# Aurora "Dream Model Kit" ad in Boys' Life



## ChrisW (Jan 1, 1970)

Have an idea for a model kit you'd like to see produced? Here's how it can be done! The only hitch is you have to travel back in time to February 1959...
This contest from Aurora was their way of gauging the interests of their client base, and planted the seed that eventually led to the monsters we know and love...
http://books.google.com/books?id=nm...&resnum=2&ved=0CBkQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false


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## MonsterModelMan (Dec 20, 2000)

Thanks Chris...I was cracking up at the prizes that you could win...a car or a boat or a reel-to-reel tape deck or albums or...hehehehehe!:thumbsup:

MMM


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## Roy Kirchoff (Jan 1, 1970)

Wow! I wonder who won the car. What a keeper. 

~RK~


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## otto (Jan 1, 1970)

What a blast from the past! Thanks!


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## rkoenn (Dec 18, 2007)

That is a way cool blast from the past. I never had a subscription but did read them in the library. I do remember all those ads that were in Boy's Life and the comics though, decoder rings, Charles Atlas, monster posters, etc. Boy's Life had honest good writing and utterly wholesome articles, maybe something we could use a bit more of these days. None of the cynicism and in your face atrocious humor that kids are overwhelmed with these days. I know we all have to grow up someday but staying young with a wholesome view of life is very appealing.

Bob K.


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## ChrisW (Jan 1, 1970)

Roy Kirchoff said:


> Wow! I wonder who won the car. What a keeper.
> 
> ~RK~


Tom Graham actually gives the winner's name in his Aurora Model kits book published by Schiffer. And apparently the car was pretty cool! I'm at work, can't look up the winner right now...

Bob K - they also used some might fine illustrators!


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## otto (Jan 1, 1970)

They still publish them Bob, and its still a pretty good magazine. My son was a scout a few years ago and had a subscription..


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## ChrisW (Jan 1, 1970)

The Winner? 16-year-old Craig Brun of Rochester, NY. 
His winning idea was a set of Washington D.C. monuments and buildings...While Aurora never did them, there was a kit available of the Capitol Building.


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## miniature sun (May 1, 2005)

Isn't that bike the same as the one owned by Pee Wee Herman?


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## ChrisW (Jan 1, 1970)

Interesting - the Skoda is still being made in Czechoslovakia. Here's an ad of the Skoda America (actually a Skoda 440) that was the contest prize...










I think PeeWee's ride is a little more tricked out...


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## Roy Kirchoff (Jan 1, 1970)

Here's a new Skoda called the Yeti










It looks like they carried the look of the front grille on the '59 over to the brightbar on the 2011.

~RK~


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## rkoenn (Dec 18, 2007)

I also recall a series of stories they published in the magazine called the Mad Scientists Club. After publishing them in Boy's Life the author put them together in that book. They were great and I remember reading them about the time I was in 8th grade. The book and a couple of others in the series are still being published so I bought two of the three for my wife's brothers son. I don't know if he is a reader but he devoured the two books in a week or two. I always dreamed of having such a club when I was growing up being a bit geeky and technically adept. I still have the books and offer them to any kids in the family that would like them to read.

Bob K.


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## PF Flyer (Jun 24, 2008)

Love it! The model contest is cool, but I also had a Ben Pearson archery set (advertised on the next page) back in the day. I'd forgotten how I used to peruse Boy's Life and dream of all the neat stuff advertised therein--knives, bikes, camping equipment, air rifles, etc. I remember that once, for my birthday I think, my Mom and Dad sent away for taxidermy lessons (via mail of course) advertised in BL. I never got all the equipment that I needed, but had the courage and the requisite indulgent parents to experiment on a couple of roadkill squirrels. Drove the local grocer crazy looking for Borax. Finally took up building models instead. Thanks for posting


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## ChrisW (Jan 1, 1970)

Roy Kirchoff said:


> Here's a new Skoda called the Yeti
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I think you're right Roy - good eye!


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## Joe Brown (Nov 16, 1999)

rkoenn said:


> I also recall a series of stories they published in the magazine called the Mad Scientists Club.


Yep, I wanted a Japanese mini-sub to convert! And someone really needs to model Richard The Deep Breather!

Here's a site for the author's son:
http://www.madscientistsclub.com/MSC/Home.html


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## rkoenn (Dec 18, 2007)

So the mini-sub was from The Big Kerplop I believe? I actually read that one a couple of years ago when I bought it for my nephew. I still haven't read the final book, The Big Chunk of Ice, but will buy it and read it someday. We lived a block away from a cove on the Gulf of Mexico in Tarpon Springs and I entertained ideas about a sea monster. I think my favorite story was the The Voice in the Chimney as we had a haunted house in the woods near where we lived. And we had a really eerie thing happen at that house one summer day when I was about 10 that I will always remember and cannot explain. However the house rapidly fell to pieces and therefor the neighborhood kids could never really "haunt" it. The original book was a great book and the others were also good but didn't quite live up to the original. It would do well for kids today to read those books and do some dreamin as they were written in a far less cynical and far more innocent time.

Bob K.


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## ChrisW (Jan 1, 1970)

Bob, when I was 9 or 10 my dad gave me a stack of books that he read when he was a boy. The lead characters' names were Jerry Todd and Poppy Ott, and they both dealt with a gang of boys getting into some sort of adventure, or mishap. A lot of spooky doin's that were explained at the end. We lived in a sub-urban/rural-enough area that I could relate to the characters and their lifestyles. I read those over the course of 2 years and thoroughly enjoyed them. We lost them all in a flood, but in later years he collected them again. These days the set is up in my studio. I haven't read them in a long while, I need to pull one down and take it for a spin...


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## Cro-Magnon Man (Jun 11, 2001)

Not only did Aurora not produce a kit of the winning idea, none of the ideas from the entire competition were ever adopted by Aurora. It's one of the best stories in the Thomas Graham book - it was all about raising publicity in the end.


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## Joe Brown (Nov 16, 1999)

rkoenn said:


> So the mini-sub was from The Big Kerplop I believe? I actually read that one a couple of years ago when I bought it for my nephew.


No - the mini-sub was in "The New Adventures of The Mad Scientist's Club". Sadly, it was never really more than scene-dressing as no adventures explicitly happened with the actual sub.


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