The Unbelievable Menace of Moomba was based on a Marvel comic book character.
Moomba has appeared in:
* Tales to Astonish #23
* Creatures on the Loose #11
* Chamber of Chills #25
The comic book story was by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (creators of the Incredible Hulk, the Fantastic Four, Thor, and many others).
In the comics, the unbelievable tale is told by Frank, a great white explorer, making his way through the jungles of darkest Africa.
He stumbles upon what appears to be a large, wooden, Speedo-wearing statue. The statue is actually a malevolent alien named MOOMBA!
Moomba's plan is to pass his followers off as African folk art, thus infiltrating museums and the homes of souvenir collectors around the world.
Moomba grabs Frank, and carries him--Fay Wray-style--to witness the endgame: Moomba emits ultra-frequency energy waves that circle the globe, signaling his minions to attack.
What follows is an orgy of mayhem, with scenes of Moomba's miniature army terrorizing people (think Karen Black's segment in Trilogy of Terror) intercut with Moomba ripping through battleships, tanks, and a modern city as if he were Godzilla (and did I mention that Moomba can fly?).
Fortunately, an African shaman named Katu (who had previously warned about the unbelievable menace of Moomba, but Katu's words had fallen upon deaf ears) arrives on the scene with some magic juju that paralyzes Moomba.
Katu forces Moomba to leave Earth. Moomba leaps into the stratosphere, followed by his followers. They meld into a rocketship (!) and blast into outer space, never to return
Or will they?
WILLTHEY...?!
I know that Fing Fang Foom is the King of the Marvel Monsters, what with frequent guest appearances in comics, action figures, statues, etc.
But c'mon: Moomba kicked butt, too!
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My trailer for Moomba was probably filmed between 1984 and 1985, with titles and credits added in 1986. I was in my late teens/very early 20s when I made this.
My short film is only a trailer because I didn't have the means to adapt the entire epic story. The exploitation-style preview allowed me to choose the shots that I thought I actually could pull off.
Panels from the comic book were used for storyboards, and all of the words spoken were lifted directly from the dialogue balloons. To my knowledge, no other comic book movie was as obsessively faithful to the source material until Robert Rodriguez made his adaptation of Sin City, twenty years later.
Starring:
Peter Delgatto, Luci Rivera, Jose Rios, and Robin Kissner as The Unbelievers
Steven A. Ross, William Ross, and David Ross as The Soldiers
Steven A. Ross as the voice of Moomba
Written, produced, filmed, directed, and edited by Steven A. Ross
The "native drums" were performed by my brother, David Ross. He was about 13 at the time. We recorded about five minutes of his frenzied playing, while I chanted "Moomba! Moomba! Moomba!" in the background. We then played that tape really loud on our stereo while recording ourselves doing it live once again. We did it at least three times; that was our low budget way of recording multiple tracks.
I created two clay Moomba models: one was a foot-high, full-bodied Moomba, the other was a giant head (with moveable jaw) and two forearms. Moomba's colors changed each time the story was reprinted, so I went with my favorite: "wooden" brown, with red Speedoes.
The sound effects heard while the camera is going through my mother's fern garden (aka "the jungle") were from a movie called The Emerald Forest.
The bombing sounds during Moomba's attack on the military were from Tora! Tora! Tora! I had to wait until the broadcast it on TV, because I couldn't get it on VHS at that time.
The titles were created with black rub-on letters on white paper, or traced by hand from the covers of the comics. A negative was made at a local print shop, then placed on a light table and filmed with a Super 8 movie camera. It took bit of experimenting, but I eventually got the exposure right. The film was then "backwound," and then I shot the cover of the comic book.
With iMovie, I could whip up flashier, more readable titles in seconds, but I wanted to show off what I achieved back in my misspent youth.
(Originally filmed and edited on Super 8, transferred to VHS, then transferred to Quicktime and remastered on iMovie. My apologies for the picture quality, but there's only so much that could be done, on my current budget.)
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A taste of what marvel put out back around 1961, by lee and Kirby.Just reprinted in tales to astonish archives#3. great stuff.
jmen4ever 1 year ago
Awesomeness!
slangword 2 years ago