{"id":4714,"date":"2011-10-17T11:35:01","date_gmt":"2011-10-17T16:35:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/?p=4714"},"modified":"2019-11-25T21:00:15","modified_gmt":"2019-11-26T02:00:15","slug":"vampire-blood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2011\/10\/17\/vampire-blood\/","title":{"rendered":"Vampire Blood!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>This was sort of a forbidden fruit for kids growing up in the early 1970s.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Dr.<\/a>Much like the poisoned Halloween candy stories<\/a> that have been circulating for decades, I remember a story going around that there was something wrong with the practical joke\/prank product aimed at kids known as Vampire Blood.<\/strong> It was either tainted or meant only for external use and kids were swallowing it with allegedly catastrophic results. I seem to recall that Philadelphia horror movie host and broadcast legend Dr. Shock<\/strong><\/a> stepped out of character to issue a dire warning about the dangers of the little vials of fake blood being sold. I tried looking it up on the internet, but I couldn’t really find anything about the story. Whether the story was true or not, it was all the evidence a Mom would need to ban the product for life. It may as well have been radioactive in their minds. Wanted to be Christopher Lee for Halloween complete with dripping blood? Sorry.<\/em> You’d have to settle on Bela Lugosi!<\/p>\n

Below is the full ad which promises that it’s safe to put Vampire Blood<\/strong> at the corners of your mouth:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Nope. Mom wasn’t having it! Besides, you should be ashamed of yourself for trying to elicit sympathy from unsuspecting Good Samaritans!
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

The Vampire Blood ad appeared in The Many Ghosts of Doctor Graves<\/strong><\/em> No. 32 published by Charlton Comics in 1972. I probably bought it for the wonderfully colored cover.
\n\"Many<\/a>The comic was a horror anthology and featured three stories the middle of which was by the Amazing Steve Ditko<\/strong> and was titled The Borgia Stone!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>It was the story about an antique ring which granted the wearer strange and sinister powers. When I was perusing the comic I was astonished to find this panel that somehow slipped by the censors at the Comics Code Authority.<\/p>\n

\"Steve<\/a>Years later, I found and purchased a tube of lifelike Vampire Blood<\/strong>, and I’m sad to say, that it wouldn’t fool anybody. It sort of looks like magenta ink and was fairly runny. Oh, well<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This was sort of a forbidden fruit for kids growing up in the early 1970s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[335],"tags":[233,595,359,902,329,312,9,898,901,3668,76,43,23,3669,900,839,899,897,336,903],"class_list":["post-4714","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-what-i-miss-about-comics","tag-1970s","tag-595","tag-ad","tag-bat","tag-charlton","tag-comic","tag-comics","tag-dr-shock","tag-gag","tag-halloween","tag-horror","tag-humor","tag-monster","tag-philadelphia","tag-prank","tag-steve-ditko","tag-the-many-ghosts-of-doctor-graves","tag-vampire-blood","tag-vintage","tag-wphl"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1ed1x-1e2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":42249,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2024\/01\/04\/you-cant-keep-a-good-vampire-down\/","url_meta":{"origin":4714,"position":0},"title":"You Can’t Keep a Good Vampire Down","author":"Joe","date":"January 4, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"Although the TV series ended in 1971, vampire Barnabas Collins continued to haunt the comic book racks of newsstands and convenience stores well into the 1970s. The comic above was published by Gold Key in 1974 -- 50 years ago! If I had seen the cover of werewolf Quentin battling\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "What I Miss About Comics"","block_context":{"text":"What I Miss About Comics","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/what-i-miss-about-comics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Dark Shadows","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53441202637_ab28b4462c_c.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53441202637_ab28b4462c_c.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/53441202637_ab28b4462c_c.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":39189,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2022\/10\/05\/flying-a-kite-at-night\/","url_meta":{"origin":4714,"position":1},"title":"Flying a Kite at Night?","author":"Joe","date":"October 5, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"I was flipping through an old comic when I came across this advertisement which made me think of the truly terrible 1979 version of Dracula starring Frank Langella as the count and Laurence Olivier recycling his awful accent from A Little Romance as Van Helsing. What reminds me of this\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Halloween"","block_context":{"text":"Halloween","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/halloween\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/dracula-kite-1979.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/dracula-kite-1979.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/dracula-kite-1979.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":15749,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2014\/03\/05\/your-very-own-vampire-bat\/","url_meta":{"origin":4714,"position":2},"title":"Your Very Own Vampire Bat","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"March 5, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"He's BIG! He's FEARSOME! But best of all -- he's fun? Who didn't want a plastic vampire bat as a kid? Nobody, that's who. I never remember ever seeing Gre-Gory, The Big, Bad Vampire Bat \u00a0on the shelves of toy stores, and this was from Mattel! I was a weird\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "What I Miss About Comics"","block_context":{"text":"What I Miss About Comics","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/what-i-miss-about-comics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/03\/Th0r-298-1980.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":3819,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2011\/10\/10\/comics-jewelry-full-dirt\/","url_meta":{"origin":4714,"position":3},"title":"Wear the Dirt of Dracula!","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"October 10, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Not just any dirt! No! This tiny coffin shaped charm contains one gram of actual earth from the grounds of Castle Dracula in Transylvania. It comes with a Certificate of Authenticity GUARANTEEING you that the dirt is real and it's really from Romania. I often wondered how they got the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "What I Miss About Comics"","block_context":{"text":"What I Miss About Comics","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/what-i-miss-about-comics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/creepy-cover.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/creepy-cover.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/creepy-cover.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11233,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2013\/01\/07\/slurpee-cups-from-the-1970s\/","url_meta":{"origin":4714,"position":4},"title":"Slurpee Cups from the 1970s","author":"Joe_Williams","date":"January 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"These collectible Slurpee cups come from the era of flared jeans, Earth Shoes and leaded gasoline. This is back before the internet, home video, video games and other fabulous electrified time-wasters. Only three broadcast networks and a handful of UHF channels broadcasting reruns were available at the time. Fantasy fiends\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Curious Clutter"","block_context":{"text":"Curious Clutter","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/curious-clutter\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/Thing.jpg?fit=425%2C691&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":40675,"url":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/2023\/05\/28\/there-may-be-opportunity-what-i-miss-about-comics\/","url_meta":{"origin":4714,"position":5},"title":"There may be OPPORTUNITY \u2022 What I Miss About Comics","author":"Joe","date":"May 28, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"I was never a fan of poetry so I can't imagine soliciting the amateur efforts of scribes across the continental United States and Canada. Somebody at the mail drop was going to have to read these submissions whether they were typewritten or scrawled by hand in pencil, ink or crayon.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blast from the Past"","block_context":{"text":"Blast from the Past","link":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/category\/blast-from-the-past\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/poems-wanted.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/poems-wanted.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/poems-wanted.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4714\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/willceau.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}