Ancient Egyptian deities purposes. Egyptian texts often refer to deities' true, underlying forms as "mysterious". The Egyptians' visual representations of their gods are therefore not literal. They symbolize specific aspects of each deity's character, functioning much like the ideograms in hieroglyphic writing. For this reason, the funerary god Anubis is commonly shown in Egyptian art as a dog or jackal, a creature whose scavenging habits threaten the preservation of buried mummies, in an effort to counter this threat and employ it for protection. His black coloring alludes to the color of mummified flesh and to the fertile black soil that Egyptians saw as
Revenge of the Creature dismissive of the production. Although "Revenge of the Creature" has been broadcast on television in red-and-blue-glasses anaglyph form (e.g., in 1982 in the San Francisco Bay area), it was originally shown in theaters by the polarized light method and viewed through glasses with gray polarizing filters. A "flat" version without 3D was also released. In 1997, "Revenge of the Creature" was mocked on the comedy television series "Mystery Science Theater 3000", marking its first episode on the Sci-Fi Channel. Universal released "Revenge of the Creature" on DVD in a boxed set, along with "Creature from the Black Lagoon" and "The