I even had friends help out with a minor details at the end, but we couldn’t get it finished and I was very depressed that Halloween, I was so close to getting it done. Ugh! Jim sunk into a funk until he decided he was going to finish the costume the next Halloween.

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