Aurora’s Monster Models

ARTICLE TITLE:          Aurora’s Monster Models

 

As many devoted Horror fans also enjoy building model kits of their favorite monsters, most are well aware that Modeling is not an inexpensive hobby.  At a bare minimum, a decent resin kit from a reputable company will run 50-60 dollars, and the average would be well over $100.  Add in tools, paints, and time, and we could easily spend thousands on this hobby we love.

But that wasn’t always the case.  When I started building models, resin and vinyl kits were virtually non-existent.  Airbrushes and moto-tools were unimagined luxuries, glue came in red and white tubes and paints came in little square bottles with “Testor’s” on the cap.  My first kit was ancient even in 1972…  Monogram’s 1/72 scale Curtiss P-36 Hawk.  I doubt that I paid more than 75¢ for it, and the finished product was hardly worth bragging about.  But I was instantly hooked on a hobby that I still enjoy 37 years later.

In those days I built everything and anything… from the crappy Hawk box-scale airplanes, to Monogram TBF Avengers with a torpedo that actually dropped from the bomb bay, to Aurora’s Russian Golf-class Missile Submarine.  I even tried my hand at the Visible Eye… and wound up with something not even Lasik could save.  But given my natural affinity for the monsters, it was only a matter of time before I found the fantastic Monster kits from Aurora.

Anyone who was a regular reader of Famous Monsters in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s will remember the ads for these kits…  Dracula and Frankenstein, the Wolf-Man and the Mummy, the skeletal Prisoner chained to the section of dungeon wall, even a scraggly-toothed, wart-nosed witch, hard at work stirring a bubbling cauldron.  Famous Monsters #59, November 1969, lists several of the monster kits in the Glow-in-the-Dark style for the princely sum of $1.49… quite a bit of money when you consider that you could get a perfectly good airplane or car kit for half that.

But the monsters of Aurora were hard to ignore, and, as soon as I saw one for sale at my neighborhood Pic-n-Save, I had to have it.  It was, luckily, my favorite monster, the Mummy.  But I wouldn’t have cared which monster I wound up with…  I just wanted one of them.  Somehow, I came up with enough money to buy it.  How, I’m not sure; I am sure that it was no mean feat on a dollar a week allowance.  How much I paid for the kit is a mystery; I doubt I could have told you the next morning the price of the model.  I had one, and that was all I cared about.

When I got home with my prize, I rushed to my room and opened the box.  The figure seemed huge compared to the kits I was used to building, though simple to assemble… a definite plus at that stage in my modeling experience.  I can’t recall much detail about the kit, other than the Mummy was undeniably Kharis.  I don’t remember what color plastic it was molded in, or how good the quality was.  I just remember the joy of building it.

I later added other monsters to the collection, as well as some of the MPC Pirates of the Caribbean and AMT/Ertl Star Trek kits.  There was a Tarzan along the way, as well as a Spock, a Batman, and others.  Eventually, Aurora folded, the monster kits went away, and I returned to the B-17G’s, M60A1’s, and Federation Starships that I loved.

Now, some thirty-seven years later, those Aurora monsters are hot collector’s items, going for thirty to fifty dollars, unbuilt.  Companies such as Polar Lights have issued their own versions of those kits, and high-quality resin and vinyl monster kits abound.  These kits, especially the latter, are so far above the old Auroras in terms of quality and accuracy that comparing the two is akin to comparing a ’78 Ford Pinto to a brand-new Mercedes S-class.  I just wish I could afford them.

Yes, the new kits are better in terms of quality, better in terms of accuracy, better in terms of choice of subject matter.  The only thing they don’t do better is inspire joy and wonder in the mind of an eight-year-old boy.

Monster Toys and Ghoulish Goodies*

ARTICLE TITLE:          Monster Toys and Ghoulish Goodies^*

 

There are certain things that tend to remain with you from childhood, things that have the power to pull you back through the intervening years… the smell of bacon frying on a chilly Autumn morning that instantly wakes you up; the whistle of the feedback that would come from my dad’s hearing aid when the earpiece wasn’t adjusted just right; the sight of a Christmas tree surrounded by kids, and heaped high with gifts.  These are just some of the touchstones of my childhood, things that remind me of who I am and where I come from.

Other anchors to my past are more idiosyncratic:  rushing home from school to watch Dark Shadows and Star Trek in the afternoon, or fighting to stay up all night, just to see if I could.  My comic books and my monster mags.  My models, and my baseball and football cards.  But few things define a kid as clearly as the toys he plays with, or those he wishes he had; and few memories of childhood are sharper.

My personal taste in toys was similar to my tastes in entertainment.  I had a G.I. Joe of course, the real one, not the 3¼-inch rip-offs of the ‘80s.  He had a fully equipped foot-locker, including an astronaut’s space-suit, a deep-sea diving suit, and various combat fatigues.  He could also boast more firepower than the 2^nd Marine Division, with everything from a Colt .45, to a flame-thrower, to an M-16.  He led a veritable regiment of toy soldiers, of every conceivable size, shape, and shade of plastic.

There were dozens of toy airplanes, ranging from tiny little plastic ones intended as party favors, to one massive cast-iron Tonka plane my older sister gave me, that now would be regarded as a lawsuit waiting to happen.  It had folding wings that pinched me constantly, working landing gear that did the same, and weighed at least 2 lbs.  I’m sure that today it would be classified as a deadly weapon in most states.  Nor was the Navy neglected, as one of my favorite toys was a plastic Seaview submarine, from the TV show Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

But in the end, I was a child of the Ackermonster, and the toys that really stood out were the Monster and Sci-Fi toys that I owned.  Star Trek was my first love, and it was well represented in my toybox.  I had all the 8-inch Mego figures, along with the U.S.S. Enterprise Bridge playset… with working transporter, no less!  At one point or another I built every Star Trek kit AMT/Ertl put out… multiples of the U.S.S. Enterprise, as they were thoughtful enough to provide decals for every Constitution-Class starship in the fleet; the 1:1 scale Phaser, Tricorder, and Communicator set; the Klingon and Romulan ships… let’s just say a significant portion of my allowance went to that company.

The monsters certainly weren’t neglected, either.  I had toy Draculas, Frankenstein’s Monsters, Mummies… the entire Universal pantheon was well represented, as was Toho’s stable of Kaijû.  Most of these were, in retrospect, probably cheap, unlicensed knock-off’s… but that mattered not at all to a young MonsterKid who just wanted to play with his beloved monsters.  Fortunately, I was born in a time when such toys cost at most a dollar or two.  The situation isn’t so good for aspiring MonsterKids today.

As dedicated Monster collectors will attest, there is no shortage of Horror collectibles on the market today, and most of them are truly superb in terms of quality and faithfulness to their subject.  Sideshow Toys, the 800-lb. Gorilla of the Horror collectible world, leads the way in this, with dozens of beautifully sculpted figures and busts, capturing virtually all of Universal’s Monster characters, and many more modern horrors as well.  Meca and Hawthorne Village are also producing Horror collectibles; just as attractive, and just as high quality.

The one drawback to all of this?  Price.

The 12-inch Sideshow figure of Lugosi as Dracula, in the box, can cost several hundred dollars, as will the Karloff Monster, or Karloff as Im-Ho-Tep.  The complete Hawthorne Village Universal Horror town collection would represent an investment of more than a thousand dollars.  Prices for these Horror collectibles are steadily climbing, with no sign yet of softness in the market.  Yet for all their beauty and quality, they fail to fufill their prime function as toys… to be played with.

For all the Horror merchandise out there, there’s precious little that you’d let your seven- or eight-year old MonsterKid rip into in a sheer, unadulterated frenzy of childish glee.  Let’s face it, when you pay $300 for a Sideshow figure, you aren’t likely to even take it out of the box, much less hand it off to a sticky-fingered rug-monkey who ten minutes before was burying his little sister’s Malibu Barbie® in mud.  And that’s the real sadness of this.

Unless you are in your ‘80’s, you aren’t likely to have fallen in love with the classic Monsters in a movie theater.  If, like me, you’re a Baby-Boomer, then your first exposure to Karloff as the Monster, or Chaney as the Phantom, was on TV… as some middle-aged guy in monster make-up cracked bad jokes in-between segments of the movies.  Your love was fed and encouraged in the pages of Famous Monsters, and Fantastic Monsters, and Tales from the Crypt.  And it found expression in the models we built, and the 8mm monster-movies we made, and the toys with which we played.

Well, with few exceptions, infomercials have crowded out the time-slots that used to be devoted to the Horror-Hosts.  Famous Monsters is long gone, replaced by a pale, bastardized imitation.  And the models and toys of our youth have been replaced by $150 high-tech resin kits and $500 sculpted busts.

As the horror industry constantly chases their next dollar, skewing the market towards the older collectors, those who can afford to pay a few hundred dollars a pop for a collectible and have no desire to actually touch their acquisitions, perhaps they should be more concerned about where the next generation of fans will come from.

I have three Sideshow figures.  They aren’t in their boxes, and they are routinely handled.  They may not be worth $300… they may not even be worth what I paid for them.  But the joy they’ve given me has nothing to do with dollar signs or condition grades.

It’s a shame our kids can’t know that kind of joy.

---

*    From an idea suggested by fellow CreatureScape contributor Elizabeth Haney—with thanks, JPS

Aurora’s Monster Models

As many devoted Horror fans also enjoy building model kits of their favorite monsters, most are well aware that Modeling is not an inexpensive hobby.  At a bare minimum, a decent resin kit from a reputable company will run 50-60 dollars, and the average would be well over $100.  Add in tools, paints, and time, and we could easily spend thousands on this hobby we love.

But that wasn’t always the case.  When I started building models, resin and vinyl kits were virtually non-existent.  Airbrushes and moto-tools were unimagined luxuries, glue came in red and white tubes and paints came in little square bottles with “Testor’s” on the cap.  My first kit was ancient even in 1972…  Monogram’s 1/72 scale Curtiss P-36 Hawk.  I doubt that I paid more than 75¢ for it, and the finished product was hardly worth bragging about.  But I was instantly hooked on a hobby that I still enjoy 38 years later.

In those days I built everything and anything… from the crappy Hawk box-scale airplanes, to Monogram TBF Avengers with a torpedo that actually dropped from the bomb bay, to Aurora’s Russian Golf-class Missile Submarine.  I even tried my hand at the Visible Eye… and wound up with something not even Lasik could save.  But given my natural affinity for the monsters, it was only a matter of time before I found the fantastic Monster kits from Aurora.

Anyone who was a regular reader of Famous Monsters in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s will remember the ads for these kits…  Dracula and Frankenstein, the Wolf-Man and the Mummy, the skeletal Prisoner chained to the section of dungeon wall, even a scraggly-toothed, wart-nosed witch, hard at work stirring a bubbling cauldron.  Famous Monsters #59, November 1969, lists several of the monster kits in the Glow-in-the-Dark style for the princely sum of $1.49… quite a bit of money when you consider that you could get a perfectly good airplane or car kit for half that.

But the monsters of Aurora were hard to ignore, and, as soon as I saw one for sale at my neighborhood Pic-n-Save, I had to have it.  It was, luckily, my favorite monster, the Mummy.  But I wouldn’t have cared which monster I wound up with…  I just wanted one of them.  Somehow, I came up with enough money to buy it.  How, I’m not sure; I am sure that it was no mean feat on a dollar a week allowance.  How much I paid for the kit is a mystery; I doubt I could have told you the next morning the price of the model.  I had one, and that was all I cared about.

When I got home with my prize, I rushed to my room and opened the box.  The figure seemed huge compared to the kits I was used to building, though simple to assemble… a definite plus at that stage in my modeling experience.  I can’t recall much detail about the kit, other than the Mummy was undeniably Kharis.  I don’t remember what color plastic it was molded in, or how good the quality was.  I just remember the joy of building it.

I later added other monsters to the collection, as well as some of the MPC Pirates of the Caribbean and AMT/Ertl Star Trek kits.  There was a Tarzan along the way, as well as a Spock, a Batman, and others.  Eventually, Aurora folded, the monster kits went away, and I returned to the B-17G’s, M60A1’s, and Federation Starships that I loved.

Now, some thirty-eight years later, those Aurora monsters are hot collector’s items, going for thirty to fifty dollars, unbuilt.  Companies such as Polar Lights have issued their own versions of those kits, and high-quality resin and vinyl monster kits abound.  These kits, especially the latter, are so far above the old Auroras in terms of quality and accuracy that comparing the two is akin to comparing a ’78 Ford Pinto to a brand-new Mercedes S-class.  I just wish I could afford them.

Yes, the new kits are better in terms of quality, better in terms of accuracy, better in terms of choice of subject matter.  The only thing they don’t do better is inspire joy and wonder in the mind of an eight-year-old boy.

Monster Toys and Ghoulish Goodies

There are certain things that tend to remain with you from childhood, things that have the power to pull you back through the intervening years… the smell of bacon frying on a chilly Autumn morning that instantly wakes you up; the whistle of the feedback that would come from my dad’s hearing aid when the earpiece wasn’t adjusted just right; the sight of a Christmas tree surrounded by kids, and heaped high with gifts. These are just some of the touchstones of my childhood, things that remind me of who I am and where I come from.

Other anchors to my past are more idiosyncratic: rushing home from school to watch Dark Shadows and Star Trek in the afternoon, or fighting to stay up all night, just to see if I could. My comic books and my monster mags. My models, and my baseball and football cards. But few things define a kid as clearly as the toys he plays with, or those he wishes he had; and few memories of childhood are sharper.

My personal taste in toys was similar to my tastes in entertainment. I had a G.I. Joe of course, the real one, not the 3¼-inch rip-offs of the ‘80s. He had a fully equipped foot-locker, including an astronaut’s space-suit, a deep-sea diving suit, and various combat fatigues. He could also boast more firepower than the 2nd Marine Division, with everything from a Colt .45, to a flame-thrower, to an M-16. He led a veritable regiment of toy soldiers, of every conceivable size, shape, and shade of plastic.

There were dozens of toy airplanes, ranging from tiny little plastic ones intended as party favors, to one massive cast-iron Tonka plane my older sister gave me, that now would be regarded as a lawsuit waiting to happen. It had folding wings that pinched me constantly, working landing gear that did the same, and weighed at least 2 lbs. I’m sure that today it would be classified as a deadly weapon in most states. Nor was the Navy neglected, as one of my favorite toys was a plastic Seaview submarine, from the TV show Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.

But in the end, I was a child of the Ackermonster, and the toys that really stood out were the Monster and Sci-Fi toys that I owned. Star Trek was my first love, and it was well represented in my toybox. I had all the 8-inch Mego figures, along with the U.S.S. Enterprise Bridge playset… with working transporter, no less! At one point or another I built every Star Trek kit AMT/Ertl put out… multiples of the U.S.S. Enterprise, as they were thoughtful enough to provide decals for every Constitution-Class starship in the fleet; the 1:1 scale Phaser, Tricorder, and Communicator set; the Klingon and Romulan ships… let’s just say a significant portion of my allowance went to that company.

The monsters certainly weren’t neglected, either. I had toy Draculas, Frankenstein’s Monsters, Mummies… the entire Universal pantheon was well represented, as was Toho’s stable of Kaijû. Most of these were, in retrospect, probably cheap, unlicensed knock-off’s… but that mattered not at all to a young MonsterKid who just wanted to play with his beloved monsters. Fortunately, I was born in a time when such toys cost at most a dollar or two. The situation isn’t so good for aspiring MonsterKids today.

As dedicated Monster collectors will attest, there is no shortage of Horror collectibles on the market today, and most of them are truly superb in terms of quality and faithfulness to their subject. Sideshow Toys, the 800-lb. Gorilla of the Horror collectible world, leads the way in this, with dozens of beautifully sculpted figures and busts, capturing virtually all of Universal’s Monster characters, and many more modern horrors as well. Meca and Hawthorne Village are also producing Horror collectibles; just as attractive, and just as high quality.

The one drawback to all of this? Price.

The 12-inch Sideshow figure of Lugosi as Dracula, in the box, can cost several hundred dollars, as will the Karloff Monster, or Karloff as Im-Ho-Tep. The complete Hawthorne Village Universal Horror town collection would represent an investment of more than a thousand dollars. Prices for these Horror collectibles are steadily climbing, with no sign yet of softness in the market. Yet for all their beauty and quality, they fail to fufill their prime function as toys… to be played with.
For all the Horror merchandise out there, there’s precious little that you’d let your seven- or eight-year old MonsterKid rip into in a sheer, unadulterated frenzy of childish glee. Let’s face it, when you pay $300 for a Sideshow figure, you aren’t likely to even take it out of the box, much less hand it off to a sticky-fingered rug-monkey who ten minutes before was burying his little sister’s Malibu Barbie® in mud. And that’s the real sadness of this.

Unless you are in your ‘80’s, you aren’t likely to have fallen in love with the classic Monsters in a movie theater. If, like me, you’re a Baby-Boomer, then your first exposure to Karloff as the Monster, or Chaney as the Phantom, was on TV… as some middle-aged guy in monster make-up cracked bad jokes in-between segments of the movies. Your love was fed and encouraged in the pages of Famous Monsters, and Fantastic Monsters, and Tales from the Crypt. And it found expression in the models we built, and the 8mm monster-movies we made, and the toys with which we played.

Well, with few exceptions, infomercials have crowded out the time-slots that used to be devoted to the Horror-Hosts. Famous Monsters is long gone, replaced by a pale, bastardized imitation. And the models and toys of our youth have been replaced by $150 high-tech resin kits and $500 sculpted busts.

As the horror industry constantly chases their next dollar, skewing the market towards the older collectors, those who can afford to pay a few hundred dollars a pop for a collectible and have no desire to actually touch their acquisitions, perhaps they should be more concerned about where the next generation of fans will come from.

I have three Sideshow figures. They aren’t in their boxes, and they are routinely handled. They may not be worth $300… they may not even be worth what I paid for them. But the joy they’ve given me has nothing to do with dollar signs or condition grades.

It’s a shame our kids can’t know that kind of joy.

Aurora’s Monster Models

As many devoted Horror fans also enjoy building model kits of their favorite monsters, most are well aware that Modeling is not an inexpensive hobby. At a bare minimum, a decent resin kit from a reputable company will run 50-60 dollars, and the average would be well over $100. Add in tools, paints, and time, and we could easily spend thousands on this hobby we love.

But that wasn’t always the case. When I started building models, resin and vinyl kits were virtually non-existent. Airbrushes and moto-tools were unimagined luxuries, glue came in red and white tubes and paints came in little square bottles with “Testor’s” on the cap. My first kit was ancient even in 1972… Monogram’s 1/72 scale Curtiss P-36 Hawk. I doubt that I paid more than 75¢ for it, and the finished product was hardly worth bragging about. But I was instantly hooked on a hobby that I still enjoy 37 years later.

In those days I built everything and anything… from the crappy Hawk box-scale airplanes, to Monogram TBF Avengers with a torpedo that actually dropped from the bomb bay, to Aurora’s Russian Golf-class Missile Submarine. I even tried my hand at the Visible Eye… and wound up with something not even Lasik could save. But given my natural affinity for the monsters, it was only a matter of time before I found the fantastic Monster kits from Aurora.

Anyone who was a regular reader of Famous Monsters in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s will remember the ads for these kits… Dracula and Frankenstein, the Wolf-Man and the Mummy, the skeletal Prisoner chained to the section of dungeon wall, even a scraggly-toothed, wart-nosed witch, hard at work stirring a bubbling cauldron. Famous Monsters #59, November 1969, lists several of the monster kits in the Glow-in-the-Dark style for the princely sum of $1.49… quite a bit of money when you consider that you could get a perfectly good airplane or car kit for half that.

But the monsters of Aurora were hard to ignore, and, as soon as I saw one for sale at my neighborhood Pic-n-Save, I had to have it. It was, luckily, my favorite monster, the Mummy. But I wouldn’t have cared which monster I wound up with… I just wanted one of them. Somehow, I came up with enough money to buy it. How, I’m not sure; I am sure that it was no mean feat on a dollar a week allowance. How much I paid for the kit is a mystery; I doubt I could have told you the next morning the price of the model. I had one, and that was all I cared about.

When I got home with my prize, I rushed to my room and opened the box. The figure seemed huge compared to the kits I was used to building, though simple to assemble… a definite plus at that stage in my modeling experience. I can’t recall much detail about the kit, other than the Mummy was undeniably Kharis. I don’t remember what color plastic it was molded in, or how good the quality was. I just remember the joy of building it.

I later added other monsters to the collection, as well as some of the MPC Pirates of the Caribbean and AMT/Ertl Star Trek kits. There was a Tarzan along the way, as well as a Spock, a Batman, and others. Eventually, Aurora folded, the monster kits went away, and I returned to the B-17G’s, M60A1’s, and Federation Starships that I loved.

Now, some thirty-seven years later, those Aurora monsters are hot collector’s items, going for thirty to fifty dollars, unbuilt. Companies such as Polar Lights have issued their own versions of those kits, and high-quality resin and vinyl monster kits abound. These kits, especially the latter, are so far above the old Auroras in terms of quality and accuracy that comparing the two is akin to comparing a ’78 Ford Pinto to a brand-new Mercedes S-class. I just wish I could afford them.

Yes, the new kits are better in terms of quality, better in terms of accuracy, better in terms of choice of subject matter. The only thing they don’t do better is inspire joy and wonder in the mind of an eight-year-old boy.

Aurora’s Monster Models

As many devoted Horror fans also enjoy building model kits of their favorite monsters, most are well aware that Modeling is not an inexpensive hobby. At a bare minimum, a decent resin kit from a reputable company will run 50-60 dollars, and the average would be well over $100. Add in tools, paints, and time, and we could easily spend thousands on this hobby we love.

But that wasn’t always the case. When I started building models, resin and vinyl kits were virtually non-existent. Airbrushes and moto-tools were unimagined luxuries, glue came in red and white tubes and paints came in little square bottles with “Testor’s” on the cap. My first kit was ancient even in 1972… Monogram’s 1/72 scale Curtiss P-36 Hawk. I doubt that I paid more than 75¢ for it, and the finished product was hardly worth bragging about. But I was instantly hooked on a hobby that I still enjoy 37 years later.

In those days I built everything and anything… from the crappy Hawk box-scale airplanes, to Monogram TBF Avengers with a torpedo that actually dropped from the bomb bay, to Aurora’s Russian Golf-class Missile Submarine. I even tried my hand at the Visible Eye… and wound up with something not even Lasik could save. But given my natural affinity for the monsters, it was only a matter of time before I found the fantastic Monster kits from Aurora.

Anyone who was a regular reader of Famous Monsters in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s will remember the ads for these kits… Dracula and Frankenstein, the Wolf-Man and the Mummy, the skeletal Prisoner chained to the section of dungeon wall, even a scraggly-toothed, wart-nosed witch, hard at work stirring a bubbling cauldron. Famous Monsters #59, November 1969, lists several of the monster kits in the Glow-in-the-Dark style for the princely sum of $1.49… quite a bit of money when you consider that you could get a perfectly good airplane or car kit for half that.

But the monsters of Aurora were hard to ignore, and, as soon as I saw one for sale at my neighborhood Pic-n-Save, I had to have it. It was, luckily, my favorite monster, the Mummy. But I wouldn’t have cared which monster I wound up with… I just wanted one of them. Somehow, I came up with enough money to buy it. How, I’m not sure; I am sure that it was no mean feat on a dollar a week allowance. How much I paid for the kit is a mystery; I doubt I could have told you the next morning the price of the model. I had one, and that was all I cared about.

When I got home with my prize, I rushed to my room and opened the box. The figure seemed huge compared to the kits I was used to building, though simple to assemble… a definite plus at that stage in my modeling experience. I can’t recall much detail about the kit, other than the Mummy was undeniably Kharis. I don’t remember what color plastic it was molded in, or how good the quality was. I just remember the joy of building it.

I later added other monsters to the collection, as well as some of the MPC Pirates of the Caribbean and AMT/Ertl Star Trek kits. There was a Tarzan along the way, as well as a Spock, a Batman, and others. Eventually, Aurora folded, the monster kits went away, and I returned to the B-17G’s, M60A1’s, and Federation Starships that I loved.

Now, some thirty-seven years later, those Aurora monsters are hot collector’s items, going for thirty to fifty dollars, unbuilt. Companies such as Polar Lights have issued their own versions of those kits, and high-quality resin and vinyl monster kits abound. These kits, especially the latter, are so far above the old Auroras in terms of quality and accuracy that comparing the two is akin to comparing a ’78 Ford Pinto to a brand-new Mercedes S-class. I just wish I could afford them.

Yes, the new kits are better in terms of quality, better in terms of accuracy, better in terms of choice of subject matter. The only thing they don’t do better is inspire joy and wonder in the mind of an eight-year-old boy.