rescues of pets that people can no longer care for… iguanas, tarantulas, scorpions. The biggest is a 5-foot long monitor lizard, Torgo (named after the satyr character from the infamous MANOS THE HANDS OF FATE). Owner Steve Busti’s influences date
I
f you ever find yourself in Austin, Texas walking along the world famous
Sixth Street, lined with its many bars and nightclubs, you may want to stop into a tucked-away, unassuming little shop called LUCKY LIZARD CURIOS & GIFTS. Carrying a good assortment of touristy items like t-shirts, bumper stickers, and knick-knacks, they also have a decent back issue collection of comic books, pulp magazines and, of course, FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND. But the real treat is in the back of the
shop… that’s where the really remarkable stuff is. The gift shop is just the entrance to the amazing MUSEUM OF THE WEIRD, a bizarre collection of oddities and a cabinet of curiosities. Almost like something out of a dream (or a nightmare), it’s reminiscent of the type of curiosity shop you’d find in an old Hollywood movie. The MUSEUM OF THE WEIRD is part sideshow, part theater, part wax museum, with its own little menagerie of live critters to boot. “We take in
back to his early childhood. “From a very early age, I was brought up on a steady diet of monster movies, cartoons, and comic books. Of course, Halloween was my favorite holiday; I still remember every Ben Cooper costume I ever had, and later on, the Don Post masks. “I was a Monster Kid from
the day I saw my first theatrical double feature of GODZILLA VS. MEGALON and TERROR IN THE WAX MUSEUM at the impressionable age of 5. Growing up in Brooklyn, I remember going to a little hardware shop around the corner with my father. They had a single shelf devoted to plastic models, and that’s where I found my first Aurora kit, the Forgotten Prisoner of Castle-Mare. With my dad’s help, I glued it together and painted it. I quickly bought the rest—Frankenstein, Wolfman, The Creature… I had them all. “I feel fortunate to have grown up catching the tail end of the ‘monster craze’ of the sixties and early seventies,” says Busti. “I don’t think there would be a MUSEUM OF THE WEIRD today had I not been exposed to it.” Busti hopes that his attraction will help spread his message to a new generation of Monster Kids.
OTHER ITEMS OF INTEREST: • Celebrities who have visited the Museum of the Weird include FM favorites Rick Baker, Joe Dante,
Tom Savini, and Kerry Gammill! • Johnny Depp used to live in the building that now houses the Museum of the Weird. He was in Austin filming WHAT’S EATING GILBERT GRAPE at the time (the early 90s). • One of the earliest childhood memories Busti has was of seeing the “Minnesota Iceman”, a supposed “frozen caveman” in ice that was toured around carnivals and fairs in the 60s and 70s. • Some of the monster wax figures in the MUSEUM OF THE WEIRD were salvaged from the old Movieland Wax Museum. “You can find photos of these figures in early issues of FM. These are those very same ones.”
• Latest acquisition is a life-sized King Kong where visitors can actually pose in his hands. • Recently the Museum completed construction of a small “micro-theater” called the Weird Theater. It features a walk-through stone castle, complete with a working gargoyle, old dungeon door, and the Forgotten Prisoner himself greeting people at the entrance.
FAMOUS MONSTERS OF FILMLAND • JAN/FEB 2012 1
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