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Stuff: "Even I, Lucas, have heard the legend of the Fish-Man. And I, Lucas, have played the game too." Poor Gillman, seemingly doomed to eternally play second fiddle to the rest of the immortal Universal Monsters icons. Unlike Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, or the Invisible Man (all of who inspired more sequels than our amphibious friend) he had no great literary heritage to boast of. Supposedly, the Creature from the Black Lagoon had his humble beginnings in a legend a Mexican cinematographer once told film producer William Alland. The only other "un-sourced" beast in the Universal stable was the Wolf-Man, and the werewolf turned out to be a vastly more popular monster in the long run.

Given his second tier status, it is nice to find that the Creature gets a little love from culture industry now and again. Over at Boing Boing, the popular link-dump site, news that a new novel from sci-fi author Paul Di Filippo would feature the Creature caused a reader to send in a link to images of the 1992 Creature from the Black Lagoon pinball game.

The game had a nice meta-twist in that it combined the movie's plot with details from the drive-in culture of the 1950s, including a soundtrack featuring the classic "Rock Around the Clock." The game also featured a hologram (pictured above) of the Creature: a fun detail that was also a clever allusion to the fact the film was shown in 3-D.

Fun times with the Fish-Man!
Posted by CRwM at 10:20 AM Labels: Creature from the Black Lagoon, pinball, Stuff


