The Art and Making Of Hotel Transylvania (2012/Hardcover/Titan Books)/Monster Squad: The Complete Series (1976)/The Red-Handed Gang: The Complete Series (1977/VCI DVD Sets)/Vampire Dog (2011/E1 DVD)
Picture: X/C+/C/C+ Sound: C+ Extras: D/C/C-/C- Book:
B- Main Programs: B-/C+/C
As
Halloween 2012 approaches, there is always a healthy market for children’s
product and here are some of those entries…
The Art and Making Of Hotel
Transylvania
(2012) is a coffee-table hardcover book about the upcoming computer-animated
theatrical feature by Dexter’s
Laboratory creator Genndy Tartakovsky (whose original animated Star Wars: Clone Wars is far superior
to its CG replacement) written by Tracey Miller-Zarneke about the extensive
character and background development that this took to make.
Color
quality and paper stock are superior and the illustrations are accompanied by some
text that is not too much or too little.
I had mixed reactions to the art, but it will be interesting to see how
the characters all move. The idea is to
gather all the major monsters in one place (Dracula runs the title hotel and is
having all the other classic monsters stop by) in the mode of Mad Monster Party?, the stop-motion
animated classic Lionsgate is issuing on Blu-ray (see our DVD and CD soundtrack
coverage elsewhere on this site) and it is not the first such collection of the
classic monsters Universal Pictures built their studio on in the 1930s.
I will
say the book demonstrated to me that this is a more ambitious project than I
expected and even if it does not work (the voice actors chosen are not a plus
for me in many cases, but we’ll see) at least they had a great director who
tried.
Other
gatherings of the monsters without officially being the Universal Pictures originals
include the great animated Saturday Morning TV classic Groovie Goolies (reviewed elsewhere on this site) that puts their
variants of the monsters in a Laugh-In variety/comedy show mode and the
less-seen and discussed Monster Squad:
The Complete Series (1976), which ran for 13 episodes, is a live-action
production and actually is one of many shows at the time from Saturday Morning
TV that tried to duplicate the energy, fun and style of the 1960s Batman series that was then a
tremendous hit in syndication. It is not
to be confused with the well-liked 1987 film of the same name Lionsgate has
issued a Blu-ray of, which we covered at this link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9359/Monster+Squad+%E2%80%93+20th
In this
case, one-time U.S. Senator and Gofer from the hit TV comedy show Love Boat
Fred Grandy is here as Walter, who runs a wax museum, but secretly (looking
like Burt Ward’s Dick Grayson) has a trio of great monsters he brings to life
with a super computer (that uses computer punch cards!) to fight crime. With its own jokes and puns (sometimes
politically incorrect), Dracula (carton voice actor Henry Polic II, later of Webster), Bruce W. Wolf (longtime
character actor Buck Kartalian, Julius of Planet
Of The Apes (1968) among others) and Frank N. Stein (he played the real
monster in Frankenstein – 1970 with
Boris Karloff as Doctor Frankenstein) fight wacky villains in 13 half-hour
shows all on this set. Here are the
episodes with key guest stars:
1)
Queen
Bee (Alice Ghostley, Al Mancini, Colin Hamilton)
2)
Mr.
Mephisto (Barry Dennen, Cathy Worthington, Mindi Miller)
3)
The
Tickler (Ivor Francis, Douglas Stevenson)
4)
The
Ringmaster (Billy Curtis, Simone Griffeth, H.B. Haggerty)
5)
The
Music Man (Marty Allen as Lorenzo Musica)
6)
No
Face (Sid Haig, David Proval, Timothy Scott)
7)
The
Astrologer (Jonathan Harris, Frank Cady, James Gammon, Richard X.. Slattery)
8)
Ultra
Witch (Julie Newmar, Johnny Brown, Joe E. Tata, Dick Bakalyan)
9)
The
Wizard (Arthur Mallet, Mickey Morton, Victor Paul)
10) The Skull (Geoffrey Lewis, Nathan Jung, Pete
Kellett as The Mummy)
11) The Weatherman (Avery Schreiber, Cheryl
Miller, Owen Orr)
12) Lawrence
Of Moravia (Joseph Mascolo, Joe Tornatore)
13) Albert/Alberta (Vito Scotti, Raymond Singer,
Phil Diskin)
Edward
Anders was a semi-regular as Mayor Goldwyn (a Commissioner Gordon type, sort
of) and the show also played off of several monster action figure toy lines
(see what Mego, Remco and AHI were issuing at the time in the sometimes
Superhero mode) so it was right for the time and more entertaining than I
remembered. It has also aged well along
with other Batman-inspired hits like
ElectraWoman & DynaGirl (shot on
professional analog videotape) and Bigfoot
& Wildboy (filmed like this show) from Sid & Marty Krofft (see both
on the Krofft compilation DVD elsewhere on this site).
This is a
fun little gem that deserves to be rediscovered and has some top rate talent in
each episode. I also have to give Grandy
credit for making more believable than most actors might have been able to do
at the time. Extras include series
synopsis, episode synopses and a still gallery.
This was
one of several limited-run Saturday Morning TV shows created by the writing and
producing team of D’Angelo/Bullock/Allen, who had just launched the hugely
successful classic TV sitcom Alice with
Linda Lavin (reviewed elsewhere on this site) and were looking to expand. They followed Squad with The Red-Handed
Gang: The Complete Series (1977) the following year with a young unknown
cast batting bad adults each episode.
The 12 half-hours amounted to three storylines and though it did some
ratings for NBC at the time, it was not continued, yet became a big British hit
and has its own following.
Of the
cast, only actor James Bond III continued to have any kind of varied on-camera career,
though Matthew Labyorteaux is now a voice for animated shows and had a run on Little House On The Prairie, J.R.
Miller showed up in the original Amityville
Horror, the late Johnny Brogna loaned his voice to the 1971 adult animated
feature American Pop and Jolie
Newman apparently left the business altogether.
I was not
a big fan of the show and thought it a mix of being a child’s show and a drama
with occasionally odd twists of children being in jeopardy which the teleplays
never resolved. The show reflects the Sesame Street/Electric Company phenomenon of the time in its attitude and
naturalism, so that helped it, but having an evil Anthony Zerbe seems out of
place here, but Van Williams (The Green
Hornet) and Sorrell Booke (Dukes Of
Hazzard) also show up as guests and it becomes a mixed show overall, which
might explain its later cult appeal to some.
This
means this is one of those shows you might just have to see for yourself. Extras include series synopsis, episode
synopses, stills gallery and commercial break tel-op card. You can read about the D’Angelo/Bullock/Allen
show Big John, Little John at this
link:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11906/Big+John,+Little+John+(1976/VCI+D
Finally
we have the silliness of Geoff Anderson’s Vampire
Dog (2011) made in Canada with mostly unknown actors, though Norm MacDonald
shows up as a bad guy trying to catch the title animal who is a hero of sorts
to children in this child-safe-but-flat attempt at a fun comedy. Clichés and boring digital effects on
occasion will not make a fan of Fang The Dog (wow, how original…) for many and
this is just too lite and forgettable to really recommend. A trailer is the only extra.
The 1.33
X 1 on Monster Squad and Red-Handed Gang were shot on 16mm film
like many live-action children’s shows of the time, but while Squad has been nicely restored, the
clean prints on Gang are actually
copies finished on video that add soft edges and even a little motion blur
throughout each episode. They are still
watchable, but Squad has better
overall performance, especially for a show of its age. The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on
Dog is an HD shoot with motion blur
and softness, but not as much detail and depth issues as Gang with color that is a little better than expected. I still like the color on Squad overall at its best of the three.
The lossy
Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono on both TV shows can have background noise and show
their age, but the lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Dog is so weak overall that it cannot get ahead of the older shows
sonically.
- Nicholas Sheffo
