When I was a kid, I saw this ad in a comic book and sent away for a “Life Size” (what kind of non-sense does that make?) Monster Ghost.  The promise that it OBEYS YOUR COMMANDS was the real hook for me.  If I had been a little older, I might have wondered if the Monster Ghost had a sister, but the best scenario I could envision was maybe I would be chilling outside on a lawn chair, and I could dispatch my undead butler to the kitchen to bring me a Coke.  I had five brothers and three sisters, soft drinks went fast around the joint… but who was going to take the last sweet can of sugared water away from a towering creature of the netherworld?  Nobody, that’s who.  I allowed the four-to-six weeks for delivery, looking forward to my reign as Slave Master of the Dead.

When it came, the Monster Ghost was just a plastic tarp with a face printed on it, and two glow dots stuck on for eyes.  It was instantly apparent to my young eyes that there would be no doing of my bidding, or doing of anything really, and watching my Monster Ghost collapse limply to the ground was the moment that I first heard the distant, cruel laughter of the universe…