Who Better To Sell Monster Vitamins Than Vincent Price?

Friends, as I have mentioned numerous times in my old articles on the Retroist, in episodes of the Saturday Frights podcast and even on this site – by the age of three I was already a monster kid. Staying up past midnight to watch 1931’s Frankenstein or obtaining the glow in the dark poster for The Wolf Man from my box of Sugar Crisps at that age – it just implanted an everlasting love of monsters and horror in general. Here is another fun fact about my childhood, I was not the healthiest kid and very quickly I was prescribed vitamins to help me become stronger. I knew of Monster Vitamins – which were produced by the Bristol-Myers Company back in the 70s – their colorful monster characters most definitely appealed to me. Upon trying to find a little more information on the Monster Vitamins I stumbled upon the esteemed Todd Franklin’s Neato Coolville blog – in fact you need to be sure to check out his Instagram account – nearly every single day he is posting some nice retro photographs. On the Neato Coolville blog, I learned that the Monster Vitamins were only produced from 1972 until 1978 – I recall not being able to get them often due to the price – with our household’s limited income we were mostly forced to pick up the generic vitamins. But there were times when I was lucky enough to bring home either Monster Vitamins or The Flintstones versions – but being a monster kid I was already well acquainted with many of the films of Vincent Price thanks to the late, late show. And while I do love The Flintstones it is hard to deny that Vincent Price makes a much better spokesman than Fred and Barney, right?

What about you though, do you remember the allure of Monster Vitamins – or maybe seeing the iconic Vincent Price attempting to get Mothers to pick them up on television and magazine ads?