Take a look at this design from artist Craig Skaggs. He’s been working for the Bradford Exchange for a dozen or so years now, and this is one of the projects he submitted to them instead of the other way around, where someone from the company approaches him to design a product. Skagg’s idea was for a castle, wherein each room depicts a scene from a famous Monster movie. There’d be a Frankenstein room, and one for his Bride; a Dracula room; one for the Wolf-Man; a diorama depicting the Invisible Man; and one with the Phantom of the Opera seated at his organ; the Mummy coming out of his sarcophagus; and the Creature from the Black Lagoon in a subterranean setting. If you’re a Monster mark like I am, the thought of this makes you positively giddy.
I don’t know how large the finished castle would be, or how much it would cost, since the Bradford Exchange chose not to move forward with the project. I know, I know, what were they thinking? If ever a product was sure to sell, has a built-in consumer base, it’s this Monster castle. There are an awful lot of us Universal Monsters fans out there—out here—and we’ve got money we can’t afford to designate as disposable income that we would nevertheless be willing to part with. Hey, Bradford Exchange peeps, maybe you should reconsider greenlighting this one!