This article titled "Legendary Mask Maker, Zagone Studios, Approaches Fifty-Years Of Innovation Right Here In Chicago" has some killer behind-the-scene photos of the studio. The article was written and shot by James Currie, who was responsible for the Freaky Frights on Forest, which was an epic two-block long home haunt experience that ran for several years in the Chicago suburb of North Riverside.
Occasionally, there were years that Be Something Studios would not release a new catalog. It was during these years that new BSS releases could be found in the pages of Franco Halloween Catalogs. 1978 was the first time that this occurred. While many of these masks can be found in the 1977 and 1979 catalogs, there are a few that only made a brief appearance here including the Caveman and Cavewoman, and the cyborg-ish Electric Bill masks...
Having just released a new four-page color catalog one year prior in 1988, the new 1989 Be Something Studios line-up fit neatly onto a single-page insert in the 1989 Franco Catalog. The line-up features the catalog debuts of a few classic characters that are still produced by Zagone Studios today including Victim Moan and Fatal Fantasy...
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| Be Something Studios - Fatal Fantasy mask |
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| Be Something Studios - Victim Moan mask |
The '79 line-up introduced some of the early classic BSS masks that are highly sought after today by collectors including the Executioner, Drac, and Dream Girl masks.
A few of the characters from the 1977 catalog have been updated for the '79 lineup. The most notable being the '77 Unicorn has been re-sculpted as the Evil Unicorn, and the very rare 1977 Corpse mask with the squared off jaw has been re-sculpted...
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| 1977 BSS Unicorn mask / 1979 BSS Evil Unicorn mask |
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| 1977 BSS Corpse mask / 1979 BSS Corpse mask |
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| Be Something Studios Die Ann Mask |
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| Be Something Studios Drac Mask |
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| Be Something Studios Dr Deranged Mask |
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| Be Something StudiosExecutioner Mask |
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| Be Something Studios Fang Face Mask |
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| Be Something Studios Saber Tooth Beast Mask |
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| Be Something Studios Vampira Mask |
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| Be Something Studios Dream Girl Mask |
Historically, this is a really cool catalog that features some early work from a few sculptors including Billy Baccarella, a young Billy Ystrom, Artie Clafford, and it may have included work from Mike Saenz as well. I will try to get some clarification the next time I speak with Tony Zagone. I have included several close-up scans of individual masks of interest here as well...
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| Be Something Studios - Wicked Witch mask |
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| Be Something Studios - Two-Face mask |
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| Be Something Studios - The Corpse mask |
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| Be Something Studios - Living Dead mask |
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| Be Something Studios - Fang Face Female mask |
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| Be Something Studios - Fang Face mask |
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| Be Something Studios - Devil mask |
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| Be Something Studios - Bloody Mary mask |
There is something awesome about a good old fashioned black and white Halloween mask catalog. It's certainly not the quality of image, but if you are old enough to remember holding something like this in your hands, you know what I'm talking about. The 1978 Franco catalog featured three pages of early Be Something Studios masks, all of which are quite rare these days, and a few that I have never seen in person. I've posted a few color catalog shots below as well...
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| Be Something Studios - Demon mask |
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| Be Something Studios - Fantome mask |
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| Be Something Studios - Fun Ghoul mask |
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| Be Something Studios - Hanging Eye Do mask |
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| Be Something Studios - Uncle Ooze |
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| Be Something Studios -Unicorn mask |
