GORILLA MASK HUNT

UPDATED YET AGAIN: Boy, my knowledge of gorilla facewear has increased tremendously this week. Raymond Castile of the invaluable Gallery of Monster Toys, has helped me determine what the Johnson Smith "Savage Gorilla (With hair)" mask actually looks like. Ray has it in his collection...

It's everything I hoped it would be. Thanks Ray!

[And now, here's the post as it originally began...]
Ever since I was forbidden by my parents to send my allowance to the "shysters" who advertised amazing novelties in my comic books, I've grown more and more obsessed with tracking down the treasures I was denied. Many of these items turn out to be as fraudulent as my parents had warned, but that just adds to their appeal.

I recently took a low stakes gamble and nabbed this fine facial enhancement on ebay, with hopes that it might be the gorilla mask I'd seen advertised so many times...


So here's my question for all of you mask experts and/or people who were allowed to order from comic book ads: Was this mask ever sold through the Johnson Smith ad (shown at the top of the post)?
The mask shown above is from the late 80s or even early 90s and therefore it was not "the one."

The mask was made by Topstone, the preferred mask supplier for Johnson Smith, Honor House and other mail order folks. I realized my gorilla has no teeth, but certain ads ran for many years, and novelty companies had to use different models of the products, even though the original illustrations were still shown. So I thought it possible that mine could be one of many varieties that were offered.

Another theory was that the Johnson Smith gorilla mas was the same as the Captain Company (of Famous Monsters of Filmland) gorilla monster mask since they used the same illustration. Evil Wilhelm of Monster Mayhem shared this photo of a recast of that mask...

By the way, blanks of this design happen to be available at Monster Mayhem. Here's what they look like unpainted and painted...



I've learned that this one was offered much earlier than the Johnson Smith ad and probably wasn't sold through them.

Then there were my other theories that involved this design or the mask Ernie Kovacs used as props on his show. Alas I think the truth has been uncovered.