Top Five Saturday Morning Kids TV Shows Featuring Classic Horror Monsters
|
An American animated TV show that first ran on Saturday mornings between 1970 and 1972, the 16 (30 minute) episodes were shown on repeat for many years afterwards. Groovie Goolies was a spinoff show of The Sabrina The Teenage Witch Show, which in turn was a spinoff show of The Archies. Like many of the early 70s animation shows , Groovie Goolies had an odd adult laughter track. The Goolies were a group of hip monsters who lived in Horrible Hall, and performed each week in their band the “Groovie Goolies”. Drac was the head of Horrible Hall and played the organ. Frank, the laid-back monster and head of the Gym played bone xylophone/drums. Wolfie was a hippie werewolf that spoke in a hip beatnik/surfer type of slang, who played a lyre-like instrument. The show included a supporting cast of characters that represented various horror monsters and stereotypes. The structure of the show was similar to the popular Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, with one-liner jokes and silly riddle segments, as regular feature inserts.
|
|
First appearing on Canadian TV at 10:00am on a Saturday morning in 1971, The Hilarious House of Frightenstein ran for a total of 130 (60 minute long) episodes. The show was an odd mix of comedy sketches, education and offbeat slapstick horror humor. All of the 130 episodes were made in a single nine-month period , with Vincent Price (who did introductory and closing segments for each show) filming all his scenes in one summer. The show was repeated in both Canada and parts of the United States for the next 25 years. The main character was Count Frightenstein , the 13th son of Count Dracula. He was in exile at the castle for failing to bring-back-to-life Brucie J. Monster (represented in the show as a full sized Karloff like Frankenstein’s monster mannequin). The Count was assisted by in cross-over tradition by Igor, and a three-foot-tall mini-Count called The Midget Count. Among the rest of the large cast of supporting characters was The Wolfman, a Wolfman Jack impersonating DJ.
|
|
Developed by one of the creators behind the campy 60s Batman TV series, Monster Squad ran from 1976 to 1977 for 13 (30 minute long) episodes. The show was about Walt, a criminology student who worked as a night watchman at Fred's Wax Museum. As geeks like Walt do he built Crime Computer a work to pass the time. When Walt plugged in his computer, is accidentally brought to life the wax statues of Dracula, the Wolfman (called Bruce W. Wolf in the show), and Frankenstein's Monster (known as Frank N. Stein). The remorseful monsters wanting to make up for the wrongdoings of their past, decided to join Walt and become superhero crime-fighters . Each character had a code-name, Walt was Chamber Of Horrors, Dracula was Nightflyer, Bruce was Furball and Frank was Green Machine.
|
|
Drak Pack was another Saturday morning animated TV show that ran between 1980 and 1982. The 16 (30 minute) episodes were actually produced by Hanna-Barbera's Australian subsidiary. The show featured three young cool characters called Drak, Frankie and Howler. Each respectively a descendant of Dracula, the Frankenstein monster, and a werewolf. To make-up for the misdeeds of their ancestors the guys were the crime-fighting superheroes the Drak Pack. They started each show out as human looking, until a case came along and they transformed into their monster alter-egos. Each with different superpowers related to their character. They battled against a cast of other famous horror characters lead by the blue-skinned evil genius Dr. Dred. If the gang ever needed advice, they would turn to Drak’s great uncle the original Count Dracula, who they referred to as Big D.
|
|
Gravedale High, also sometimes known as Rick Moranis in Gravedale High, the show was an animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera. The show first aired in 1990 on NBC for 13 (30 minute) episodes. The show was developed as an animated vehicle for Moranis, who was popular at the time due to Ghostbusters and the Honey, I Shrunk The Kids movies. Moranis played a human teacher, at a school for monsters. The main monster characters were the rock ‘n’ roll rebel greaser Vinnie Stoker (Dracula), Frankentyke a little dude who calls everyone “man”, Reggie Moonshroud (the werewolf) who was a nerdy red-head, akin to Richie Cunningham from Happy Days. Other character in the high school were the wealthy and creepy, Peter Lorre life blue gnome creature J.P. Ghastly the III, Gill Waterman a Creature From The Black Lagoon type surf dude, and Cleofatra the nerdy over-weight mummy. The cast of characters also included nods to a number of other classic and B-movie monsters.
|
On Every Goth's Wish List: Vampire Killing Kits - Fake or not, vampire killing kits are a popular cultural phenomena that has spread across the Internet, selling for thousands.
|
Top Ten: Freaky Frankenstein Movies - Bad art-house, B-movie cash-ins, comedies, blaxpolitation, horror and as much marvellously monstrous madness to satisfy everyone's Frankenstein needs.
|
The Horror Of Milton Bradley Board Games - We had a lot of Milton Bradley board games in our home as kids. It's only recently I realised how many of them were horror or fantasy related.
|
The First Lord Of Horror Rock: Screaming Lord Sutch - Infamous horror rock musician, who had some of the greatest rock musicians in history pass through his backing band The Savages.
|
