The precursor:
Additional notes from "Dad" (Doug Malewicki)
Before the "one eyed glorp" Halloween costume that Michelle discussed on the previous page, came a birthday present to her in early 1977 - when she turned 6 years old on January 21! I designed it and made it up by hand just for her. This was the era when the complicated Dungeons and Dragons game was extremely popular. The present I made for her was a very simplistic board game version using the D&D theme - aptly named "Michelle's MONSTER game". It used cards for all the monsters, traps and treasures.
PLAY Each player takes turns rolling the dice to see how far his piece is to be moved along the board. If he/she lands on a monster spot, they have to pick a "monster" card from that deck and then roll the dice to see if they can defeat it (you have to roll or exceed the number printed on each monster card. Facing the one eyed glorp and winning its treasure requires rolling an 11!
The original cute fellow! We still have the beat up box for Michelle's Monster game. Another "Monster" card.
After you turn this one up you can breath a sigh of relief!Inside are assorted monster , trap and treasure cards plus dice and player moving pieces. It was quite a surprise to me how much use the game got and how much all the other young neighborhood kids also enjoyed playing it with her.
Michelle always loved Halloween! We always worked together to create unusual fun costumes for her. Later that same year, when it was getting close to deciding what to do for her Halloween costume, we wondered if we could actually replicate her favorite creature - the one eyed glorp. We decided to try making a paper-mache sphere using a very large balloon as the shape to form around. It worked as you can tell from the photos!
Michelle used the one eyed glorp costume for two years. By then, the fairly delicate paper-mache body was getting pretty ratty. One day we put it in the street, doused it with some gasoline, torched it and took home movies of the fiery end of the glorp! NOW 24 years later he has reappeared as Mike Wazowski.
I think we can safely surmise that either the friend of Michelle's teacher Mr. Russ never forgot the pictures OR some young child who saw that PeeWee Herman episode later became a Pixar or Disney artist. When trying to be creative for the new Monsters, Inc. story, that person could have easily dug into his long buried subconscious mind and found it! The single giant eye, the same lime green color and his Polish name are pretty good clues! Cool!
The MONSTER GAME
It would not be a big deal to digitally copy all that art work for all the monsters, traps and treasures cards and the board itself in color at exact size and post it on the web site. Same for the simple directions. People who want a neat, fun game (according to Michelle) for their youngsters could print it all out, spray adhesive it to heavier card stock or illustration board, carefully cut it all out and be ready for fun. Only extra parts required would be the player's moving pieces and a pair of dice which you can scrounge from any other board game you already own.
FREE? OF COURSE!
Doug Malewicki
November 7, 2001If even five people Email me
DMalewicki@home.com with a request that they would like the game, I will post all the necessary art work and info here. A bit of work for you and a lot of fun for the kids!
Can I have one too?
Copyright ©2001 Disney/PixarAND if it sounds like too much work
here are some fun links instead:
A. Kelloggs
Several interactive online Monster Inc. gamesB. Official Monsters Inc. Site
To see something really interesting, click on the "Entertainment" tab (in the top row), then click on the "Computer and Video Games" billboard (in the upper left hand corner), then click on the "All Titles" tab. Next scroll through the list till you get to "Monsters Inc.", then click on "Scare Island". Finally click on the Scare Island box (to the right). Now when you click on the 3rd and 5th small icons at the bottom - what do you see but something even closer to Michelle's One Eyed Glorp complete with the same giant hanging out red tongue!! Coincidence? Very COOL!
C. Pixar Animation Studios
Great site to learn how the geniuses at Pixar do their technical magic!
