Time for Halloween!
Halloween means the annual viewing of Alexandre Alexeieff's Night On Bald Mountain (1933)!
Halloween means. . . it's time for Frankie!
The Late Night with Conan O’Brien show created a very funny bit involving Frankenstein, in this case played by Brian Stack - and also featuring Tom Hanks.
Love the idea of Bill Hader as a snarky Frankenstein.
Here's our all-time favorite Frankenstein tune, performed by The Edgar Winter Group with Rick Derringer.
Did Frankie appear in any animated cartoons? Yes, he did! The 1935 Looney Tune HOLLYWOOD CAPERS, directed by Jack King, ran on one of our local television stations in the San Francisco Bay Area all the time back in the early-to-mid 1960’s. It featured the “Our Gang” inspired cast from Friz Freleng’s Merrie Melodie cartoon I Haven't Got A Hat (1935).
HOLLYWOOD CAPERS starred Beans the cat, ersatz but somewhat livelier substitute for Buddy. One would assume that Porky Pig, clearly the standout from the group, was already renegotiating his contract with Leon Schlesinger.
Most noteworthy, along with the Hollywood star caricatures (Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields, Oliver Hardy): the appearance by none other than Frankenstein, starting at 4:05.
Among the transitional cartoons between "Buddy" (a.k.a. Mr. Excitement) and the beginnings of Termite Terrace sparked by Leon Schlesinger hiring former Lantz animator Tex Avery, is the Jack King Looney Tune A CARTOONISTS NIGHTMARE. Have a hunch the hard-working animator at the drawing board who experiences the nightmare of getting brutalized by multiple bad guys from Warner Bros. cartoons is Robert McKimson!
Before Jack King was hired by Leon Schlesinger to make Looney Tunes, he worked for Walt Disney Productions, who subsequently re-hired Jack to direct Donald Duck cartoons. Taking nothing away from the Silly Symphony The Skeleton Dance, two particularly clever and spooky Mickey Mouse cartoons are The Haunted House (1929) and The Mad Doctor (1933).
Next up: Old Manor House (1948), a terrific and eccentric haunted house cartoon by George Moreno and British Animated Productions, creators of the Bubble & Squeek series.
Finishing this Happy Halloween post: Jay Ward's Tom Slick and a Monte Karloff monster rally straight from Transylvania!
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