Go, Wolfman, Go!

So I've loved monsters since I was a kid.  I was also a total chickenshit growing up.
No, seriously.  You wouldn't think that a person who is obsessed with sharks and skulls and ghosts and such would have been a total coward in his youth but I was, so there.
Be that as it may, a show from my youth called the Electric Company had a few segments in its run with a Frankenstein monster, a Dracula-esque vampire (played by Morgan Freeman) and a wolfman, "Call me, Manny".
I loved those guys.
Then came the Saturday afternoon monster movies on my local channel and my young (7?  8?) self was instantly enamored with the Wolfman.

LEGO Wolfman...cute and deadly all in one tiny package!

Ah, Larry Talbot, the cursed Wolfman.  Here was my instant favorite monster.  That mute dolt with the bolts through his neck?  Easily foiled.  That ponce in the opera cloak?  Old man who menaces silly girls.  But the Wolfman?  Now there is a monster, friends!  Even at that young age I knew, with absolute faith, that the Wolfman could take them all, in a fight, if it came to it.
I was never scared of the Wolfman.  Oh no.  I took great glee in watching the Wolfman menace victims, stalking moors and killing.  When he met Frankenstein (or the monster of, to be correct) I knew whose corner I was in from the start.

Go, Wolfman, Go...choke that stupid flat-headed spaz!
(Whole damn film just for a 4 minute fight scene...but oh is it worth it)
Those Remco monster toys?  I had a shit-ton of those and my favorite two were Wolfman and the Creature From the Black Lagoon. (And we all know how I feel about the Gillman).
So apparently from a young age I dug on monsters, but I didn't know it.  I had a t-shirt with a Frankenstein-like monster on it when I was 5.
I was convinced that Godzilla was King of the Monsters.
And still I was a total coward.
Hated spooky things.
I guess Wolfman was like a friend to me or something.  I realize that I was really afraid of ghosts and psycho killers, when I look back on it.  Monsters and the like were always friendly to my mind.  Psychos and ghosts scared the Hell out of me until I was about 15.  Late bloomer there.

Very Angry Werewolf by Papo (a company I've reviewed in the past).

I'm convinced everything is better with werewolves in.  Marvel did that whole zombies thing a few years back and that shit just got out of hand, but who can forget when Captain America was turned into a werewolf?  Or Werewolf By Night, which ran for 43 issues in its first incarnation.  Love me some Wolfman.

And still today I can't help but smile as I remember the childish glee of watching my monster hero stalk the misty moors of Britain and like Bill Cosby (Go, chickenheart, go get 'em) in his classic routine, I say, "Go, Wolfman, go get 'em!"