I'm sure that most people here remember
Dfoot's Patty mask (as seen on the bottom and in
these pictures), which was made from materials available in the 1960's. For the uninitiated, a guy who went by the name
"Dfoot" created a Halloween dummy (and later did an unfinished attempt at a costume) based on the P/G footage in 2005. Interestingly enough, the total cost of the dummy was about $250! The pictures of the dummy are gone, but the comments about it were very positive. The mask was made by taking a Don Post Tor Johnson mask,
attaching a mouth and, apparently, chin cut from a Don Post "Bongo the Chimp" mask to it,
parts from a skeleton mask, and then building up some details and adding hair to it. Dfoot claimed that
this naturally created the "dent" seen on Patty's face/chin (His comments make it seem to have been prior to when the mask got its details built up;I think
the picture on the bottom right is the "unfinished mask with a fake eye"). This head was then either altered to include features from a caveman mask (Dfoot couldn't find a vintage Don Post caveman mask and had to make due with a similar-looking modern mask) in order to create an open mouth or Dfoot just built another mask that incorporated those features. As you can see, that combination (along with some building-up, painting, and fur) and you get a great-looking Patty mask. I also find it interesting that the fur Dfoot used for his mask reminds me of the short fur seen on the Kong costume from "King Kong vs. Godzilla."
I attempted to find out what those masks looked like to see if this was plausible (and to potentially aid anyone who attempts to pick up where Dfoot left off). Here's what I found:
Here is a picture of a "Bongo the Chimp" mask; I haven't found a picture of a Don Post Caveman mask yet. I've found several Don Post Tor Johnson masks, but I'm not sure when they were made or which style they are
thicker, high quality masks that cover the entire head (I'm not sure of the date or maker of that Yeti mask, but this shows what I'm talking about) and thin, less sculpted versions for the cheap crowd/kids (as seen in pharmacies around Halloween). The pictures of Dfoot's mask pictures implied that he used an overhead-style mask, so I decided to see if Don Post manufactured such a mask during the 60's and if it would be in Roger Patterson's price range.
This 1964 ad for what seems to be
these types of masks for $30.00, whereas
this ad advertises $8.95 masks.
This site claims that
this is a 60's Tor Mask and that it sold for $8.95.
Here are some other $8.95 masks. To me, the price implies that this could be one of the "thin, cheap" masks. Searching
this site's gallery section for "Tor Johnson"found several masks, one is said to be a 90's redesign and the others aren't dated (and often have custom paint jobs). Further complicating matters is the Don Post reissues of the old-style masks like
these.
This site makes a reference to a 1978 Tor mask. This is either a dating mistake or a variant of the mask, seeing as
the Don Post mask was made from a "lifecast" of Mr. Johnson, who died in 1971 (which would make doing a 1978 lifecast impossible; I should also note that the mask shown in that last link isn't a Don Post mask). You can see a picture of the lifecast at the bottom of
this site and in
this video (which notes about who was there when the casting was made).
This seems to show that the Tor Johnson mask was an overhead-style mask. As do
these pictures, although the mask depicted could be a recent version/redesign.
Here's another picture of a Tor Johnson mask that seems to show that it was an overhead-style mask.
This site shows other vintage Don Post masks seem to be high quality/deluxe overhead only. A Tor mask is shown as being one of those types of masks and the context of the description implies that it's the original style. These all make it seem like that type of mask was available in the 60's and that it was within Roger Patterson's price range.
