A Visit to the Ackermansion

Forrest J. Ackerman wasn't just a geek icon, he was also just about the most lovable old coot you could ever meet. Ackerman was the longtime editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland, creator of Vampirella, Ed Wood's literary agent and coiner of the term "sci-fi". He was also such a genre super-fan that his large LA home - dubbed the Ackermansion - was packed from basement to attic with classic movie props, models, masks, rare books and far too many other wonderful things.

But while Ackerman was a voracious collector, he was not at heart a greedy man, and he didn't keep his collection to himself. For years he offered free tours on Saturday afternoons, to flocks of fans who came to gawk at his stuff. Ackerman hosted these tours himself, answering questions and telling anecdotes about his days hanging with Boris Karloff or his arguments with L. Ron Hubbard. Well into his 80s, the guy was still funny, informative and sharp as a vampire's fang.

There can be an ugly and tragic side to geekdom, the side that Chris Ware captures with such depressing fidelity in his Rusty Brown comics: bitter, angry, stunted men, hating each other almost as much as they hate themselves and living in an airless world of dusty action figures and endless reruns of children's TV shows from 1978. But Ackerman made fandom seem truly cool, like you could pursue your obsessions and even build a life around them, while meeting amazing people and doing all sorts of interesting things out there in the real world.

If you didn't keep up with the group on an Acermansion tour you'd find yourself alone in a room with piles and piles of priceless stuff for the taking, tiny treasures just sitting there begging for you to slip them in your pockets. But Ackerman trusted you not to take anything, and that's the kind of trust you'd have to be a real monster to violate.

Youtube user Powser2 has been kind enough to post an unedited, 1998 visit to the Ackermansion online in several parts. The sound is a bit murky and the color is faded, but this is worth seeing as a record of something special that's now lost to us. Those of us who were lucky enough to visit the Ackermansion came away with a lot more than a snapshot of the original model from King Kong.



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