What kaiju was the rust monster based off of?

[MNblockhead]

DM David posted an interesting article on his blog today that discusses the origins and inspirations for many of D&D's iconic monsters. A number of them seem to have been inspired by some knock-off toys of Japanese kaiju, sold in US dime stores at the time as "prehistoric animals."

I think the owlbear connection is clear, but the rust monster is especially obvious.

What is interesting is that the author was unable to trace the toy that inspired the rust monster back to an actual kaiju from Japanese media.

I figure that there is a pretty good chance for this site to have members who are also tokusatsu film fans and may be able to point out an obscure kaiju that is similar in appearance to the rust monster.

DM David cites and a great post by Tony DiTerlizzi, which goes into detail on the bulette, owlbear, and rust monster, with pictures of the vintage toys that inspired them.

I wonder if anyone ever reached out to Fishel Toys (康豪有限公司) or Jerry Fishel or Peter Fishel. I expect that if these toys were "inspired" by Japanese kaiju, the company would not have been very interested in discussing the sources the toys were modeled from. The company, however, dissolved in January 2015, so perhaps someone who worked there in 1979 and 80 could shed some light on this.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

For some additional context (via Mother Wikiperdia, PRAISE BE):

Although he was able to draw on pulp fiction and sword and sorcery stories for many of them, he also looked through dime stores for figurines that could be used in battle. On one of those occasions, he came across a bag of small plastic toys euphemistically labeled "prehistoric animals". These were Hong Kong-made and the set included monsters from Japanese "Kaiju" films such as Ultraman and Godzilla franchise. Several of these were odd enough to catch his eye, and he used them to represent several new monsters, including the bulette and the owl bear. One of the figurines looked like an absurd lobster with a propeller at the end of its tail, and Gygax could think of no fearsome powers for such a monster. After some thought, he came up with the amusing idea that this non-lethal creature would not attack characters in order to eat them, but rather to eat their hard-earned possessions.

When I picked up a bag of plastic monsters made in Hong Kong at the local dime store to add to the sand table array ... there was the figurine that looked rather like a lobster with a propeller on its tail...nothing very fearsome came to mind... Then inspiration struck me. It was a "rust monster."

—Gary Gygax

..which suggests there was some kinda toy out there, which could have been the inspiration.

EDIT: Using my awesome Google-Fu (search terms: Kaiju lobster) I'm putting money on Ebirah as the inspiration.
https://wikizilla.org/wiki/Ebirah


Rust Monster



Ebirah

 

[jasper]

I use to have that monster set. Grr some relatives kids and pets destroyed them.

 

[dave2008]

I 2nd Ebirah for the inspiration. It is the only Godzilla-verse monster that comes close. However, their were lots of other kaiju series that I am much less familiar with (I'm looking at you Ultraman)

 

[Lord Mhoram]

I use to have that monster set. Grr some relatives kids and pets destroyed them.

I still have my Rust Monster and Bullette

 

[MNblockhead]

Ebirah isn't satisfying to me. They could have just made a lobster toy and not have worried about IP.

Also, some of the other others seem to be rip-offs of Ultraman monsters. So I would start by looking at Ultraman Kaiju.

Some other possibilities:

Kemular

http://ultra.wikia.com/wiki/Ultra_Monster_Series/Gallery?file=Kemular_toys.jpg

Missing the tentacles/antennae but look at the tail, and it has four legs. But when you look at the pictures from the TV show, it looks like a bulette with beetle wings.

http://ultra.wikia.com/wiki/Kemular

As for other similarities, Kemular's the main attack was spraying a "sulfuric mist." Sulfuric acid "attacks reactive metals (metals at positions above copper in the reactivity series) such as iron, aluminium, zinc, manganese, magnesium and nickel." (Wikipedia: Sulfuric Acid) Also, if you read the trivia section, at least one of the original features could make it more rust monsterous: "Originally, Kemular's mouth was to open horizontally like that of an insect's mandibles."

Perhaps toy makers were going on any earlier description? do they start making the toys before the creatures appear on TV? See the concept art:

Some other options (not very likely, I'm stretching here):

Twin Tails

http://ultra.wikia.com/wiki/Ultra_Monster_Series/Gallery?file=Twin_tail_toys.jpg

Mogrudon

http://ultra.wikia.com/wiki/Mogrudon

Crabgan

http://ultra.wikia.com/wiki/Crabgan

Yadokarin

http://ultra.wikia.com/wiki/Yadokarin


Then again, maybe it wasn't based on only Japanese monsters. Lots of western monster movies had "prehistoric animals" including giant-insects. For example, see the giant mole cricket in King Dinosaur (1955): http://kaiju.wikidot.com/wiki:mole-cricket. Here it is in the movie: https://youtu.be/81rfhN4TRFk?t=3368

But, probably, someone at the toy company just came up with some random made-up "prehistoric creature" design. But, hey, this is fun.

 

[Slit518]

I was born in 1985 and had the toys in that article! The memories! I forgot I even had those until I saw their picture in that article, and it sparked my memories.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As I recall, the rust monster was inspired by a Japanese toy, and a relatively cheap one at that. It would not be outside the realm of possibility that the exact toy that caught Gygax’s toy was NOT inspired by a particular Kaiju, but rather, was another company’s knockoff of a legitimate, licensed Kaiju-inspired toy.

For instance, while this looks familiar, it clearly isn’t Godzilla...

 

[Slit518]

As I recall, the rust monster was inspired by a Japanese toy, and a relatively cheap one at that. It would not be outside the realm of possibility that the exact toy that caught Gygax’s toy was NOT inspired by a particular Kaiju, but rather, was another company’s knockoff of a legitimate, licensed Kaiju-inspired toy.

For instance, while this looks familiar, it clearly isn’t Godzilla...
View attachment 96068

That looks like something you could get at the Dollar Store or CVS in the toy section back in the early 90's.

 

[Gardens & Goblins]

As I recall, the rust monster was inspired by a Japanese toy, and a relatively cheap one at that. It would not be outside the realm of possibility that the exact toy that caught Gygax’s toy was NOT inspired by a particular Kaiju, but rather, was another company’s knockoff of a legitimate, licensed Kaiju-inspired toy.

Aye, I agree, we're probably looking at a cheap knock-off rather than a 1-to-1, genuine article, fully licensed toy.