NJ T-Shirt Tuesday 118: Jolly Voorhees!

It’s not often that I’ll actually model the t-shirt for this column, so savor this moment while it lasts. Earlier today I posted this pic on my Instagram, which you should follow if you haven’t already and I will most likely follow you back as long as you aren’t some fake robo-account, so you can see dumb pics like this that I tend to post. Today’s shirt, The Jolly Voorhees, arrived today in my mailbox and it features a design by a favorite artist of mine from South Jersey, Blair J. Campbell.

Mr. Campbell has created hundreds of awesome designs that you’ve seen on t-shirts and basically all over the Internet. He’s responsible for some of my favorite pop culture mash-ups that run the gamut of cartoons and comics to movies and TV shows.

The Jolly Voorhees is another one of his brilliant fusions. The skull and crossbones is a logo notorious for letting everyone know that whoever has a Jolly Roger flag are usually evil pirates. Mix that with my favorite horror film franchise, Friday the 13th, and it doesn’t get much better than this! This black tee’s graphic depicts Jason Voorhees’ mask with 2 machetes crossed underneath with a dripping red number 13. PLUS, the entire graphic is subtly splattered with blood.

Aside from taking this silly selfie today, I was also excited to see that Jerry Bruckheimer tweeted the first pic of Captain Jack Sparrow from the set of Pirate of the Caribbean 5! On top of all this, it’s T-Shirt Tuesday, so it felt like fate that this all happened all in one day and I just had to tell you all about it.

Check out all of Blair’s other t-shirt designs including his Star Wars Red Five tee in the Top Gun style – it’s a classic! You can see more at his Teepublic shopAND OMG HIS ZIGGY STAR TREK IS INSANELY GOOD!

NJ T-Shirt Tuesday 115: Camp Crystal Lake in Wessex, NJ

Horror t-shirt fanatics like myself never have to worry about not having enough tees to fill their wardrobe. With online shops like Fright Rags and Rotten Cotton and horror conventions across the country, you can easily buy multiple shirts based on all of your favorite horror films. Today’s entry continues with the long line of awesome Friday the 13th shirts floating around waiting to be purchased on the Internet.

The Camp Crystal Lake t-shirt from Beware the Moon Clothing Co. is truly right out of a Friday the 13th fans wish list. The shirt references the fictional town of Wessex, NJ. There’s nothing geekier than discussing a fictional town barely mentioned in a horror movie and eventually emblazoned on a t-shirt, so let’s discuss the shit out of it right now.

Although the first several films in the franchise were set in New Jersey (you can see evidence HERE HERE HERE HERE HERE and HERE) Wessex is not exploited much except for the morgue/medical center that Jason is brought to in The Final Chapter. Later, Jason Goes to Hell changed the location of Crystal Lake to Cunningham County and the Friday the 13th Wiki considers the geography change in that film it’s own entity. Screw Jason Goes To Hell, it’s easily my least favorite of the entire series and it’s disappointing because F13 is hands down my favorite horror franchise.

Beware the Moon Clothing Co. has a bunch of excellent horror, wrestling, TV, and movie t-shirts for sale. The only downside is that shipping is a bit steep since the online store is based in the UK, so you’ll have to kick in some extra coin for shipping, unless you’re actually in the UK, then you get FREE shipping.

Abbott and Costello Meet Jason Voorhees?!!

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Abbott and Costello Meet Jason! by Primo Cardinalli
painted in the style of the classic Abbott and Costello theater one-sheets
Check him out at a future Monster Mania Con!
1948’s Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is my earliest and most memorable experience watching a horror comedy. In many ways, this film was an economical choice for me to watch as a young horror-loving kid because it combined the classic band of Universal Monsters (save for Gill-Man) and a comedy team who I watched in other exploits with my Dad who introduced me to them.
 
In Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, the legendary comedy duo from New Jersey found themselves face to face with Dracula, the Wolfman, and Frankenstein, in what is considered the last hurrah for Universal’s Monsters. It was silly and spine tingling at the same time. It’s been a wish of mine for many years that Abbott and Costello could come alive in some way and run into some of my favorite modern horror icons. As you can see in the painting above, it’s not just a pipe dream of mine, but also of artist Primo Cardinalli who envisioned Abbott and Costello Meeting Jason at Camp Crystal Lake. With the original Camp Crystal Lake located in NJ, this would be the ultimate Garden State horror mash-up and it desperately NEEDS to be made! But how is it possible? It IS…read on!
 
In reading more about the film on its Wikipedia page, I never realized that this film was considered the culmination of a long run of monster movies for Universal. Fortunately though, popularity of the film revived the public’s interest in monster movies and prompted Universal to produce a new wave of monster films throughout the ’50s. Abbott and Costello’s meeting with Frankenstein collected $3.2 million dollars at the box office in 1948. You better believe that this kind of box office magic would still work today.
The idea of seeing Abbott and Costello trapped in today’s horror landscape excites me to no end.
It’s obvious that Hollywood just can’t seem to get horror comedies right and it’s a shame because there’s a place for them as long as they’re respectful to the genre. There’s been a slew of films that have incorporated classic movie monsters in a comedic way that have worked like Monster Squad and Hotel Transylvania amongst others.
Instead of poking fun at the Universal Monsters, Abbott and Costello’s adventures always paid them the ultimate tribute by presenting them properly and without compromising the monster’s scare factor. Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein wasn’t exactly chilling, but the monsters maintain their imposing nature. Interestingly, Boris Karloff supposedly refused to be a part of the production because he felt it would be insulting to mix slapstick and horror.
As the Scary Movie franchise and this year’s A Haunted House have proven, poking fun at horror isn’t making any friends in the horror community, nor does the formula produce hit movies which is why it’s time for to get a little retro. A Haunted House 2 is coming next year, but what for? Nobody wants that and it’s time to go back to the basics. At first, old fashioned spooky fun may seem far fetched, but I believe that there’s still hope left to one day experience this type of throwback.
 
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art by Nickelodeon storyboard artist Scott Cooper

I always thought it would be such an awesome idea to pit Abbott and Costello vs. Jason Voorhees. You may be thinking that I’m totally off my rocker for trying to cast two dead comedians to appear in a new movie, but bear with me. If I had it my way, this movie wouldn’t be some weird CGI movie where real footage from other Abbott and Costello films was culled together to create a whole new one because that’s silly Hollywood crap reserved for Super Bowl commercials. My thinking is that the best presentation of a film like this would be in a lush, 1940’s style 2-D animation. The voices can be provided by Abbott and Costello impersonators or any number of the best voice over guys in the business could do it. Bud and Lou would have to be skewed a little but younger, but I can totally see the duo being revived in cartoon form for a modern kids audience. Just take a look at Scott Cooper’s art above and you’ll see what I mean.

Who would Abbott and Costello run into in this movie? Jason Voorhees is easily my top choice for his own feature, but if there were an ensemble cast of monsters like in Meets Frankenstein, I’d love to see them have run-ins with Freddy Krueger, Michael Myers, Leatherface, Chucky, and maybe even an appearance by Jigsaw and Billy the Puppet? You can use your imagination, because with 2-D animation the sky is the limit. We already know who’s going to paint the poster and the bluray box, thanks Mr. Cardinalli!

Friday the 13th Juice Boxes from The Holidaze!

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Cliff from The Holidaze blog has created his own line of horror movie inspired Hi-C juice boxes. Since I’m a huge fan of the Friday the 13th franchise, and F13 is based in New Jersey, I wanted to share these with you. These are badass! Cliff did an awesome job with them. I LOVE the vintage Hi-C style box on the left that I grew up with as a kid. That one takes the color scheme of the Friday the 13th Nintendo game that was recently made into a highly collectible action figure. Check out more at The Holidaze via the link above.