I just finished watching The Mummy staring Boris Karloff.  I’ve never seen it all the way through.  The last attempt was a 24-hour marathon of monster movies that played on channel 5 (KTLA), on Halloween, 1981.  I was babysitting my nephews for the weekend and I tried to stay up all night.  One reason for the all-nighter was to see the classic monster movies that I had never seen before.  That other reason was that someone set a field on fire, not far away from my sister’s house.  I was waiting for the fire fighters to come knocking on the door and tell us to evacuate.  I was facing a lot of responsibility for a teenager if that would come to pass.  I would have to load the two boys and the dog in the car and hope that the house was still standing when my sister and brother in-law would return from their trip.

I was missing a lot of the movies.  I would pace and check the fire-glowing skies.  I was falling asleep in the chair and would be woken up to the sound of fire trucks rolling down the street with their lights flashing. 

I would see what was on the TV screen: not only did I miss scenes of the movie that I was watching, but I was watching another movie altogether!  The Mummy started showing.  I sat up straight, made my eyes as wide as they could be and…  I fell asleep!  I didn’t make it pass the opening credits!!  I woke up a couple of times, having no idea what was going on.

The fire was under control by sunrise.  I would be armed with a Sonny Beta-Max the next year and if they ran another marathon, I would capture some of it on tape!  KTLA never had a monster movie marathon again!