Godzilla’s Revenge
aka All Monsters Attack aka Godzilla-Minya-Gabara: All Monsters Attack! aka Gojira-Minira-Gabara: Oru kaiju daishingeki
1969
Starring
Tomonori Yazaki as Ichiro Miki
Eisei Amamoto as Toy Consultant Shinpei Inami
Sachio Sakai as Bank Robber Senbayashi
Kazuo Suzuki as Bank Robber Okuda
Kenji Sahara as Ichiro’s Father
Machiko Naka as Ichiro’s Mother
Shigeki Ishida as The Landlord
Directed by Ishiro Honda
SUPER SCARY SATURDAY! BOOOoooOOOoooOOOooOOOOooOOO! Once again, Super Scary Saturday will be our guide through the world of Godzilla! This is the greatest Super Scary Saturday intro of them all! It’s only ironic that it’s on one of the worst Godzilla movies of them all! It’s got stock footage, more stock footage, annoying kids in short shorts, even more stock footage, even more annoying kids in short shorts, and oddly enough was one of my favorite G films as a kid, probably because this movie is marketed for kids (though I suspect the Super Scary Saturday intro also helped.) The stock shots of Godzilla are pulled from several films, so you see Godzilla’s head change shape a few times. We got our grubby paws on the Japanese version as well as the American TV dub, so we’ll be contrasting both as we go along. It’s the same storyline, but there are a few key differences, most notably, the kid in the Japanese version is about twenty times less annoying! He’s almost respectable! It’s amazing. Minya famously talks in this film, and shrinks down in size to have chats with little Ichiro, the Boy of Monster Island. Speaking of Monster Island, this film was the immediate follow-up to Destroy All Monsters, where all the monsters were living on Monsterland, but from this movie forward they all live on Monster Island. Also, Destroy All Monsters took place in the far off future of 1999, while this film is set back in 1969. So either Monster Island becomes Monsterland, or Monsterland is another name for Monster Island, possibly due to Monster Island being really a peninsula.
I hope I didn’t bore you off with that over-analysis there. It’s time to not care about technicalities anymore, as we’re going to be visiting the mind of an 11 year old boy, his monster playmates, a crazy toy inventor, two bumbling master thieves, and two bullies named Gabara! All of this hosted by Al Lewis, Grandpa Munster himself! It’s the last March of Godzilla film until the next March of Godzilla (ignore that this is May and we’re still putting up films) and the last Super Scary Saturday film I have on tape. So let’s Celebrate, Celebrate, Super Station TBS! And bring on Super Scary Saturday!
After the famous Super Scary Saturday commercial scares it’s way by again, we get the opening. “It’s Me, Grandpa!” we get our familiar greeting as Grandpa Munster awaits us sitting in the Super Scary Saturday theater. He’s excited to have us there: “Do I have a treat for you! This is better than having your own Red Cross Blood Bank franchise!” It sure is. Grandpa Munster rules! Grandpa continues: “You heard of Wrestlemania? Well, we have MONSTERmania!” It’s Godzilla vs. All Comers!
Grandpa then jumps to Crazed Grandpa Announcer Don King mode to promote the upcoming fight! Behind him at the podium are cartoons of Godzilla and Gabara, Godzilla in a wrestling suit giving his pointing finger, and Gabara doing his hair! We cut to Gabara for his view of the upcoming fight, and his Godzilla-taunting, which I will transcribe in it’s entirety for your reading pleasure: “Listen up you giant water lizard! I’m the prettiest monster and the meanest Godzilla. You’re going to get the shock of your life when you step on the Monster Island with me, Gabara, the giant cat from Monstermania! I’m the one, the only, the true world champion!”
