Scary-day Morning Cartoons

This fall, young horror fans received three major animated film releases in their trick or treat bags.  I reviewed ParaNorman, Hotel Transylvania and Frankenweenie over at Downright Creepy (Kids' Halloween Movie Round-up), but today I want to talk about three animated horror predecessors that were undoubtedly an influence on them.

As the classic monster movies of the 1930's and 1940's were experiencing new life on television in the late-1950s, a new approach was taken with iconic characters like Dracula, Frankenstein's monster and the Wolfman:  humor.  As evidence of this phenomenon, please note three things from which animated monsters would be a natural offshoot:  the wise-cracking horror hosts of the television shows airing the movies, the pre-adolescent and young teenager angle of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine and the popularity of live-action television shows like The Addams Family and The Munsters.

Mad Monster Party

Rankin/Bass is famous for producing seasonal television specials such as Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, The Little Drummer Boy, Frosty the Snowman and Santa Claus is Coming to Town using stop-motion animation of doll-like characters called "Animagic".  In 1965, they produced for Embassy Pictures the first stop-motion animated feature in the United States, Willy McBean and His Magic Machine.  Two years later, they produced Mad Monster Party, a campy spoof of horror themes complete with musical numbers.

I don't believe I ever saw Mad Monster Party as a child, but I watched it recently on Netflix.  In many ways, the current box office hit, Hotel Transylvania, is eerily similar.  In Mad Monster Party, Baron Boris von Frankenstein is retiring and plans to announce his plans to leave his monster business to his nephew, Felix Flankin, at a gathering of monsters.  In Hotel Transylvania, Dracula is lamenting that his daughter, Mavis, is growing up and plans her 118th birthday party at a gathering of monsters.

Primitive as it may feel in 2012, Mad Monster Party is superior to Hotel Transylvania in every way.  The one-liners and puns are equally groan-worthy, but Mad Monster Party at least has no fart jokes.  And its songs are woven into the story instead of slapped onto the conclusion because it doesn't know how to end the movie.  But most of all, the representations of its monsters are true caricatures of the originals, not generic cartoons.  You cannot help but love a puppet of Boris Karloff, voiced by the real horror legend!

The other characters are just as adorable.  And while it may not mean much today, the fact that Phyllis Diller portrayed "The Monster's Mate" would have been quite a coup at the height of her popularity in the 60s.  Mad Monster Party is a loving tribute to horror and the classic monsters and will likely remain, no matter what decade, a trippy blast from the past.

Groovie Goolies

In the 1970s, Filmation was to Saturday morning cel animation what Rankin/Bass was to stop-motion animation.  Experiencing a successful run of Saturday morning cartoon The Archie Show in the late 1960s, Filmation spun-off various characters to make new shows that were often combinations of already-televised and new material.  In 1970, they produced Sabrina and The Groovie Goolies (repeats of Sabrina the Teenage Witch episodes from The Archie Show, plus new episodes featuring The Groovie Goolies).  A year later, the properties were split into their own shows, Sabrina the Teenage Witch and Groovie Goolies, each containing both repeat and new material. 

Plot aside, Hotel Transylvania has more in common with an episode of Groovie Goolies than it does with Mad Monster Party.  Both are frantic and exhausting, full of unfunny jokes and end with a pop song.  I remember loving Groovie Goolies as a child and watching an episode recently, elements of it came flashing back to me.  (For some reason, I distinctly remember Drac's feet pumping the lower row of keys on his electronic organ.)  But today it's strictly for children; I find very little value in it, even for nostalgic purposes.

An episode of Groovie Goolies plays like an animated Laugh-In for monsters.  There's even a wall of doors from which various characters stick out their heads to make jokes.  There is no episode-long story; it's just a collection of short, supposed-to-be-funny, segments that always concludes with a song.  Perhaps if the caricatures were as endearing as those in Mad Monster Party, I'd feel a little more love for Groovie Goolies.  But they're just too two-dimensional for me... literally.



The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo

In general, I haven't remained a fan of the animation from my youth.  It's easy to be spoiled now from having watched years of Disney and Pixar, but even without the modern classics they've produced, cel animation from the 60s, 70s and 80s is painful for me to watch.  Facial expressions and body movements are repeated over and over again as familiar backgrounds spin behind the characters, if they move at all.  Groovie Goolies suffers from its artistry, as does a mid-80s entry into the Saturday morning animated horror field, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.

For me, though, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo retains its integrity for one simple reason:  Vincent Price.  Yes, like Boris Karloff did with Mad Monster Party, Vincent Price provides the likeness and voice of an animated character, warlock Vincent Van Ghoul.  He acts as a sort of spiritual aid to the characters as they try to round-up thirteen ghosts that Shaggy and Scooby-Doo inadvertently released from the Chest of Demons in the Himalayas.

I like this set-up for a thirteen-episode series; you know, one ghost per episode.  But nearly half the familiar Scooby Gang is missing.  Neither Fred nor Velma take part in The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo.  Instead, we have Scrappy-Doo (ugh) and a juvenile Mexican con artist named Flim-Flam, who story editor and associate producer Tom Ruegger says was "defintely the product of network focus groups".  While those characters and the animation can be annoying, I like that episodes tell a story and that the overall series tells an even bigger story.  I've actually enjoyed watching episodes as an adult.

I seem to have used a great many words disparaging Hotel Transylvania.  It's true, I hated it.  But of the three animated movies released this Halloween season, it's the one mostly influenced by the predecessors I've discussed.  It is reminiscent of the plot of Mad Monster Party and shares a style similar to Groovie Goolies.  I've not even mentioned ParaNorman or Frankenweenie, but influences are seen in them, also.  ParaNorman shares a story of somewhat serious consequence like The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo and Tim Burton's Frankenweenie exhibits the charm of, and an evolution of, the stop-motion animation used in Mad Monster Party.  All in all, these movies and television shows provide a variety of scary good fun for kids of all ages, horror fans who are both young and young at heart.