YouTube Finds :: The Action COMES ALIVE as You Read! It's a Madhouse!!! Power Records Presents The Planet of the Apes.

Video courtesy of John Knutson.

I believe this record / comic book combo was my introduction to the Planet of the Apes franchise. I've gone into greater detail in other places on the trauma this series wreaked on my childhood, like the whole guerilla / gorilla conundrum, and this initial encounter also fah-reaked the crap out of five-year-old me, especially the opening hunt sequence and the death of astronaut Dodge by rifle fire.

The audio. The image. The CRACK.

The spasm. The scream. The blood.

E. Freakin'. Gad. Wow.
 

Power Records also released a record combo for Beneath the Planet of the Apes, Escape from the Planet of the Apes, and Conquest of the Planet of the Apes -- all of which go straight for the jugular, meaning it should come as a surprise to no one that Arvid Knudsen and his associates took a pass on the slightly more optimistic Battle for the Planet of the Apes.

YouTube Finds :: Power Records Presents the Greatest Bedtime Stories Ever!

Gentle readers, won't you join me for three harrowing tales of sharks, phantom sharks, shark attacks, hurricanes, castaways, dope-smugglers, virginal sacrifices, lost tribes, lost treasure, and more shark attacks, with the salty crew of Cutter's Sea Lab -- Captain "Gramps" Popkin, Pete, Jennifer, John, and a LOT of blood, gore and prose gone black-eye'd purple to a totally funkified beat...

Jaws of the Shark:

Worshippers of the Sharks:

Treasure of the Sharks:

All videos courtesy of recordoobscura.

And that, kids, is why the 1970's kicked ass.

Omigod, but does this thing take me back ... Wow. That's just insane. And hysterical. Okay, my folks bought me this record when I was a kid back in 1975, and I'm as boggled as you are on this revisit to find out this vicious bloodbath and grand guinol of ghoulish underwater delights was from Power Records, a subsidiary of Peter Pan Industries, who, you all remember, released those slightly tamer story-time LP's and '45s of your favorite TV shows and comic books of the same vintage. In fact, famed comic artist Neal Adams provided that nifty cover art that caught my eye on the record-rack and had me bringing it to my father's attention at the Gibson's nearly four decades ago. *sigh* I still have the one for The Six-Million Dollar Man and The Incredible Hulk at Bay, also have the notorious '45 for Little Black Sambo from the same label, but have no idea where this particular album disappeared to. Obviously a cash-in on the JAWS phenomenon, I can't believe the Universal suits didn't bring the hammer down on this thing. Between you and me, though, I'm sure glad they didn't!


Jaws of the Shark (1975) Power Records :: Peter Pan Industries :: Scott/Chiodo Production / P: Arvid Knudsen