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This story was a tribute to both my preference for practical make-up effects and professional monster actors over CGI and Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Kudos to Robert Pope for filling the prop house with an incredible array of thinly disguised Hanna-Barbera cartoon references. In addition to the Alex Toth deisned monsters, there place is jam packed with "props" such as the jet and robot spider from Jonny Quest, Dick Dastardly's car from The Wacky Races, Kablooey the flying camel from Shazzan, Wally Gator, Frankenstein, Jr. and scores more. (How many can you identify?)There's even the dinosaur and giant penny from the Batcave.
The plot itself was actually generally borrowed from How to Make a Monster, which is actually the second time I used that movie as the basis for a Scooby-Doo mystery. Tom Burden and Tim Sevine were included in one of my earliest Scooby-Doo stories. Named after Tim Burton and make-up maestro Tom Savini, they were meant to be one shot characters, but I ended up using both of them numerous times throughout my run on Scooby-Doo. A little trivia: Robert Pope modeled Tom Burden's appearance here on innovative comic book artist, Jim Steranko.
Jacques Pierce is legendary make-up artist, Jack Pierce, who created the Universal monsters of the 1930s-1940s. Rick Broiler is none other than Rick Baker. Rick Broiler's co-conspirator in the story, Doug Bones, is in reality, superb actor and all around nice guy, Doug Jones who has performed as some memorable movie creators in movies such as Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy movies.
I have no idea if Rick Baker has ever seen this story, but Doug Jones was very pleased by his tribute.
Yes, I am aware at how dorky I look in this picture, the result of my trying to stifle a laugh at something Doug said just before the photo was taken.
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