Friday 6 October 2023

Amazing Stories (1985)

Greg Cannom realized the mummy makeups for the episode 'Mummy Daddy' where an actor playing a mummy is mistaken for the genuine article; for the episode two different makeups were made, a more comical design for Tom Harrison as the fake mummy, and a more 'evil' and dessicated makeup for Michael Zand as the real mummy Ra Amin Ka.
Cannom also designed the alien makeups for the episode 'Fine Tuning', with wrinkled faces, large craniums, and angular static prop hands.
The 'Duppy' monster that briefly appears in the episode 'The Sitter' was a puppet constructed and operated by 'Techniprops Inc.' according to the episode's credits, but I haven't been able to find any more information about the company online.
The titular creature of the Joe Dante-directed episode 'The Greibble' was designed and realized by Rob Bottin, whose team realized the storybook creature as a more realistic design with some cartoonish traits. The Greibble suit was realized in a similar fashion to the werewolves from The Howling and the aliens from Explorers, with an animatronic 'hat' worn by the performer wearing a sculpted latex suit. The animatronics controlled the head's eye, mouth and tongue movements, as well as the extra pair of antennae-like ears.
The skull-like makeup of the decaying dream girl in 'Miscalculation' was supplied by makeup artist Michael Westmore.
The episode 'Miss Stardust', directed by Tobe Hooper, instead had Stan Winston Studio realizing its creatures; assigned to the project were the likes of Tom Woodruff Jr., Alec Gillis, Shane Mahan, Shannon Shea, John Rosengrant and Matt Winston, among others. Shea in particular wrote up his experiences wrote up his experiences on his own blog, 'First Person Monster Blog: The Amazing Story of Miss Stardust'.

Four aliens were designed for the episode, the first being a 'Cabbage Man' (played by Weird Al Yankovic), whose makeup was handled by Mahan. Mahan made sure to take moulding casts of actual lettuce leaves in order to create the right textures for the Cabbage Man prosthetics.

Mahan, Woodruff, etc, had a problem when it came to applying the Cabbage Man makeup; none of them were in the makeup union, so technically this was illegal. The workaround was that Kevin Yagher, who Woodruff etc had just worked for, was a member of the makeup union; therefore he applied the makeup onset, even though it was Mahan's design.
The episode involved several female aliens competing on Earth to be 'Miss Universe', all realized as puppets. Miss Mars was the work of Rosengrant, who designed them a narrow-headed humanoid with sharp teeth and long ears. The Miss Mars puppet had to be supported with wires, thanks to a miscalculation when sculpting the arms; they were originally intended to be cable-controlled, but were too heavy.
Miss Venus was the work of Woodruff, who designed them as a slug-like creature with tendrils; Miss Venus was operated by a puppeteer underneath.
Lastly was 'Miss Jupiter', realized by Gillis, with help from Matt Rose, as a multi-breasted, horse-faced creature. The Miss Venus and Miss Jupiter puppets were made from urethane foam rather than foam latex, thanks in part to the puppets being so large.
Sources: Shannon Shea's personal blog entry on the series, 'First Person Monster Blog: The Amazing Story of Miss Stardust'.

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