Some things seem to stay with you. You may not plan for it to be like that, but the filing system of the mind can have drawers that, when bumped the right (or wrong) way, spill their contents all over the place. Sometimes the memories that arise are of family, growing up stuff, friends and notable events. The swooping pterodactyl (common noun here) is one of those things that, I think, fomented in an impressionable 10 or 11 year old mind as a result of a TV show called Creature Feature. Creature Feature (CF) was hosted by what I can only now describe as a Frank Thring impersonator, named Deadly Earnest.

Now, I seem to recall that CF was on fairly late at night, like 10pm or 11pm, although that would seem unlikely, as there was no way in the world that my parents would let me stay up that late, and that was only the starting time. Perhaps I had glimpsed the lugubrious Earnest once or twice, and have since decided that I tuned in all the time (love your work, Deadly, never miss a show!). If you haven’t heard of CF, it was, as you might anyway surmise, a scary movie show. Expect Vincent Price, Hammer horror flicks, B grade 50’s sci fi and the like.

My favorite films of that ilk, and at that age, were in fact Japanese Monster Films (proper noun). These were made (in the main) by Toho Studios, which seems like the most amazing place, considering that they were also responsible for producing the films of Akira Kurosawa. Seven Samurai, Yojimbo, Sanjuro… and many others, 180 degrees away from my interest at the time (Kurosawa came later), the Toho Monsters.

Godzilla is easily the most famous, an icon in so much of western culture, virtually appropriated from his Japanese origin (I have always assumed Godzilla to be male, though it is said that the female is deadlier). His name has been borrowed and bent to suit our grisliest needs, strangely, the female ‘bridezilla’ and ‘mumzilla’ come to mind first.

Godzilla, as we all know, was mutant T Rex sort of fellow, bent on wreaking havoc in Tokyo whenever the fancy struck, and often ganging up with, or against, other mutant monsters. There was Mothra, who was a mutant giant moth (hmmm), King Ghidora, who was a mutant three headed winged dragon, and of course, Rodan, who was a mutant pterodactyl. With this creature, we have my eponymous mascot, my talisman waiting for release.

Rodan, in Japanese, is actually Radon, and this taps in to the reason that the Japanese made these monster films in the first place, and that was the Atomic Bomb.

I have never been to Japan, and I have never asked any of the handful of Japanese people I have known about their feelings for the bomb – does it haunt them, does it have a presence in their society, in their national psyche? Well, I’d say, yes, of course it would, and that the monster films were an outlet for the concerns and fears prevalent in Japanese society regarding the mutative effects of atomic energy. I would say that many had indeed witnessed mutations in newborn people as well as animals, and that with this in mind, movie monsters were not just based on apocrypha.

Getting back to Rodan, as I said before, in Japanese his name is Radon, a radioactive element, but the transpositioning of the vowels fooled we punters in the west, no doubt to avoid having us feel any responsibility. I was only 10 or 11.

Now, I don’t remember anything in the way of plots with these films, although of course they had them, no matter how slender. I do, however, remember the monsters. Ridiculous by the standards of today, they were perhaps a combination of clay and real reptiles, with a bit of battle fru-fru glued on for effect. Reality be damned, to my decade old mind, this stuff was as good as it got, and the thought of a giant flying dinosaur swooping down on me, with some evil ray beaming from its eyes, created an image that just pops up, from time to time. I do find it amusing, you know.