It Came From Bob’s Basement by Bob Burns with John Michlig (book review)
‘It Came From Bob’s Basement’ by Bob Burns with John Michlig came out before we started reviewing Abrams & Chronicles books. Until I pulled this copy, I didn’t even know it existed. I did know about Bob Burns collection of film artefacts and who wouldn’t want to see it. As a geek hoarder/collector, you always want to see other people’s collections, even if its to spot something you’re missing yourself.
As Dennis Muren points out in his introduction, being able to look over old props was a major influence in not only his but other people in getting their careers in special effects started.
From the text, Bob Burns pointed out how he started collecting early, getting cereal pack tops to get a variety of codebreakers and such, even if he didn’t like the cereals themselves. Spot any similarities t your own collecting habits starting up when young?
Burns going over his history and how he got into the film industry also covers how he met Paul Blaisdell, who was employed by Roger Corman to produce creatures, a requisite of the distributors for his SF films, and do it at very low cost which does give the other side of the story. None of which was helped when Corman wanted to bring them out into full studio lights because he was ‘the director’. Reading between the two, I don’t think it was anything against Blaisdell, working on miniscule budgets, but giving the distributors what they wanted and just show them.
There’s a lot of surprises in this book. Wah Ming Chang might not be a name you would know but you would have seen his time machine in the film of the same name, the Zanti Misfits in the ‘Outer Limits’ and all the major props in the original ‘Star Trek’, including the communicator and tricorder, the design of which is in this book.
Burns also worked as a TV gorilla and its interesting to watch his contact lists grow and insights into various actors remembering that there is someone inside the costume. He then casually mentions he saw Rick Baker’s early work and contributed to getting him his break in the business. Thought that might get your attention, more so as he’s got some of Baker’s props from ‘Werewolf In London’ and his various gorilla masks, photographs shown here. Oh, he’s also got one of the emergency helmets from ‘Alien’ and then, much later, in the book, much much more to help his museum when they delivered by the crate knowing he wouldn’t exploit them for other films.
Of course, it should go without saying that a man who could make a living dressed as a gorilla would have an affinity to King Kong and seeing the various things here, including the original armature that hadn’t been cannibalised for parts should be on every special effects fan to have a look at. I was also surprised to see a comparison of the different heads used in the original film and how different they really were. It just goes to show how our eyes mostly accept what we see than expect to look for differences.
Although printed over 20 years ago, this book is a treasure trove of photos and Bob Burns’ memories. As geek hoarders ourselves, we should all appreciate other people’s collections and his is one we can all be envious of.
GF Willmetts
December 2023
(pub: Chronicle Books, 2000. 144 page illustrated indexed squarish softcover. Price: varies. ISBN: 0-8118-2572-8)
check out website: www.chroniclebooks.com
