# The Thing, It, She, and Them **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 15, 2019, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128 "2019-07-15T14:18:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128/1 "2019-07-15T14:18:03Z")
In _Bored of the Rings_, Beard and Kenney describe the charge out of Fordor: > [@](#): > > …Out poured an army the likes of which was never seen. Forth from the gate burst a hundred thousand rabid narcs swinging bicycle chains and tire irons, followed by drooling division of pop-eyed changelings, deranged zombies, and distempered werewolves. At their shoulders marched eight score heavily armored griffins, three thousand goose-stepping mummies, and a column of abominable snowmen on motorized bobsleds; at their flanks tramped six companies of slavering ghouls, eighty parched vampires in white tie, and the Phantom of the Opera. Above them the sky was blackened by the dark shapes of vicious pelicans, houseflies the size of two-car garages, and Rodan the Flying Monster. Through the portals streamed more foes of various forms and descriptions, including a six-legged diplodocus, the Loch Ness Monster, King Kong, Godzilla, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Beast with 1,000,000 Eyes, the Brain from Planet Arous, three different subphyla of giant insects, the Thing, It, She, Them, and the Blob . The great tumult of their charge could have waked the dead, were they not already bringing up the rear. Lotsa monsters in there, but I’m interested in the ones named in vague terms. Because the names are so general, there are several cases of the same name being used: **Thing** – The alien “carrot” played by James Arness in the Christian Nyby/Howard Hawks 1951 film sorta based on John Campbell’s story _Who Goes There?_ that was originally called simply “The Thing”. The title reportedly got changed to “The Thing from Another World” to distinguish it from a novelty ong by Phil Harris called “The Thing” (although, really, how many people would have been confused by the similarity of names? Some claim this was just marketing – [The Thing (song) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(song)) ) – Also The alien shape-shiter/bosy snatcher in John Carpenter’s 1982 remake (with a much closer to the original plot screenplay by Bill Lancaster) – also the alien creature in the 2011 film that acts as a prequel to the 1982 film. – Also the creature from the Carpenter film in lots of comics, videogames, etc. –Ben Grimm in the Marvel Fantastic Four Franchise – Mothra, in order to make things obscure, in the Toho film **Godzilla Vs. The Thing** – The disembodied hand in TV’s \*The Addams Family and the subsequent movies. – various monsters in cheap movies, such as Ray Milland/Rosie Greer in _The Thing with Two Heads_ – A tourist trap attraction on I-10 in Arizona ([The Thing (roadside attraction) - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(roadside_attraction)) ) **It** No one 1950s monster, but a number of them: **It Came from Outer Space** – alien in Ray Bradbury-scripted 3D movie **It Came from Beneath the Sea** – giant octopus in Ray Harryhausen film **It! The Terror from BBeyond Space** – Martian creature that gets loose on a space ship in Jerome Bixby-scripted 1950s film that the movie _Alien_ shamelessly strip-mined also **Cousin Itt** , the hair-covered (and, for all we know, completely hair-composed) character on TV’s _The Addams Family_. **She** – Ayesha, AKA “Wisdom’s Daughter”, the virtually immortal “evil” female ruler in Afraica and later the Himalaya’s in a series of novels by H. Rider Haggard. Later portrayed in several movies, most notably by Helen Gahagen in her one and only movie role in 1934 and by Ursula Andress in the 1960s. Also by Sandahl Bergman in a really bad post-apocalyptic version in 1984. The only other monster-like She is **The She Creature** , a really stupid case of reincarnation, portrayed by an actor in a really wild monster suit made by Paul Blaisdell. The same plot (with a much worse suit) was filmed years later for TV as _Creature of Destruction_. There was another TV movie in 2001 using the same title (at a time when they were re-using a lot of the old AIP titles, but not the plots) involving a scary-looking mermaid. [She Creature - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/She_Creature) **Them** – Big ants. [Them! - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Them!). Also the title of a paranoid fantasy story by Robert A. Heinlein. I can’t think of any others, but another giant ant movie was _Empire of the Ants_, adapted from the story by H.G. Wells by someone who never read Wells, and thought that all you needed was giant ants. Noted for really bad special effects and for Joan Collins, whose mind gets taken over by that of the ants. Fill in your own joke here. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128/2 "2019-07-15T14:28:00Z")
Probably not what Kenney and Beard were thinking, but there was Theodore Sturgeon’s “It.” ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128/3 "2019-07-15T14:32:48Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Probably not what Kenney and Beard were thinking, but there was Theodore Sturgeon’s “It.” (Head Smack) – I meant to cite that one, too! ---
**Author:** ![MrAtoz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@MrAtoz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrAtoz)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128/4 "2019-07-15T15:07:33Z")
There was also **It Conquered the World**. Released on a double-bill with **The She-Creature** , and also featuring a monster built by Paul Blaisdell. ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128/5 "2019-07-15T15:12:03Z")
The Marvel Comics characters Adam Warlock and Kismet were originally referred to as “He” and “She”. H. Rider Haggard’s “She” was the short form of “She Who Must Be Obeyed”. Her underlings were afraid to refer to her proper name. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 3:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128/6 "2019-07-15T15:15:19Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > The Marvel Comics characters Adam Warlock and Kismet were originally referred to as “He” and “She”. > > H. Rider Haggard’s “She” was the short form of “She Who Must Be Obeyed”. Her underlings were afraid to refer to her proper name. Horace Rumpole also refers to his wife Hilda as “She Who Must be Obeyed”, one of the few literary references he makes that doesn’t come from the Oxford Book of English Verse. But evidently too good for John Mortimer to pass up. I have button I got at a convention a few years ago that I gave to my wife – “SHE Who would like to be OBEYed, at least some of the time.” ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128/7 "2019-07-15T15:17:56Z")
For **It** , also don’t forget about Stephen King’s Pennywise the Clown, and the giant brain that ruled Camazotz in _A Wrinkle in Time_. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128/8 "2019-07-15T15:35:53Z")
Cute thread idea, **Cal.**. I was hoping to come in and tease you by making a Ben Grimm/Sturgeon/Haggard/giant ant joke, but by golly, that was your intention all along! ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128/9 "2019-07-15T15:36:25Z")
[Them](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34ZKxt2p6tM) had a monster hit in _Gloria_, but probably don’t qualify as monsters themselves. Although[Van Morrison](https://media.newyorker.com/photos/5c1162ea642a6e5a4d9e6e95/master/w_727,c_limit/Greenman-VanMorrison.jpg) has looked better. ---
**Author:** ![Miss\_Mapp](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miss_mapp/32/369_2.png) [@Miss\_Mapp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miss_Mapp)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128/10 "2019-07-15T17:29:19Z")
“It” was also the Golem figure who ran rampant in London under the control of a psychotic Norman-Bates-esque Roddy McDowall: [It! (1967) - IMDb](https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0061826/) ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128/11 "2019-07-15T17:44:44Z")
another I forgot was the wonderfully awful tree-monster in _From Hell It Came_. There is a legend that the entirety of one review was “…and To Hell It Can Go!” Paul Blaisdell, again, designed the thing, which is called the _Tabonga_. Here, no joke, is how it looked: > **[From Hell It Came - Trailers From Hell](https://trailersfromhell.com/from-hell-it-came/)** > > You Axed for it, as Forry would say: the grade Z horror movie that launched a thousand bad puns is also an unbeatable party favorite. Idiotic island natives clash with condescending Anglo scientists, and a death curse initiates the hell-spawning of a... ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128/12 "2019-07-15T17:57:57Z")
There’s [“The ‘I’ that Defeated the Justice League”](https://www.comics.org/issue/18365/cover/4/) from 1964. The creature only referred to itself as “I.” ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128/13 "2019-07-15T18:13:48Z")
Wonder Woman was menaced by a [Them!](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/marvel_dc/images/e/ea/Wonder_Woman_Vol_1_185.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090422155801) in 1969. Them turned out to be a [gang of lesbian hippies](https://www.writeups.org/wp-content/uploads/Them-DC-Comics-Wonder-Woman.jpg). Bonus near-miss on the OP: the cover to that Wonder Woman comic promises more appearances from [I-Ching](http://jungcurrents.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/wonder-woman-179-page-14.jpg). ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128/14 "2019-07-15T18:16:15Z")
the 1967 Rankin-Bass movie **Mad Monster Party** had an un-named “It” that showed up at the end. > **[It (Mad Monster Party)](https://villains.fandom.com/wiki/It_(Mad_Monster_Party))** > > "It" is the final antagonist in the 1967 stop-motion film Mad Monster Party?. After discovering the secret of total destruction, Baron Boris von Frankenstein sends invites to summon all the monsters to inform them of his discovery. However, he didn't... “It” was King Kong, but un-named a.) as Mothra was in _Godzilla vs. The Thing_ to create mystery; and more importantly b.) they didn’t hve the rights to “King Kong”, but anybody can animate a giant ape. > **[Mad Monster Party?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Monster_Party%3F)** > > Mad Monster Party? is a 1967 American stop-motion animated musical comedy film produced by Rankin/Bass Productions for Embassy Pictures. The film stars the voices of Boris Karloff, Allen Swift, Gale Garnett, and Phyllis Diller. It tells the story of a mad scientist who achieves the secret of total destruction as he summons all the monsters to his island home to show it off while planning to retire as the head of the "Worldwide Organization of Monsters". > Although less well known than Rankin/Bass'... ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 6:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128/15 "2019-07-15T18:17:35Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Wonder Woman was menaced by a [Them!](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/marvel_dc/images/e/ea/Wonder_Woman_Vol_1_185.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20090422155801) in 1969. > > Them turned out to be a [gang of lesbian hippies](https://www.writeups.org/wp-content/uploads/Them-DC-Comics-Wonder-Woman.jpg). > > Bonus near-miss on the OP: the cover to that Wonder Woman comic promises more appearances from [I-Ching](http://jungcurrents.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/wonder-woman-179-page-14.jpg). Great Og – I have that issue (the second one, with I-Ching. I can read him like a book.) ---
**Author:** ![mbh](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a6a055/32.png) [@mbh](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mbh)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128/16 "2019-07-15T19:54:54Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > another I forgot was the wonderfully awful tree-monster in _From Hell It Came_. > > There is a legend that the entirety of one review was “…and To Hell It Can Go!” > > Paul Blaisdell, again, designed the thing, which is called the _Tabonga_. > > Here, no joke, is how it looked: > > [From Hell It Came - Trailers From Hell](https://trailersfromhell.com/from-hell-it-came/) [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Hell_It_Came) has an entertaining review: > [@](#): > > According to Tim Healey, it deserves an honored place in the canon of the world’s worst movies.[6] Author and film critic Leonard Maltin awarded the film 1½ of 4 stars, writing, “As walking-tree movies go, this is at the top of the list”.[7] Bruce Eder from AllMovie panned the film, writing, “The sheer badness of Dan Milner’s From Hell It Came is mitigated ever so slightly by the efforts of Paul Blaisdell, who created the vengeful tree-creature called the Tabonga… All of which leaves ridiculously campy fun as the sole reason to watch this very mildly entertaining misfire, which is funnier in the telling than the watching”.[8] ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128/17 "2019-07-15T20:02:37Z")
> [@mbh](#): > > [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Hell_It_Came) has an entertaining review: I have to disagree. As walking-tree movies go, the Lord of the Rings films beat this one easily, even the Ralph Bakshi cartoon version. The 1939 _Wizard of Oz_ would, easily, if the trees had only been able to walk. Even the silent Douglas Fairbanks version of _The Thief of Baghdad_ has a more convincing walking tree. And, of course, Groot is easily far superior to Tobanga in every movie he’s in. Of course, the walking trees in those movies were incidental to the main plot. This is, AFAICanRecall, the only film in which the walking tree is the main element. So, strictly speaking, it wins Maltin’s assessment as the “top of the list” of walking-tree movies in which those trees are the main point. But only by default. If Groot even gets his own feature, though, look out. (Triffids, too, beat Topanga hollow (he’s a hollow tree). But, despite being plants, they’re not trees.) ---
**Author:** ![The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f8ce5/32.png) [@The\_Peyote\_Coyote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Peyote_Coyote)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2019, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128/18 "2019-07-15T22:06:36Z")
The comic book _Supernatural Law_ had Sodd, the Thing called It! ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2019, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128/19 "2019-07-16T11:52:29Z")
There’s also the Monster Baby of **It’s Alive** There was a sequel **It’s Alive II** (AKA **It LIves Again** ) And then they had a third film, **Island of the Alive** because, I guess, they thought it sounded marginally less stupid than _Island of the It_. Then they remade the original, with the same title. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 16, 2019, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128/20 "2019-07-16T11:59:16Z")
**It’s Alive!** was also the title of a truly awful Larry Buchanan film from 1969 with the same awful costume he’d used in the aforementioned _Creature of Destruction_ recycled: [https://horrorpedia.com/2017/01/25/its-alive-1969-reviews-larry-buchanan-horror-movie-overview-cast-plot-whole-film/](https://horrorpedia.com/2017/01/25/its-alive-1969-reviews-larry-buchanan-horror-movie-overview-cast-plot-whole-film/) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-thing-it-she-and-them/837128.md?page=2)