A little known
Japanese movie monster -- and for good reason.
Mo-Ron first appeared in the
1960 film "
Annoy All Monsters!", which was released by
Bakayarou Studios. A
blatant rip-off of the more
successful monster movies being made by
Toho Studios, "Annoy All Monsters!" featured
seven badly-
costumed
actors (including one dressed as a
masked Mexican wrestler) running around and smashing up a
model of
Tokyo.
Mo-Ron looked like a cross between a
gorilla and a
whale -- specifically, he wore a
scuba suit with
flippers and hid his
face behind a
gorilla mask. Mo-Ron's main
contribution to the
battle was
tripping over things and
falling on top of
cardboard buildings.
For some reason (possibly related to
bad sushi),
Mo-Ron was considered
popular enough to
star in a movie of his own. "
Destroyer of Earth Mo-Ron" was released in 1962. In it, Mo-Ron
steadfastly refused to
destroy Earth, though he
fumbled his way through another model of
Tokyo and was actually caught on
camera scratching himself in one
scene.
Bakayarou released a third
Mo-Ron feature, "
Friend of Children Mo-Ron," in 1963. This film tried to
recast Mo-Ron as a
good monster. He was followed throughout the
movie by a
small boy wearing a
top hat who insisted that Mo-Ron was a
Friend of Children -- this may be so, for throughout Mo-Ron's
rampage through Tokyo (he
did destroy a
giant squid monster, so hey), he does not
stomp on more than two
schools. The
scratching theme continued in this movie: Mo-Ron
scratches himself twice, and the
little boy scratches himself once.
In the
final Mo-Ron film, "
Honorable Mo-Ron", the
monster is finally given a
breath weapon -- the ever-popular
nuclear fire breath. Unfortunately, the
producers decided to use real
fire, resulting in the
destruction by fire of four
gorilla masks and the untimely
death (
offscreen, thank god) of one Mo-Ron
actor. The film featured more
scratching: four times by
Mo-Ron, once by a
soldier waiting for a
cue, and once by the
female lead. When it was released, the film was considered so
bad that a
riot broke out at the
premiere in
Kyoto. The
studio head at
Bakayarou committed absolutely fake
seppuku two weeks later and fled to
Canada, and the
studio was closed for good by the end of
1966.