REGARDING HENRY

The "Lost Interviews" with Godzilla's Overseas Agent, Henry G. Saperstein Author: Steve Ryfle

The 1990's were a mournful decade for Godzilla. The King of the Monsters witnessed the passing of several key behind-thescenes figures in his movie career, most notably director Ishiro Honda (d. 1993) and producer Tomoyuki Tanaka (d. 1997), both of whom played important roles in creating Godzilla in 1954 and establishing his legacy over the next four decades. However, in 1998, an important figure in G-history, a man who shepherded Godzilla's career in the U.S. and the West for three decades, died without much notice. Henry G. Saperstein, the longtime owner of United Productions of America (a.k.a. UPA Productions), who brought many of Toho's best monster films of the 1960's to America and whose other credits as a producer ranged from television's MR. MAGOO to Woody Allen's first feature, WHAT'S UP TIGER LILY?, died of cancer in Beverly Hills on June 24, 1998. He was 80.
Henry Saperstein clowns around with an old friend.

Born June 2, 1918 in Chicago, Saperstein attended the University of Chicago, and began his film-related career in 1943 when he inherited Allied Theatres, a chain of five Chicago cinemas, from his father. Within a few years he sold the theaters and, while serving with the U.S. Air Force during World War II, he produced military training films. After moving to Hollywood in 1955, he became a producer of TV sports shows like ALL-STAR GOLF (1958-62) and CHAMPIONSHIP BOWLING (1958-60). In December 1958, a writer for Variety called Saperstein, "a major entrepreneur of TV films, a new breed of video tycoon whose philosophy is not to create new shows for the medium or to invest in potential hits but to buy up bread-and-butter properties, shows that figure to last on the airwaves 10 years or more." A few years later, in 1963, Variety quoted Saperstein boasting, "I am known in this business for my nose. I am known to smell when the time is ripe for a deal, for a trend in entertainment, for a development with dollar potentials." In 1959, Saperstein took over UPA, a cartoon studio originally founded by a group of ex-Disney animators, and which had created MR. MAGOO and GERALD McBOING BOING. UPA, which built its reputation on modern, simple-yet-stylized animation shorts produced for cinemas, "discarded its reputation for quality" when Saperstein bought the company, film historian Leonard Maltin once wrote. Saperstein turned UPA into a prolific TV cartoon factory, cranking out 130 MR. MAGOO `toons between 1960 and 1962, plus hundreds of DICK TRACY's as well. At the same time, Saperstein produced THE FAMOUS ADVENTURES OF MR. MAGOO, the first prime-time animated series, which aired on NBC in 1964, plus TV specials like MR. MAGOO'S CHRISTMAS CAROL and UNCLE SAM MAGOO. He also began acquiring feature films for television syndication, and producing features for theatrical distribution. In 1962, UPA made GAY PURR-EE, an animated musical feature film, starring the voices of Judy Garland and Robert Goulet, and featuring songs by Harold("Over the Rainbow")Arlen (the picture, which was distributed by Warner Bros., was a big flop). In the 1960's, Saperstein and UPA also produced several live-action films including the Timothy Leary documentary TURN ON, TUNE IN, DROP OUT and two rock concert movies, THE T.A.M.I. SHOW and THE BIG TNT SHOW. In 1968, Saperstein was executive producer for ABC Films on HELL IN THE PACIFIC, a two-character World War II drama directed by John Boorman and starring Lee Marvin and
Woody Allen takes on Toho for UPA WHAT'S UP TIGER LILY 1965 Toho Co., Ltd

Toshiro Mifune as enemy soldiers stranded alone together on a Pacific Island. In the 1970's, `80's and `90's, Saperstein kept old Mr. Magoo alive by selling the myopic codger as an advertising pitch-man for commercials; he also produced a new TV series called WHAT'S NEW MR. MAGOO? and was executive producer of Disney's live-action MR. MAGOO (1998) starring Leslie Nielsen. However, his most famous production, outside of the Godzilla pictures, undoubtedly is WHAT'S UP TIGER LILY? - a Japanese spy movie, re-written and dubbed by Woody Allen as a comedic caper about a secret egg salad recipe, and featuring music by the Lovin' Spoonful - which Saperstein reportedly produced for just $66,000. Saperstein has also been called a pioneer in the entertainment merchandising business. He worked with Col. Tom Parker as Elvis Presley's licensing agent, and handled merchandising for WYATT EARP, THE LONE RANGER, LASSIE and THE RIFLEMAN during the 1950s. In addition to his control over the U.S. television and home-video rights to many Toho films, Saperstein also handled the U.S. merchandising for the Godzilla character for many years, relinquishing those duties just a few years ago when Sony Signatures took over Godzilla product licensing. Among the deals he made on Toho's behalf were the Shogun Warriors Godzilla made by Mattel in the1970's, the god-awful Godzilla figures made by Imperial in 1985, and the Trendmasters Godzilla toy line that originated in 1994. Saperstein says his interest in Godzilla was first piqued when, sometime in the early 1960s, he saw the Japanese (sans Raymond Burr) version of the original 1954 Toho classic at the nowdefunct Toho La Brea theater in Los Angeles. His career intersected with Godzilla's not long thereafter, when Saperstein approached Toho and, as he explained it, he convinced the Japanese film giant to turn the terrible tyranno into a Herculean hero (Despite Godzilla's nightmarish origins, Saperstein always unabashedly preferred the monster as a do-gooder). On May 6, 1964, Variety reported that Saperstein had bought the U.S. theatrical and television rights for Toho's MOSURA TAI GOJIRA, and he planned to release the film in America with the title GODZILLA VERSUS THE GIANT MOTH. However, Saperstein apparently aborted these plans and sold the rights to the picture to American International, which released it later that year as GODZILLA VS THE THING. [Note: This is corroborated by contracts in AIP's archives, but Mr. Saperstein neglected to mention this in the following interview, claiming the first Godzilla movie he bought was MONSTER ZERO.] In May, 1965, Variety reported that Saperstein had entered into a deal to co-produce five motion pictures with Toho three giant- monster films, a war movie and a spy thriller plus a television show that would be filmed in Japan and air on U.S. stations. Then, in February 1966, Variety reported that Saperstein had extended his deal with Toho to include six more movies: INVASION OF THE ASTRO- MONSTERS (which was already in the can at that point and, as everyone knows, was eventually retitled MONSTER ZERO for U.S. release), BROTHERS FRANKENSTEIN (which was set to begin filming in May 1966 and was eventually retitled WAR OF THE A little known fact -- Saperstein's GARGANTUAS, with all "Frankenstein" references deleted), involvement with Toho started with FLYING SUBMARINE (which apparently was never made, GODZILLA VS THE THING 1964 Toho although it sounds reminiscent of Toho's THE WAR IN SPACE, Co., Ltd. which Saperstein would release a decade or so later), a chase movie called GREAT ADVENTURE, a Toshiro Mifune movie called ISLAND OF TERROR (which was made a few years later as HELL IN THE PACIFIC), and a war picture called BATTLE OF LEYTE GULF. [Notes by August Ragone: The above-mentioned "Flying Submarine" was a film that Eiji Tsuburaya planned to make as a follow-up to ATRAGON (Kaitei Gunkan,1963). A screenplay was indeed written by Shinichi Sekizawa, with production designs created by Shigeru Komatsuzaki, under the title "Soratobu Senkan" -- or "The Flying Battleship." Perhaps the cancellation of this film was directly connected to Saperstein's not raising the financing for this production. Not

treading water, Tsuburaya took the concept and refined it over at his own Tsuburaya Productions and it premiered on the Fuji Television network in 1968 as MIGHTY JACK (Maitei Jakku). It's possible that "The Great Adventure" was a working title for the Mifune Productions' fantasy film THE ADVENTURES OF TAKLA MAKAN (Jiganjo-no Boken, 1966), directed by Senkichi Taniguchi, or it could have been Kengo Furusawa's all-star Crazy Cats spy spoof of the same title (Daiboken, 1965). With all of this taken into account, it's completely plausable that "Battle of the Leyte Gulf" could have been Shiro Moritani's ZERO FIGHTER: THE GREAT AIR BATTLE (Zero Faita Daikusen), released in Japan in 1966.] Although not all of the Toho-Saperstein projects outlined in these agreements would become realities, this is how Toho's long relationship with the self-made Hollywood mogul began. Over the next few years, Saperstein's contributions to Godzilla's career were sometimes heroic, sometimes dubious. Among them were the following:

Saperstein was first to bring American "stars" Nick Adams and Russ Tamblyn to Japan to increase the overseas marketability of Toho's science-fiction films, resulting in a trio of genre classics: FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD, WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS, and MONSTER ZERO. Later, other U.S. producers would follow suit, bringing actors like Rhodes Reason (KING KONG ESCAPES), Richard Jaeckel, Cesar Romero, and Joseph Cotton (LATITUDE ZERO) to Japan. MONSTER ZERO and WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS, although produced in Japan in 1965 and 1966, respectively, were not released in the U.S. until 1970, when they played on a double-bill, mostly in drive-in theaters, and were subsequently syndicated to TV. The inexplicably long gap between the two pictures' Japanese release dates and their joint American debut is one of the great mysteries of Godzilla's career, in light of the fact that the pictures featured imported American actors to make them more marketable in the West. Saperstein never fessed up to what really happened. In a 1995 interview with John Roberto and Robert Biondi, published in G-Fan, he said, "Toho doesn't always put a picture into quick release internationally ... There's a lot of technical work to be done: sending in interpositives, soundtracks, effects and music tracks, and then there's the things that we have to do with them here ... So if they [Toho] drag their feet ... it just impacts on how much longer down the road it gets pushed." It's likely that Saperstein originally planned to release MONSTER ZERO to American cinemas sometime in 1966; on June 1 of that year, Variety reported that Saperstein had just wrapped up post- production (i.e., English dubbing) of the film and that he was "currently negotiating a distribution deal" for the picture. Saperstein probably intended to distribute the picture through American International Pictures, as he had done with FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD, WHAT'S UP TIGER LILY? and other films. Perhaps Saperstein and AIP's Samuel Z. Arkoff had some sort of falling-out around this time, for after WHAT'S UP TIGER LILY? was released in November 1966, Saperstein released no further movies through AIP. Thus, MONSTER ZERO and WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS "...sat on the shelf at [UPA] because [distributors] figured they had no potential" until 1970, when Saperstein struck a deal with Maron Films to release them, according to a September 1970 Variety article. UPA bought the U.S. rights to the 1969 Toho picture ORU KAIJU DAISHINGEKI (ALL MONSTERS ATTACK) and planned to release the film in the U.S. sometime in 1971 with the title MINYA: SON OF GODZILLA. But after realizing (a little too late) that Walter Reade was already showing the 1967 film SON OF GODZILLA on U.S. television stations, Saperstein feared that his new film might be mistaken for the other. It is not known how extensively MINYA: SON OF GODZILLA was released, however some collectors of Godzilla memorabilia have unearthed advertising posters, indicating that at least a very limited release occurred. "There was a confusing thing there. Toho had already released a SON OF GODZILLA made in 1967, so we released it as GODZILLA'S REVENGE instead," Saperstein told G-Fan in 1995.

Saperstein claimed that he not only distributed TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA in the U.S., but that he also co-financed the film with Toho. There is some doubt as to this, however: neither UPA nor Saperstein's name appears in the movie's Japanese credits (as with previous Toho-UPA films), there were no American actors sent to Japan to beef up the marquee value and no creative contribution from a Saperstein-hired writer (again, as in previous films). Saperstein presided over a series of haphazard editorial decisions that have caused lingering confusion about differing versions of TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA, and even about its title. In Summer 1978, Saperstein made a deal with Bob Conn Enterprises, a small Beverly Hills-based independent distribution film founded by a former sales executive for 20th Century Fox and Warner Brothers. The picture was released (in a heavily edited, G-rated version) for matinee theater screenings as THE TERROR OF GODZILLA. Strangely, the film continued to play in theaters through 1980, even after Saperstein released it to television, in more complete form, with its actual title, TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA. Thus, some U.S. fans had the odd experience of seeing TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA first on television, then later going to the cinema to see THE TERROR OF GODZILLA, believing it was a different film, only to learn it was an editeddown version of the same picture. When TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA was originally syndicated to TV stations, it included a six-minute prologue telling the story of Godzilla's "origins," consisting of footage pieced together from GODZILLA'S REVENGE and MONSTER ZERO. Reading from a kindergarten- level script, a narrator tells the story of Godzilla's first appearances, his destructive rampages, and how Godzilla became Earth's defender. Bizarrely, this added footage makes it appear that the Planet X aliens from MONSTER ZERO are the creators of Mechagodzilla! Around 1977, reports surfaced in Japan (and were transmitted to the U.S. in the fanzine Japanese Giants #5, published 1978) that Toho and UPA Productions would jointly produce GODZILLA VS THE DEVIL, to be released sometime in 1978. Although details were sketchy, it was said the film had a $4 million budget, its script would be written by an American (presumably, Saperstein's longtime associate Reuben Bercovitch) and its proposed running time was 110 minutes. The climax of the movie was to feature a confrontation between Godzilla and Satan. Another rumored Toho-UPA co-production in the late `70's was GODZILLA VS GARGANTUA. [Notes by August Ragone: There was another Godzilla vehicle that pre-dated both of these proposed projects, called "The Resurrection of Godzilla" in a 1977 television interview with Famous Monsters editor Forrest J. Ackerman (conducted by San Francisco horror film host Bob Wilkins for his show "Creature Features"). The next year, the nowdefunct Toho Records issued the soundtrack album "Godzilla!" (AX- 8100), in which the liner notes insert contained a listing of all the Godzilla films. This ended with an entry heralding an upcoming US co-production, simply titled "Godzilla", to start lensing in 1978. The co-producers were listed as "Benedict Productions" -- the name Saperstein worked under in his co-productions with Toho(the film was also mentioned in the notes for the follow-up album "Godzilla! 2", but this time with no mention of Benedict Productions). This proposed remake of the original 1954 film, like "Godzilla vs. the Devil" and "Godzilla vs. Gargantua", never materialized.]

Although many people tried to take credit for the idea to make an American GODZILLA, co-producer Cary Woods said it was Saperstein who, in the early 1990's, "had been contacting all the major studios in town, trying to put a deal together for some time."

The following interview was conducted in August 1993 at the UPA offices, then located in Sherman Oaks, CA (the company later moved to Beverly Hills). At the time, I was working as a staff writer for a suburban newspaper, and was here to interview Saperstein (then 75 years old) for a "history of Godzilla" feature story that my editor had indulged me to write. Although I

ended up using only a couple of Saperstein's quotations in the story, Saperstein and I spoke for well over an hour, covering a range of topics. Meeting Mr. Saperstein was a turning point in my life, of sorts - immediately, my interest in Godzilla and all things Toho (dormant for about a decade) was completely rekindled and I began the research that eventually led to the writing and publishing of the book Japan's Favorite Mon-Star (However, at the time of this interview, I was still very "green," so please excuse the uninformed nature of several questions). Note that Saperstein refers to several projects in development, including TriStar's GODZILLA and the liveaction MR. MAGOO, which have now come and gone, and talks about videocassettes as the standard home-video medium (DVDs were still a thing of the future). During the interview, Saperstein lit up a gigantic cigar that filled the room with smoke. This is the first time the interview has been published in full. RYFLE: First off, I'd like to ask how you met Godzilla. SAPERSTEIN: Well, to make a long story less long, in 1948 I bought a package of 50 cheap westerns and quickly doubled my money by selling them to television stations. Myself, and a few others around the country, we who had films became the first suppliers of programming to the early television stations because the studios wouldn't license their films to TV at the time. We pioneered television distribution of programming. And I liked the business and stayed in it, and had a sales force who were calling on television stations as they were emerging. I had a company called Television Personalities Inc., and my salesmen would come to me and say, "we need a certain type of programming that the stations want." DING DONG SCHOOL, which was the first educational program..we syndicated that program for over eleven years. Joan Cooney, who does SESAME STREET, always says that DING DONG SCHOOL was her inspiration for doing SESAME STREET. Then the guys told me that they needed sports programming, so we put out ALL-STAR GOLF and CHAMPIONSHIP BOWLING, which became the first big sports television shows to gain a wide audience. And then the salesmen came to me and said, "we need cartoons," so I bought the UPA studio because they owned MR. MAGOO and GERALD McBOING BOING, and we began making MR. MAGOO, DICK TRACY, GERALD McBOING BOING cartoons for television and have been doing so ever since. And then one day, the guys said we have to have some sci-fi monster pictures. "They're very hot," he said, "they always pull ratings." This was around 1960, '61, or '62, and I did some research on the companies that were doing continuously good sci-fi monster pictures, and I found out there were only two: Hammer Films in England and Toho in Tokyo. I went to see both of them, and ended up making a deal with Toho to co-finance and coUPA passed on "lesser" Godzilla movies distribute many of their films, principally Godzilla, and we like GODZILLA VS GIGAN 1972 Toho had the distribution rights for North America and all media, Co., Ltd. and Toho kept them for the rest of the world. I also acquired the merchandising, so we were merchandising Godzilla, Mr. Magoo, Dick Tracy, Roy Rogers, Wyatt Earp, Lone Ranger, Lassie and Elvis Presley all at the same time. The merchandise licensing turned into a huge business, driven mainly by the television exposure of the shows bearing those names, so that the public was aware of them on a weekly basis. That's my background. Here I am, after all these years still doing these things. And now we have a major big-budget MR. MAGOO live- action film being done by Steven Spielberg and Warners, which is in the scripting stages now. And we have a new state-of-the-art specialeffects big-budget film of Godzilla being made for the first time in the U.S., and that's likewise in the scripting stages now. So it's a lot of fun and a lot of action.

RYFLE: What was the first Godzilla film that you got the rights to? SAPERSTEIN: The first was GODZILLA VS MONSTER ZERO, and that's when we provided Nick Adams to star in the film, the first time an American had starred in one of these films. We took Nick Adams to Tokyo. We did two films with Nick Adams there, then we took Russ Tamblyn there, put him in to co-star in WAR OF THE GARGANTUAS and we've been doing that kind of thing ever since with Toho. RYFLE: Since you had this agreement with Toho, why is it that the Godzilla films of the 1960's and `70's were imported by different distributors, and some took longer than others to arrive in America? SAPERSTEIN: Oh, there's some that they made like GODZILLA VS THE SEA MONSTER, GODZILLA VS GOGAN [sic, actually GODZILLA VS GIGAN] or GODZILLA ON MYSTERY ISLAND [sic, GODZILLA ON MONSTER ISLAND] and some things like that. These were the smaller budgeted pictures. We were involved with the larger budget ones, TERROR OF MECHAGODZILLA, GODZILLA'S REVENGE, GODZILLA VS MOTHRA and so on. So those are the films that we have been distributing for more than 25 years. They're on television every week and they are out on videocassette from Paramount Home Video. [Note: The UPA library was acquired by Classic Media, who released several of the Saperstein Toho films on DVD in 2002.] RYFLE: Do you think a Japanese Godzilla movie will ever be released theatrically in the U.S. again, or are they strictly straight-to- video? SAPERSTEIN: I think the later films will go straight to video. If they have a theatrical release, it will be a limited theatrical release. You see, the business has changed dramatically. There used to be a business in theatrical for you to put out the second half of a double feature, or for films that were mainly for the drive-in. But with the kind of prices being paid by cable and pay-per-view TV today, and the prices paid by videocassette, it doesn't pay to put out a smaller picture in the theaters. The cost of the marketing campaign is too great. In the marketplace today, with this blockbuster mentality, unless a movie makes big money the first weekend at the box office, the picture gets kind of pushed off to the side and it's hard to make any money. Whereas the videocassette money is straight profit from day one, and television money similarly. You can't hit medium, that's not good enough. You have to hit big, and that's driven by a couple of weird factors. The theater Saperstein caused confusion with owners, first of all, want a lot of people to buy tickets for multiple names and edits for TERROR admission, but even more so, they want a lot of people at the OF MECHAGODZILLA 1975 Toho Co., concession stand. A picture that's just pulling in a medium Ltd audience isn't delivering it to them at the concession stands. That's where they're making their big profit, they're not making it off the movies. RYFLE: Do you have a favorite Godzilla movie? SAPERSTEIN: Yeah, my favorite is GODZILLA VS MOTHRA [a.k.a. GODZILLA VS THE THING], because these two little princesses on the island and in the box singing their corny songs while the war dance is going on. Mothra is the only one -this giant caterpillar- who has bested Godzilla without harming him, by spinning this web of gooky, sticky stuff around him like a cocoon. It immobilized him. What a clever way to immobilize this ferocious hero without inflicting any damage on him. I kind of like Mothra.

RYFLE: What's the worst Godzilla movie, in your opinion? SAPERSTEIN: I would suppose GODZILLA'S REVENGE, because the reach was made to give Godzilla a little son, Minya and I don't think you can humanize a fanciful character. I always had a lot of trouble with Superman taking Lois Lane flying on his back all around the city. I think heroes should be heroes. The Lone Ranger never had a girlfriend. Wyatt Earp had his 16-inchbarrel, .45-caliber peacemaker and that was it. I think the purer you keep a fantasy hero, the easier it is for the audience to accept him. If you try to humanize him in some way, then he no longer is as fanciful and I think it dilutes him. RYFLE: You've talked about Godzilla being a hero, but he really started out as a symbol of nuclear apocalypse, didn't he? SAPERSTEIN: Well the first picture was GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS. The theme of it was, someone sets off a nuclear explosion. This reaches all the way down into his watery resting place at the bottom of the sea in Japan. He can't believe that anyone would be stupid enough to do something so violent that it would even wake him up after millions of years. He comes storming out of the sea and he starts going all over Tokyo looking for who did this. Now, the fact that he steps on a few railroads, and knocks down some buildings with his tail - my God, if you were his size, you would do it, too. He's like a lovable klutz as he moves around, but he searching for who [set off the explosion]. And the army and the navy and the air force, they're scared of him because of his size and because of his thrashing things, so they think he's an evil to be disposed of. But the audience is cheering for him! That's the first time I got interested, when I saw GODZILLA, KING OF THE MONSTERS in Japanese, at the Toho La Brea theater, which used to exist on La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles. RYFLE: You saw the original version of the movie, not the Raymond Burr version? SAPERSTEIN: Yes, it was called GOJIRA, which means "devil monster." [Note: The monster's name is actually a combination of "gorilla" and "kujira"-- the Japanese word for "whale"] I sat in the audience and I saw that although they were depicting him as a villain, the audience saw Godzilla as a hero and was cheering for him. That's when I went to Tokyo to talk to Toho about playing him as the hero he was, rather than cloaking it in a metaphorical message. I told them that if they did that, Godzilla would become a worldwide phenomenon. RYFLE: I wish the Toho La Brea theater were still open today. Were strictly Toho films shown there? SAPERSTEIN: No. They showed Japanese films, mainly the Toho movies, but they showed movies by Toei and other companies. This was in the 1960's and early '70's. The reason I used to go there is that, upstairs they had one of the greatest Japanese restaurants ever in this town. There was a Toho theater in San Francisco, one in New York and one here on La Brea near Olympic Boulevard. It's now a Korean temple. RYFLE: What's the key to Godzilla's longevity, as opposed to the more conventional monsters like Frankenstein and Dracula, which have their roots in literature and folklore?

The first Toho film with a US star -Nick Adams in FRANKENSTEIN CONQUERS THE WORLD 1965 Toho Co., Ltd.

SAPERSTEIN: In my opinion, Godzilla has had such longevity because we've let Godzilla be

Godzilla. You take something like Frankenstein - there was FRANKENSTEIN, then you had the BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, then SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, and then the nephew, then the son-inlaw, and soon you didn't believe in Frankenstein any more. Let's take BATMAN, for example. BATMAN, to me, is a pure type of story because BATMAN derives its power from the villains. You're not playing it off of Batman - it was Jack Nicholson who intrigued you as the Joker. And the same goes for the second BATMAN film, it was the Penguin who had the major role. Audiences back in the silent movie days loved to hiss the villain. You sat there and you booed the villain, and you knew that the hero, even though he might have great difficulty and obstacles in his path, somehow or other would save the baby from the burning house, would cut the ropes that tied the beautiful girl to the railroad tracks, or something like that. We grew up with that kind of culture in the cinema, and we liked our hero and we liked him pure. What is Clint Eastwood's appeal? In all the DIRTY HARRY pictures he is the big, strong, silent type that will not be deterred by anything in his pursuit of right as he sees it. The same thing with Gary Cooper, Errol Flynn, Douglas Fairbanks, you can go all through the decades. Now we're doing it with Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis. The moment you move the hero away from that type of story and into another type of story, they die, these type of pictures die. Because that's not what the audience wants to see. The audience wants their heroes pure -- beat up, damaged, in great danger, in mounting jeopardy, but eventually to emerge successfully. RYFLE: Yes, but Godzilla is a villain again in the newer Toho films. SAPERSTEIN: Oh, they're trying to be a little more villainous in the last two films, but that's not the way the new [American-made] feature is going to be. It's going to be pure Godzilla as we know and love Godzilla - corny lovable, klutzy, effective, a little scary, a little comedic. There's a lot of humor in Godzilla. But the beautiful thing about the Godzilla films is demographic.We have three separate audiences: we have little kids who like him because he's so big and what he does; we have teenagers who thinks it's the corniest, coolest, campiest thing there is; and we have adults who grew up with him who say, "yeah, too bad we don't have that monster out on the streets today, taking care of things." It's interesting to have three different audiences. Godzilla is the kind of programming that each member of the family can enjoy through their own eyes. RYFLE: You sound rhapsodic when you talk about Godzilla. What do you like about him? SAPERSTEIN: Godzilla is an icon figure. Godzilla is like an old- fashioned morality play, the good guys versus the bad guys. Godzilla is the guy in the white hat, and he comes forth reluctantly when some bad guys are trying to disturb the tranquility of the earth - upsetting the peace, polluting the atmosphere, the things which we read on the front page of our papers every single day that evil forces are trying to do. So, Godzilla comes out to try to stop this. And like a typical morality play, or like a Rocky movie, the villain beats the hell out of him for nine rounds, and in the tenth round he gets off the canvas and he decks the villains, then goes back to his haunt to try to sleep quietly without being disturbed - the good guy rides off into the sunset. If Godzilla were on a white horse like the Lone Ranger, riding off and waving goodbye, that's not much different.
Classic Media now owns the UPA library and has released the films on DVD 1954 Toho Co., Ltd

So, that's a very basic story, and it's very easy for the audience to understand, you know who the good guys and the bad guys are quickly, you know who to root for and who to hiss. And you know if you just have patience enough to watch your hero getting beat up that eventually he's going to give it to these guys. The audience sits

there, it's corny as all hell, but they love it because they understand it, it's easy and they're rooting for him and waiting for him to get up and really lay it into those bad guys. And the bad guys can be anything from humans to aliens to forces of nature to whatever it is that's messing things up. And God knows all you have to do is look at today's paper with the floods in the Midwest, and the hurricanes in the southeast, and the earthquakes around here, and what's going on in Bosnia, and what's going on in the Middle East and in Cambodia. We need a Godzilla once in a while. I guess the public is so fed up with the conventional authorities not being able to handle adverse situations, that in their fantasies they want Batman, Superman - they want someone bigger than life because those that are just the size of life aren't pulling it off. So the Godzilla that arises - the Batman, the Superman, the Meteor Man, Terminator, whoever it is, we need them for our fantasies to lick the bad forces, because we aren't doing it in real life. So, the need for the fantasy is very real. My wife walked out to her car the other day and someone took a key and scratched the car from the headlight to the taillight. Just out- and-out mindless vandalism. Believe me, she would have given anything for Godzilla to come down on the sidewalk and thrash them at that time. And that's typical in our society. Every one of us can name a situation recently where they wish there was a bigger-than- life icon hero figure to do something about it, because it's not being handled. RYFLE: The special effects in the older Godzilla movies were pretty flashy for the times, yet today, some people ridicule them. How do you feel about that? SAPERSTEIN: It is too bad that the great Eiji Tsuburaya doesn't get more recognition, because Steven Spielberg and George Lucas tell freely any class they ever address that they were inspired by Tsuburaya. Tsuburaya built a stage in Tokyo at the Toho Studio that was about a block and a half long by three quarters of a block wide. And everything was in miniature scale. I walked into that stage and I thought I was Paul Bunyan - there were mountains below me, there were rivers with running water, there were traffic lights working and their were cars moving, and with me above all of this. Tsuburaya pioneered the miniature, the model, the rear-screen projection. Special effects had not even advanced all that much from Tsuburaya's day until we came to one Industrial Light and Magic, and what Stan Winston did in Jurassic Park. We no longer can see the blue line for the matte shots. Computer graphics will change all of this, as the computers get faster and the chips get more sophisticated. But that's the progress of technology. RYFLE: Did you admire any other Toho filmmakers, such as director Ishiro Honda? SAPERSTEIN: Honda just died the past year. He was a good director, but the man responsible for keeping Godzilla going all these years was Tomoyuki Tanaka, the producer. Tanaka was the soul, the passion, the inspiration for continuing making Godzilla films. All the rest of these people - Honda the director, Tsuburaya the special effects director, and such - they would not have continued if not for Tanaka's push for it, so he's the one that I ascribe the major credit to. RYFLE: Do you know what the budgets of the 1990's Godzilla movies are, compared to what they cost back in the 1960's? SAPERSTEIN: Back in the old days, the budgets were between $1 million and $2 million on my Toho co-productions, and we supplied 50 percent of the production costs. Today, they spend anywhere from $5 million to $10 million. In Japan, Godzilla films usually open in the month of December, with lines around the block - you can't get into the theaters. So, Toho makes back their whole cost in just the month of December. I would say Toho's revenue from the merchandise licensing, in Japan only, pays for the entire production cost of the movie. That's how big it is. As I say, this is their icon figure. RYFLE: Sort of like a national folk hero, on a scale similar to Mickey Mouse.

SAPERSTEIN: Well, the people in England and Scotland see the Loch Ness monster as something, and the people in Hungary and Romania have the weird gypsies, and Dracula is in the forest. In every region, people set up a fanciful character and it becomes bigger- than-life. How about Bigfoot? Do you know anybody that's ever seen Bigfoot? But yet, you go up to the northwest and Bigfoot is very real. So these things exist and they grow bigger and bigger as we attempt to escape from reality. I think all of this is fostered by our need to stay sane. The only way we can stay sane in an insane society - where we have drive-by shootings to two-year-old children, where we have carjacking and even when you hand over your keys they blow you away - in an insane society, you preserve your sanity by escaping into fanciful allusions. That's why the Disney characters and the animated characters last as long as they did. That's why the super figures of Godzilla and King Kong and so on satisfy a need that the public has, a need to escape. RYFLE: There really haven't been all that many licensed Godzilla items in the U.S. over the past 20 years or so. Why is that? SAPERSTEIN: We have a very controlled merchandising thing, which makes my characters last for a very long time. We got 22 years out of Elvis, we had 19 years out of Lassie, we had 15 years out of Wyatt Earp, 30 years out of the Lone Ranger, Mr. Magoo has lasted almost 40 years in merchandising. Only because we won't overdo it, we won't saturate the marketplace. We have the plastic figures of Godzilla, [pointing to an Imperial Godzilla figure on a shelf] like you see up there. We have the inflatable Godzillas, which are a huge success. We have new comic books, which are really state of the art, from Dark Horse Comics. We have the hobby kits that you assemble. And then we have had a lot of corporate relationships, the most famous of which we just One of the last UPA-AIP collaborations; recently made with Nike where Godzilla challenges Charles THE BIG TNT SHOW 1966 American Barkley - they go one-on-one on the basketball court and International Pictures walk off friends. That commercial was a huge success. We had the Godzilla campaign with Dr. Pepper, and with Samsung Electronics and Konica. We are about to come out with Godzilla T-shirts, which have a lot of different themes on them. And we're negotiating at the present time for a master toy license with one of the major companies, and we have a Godzilla video game and computer software. RYFLE: Why isn't there an official Godzilla fan club in the U.S.? SAPERSTEIN: Every time someone has tried to pitch me about a fan club, I have been adverse to it because most of the time it's run for the benefit of the person who wants to organize the fan club. I don't want to risk some so-called well-intentioned fan club person ripping off anybody else. I don't want any part of that. We had an Elvis Presley fan club and we had hundreds of thousands of people writing in, and it became an impossible thing to handle because for every nine letters you get from a good fan, you get one weirdo writing with prints that we would have to turn over to the post office authorities. It's difficult because the consumer writes a letter and thinks you owe him an answer and we don't owe anybodywe didn't ask them to write in the first place. And then they demand that you send them autographed pictures, and pretty soon the demands started getting ridiculous.

In July 1995, I had an opportunity to speak to Mr. Saperstein once again, this time by telephone. Again, I was working on a newspaper story, about the death of Godzilla in the thenupcoming film, GODZILLA VS DESTOROYAH, which had recently been announced and made

worldwide headlines. At this time, director Jan DeBont had quit TriStar's Godzilla movie, and the project appeared dead. RYFLE: Is Godzilla really going to die? It seems impossible. SAPERSTEIN: Yeah, sure, Godzilla's dead. In 22 films, they have told the same story about 18 times. I don't know what the problem in Tokyo is with ideas. Have you seen the release that was issued the next day by Toho? [Note: Saperstein is referring to a Toho press release, issued shortly after the initial "Godzilla dies" announcement] The bottom line of it was, "let's hope a miracle happens." I have to tell you, I've been involved with television and motion pictures for over 35 years, and I can only say to you, "yeah sure, Godzilla dies." Did you ever hear of anybody killing the golden goose? Godzilla has already died three times in the series. We've made 22 films, and three times he died in the film only to be resurrected because of the great need for him. All I can tell you is that Godzilla is not just a series of films, it's an industry. We've sold three million plastic figures of Godzilla this year, in a soft retail market. You think we'd kill that off right now? In WalMart, Kmart and Toys `R' Us all over the country we have displays of Godzilla toys. RYFLE: When they said "let's hope a miracle occurs," are they referring to the TriStar movie? It seems to be a lost cause. SAPERSTEIN: They allude to the TriStar movie, but you can bet your bottom buck a miracle will occur. The story of this most recent movie, the 22nd one, is that he gets killed at the end. And that's not unusual, if you look back at your Superman series, look at how many times Superman comes back. And I love the way each time Tarzan is made he's a young man again. The guy hasn't aged for 70 years. He's drinking some kind of water I'd like to get to. So this is publicity stuff that comes out of the studio by a particular producer at a given time on a given film. But, I have to ask you, if you were in the place of the owners of Godzilla, and you had made 22 films over a period of [40] years, and had an industry going like this, would you close it off? RYFLE: What happened to the TriStar film? It seems to have self-destructed. SAPERSTEIN: They decided at the studio that they were going to make the most special effects ever in a film. Well, they found out that's a mistake, you should do it with the best special effects, not the most special effects. Because the most special effects drove the budget up to $130 million. And everybody in this town is scared stiff about WATERWORLD, because everybody's expecting WATERWORLD to crash and if so, there's always repercussions at the studios. So when GODZILLA's budget got to $130 million, I for one said to them, "hey guys, we've made over 20 of these films and we've never spent over $8 million, we had a guy running around in a rubber suit. What's all this nonsense of computer generated graphics and all that?" But they've been revising the script to pare the budget down to something that is more workable. That's a joke in itself: is $80 million better, or $70 million? What happens is that you get caught up talking in these boxcar numbers and suddenly someone says, "I just saved $30 million on the Godzilla movie," and somebody else says, "that's like we earned $30 million." The trouble is, you never see a quarter in your pocket. But the budget has now been pared to $100 million. They cut $30 million out of it, and I am told out of Culver City that their goal was to get it down to about $75 million to make it a viable project. I say to you, $70 million? Come on, we never made one for more than $7 or $8 million, and we did okay. It boggles my mind. When I say to people, "what's wrong with keeping the rubber suit?" They look and me and say, "yeah, thanks a lot." Different isn't necessarily better. Better is better, but more expensive isn't necessarily better. But I'm not the one spending the money, they are.

I have said to the studio people, you take the same kind of a basic story that we've always done, and it's always worked. And you put American actors instead of Japanese actors. And you build some sets that don't look like they're cardboard. And keep Godzilla hokey and corny, and the public will love it. What do you want to change it for? It's an icon. Don't make him slick - it won't be Godzilla. The trouble is, it won't cost $100 million, and you can't brag about how much you spent on it. I don't want to make high tech movies like JUDGE DREDD or JOHNNY MNEMONIC, that die in one day. They're very slick, but everybody sits there and there's no entertainment. I like that Godzilla is corny and hokey, and he dies every so often and he comes back to save the day again.