

A ludicrously-small in-ground swimming pool was just to the right of the walkway to the entrance. It was the size of a two-door sedan, and the only reason why I knew it was a pool and not a fountain was the security fence around its perimeter, on which were hung the motel’s swimming rules and hours. No running?!! There go my plans for a Chinese fire drill. It was evident that the motel’s owners installed the thing in an attempt to keep up with the competition. But it seemed to me that its Lilliputian size would only serve to accentuate the differences between the motel and every other accommodation in the area.

As I passed through the doors, I felt like Dorothy exiting her fallen home and stepping into Munchkinland. Before me stood a modern, carpeted hotel lobby, complete with a free-coffee urn opposite the marble reception desk. I was strangely disappointed. A part of me was looking forward to Aunt Bea’s homemade family dinner with peach cobbler for dessert that I would share with my fellow wayfarers at a single long table in the kitchen before lights-out.
The manufactured cheery tones of the Recepticon snapped me out of my reverie. In moments I was dropping my things in the room. And soon thereafter sitting in the North Hollywood office of the Vice President/General Manager of Shafton, Inc. Custom Costumes, David Janzow.
If memory serves—and believe me the service has been going downhill over the years—Janzow inherited the company from his father, its founder. Shafton, Inc. may not be a readily familiar name to most of you at home—I certainly hadn’t a clue who they were or what they did—but undoubtedly you, Faithful Bloglodytes, have encountered their product, perhaps even shaking hands with it!



Fortunately, Janzow belay the corporate starkness of his office. Where I expected Brooks Brothers, I instead was greeted with Structure (a hip, men’s clothier of the time. Please feel free to substitute with today’s cutting edge equivalent). Janzow sported a colorful, printed, button-down shirt, comfortable pants and shoes. His mien reminded me of the Laugh-In comedian Alan Sues, albeit not nearly as wacky, and quickly put me at ease.
Janzow acted as if I were a breath of fresh air compared to the corporate types with which he was most beset and took great interest in the San Diego Convention with which he was unfamiliar. I was a bit stunned at his admission of ignorance. Sure, the comic-book universe was my milieu and the con was not yet an internationally known annual spectacle of all things pop culture. But Janzow was in the business of building costumes of pop culture icons, and the show was awash with possible opportunities for Shafton, Inc. And it was virtually at his doorstep, a mere three-hour drive south.

His passion arose from the Universal Pictures’s monsters, those endearing title characters from the studio’s classic horror movies of the fifties, made famous by such actors as Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi and Lon Chaney (both Sr. and Jr.), i.e. The Mummy, Dracula, Wolfman, et al. Well, that explains the bisque figure of Mary Shelley’s famous bolt-necked creation.
And that wasn’t just a photo of someone in a Woody Woodpecker outfit. It was an example of Janzow’s work. Lo and behold, Shafton. Inc. was the creative house that designed and supplied the Universal Studios theme parks with their costumes of Walter Lantz cartoon characters, i.e. Woody Woodpecker, Andy Panda and Chilly Willy.
With the social niceties taken care of—though, truth be told, Janzow and I could have kibitzed the afternoon away—the costume creator led me to the factory part of the building wherein the magic was made. Janzow’s office was walled on one side by a large window which actually overlooked the floor. So the trip was a simple matter of descending a flight of stairs.

The room was well-lit, a soft glow from tiers of frosted windows that lined the upper reaches of the walls joined a bevy of fluorescent lamps that descended from the ceiling. A circuitous track from which were hung hundreds of completed and as-yet-unfinished costumes—each with a protective clear plastic garment bag—traversed the upper reaches of the space, at times moving as workers needed to access particular pieces, like the bedroom doors during the climactic chase scene in Monsters, Inc. With my head craned upward and mouth agape at the wondrous collection of colorful costumes pirouetting above me on their suspended track, I’m sure I resembled the many New York City tourists, who stare up transfixed at the skyscrapers surrounding them, that I often mock.

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