What a fascinating chapter of Aurora lore. As just a kid building model airplanes, cars and a few ships, I never had the slightest idea about this drama. Great video.
Fascinating story! I was born in 1972, so Aurora kits weren´t a thing in my youth and my interest in collecting them started just recently, mainly because your fantastic history videos. Thanks, great work!
I remember my brother had gotten one of those kits about 4 years after this implosion and mother making a deal about x rated stuff. I was 8/9 at the time, and I was quite curious about this forbidden model. My brother was told to hide it from me and not to build it. I do remember sneaking into my brothers room looking for it…ahh I miss the 70’s!
How amazing! I had the Aurora Guillotine kit! Along with many of the monster kits. I built several other Aurora kits too. Thanks for the great history lesson Max! As always God bless you and yours and thanks again for all you do! Model On Captain!
The main thing I remember Aurora for us the Aurora AFX Slot cars from the mid to late 70s... Being a young kid if the 70s it was my first slot car set...
Thank you! Really great video. I've built many of these kits over the years. Just last year a refurbished my Dracula kit and finally build my Frankenstein's Monster that had been in storage for over 20+ years. Thanks again and have a great weekend. -David
Love it!!!!! What could possibly go wrong? Who's in charge? No ones in charge! This almost defy's the usual old saw "It seemed like a good idea at the time". To whom!!!!!! They're picketing outside our headquarters, what should I do? "Pray for rain", fitting epitaph.
Hey Max my name is John in Denver I watched your series on your Aurora kits I wanted to tell you you did the story on the Aurora Black beauty and the convertible car I have both props and they're in both good condition I'm not selling them they were given to me from Dean Jeffries when he passed thank you keep up the good work
Somewhere hidden on one of my shelves I still have Vampirella. It was one of the very first large-scale figures I painted. As my skill grew I have gone back and redone her I think three times. I have a few more recent Vampirella figures, but she will always have a special place in my collection.
Great video Max, not being picky but here in England it's pronounced Madame ' two swords ' ( as one word) :) but how you said it is probably correct :) model on
In the 80s some 'genius' at Airfix marketing came up with a 'Supermodel' advertisement. A gorgeous brunette in a silver dress holding a 1/72 Panavia Tornado. That concept wasent expand on.
I remember a car ad featuring a cute gal in bikini and scuba gear fawning over the car, no other props or scenery, on the showroom floor. Don't recall the make of car. Some ad guys have weird ideas!
@@dalecomer5951 I don't think Model companies can pay Madison Avenue prices. You know how you get plays that are off, off Broadway productions. Model companies do off, off Madison Avenue advertising. It's an office above a bodega somewhere in midtown Manhattan.
Amazing story Max, and it all comes down to those critical decisions made in smokey conference rooms. Bottom line on model sales sagging by the early-1970s - the original Boomers who'd built all those Monogram Four-Star and Revell "S" kits as drooling 12-year-olds (me) had grown-up! Great tale on Aurora!
3:10 There's a face you can trust! From 1870s snake oil salesman to 'only one careful owner who only drove 11 miles to church and home on Sunday'. Yikes.
I know that Revell and Monogram merged, but now I know what happened to Aurora….. What happened to them was bad then, but can you imagine what could have happened it they did this NOW! Anyway, interesting video
You provided a lot of details I was not aware of. I still have my Vampirella and Glow-in-the dark Frankenstein (with Box) from the original issue. They are the only ones I bought. I never did read more into the X rating, other than excitement.
During middle & high school in NJ, we would visit the museums in NYC. I can still smell the hot dog water, diesel, and urine odors… While in college, a bud and I went to NYC one night. Took the wrong subway tunnel (lack of folks should’ve tripped the awareness alarm) and ran into several not-so-friendly locals, both of us were very fast on our feet and could hurdle turnstiles back in the day!
Thank you Max for another walk down memory lane. I really miss Aurora and the kits they made. We thought all the Aurora Monster kits were great. Even the Monster Scenes series. We had to have them all. Perhaps we Canadians could see it was all make believe from the movies. They were fun to build. Even the working Guillotine once built was seldom played with. Of course war toys firing plastic bullets, grenades, rockets were also big and I do not remember any protests about them. As for Aurora selling sex, well one juts had to look at all the ads back then on TV, in magazines, using sex to sell all kinds of products. The fad for all these kits would have slowly died out and it would gone quietly into the night. Remember how Harry Potter took off after some church condemned it. Even adults really got into Harry Potter; with the publisher printing the book with covers that made it not look like a kids book.
I had Frankenstein, the Victim and the Pain Parlor. I thought they were the coolest things. My brothers and I were the right age for the second run (glow in the dark series) of the original monster kits. I read about this story many years ago from an article Andy Yanchus wrote for the now defunct Fantasy Modeling magazine in 1980.
Another great look at one of the weird corners of modelling history. Actually, Aurora had not run out of possible Monster model kit ideas - how about a Hound of the Baskervilles Hell-hound ? That would really have suited Glow-in-the-Dark plastic. Or a life-size Vampire Bat ? All good clean fun. I think The Victim looks a little too modern - 1960s - to really go with the 1930s vintage Frankenstein's Monster. Heller also had some pin-up type ads, something like 'how to fall in love with a French model', showing a girl with a 1/35th scale tank. I always thought that was an odd mix.
I never understood t he Nabisco Aurora connection. I guess Nabisco thought they could sell models or their own toys to kids by using cereal and cracker boxes as a communications vehicle.
I remember as a kid getting a tiny SPAD biplane kit in a big Cracker Jacks box. Used to get real plastic "prizes" back then, not the ultra cheap printed paper junk like now.
It was the first round of the great merger mania. Company's with cash sought to "diversify" themselves as an attempt to make more money. Only a few managed to accomplish this feat and even fewer were truly successful in terms of getting in, getting out, and actually making a profit overall. Too many got in, mismanaged the merger and then got out after losing a ton of money. Then they would try again until they lost enough money that they became the target of take overs/mergers/swaps.
Those plastic goodies which came in cereal boxes or by mailing in a coupon are called "cereal premiums." A very small, red DC-3 cereal premium changed my life.
Probably more than I need or want to know about Aurora the company but very professionally done. It's generally not good for a company when a founder is forced out in a so-called "management shake-up." Shikes probably got what he deserved.
Wow thanks for a great video. Is the muscle car group build only Hollywood muscle car are can it be any muscle car even if it didn’t appear in a movie 🍿?
First memory I have of a woman turning me on was Vampirella. I didn’t know they had a kit of her back then, but that doesn’t make a difference because Mom would never have allowed me to get one anyway.
I had all of the monster scenes as a kid. My parents just rolled their eyes but didn't balk about it. I could have been doing a lot worse stuff in their eyes. I even had all of the Prehistoric Scenes, which were my favorite.
There seems to be a strange dichotomy between Aurora model company and Universal movie studios. Aurora was selling & making money off the Universal Studios copyrighted original monster products. And both Universal & Aurora at different times, Universal in the late 30's & 40's and Aurora when the company was first sold never realized the gold mine they had with the original monster models.
This was the era of Topps trading cards, featuring graphic portrayals of violence in American Civil War and WW2 series. Famous Movie Monsters magazine was a big hit. Hammer horror films were box office. You get the feeling it wasn't the violence that undid Aurora, it was the sex. How anyone thought "The Victim" was a good idea is astonishing, even for those politically incorrect times.
WOW, fired the whole creative staff. Talk about a knee-jerk reaction. I was ten then as well. Had all those pre-historic kits. The Cave Scene model was fantastic. You could incorporate the prehistoric cave people models into it. I remember a cavewoman figure as part of that series. I think it may have been a re-tooling of the "Victim" kit as I think it was posed the same. Very interesting history. Thanks.....
What a fascinating chapter of Aurora lore. As just a kid building model airplanes, cars and a few ships, I never had the slightest idea about this drama. Great video.
GREAT VIDEO MAX,MAKE ME LONGING FOR 1971.THAT WAS A GOOD YEAR FOR ME,TO BE 20YRS. OLD AGAIN. GOD BLESS
Fascinating story! I was born in 1972, so Aurora kits weren´t a thing in my youth and my interest in collecting them started just recently, mainly because your fantastic history videos. Thanks, great work!
I remember my brother had gotten one of those kits about 4 years after this implosion and mother making a deal about x rated stuff. I was 8/9 at the time, and I was quite curious about this forbidden model. My brother was told to hide it from me and not to build it. I do remember sneaking into my brothers room looking for it…ahh I miss the 70’s!
😆😆too cool
What was truly monstrous about Aurora, was the purple Messerschmitt 109, and the VERY green MIG 15 - etc, etc...
Oh the horror! That may have been due to the left over colorful styrene from the failed products for girls they tried.
Lol!!!!
My brother had a few of these kits back then.
How amazing! I had the Aurora Guillotine kit! Along with many of the monster kits. I built several other Aurora kits too. Thanks for the great history lesson Max! As always God bless you and yours and thanks again for all you do! Model On Captain!
Great story - had no idea. This is why I love this channel.
The main thing I remember Aurora for us the Aurora AFX Slot cars from the mid to late 70s... Being a young kid if the 70s it was my first slot car set...
Thank you! Really great video. I've built many of these kits over the years. Just last year a refurbished my Dracula kit and finally build my Frankenstein's Monster that had been in storage for over 20+ years. Thanks again and have a great weekend. -David
Love it!!!!!
What could possibly go wrong? Who's in charge? No ones in charge! This almost defy's the usual old saw "It seemed like a good idea at the time". To whom!!!!!!
They're picketing outside our headquarters, what should I do? "Pray for rain", fitting epitaph.
Missed all that. Guess I was in college and otherwise preoccupied.
Hey Max my name is John in Denver I watched your series on your Aurora kits I wanted to tell you you did the story on the Aurora Black beauty and the convertible car I have both props and they're in both good condition I'm not selling them they were given to me from Dean Jeffries when he passed thank you keep up the good work
Somewhere hidden on one of my shelves I still have Vampirella. It was one of the very first large-scale figures I painted. As my skill grew I have gone back and redone her I think three times. I have a few more recent Vampirella figures, but she will always have a special place in my collection.
Great video Max, not being picky but here in England it's pronounced Madame ' two swords ' ( as one word) :) but how you said it is probably correct :) model on
I murder foreign names...it is my superpower.
We do indeed say "two swords" but Max's pronunciation is closer to the correct one.
A play on words?
Great historical recap.
In the 80s some 'genius' at Airfix marketing came up with a 'Supermodel' advertisement.
A gorgeous brunette in a silver dress holding a 1/72 Panavia Tornado.
That concept wasent expand on.
Did you see the Eduard "Bikini girl MiG-21" vidja?
@@thadrobinson8343 No! Link?
I remember a car ad featuring a cute gal in bikini and scuba gear fawning over the car, no other props or scenery, on the showroom floor. Don't recall the make of car. Some ad guys have weird ideas!
Seems like normal Madison Acenue to me.
@@dalecomer5951 I don't think Model companies can pay Madison Avenue prices.
You know how you get plays that are off, off Broadway productions. Model companies do off, off Madison Avenue advertising. It's an office above a bodega somewhere in midtown Manhattan.
Nice Job, thanks Max.
Amazing story Max, and it all comes down to those critical decisions made in smokey conference rooms. Bottom line on model sales sagging by the early-1970s - the original Boomers who'd built all those Monogram Four-Star and Revell "S" kits as drooling 12-year-olds (me) had grown-up! Great tale on Aurora!
I am wondering if a water glass full of bourbon wasn't part of the decision making process as well 😁😁😜😜. It really is all about timing.
During the late 70s and 80s, my buds, brother, and I were doing our best to stabilize/reverse that sales trend.
Very interesting and informative
I bought the Moebius kits when they were out. Would like to add the boxes to my collection. One day
My older brother built the original Dracula and painted it using gloss enamels. It was... different.
i had all the monster scenes as a kid, still have an unbuilt frank in the box. think i paid 1 dollar and a few cents for it, from canada
Cool overview Max, can't help but think that the boardroom decision makers may have been tripping on something at the time 🙂
I almost said exactly that!
The way I would put it is that they were in a closed room too long breathing each others' farts. That makes people think alike.
Absolutely, and probably watching Lon Chaney movies on a loop! 🦇🐺
3:10 There's a face you can trust! From 1870s snake oil salesman to 'only one careful owner who only drove 11 miles to church and home on Sunday'.
Yikes.
I know that Revell and Monogram merged, but now I know what happened to Aurora…..
What happened to them was bad then, but can you imagine what could have happened it they did this NOW!
Anyway, interesting video
NOW
I see what you did there.
@@thadrobinson8343 I’m only applying the current rules to what happened back in the day….
And to think a woman dreamed up the show plan.
You provided a lot of details I was not aware of. I still have my Vampirella and Glow-in-the dark Frankenstein (with Box) from the original issue. They are the only ones I bought. I never did read more into the X rating, other than excitement.
"This is New York. No one will help her." Truer words never spoken.
Like NYC needed more negative publicity.
Probably a reference to the 1964 Kitty Genovese murder which was a big story.
And, there are stories of people just walking by, sometimes over, a mugging victim, totally ignoring him/her. The old " don't get involved" mindset.
During middle & high school in NJ, we would visit the museums in NYC. I can still smell the hot dog water, diesel, and urine odors… While in college, a bud and I went to NYC one night. Took the wrong subway tunnel (lack of folks should’ve tripped the awareness alarm) and ran into several not-so-friendly locals, both of us were very fast on our feet and could hurdle turnstiles back in the day!
I remember seeing these on display at “2 Guys” in Massapequa in my early teens. I averted my eyes quickly to avoid a slap from my Mom! Lol
😜😜😁😁
Awesome video Max! Model on Sir!👍
thanks.
Great storytelling - thank you
Thanks for that
Thank you Max for another walk down memory lane. I really miss Aurora and the kits they made. We thought all the Aurora Monster kits were great. Even the Monster Scenes series. We had to have them all. Perhaps we Canadians could see it was all make believe from the movies. They were fun to build. Even the working Guillotine once built was seldom played with. Of course war toys firing plastic bullets, grenades, rockets were also big and I do not remember any protests about them. As for Aurora selling sex, well one juts had to look at all the ads back then on TV, in magazines, using sex to sell all kinds of products. The fad for all these kits would have slowly died out and it would gone quietly into the night. Remember how Harry Potter took off after some church condemned it. Even adults really got into Harry Potter; with the publisher printing the book with covers that made it not look like a kids book.
I had Frankenstein, the Victim and the Pain Parlor. I thought they were the coolest things. My brothers and I were the right age for the second run (glow in the dark series) of the original monster kits. I read about this story many years ago from an article Andy Yanchus wrote for the now defunct Fantasy Modeling magazine in 1980.
What did your parents say...if anything?
@@maxsmodels My folks were pretty chill about it. My Dad thought they were cool!
Another great piece on Aurora history. Hope you don't mind I posted the link to a bunch of Facebook Aurora groups.
Thank you.
Thanks for sharing this very interesting and informative video. Good work Max! I wonder what ever happened to those molds?
Wow, had no idea. I was 11 then as well. Raced a lot of Aurora H.O. Slot cars then. Good Times Max. NOW …. We know 😉. Model On. ✌🏻
My big bro had the guillotine model when we were kids. It was really cool and actually worked. I also remember he had a caricature Fidel Castro model.
😜
Castro was one-third of the Born Losers series produced by Parks Plastics.
Same here. And I have the re-pop from Polar Lights built and sitting on my shelf.
Another great look at one of the weird corners of modelling history. Actually, Aurora had not run out of possible Monster model kit ideas - how about a Hound of the Baskervilles Hell-hound ? That would really have suited Glow-in-the-Dark plastic. Or a life-size Vampire Bat ? All good clean fun.
I think The Victim looks a little too modern - 1960s - to really go with the 1930s vintage Frankenstein's Monster.
Heller also had some pin-up type ads, something like 'how to fall in love with a French model', showing a girl with a 1/35th scale tank. I always thought that was an odd mix.
Thye should have had you on the board!
Young women today still dress like "The Víctim" though most likely thanks to Daisy Duke.
I never understood t he Nabisco Aurora connection. I guess Nabisco thought they could sell models or their own toys to kids by using cereal and cracker boxes as a communications vehicle.
They could also put injection molded styrene trinkets *in* the cereal boxes, and do it all in-house.
I remember as a kid getting a tiny SPAD biplane kit in a big Cracker Jacks box. Used to get real plastic "prizes" back then, not the ultra cheap printed paper junk like now.
It was the first round of the great merger mania. Company's with cash sought to "diversify" themselves as an attempt to make more money. Only a few managed to accomplish this feat and even fewer were truly successful in terms of getting in, getting out, and actually making a profit overall. Too many got in, mismanaged the merger and then got out after losing a ton of money. Then they would try again until they lost enough money that they became the target of take overs/mergers/swaps.
@@chuck9987 EXACTLY CORRECT!
Those plastic goodies which came in cereal boxes or by mailing in a coupon are called "cereal premiums." A very small, red DC-3 cereal premium changed my life.
Probably more than I need or want to know about Aurora the company but very professionally done. It's generally not good for a company when a founder is forced out in a so-called "management shake-up." Shikes probably got what he deserved.
I have heard some folks say that.
You can say Aurora definitely didn't shy away from controversy....
I would modify that a bit, they just didn't see it coming. They ran from it once the styrene hit the hopper but it was too late.
Wow thanks for a great video. Is the muscle car group build only Hollywood muscle car are can it be any muscle car even if it didn’t appear in a movie 🍿?
Notice "The Victim" looks and is dressed like Mary Anne from Gilligan's Island. I doubt that was a coincidence.
So what 's new? Most real world horrors are born in boardrooms.
Agreed. One could mention certain political/medical/military dramas unfolding within thelast coupl years.
Never really got into the figures. My thing was always planes, cars, tanks and ships... Wish now I had bought up a few of those kits though!
back then people had moral and values.now not so mutch.
First memory I have of a woman turning me on was Vampirella. I didn’t know they had a kit of her back then, but that doesn’t make a difference because Mom would never have allowed me to get one anyway.
I had all of the monster scenes as a kid. My parents just rolled their eyes but didn't balk about it. I could have been doing a lot worse stuff in their eyes. I even had all of the Prehistoric Scenes, which were my favorite.
I had a few of the movie monster kits, as well as "The Victim". I'm still normal..... 😉
Wish I still had them, knowing their current scarcity.
That guillotine kit was right out of the "mad men" era!
To much Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds .
😁
Another good show Max...
There seems to be a strange dichotomy between Aurora model company and Universal movie studios. Aurora was selling & making money off the Universal Studios copyrighted original monster products. And both Universal & Aurora at different times, Universal in the late 30's & 40's and Aurora when the company was first sold never realized the gold mine they had with the original monster models.
Nabisco? I must have missed their cookie and cracker models.
😜😜
This was the era of Topps trading cards, featuring graphic portrayals of violence in American Civil War and WW2 series. Famous Movie Monsters magazine was a big hit. Hammer horror films were box office. You get the feeling it wasn't the violence that undid Aurora, it was the sex. How anyone thought "The Victim" was a good idea is astonishing, even for those politically incorrect times.
yup
Five out of five stars!!!!
WOW, fired the whole creative staff. Talk about a knee-jerk reaction. I was ten then as well. Had all those pre-historic kits. The Cave Scene model was fantastic. You could incorporate the prehistoric cave people models into it. I remember a cavewoman figure as part of that series. I think it may have been a re-tooling of the "Victim" kit as I think it was posed the same. Very interesting history. Thanks.....
The Marketing people responsible for the debacle in Chicago were all fired. The R & D staff was not affected.
🤣😅😂
I miss the '70's...
Still eat Shreddies - perhaps I should boycott them out of retro solidarity 😊
it remind me a recent manufacture who took the history of holocaust and tried to use it for advertisement.
I did not hear about that. Not a good idea.
@@maxsmodels it was AK interactive
Snowflakes, even back then.