ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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All Sci-Fi member Rick Smith shares a truly unique "monsterkid memory" about the movie below. In fact, this is one of my favorite of his personal anecdotes.

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The Cyclops (1957)

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Another ancient memory here.

It was a late Friday night in the summer of 1962. I was trying to find something to watch on TV, so I was flipping channels (flipping, yes, no remotes in those days . . . .strictly hands on the channel knob).

We only had two VHF TV stations back before The Flood — Channels 3 and 11. So I was click-click-clacking from one to another and . . . wait! What was that? Did I see some fuzzy image there?

I backtracked and indeed there was . . . something. I adjusted the rabbit ears and spun the little wheel behind the channel dial (fine tuning I assumed), and there was a picture.





It turned out to be Channel 4 from Indianapolis/Bloomington. I assume it was the long-running late show, hosted by the famous horror host Sammy Terry. All I remember is that the movie was THE CYCLOPS, which I'd never seen before.

I was tickled pink, and settled in to watch.

Well . . . there was not much settling actually. Pretty much through the whole movie I was fiddling with the antenna.

My mom said, numerous times that night, "I can't see anything." But that wasn't quite true. There was something there. A faint, gray, shifting vision. And a pretty clear audio. It was — to be frank — a lousy image.

But it was a monster movie I'd never seen. And a surprise one to boot! Because this was a station we'd never picked up before (and never would again).

We made it through that murky, fuzzy movie, and I proudly entered it into my record of Monster Movies I Have Seen. But it was weird. THE CYCLOPS was the rare film — maybe the only film — which fit into the category of Movies I've Seen . . . But Have Not Seen.

Still, I'm awfully glad to have found that faint, frustrating image, because it would be more than 25 years before I got my second look, and my first REAL look, at THE CYCLOPS.

Too bad it's not much of a movie.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)