COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN (Day 25): Madhouse Breakout

Originally envisioned as a one-off character, Sabrina Spellman was created by George Gladir and Dan DeCarlo for Archie Comics in 1962 and she first appeared in ARCHIE’S MADHOUSE #22, the October issue.  They were surprised fans wanted more and before long it grew into an animated series and eventually a live action television series and young-adult novels.

SABRINA LETS US KNOW HOW MODERN WITCHES LIVE (ABOVE).

MANY OF THE INCARNATIONS OF SABRINA (ABOVE)

The character’s mother was an ordinary human and her father was a warlock.  Sabrina lived with her aunts, Hilda and Zelda, in the town of Greendale, which isn’t far from Archie’s hometown of Riverdale.  Salem Saberhagen, a warlock who has been punished for his world conquering ambitions, lives with the women trapped in the body of a cat.  Sabrina’s boyfriend is Harvey Kinkle, a loyal but awkward kid who is aware of Sabrina being a witch.

Most of the adventures of Sabrina involve her trying to use her magic to help others in secret as witches don’t generally let mortals in on the fact that they exist—or having trouble with average teen-age problems.

Just as ARCHIE COMICS has launched a serious zombie-horror tale by the name of AFTERLIFE WITH ARCHIE, last October (2014) a new series featuring the teenage witch launched with a stark, serious horror theme entitled CHILLING ADVENTURES OF SABRINA.

Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and Robert Hack are the writer/artist team behind the dark tale.  On  the eve of her sixteenth birthday, Sabrina finds herself having to choose between her unearthly destiny and her mortal boyfriend.  And it doesn’t help that a great evil from her family’s past has arrived—and Madame Satan has her own agenda!

And here's a song from the era of Sabrina's first appearance--from way back in 1963,

it's BETTY LAVETTE with...

"Witchcraft in the Air"

THE COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN: DAY 25

(Dracula & Vampires in the Comics)

I know I mentioned my favorite portrayal of Dracula outside of the novel, and perhaps Christopher Lee's near silent performance in a couple of the Hammer films, was Marv Wolfman and Gene Colan's Count from THE TOMB OF DRACULA.  It's probably more Gene than Marv that guides my opinion in this, the fact that Colan's shadowy, foggy, dreamy lines and shades add such a gothic feel to the whole book.  That he is able to portray emotion more realistically than nearly any artist of any era is probably another good reason.

That's still to come.

Tonight we focus on other portrayals of the Prince of Darkness and his ilk within the panels on a comic book page.  There are legion, but we'll see how many pics blogger will allow me to throw up here to show you the diversity...

 

From this sampling alone, the face of the vampire is as hard to pin down as the tail of a squirrel on nut patrol!

And now, the music for tonight's episode is from the album She Hangs Brightly, it's Mazzy Star's "Taste of Blood"...

MONSTER-MONTH: COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN (Day 8)

Welcome to the eighth night of Monster-Month, a feature for the Countdown to Halloween, which we will be continuing all month long here at THE GOODS!

Tonight we shine the spotlight on “Frankie” of  The Groovie Goolies.  Frankie is a Frankenstein Monster who is easygoing and soft-spoken, a laid-back percussionist and head of the Muscle-leum Gymnasium.  And, like all of the other Goolies, a cousin of Sabrina, a teenage witch.

Frankie was voiced by Howard Morris doing his best Boris Karloff impersonation.

Frankie had an alter-ego, who was an ineffective superhero by the name of Super Gool--quite a spiffy look for a Frankenstein hero.

The Groovie Goolies are a hip group of monsters, who make good pop-culture reference to the classic monsters created for horror movies in the 1930s and ‘40s.

GROOVIE GOOLIES was a spinoff of SABRINA THE TEENAGE WITCH (which, itself was a spinoff of THE ARCHIE SHOW) and ran from 1970 through 1972 on CBS.  Filmation produced the formulaic show.  Like many cartoons from this era, the series lead characters were in a band and would often perform songs a few times each episode.

The Goolies all live at Horrible Hall, a haunted boarding house for monsters.  Horrible Hall sits on Horrible Drive.  The other two main Goolies were Drac, a short-tempered vampire who was head of Horrible Hall and Wolfie, a hippie werewolf who was always up for fun, which usually meant running around, surfing, or driving the Wolfwagon.  “Weirdo Wolfie” often annoyed “Dangerous Drac” with his antics.

Other characters in the series are Hagatha, a plump witch who is the Hall’s cook; Bella La Ghostly, a Vampiress phone operator; Dr. Jekyll and Hyde, the resident physician; Mummy, announcer of “The Mummy’s Wrap-Up” newscasts; Boneapart, a skeleton in a Napoleon hat who would often go to pieces; Ghoulihand, a giant, disembodied glove; Batso and Ratzo, two fanged brats who often planned pranks that often backfired; Hauntleroy, a portly, naughty and selfish sissy in a sailer suit and cousin to Hagatha; Icky and Goo, two gargoyle-like creatures that act as pets for the Hall; Tiny a small, long-haired mummy with a high-piched voice who was a parody of the popular Tiny Tim and cousin of the Mummy; Missy, Tiny’s wife who was a waifish ghost.

The format of the show was similar to LAUGH-IN which was popular at the time.  A sketch comedy show with riddles and joke segments.

Every episode also featured two musical segments, one featuring the Goolies and the other focusing on one of the other resident bands and they were:

The Mummies and the Puppies (a parody of The Mamas and the Papas)

The Spirits of ’76 (a ghost trio of colonial soldiers)

The Rolling Gravestones (riffing on The Rolling Stones) who are visually moving headstones… hudson Rock, Captain Marble and General Granite.

And the Bare Boned Band, a trio of skeletons.

FIVE FRANKENSTEIN FUN FACTS:

1)  Howard Morris, who voiced Frankie, also did the voice for Wolfie and many of the "extra" Goolies.

2)  In a groundbreaking move, Filmation's Grovie Goolies crossed over with Warner Bros. Looney Tunes for an ABC Saturday Superstar Movie entitled "Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet The Groovie Goolies"--the one and only time WB had loaned out their characters.

3)  Often, Frankie would get zapped by lightning, which showed his inner workings and after which he would simply say "I needed that!".

4)  Frankie had a pet dinosaur named Rover.

5)  The show's theme song "Goolie Get-Together" was covered by The Toadies for the 1995 tribute "Saturday Morning: Cartoon's Greatest Hits"

Useful links into the world of Filmation's Groovie Goolies:

Groovie Goolies

RetroLand

RetroJunk

And lest we forget

Little Lord Hauntleroy: