Imaginary Worlds - Becoming Godzilla

Episode Date: April 7, 2016

This week's episode features another monster who comes from the sea and represents an existential threat -- but he's just so lovable. Journalist Dave Serchuk and graphic designer Jim Fazar both discovered Godzilla as kids and talk about his enduring appeal. But Jim went a step further and built a full body Godzilla suit. He and his brother Ron tell the story of how becoming Godzilla turned out to be much trickier than they anticipated. The final hurtle wasn't Mothra or Rodan -- it was a costume contest where fate seemed to conspire against them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We've never smelled so good. Shop Old Spice Total Body Deodorant now. You're listening to Imaginary Worlds, a show about how we create them and why we suspend our disbelief. I'm Eric Malinsky. Hello, and welcome to the Creature Double Feature.

So when I was a kid, I used to watch something called the Creature Double Feature. It was on Channel 56, back when there were UHF channels. It was every weekend afternoon. And there were black and white monster movies from the 50s. And the funny thing is, I didn't even like them that much. But in those days, you just kind of watched whatever was on. It was, you know, that or candle pin bowling. Now, usually in the show, I delve into genres that mean a lot to me.

But I'm just as fascinated by stuff that other people obsess over. It's like another layer of mystery to me. Like, what is this cult following about? And in this case, I'm not talking about giant insects or the 50-foot woman or King Kong. I'm talking about the big guy. When did you first see him?

Do you remember? Ah, I do. It was Godzilla vs. Megalon. It was on Channel 9, which was a local station when you grew up in the New York tri-state area. And my brother had been watching it. And as with all things, because I looked up to him, I started watching it too. Dave Sarchuk is a journalist in Louisville. And he is the most Godzilla-obsessed friend that I know. And it was like a real living dinosaur, which I also loved

because I was four, by the way, who could shoot fire. I'm 43, by the way, and my feelings are still strong about this, who could shoot fire and destroyed cities. It was the best thing of all time. And he thinks Godzilla is one of those characters that just gets under your skin because you first encounter him as a kid. Godzilla is exciting for children to see because Godzilla does not need to have impulse control. Godzilla has the essence of a massive toddler inside of him. If Godzilla gets pissed off at something,

or better yet, someone or some giant animal or being attacking him, Godzilla acts. And Godzilla attacks back. And that is extremely gratifying. That makes sense. I mean, Godzilla is a giant toddler knocking over buildings in a big temper tantrum. And he's non-human, so it's okay. He's an animal. And the more they try to

spell out why Godzilla does what he does, and the more they try to make it clear what Godzilla's agenda may be, kind of the worst the movies are. But in the beginning, yeah, Godzilla is mysterious. He comes from the sea and he goes back to the sea. Somehow they can't ever track him. And he just comes and goes when he does. He's a force of nature in his own way. And then there's this other thing. And that sound, the second I hear it, I'm five years old again. And it doesn't matter how many times I hear it, because in a given Godzilla movie, you're going to hear it a lot. I love it every single time. It sounds like the thing that you really love about Godzilla is the simplicity of it.

You don't have to watch Godzilla and then go watch the three spinoff movies of the other main characters. Then when you get to the second Godzilla movie, if you haven't watched the other three, you don't know what the hell's going on. It's just like there's a purity and simplicity to him and yeah it's a simple thing there's a problem and godzilla is either is the problem or he solves the problem he is ultimately our problem he's our collective guilt for dropping a nuclear bomb or trashing the environment because like in the end the bad guy is really us. And Godzilla's fighting something we kind of did. But I think the ultimate appeal of Godzilla,

and the thing that really fascinated me the most when I was a kid watching those movies, is the suit itself. The character and the costume really walk a fine line that separates humans from animals. And the funny thing is an actor can stand upright in a Godzilla suit because the design reflects the scientific thinking of the 1950s as to how a Tyrannosaurus Rex would move. A guy moving in a rubber Godzilla suit in slow motion, as cheesy and as corny as it sounds,

is far more chilling to me as a viewer than clearly something with computer animation that no matter how good it gets, it's not quite there yet. To be honest, the only thing I liked about the 2014 Godzilla movie was that the digital Godzilla walked on two feet like there was a person inside of him. He wasn't a Jurassic Park-type dinosaur like he was in the 1997 Godzilla film. But if you want to see a really interesting Godzilla video, there's one on YouTube of the actor who played Godzilla in the original films trying on the suit one last time, years after he retired. And it's so interesting to watch him kind of rediscover that inner monster through pure movement. If you were back in 1954, you know, those guys in Japan, they wanted to do claymation, but they couldn't.

It just wasn't practical for them. So the next best thing to do was, all right, well, let's put a guy in a suit. Jim Fazar is part of a subculture of fans that make Godzilla suits from scratch. His introduction to Godzilla was almost identical to Dave Surchuk. Jim was watching UHF stations as a kid with his older brother, Ron. I mean, Jimmy might not remember quite as much as I do. Things changed for us then in getting into the late 70s. Our parents split up, and our mom, especially after the divorce,

would let me fall asleep watching the Yankees. She didn't know anything about monster movies or sci-fi and things like that. In fact, to this day, she has a disdain for it. Whenever we talk about it she acts like there's something like we have three heads each you know and uh so she she would never put that on you know we would have to find that stuff on our own but uh on weekends specifically sundays with our father you know we put on whatever we want r Ron eventually outgrew Godzilla, but his little brother Jim never did. In fact, years ago, he set out to make a Godzilla suit for Halloween.

I took a week off of work to start building this thing in like, I don't know, September? Thinking two months would be plenty of time. So what I did, yeah, I worked day and night, and I was staying up to 3 in the morning and then going to work at 8, and then leaving work right at 5 and driving to my brother's house because he had a huge basement, and that was where I had everything all set up. Then as the days and weeks passed, I would just night after night see different supplies showing up. Chicken wire, glue, all different kinds of glues, foam rubber.

I have speakers inside the chest. So if I tap my right hand, if I take my fingers and tap my palm, there's a little button in there that makes one roar, his classic roar. If I tap my right hand, if I take my fingers and tap my palm, there's a little button in there that makes one roar, his classic roar. And then on the other hand, if you tap your other palm, it makes like a smaller roar. Jim became so consumed with this costume. It was one of the reasons why his girlfriend broke up with him at the time. Eventually, she showed up at Jim's brother's house, where Jim was working on it.

And spent a couple hours here and there, trying to mend a guy's love, but also mend our relationship at the time. It worked out. They actually got married. The costume... I even had a few friends come over and try to help out with a couple of the minor details at the end, but we just couldn't get it finished. I was so close to getting it done, and then, ugh. Jim sunk into a depression until he decided, you know what? There's always next Halloween. The next summer, he started working on it so he could make sure it was definitely ready for October 31st. And it was. It was ready way, way early. In fact, after all that work, the idea of just wearing this costume to trick or treat felt really anticlimactic. So he set his sights on the biggest costume contest in the area at this very trendy nightclub. And there was a thousand dollar, you know, cash prize at the biggest event of Rochester. So I, you know, talking to Ronnie, I'm like, I need a handler.

I need someone to walk next to me and help me get in and out of this suit, etc. The reaction was extremely positive before we even got to the front door. I mean, it was clear just approaching the place that we were going to make a big splash. When we got there and got inside, there were some girls with clipboards, and I don't know what you guys talked about. I can't remember if we actually gave them your real name, but we're like, yeah, Godzilla's on the list. Godzilla's right there. Godzilla's in the contest.

Godzilla's in his house. Yeah. Sign us up. Just get our name on, and we'll be ready to go when the contest. Godzilla's in his house. Yeah. Sign us up. Just get our name on, and we'll be ready to go when the contest starts. But the place was huge, and they didn't notice when the costume contest had started. Also, Jimmy was overheating in the costume. Oh, yeah.

And probably had a garbage plate the night before, or the day of, you know, something that wasn't a great idea. And had to go to the bathroom. A garbage plate is a local Rochester specialty. Hot dogs, beans, baked beans, and home fries. Yeah, yes. And with hot sauce. It's like meaty hot sauce spread all over it with onions and mustard all just thrown on top. And it looks like just a plate of garbage.

You need to be young and healthy to digest that thing. And even then... Ronnie's like, I'm gonna wash the suit, don't worry about it. And I finally come back after horrific stuff that happened in the bathroom that I don't want to talk about to anybody. I come back and Ronnie's in the suit. I was worried at the time because I wasn't sure what was going on with the contest and I knew there was stuff going on you could hear the noise and stuff and when he finally came back from the bathroom I was ready to go

and then that's when I hear alright we're going to bring up the finalists and that's when I was like WTF oh my god and I told Ron and I said don't worry I'm running up to the judges and I ran to the judges and I literally pretty much jumped up

on stage and I was like what the hell are you guys doing? There's Godzilla here. How did you not see him? And in their faces honestly to me, I thought they seemed unique and serious and authentic when they're like, what are you talking about? We didn't see any Godzilla. And there was nothing they could do because they already had the finalists up there

getting applause and everything it's not like they could do a re-judging it was you know there's a thousand drunk people and and they were lame those are the lamest finalists i've ever seen we got we got screwed yeah now up until this point for like the last 14 15 months ron has watched with sort of detached amusement as his brother became obsessed with godzilla and the suit but in this moment suddenly ron felt an incredible rage so So, you know, Ron is still wearing his brother's Godzilla suit and he burst through the crowd rampaging towards the stage. I mean, I was kind of ticked off and he walked out. He literally turned green on the inside. I was like, yeah, I was like, we're not going away without being seen. You know, as best I could tell, I kind of plotted and plowed my way towards the stage.

But he knocked everything over because that's what Godzilla does. I feel good about the fact that we knocked some people out of the way. To me, from the outside, watching my brother do this, I had like this pride and this, it was just overwhelming. I felt bad for a couple of the people that he hit. They never got to compete in the contest so they left. Ron could not calm down.

He was fuming. Just fuming. I was worried about our safety because you were driving, right? Oh yeah. I was angry because of how much I knew he put into it. You know, his heart, his soul, his money, his time. I saw this thing go from just, you know, a glimmer in his eye to the actual finished product.

But Tim decided he was not going to let another Halloween feel ruined. But Jim decided he was not going to let another Halloween feel ruined. He created a website called Becoming Godzilla that detailed the history of how he created the costume, hoping to inspire other people. I wanted to build something for others so that they would have a better time or a better time or an easier time building their own costume than I did. It was me trying to do something for Godzilla fandom that no one else has ever done. A dozen people contacted Jim from around the country. They wanted to follow his lead, or they were already making their own costumes,

and they just kind of wanted to join his website. Eventually, they all met at G-Fest, which is a huge Godzilla convention in Chicago. Jim got to parade his costume around for a crowd that really appreciated it. He went back for years afterwards and really helped build up the G-Fest costume contest. And then finally one day, he got an email from a German production company asking if they could buy his Godzilla suit. You'd think he'd say no, but...

Yeah, I just thought I'd throw out the number and see what happens. And, you know, I said, hey, $3,000. They said, sure. I said, you're paying for shipping? Okay. They're like, all right, this is good. All right, so you send me a check, and I'd be happy to send it to you.

I spent a lot of time, and it was a little sad. It was definitely a little sad, because I spent so much time, and it was almost like a family member in a way. I was saying goodbye to, but, you know, I have real family members now that take precedence and I could use the money. And I'd already kind of taken it to its fullest extent. Did you have any second thoughts about it? Oh, yeah. I definitely considered it for a few hours.

Yeah, I had to make a decision quick. I was like choking up a couple times because I was just so many hours and so much time and so much like not blood, but well, actually a little bit of blood. My wife was completely surprised that I actually went through with it. She didn't think I would. And she said she didn't think she could have done it if it was her. I know that hardcore fans want the Godzilla franchise to go on forever. And I get that. But we've seen our cities destroyed over and over again with all these different digital menaces. And I feel like I've lost my sense of wonder and revulsion. And we have these wonderful old Godzilla movies. You can watch them anytime

you want. Does there need to be another one? Godzilla is the most charismatic giant monster that's ever been created. He is the most charismatic giant monster that will ever be created. Dave Surchuk says, keep him coming. It's not an American phenomenon, though it might be made in America. It's really not Japanese anymore, which is kind of a sad bit of cultural appropriation. He kind of belongs to the world, and I think he's, in essence, getting restarted. It's funny, I get the feeling that Godzilla himself would be perfectly happy to just chill out under the sea. But we keep drawing him out, because I think we need him more than he needs us.

Up from the depths, 30 stories high. I think we need him more than he needs us. Well, that's it for this week. Thanks for listening. Special thanks to Jim and Ron Fazar and Dave Surchuk. Imaginary Worlds is part of the Panoply Network. You can like the show on Facebook or leave a comment on iTunes. Tweet E. Malinsky. My website is imaginaryworldspodcast.org.