COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN (Day 2): ZOMBO

An interesting note about Horror Hosts is that there are quite a few fictional ones.  Those appearing on shows within shows.  These guys always intrigue me because they always have to play up to the reality set within the original fiction.  Does a wacky sit-com world have wacky Horror Hosts or are they quite different—

more disturbing or twisted by that reality?

I ask this question because of Zombo.  I ask because the look of the guy is nearly as frightening as any TRUE horror character I’ve ever met on film—and he appeared on a hokey television show in the mid-60s!  He is on par with LONDON AFTER MIDNIGHT’s The Man in the Beaver Hat played by Lon Chaney as far as straight up scary goes and yet, here he was on prime time TV with wacky shows like BATMAN and The Beverly Hillbillies!

Okay, maybe not quite as scary as this guy, but close!

And to screw with your mind a bit more, the actor who took up the role of Zombo was able to make him, this visual horror, funny and goofy and light and believably relatable to a kid.  Granted the kid in question was Eddie Munster and the show was the morbidly humorous...

THE MUNSTERS!

Played as harmless and goofy as hell by Louis Nye,

a great comedic actor with tons of credits to his name and talent,

Zombo was the Horror Host for young Edie Munster.

 

Eddie (Butch Patrick) is under the spell of Zombo (Louis Nye), the host of a television horror show. Herman (Fred Gweynne) feels neglected by Eddie who hasn't got time for his dad anymore and is jealous of Zombo. When Eddie has won a contest and gets to go to the studio and meet Zombo in person, Herman tries to become just like Zombo so Eddie will consider his dad a hero again.  And so the humor ensues with the entire episode of this show below!  Enjoy Zombo in all of his fictional glory…

Sometimes the power of a performance, the strength of a concept makes a strong enough impact on the audience that it causes tributes many years later...

And then there are the odd homages in Horror Host characters like...

ZOMBOO!

Still not as scary as Eddie's TV friend, is he?

MONSTER-MONTH: COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN (Day 3)

For our third focus on Frankenstein's Monster, we must take a closer look

at the most benevolent of the Frankenstein Monsters, Fred Gwynne's

HERMAN MUNSTER!

(Click to Frankensize)

The comedicaly gifted Fred Gwynne was an actor, author and artist, but he left his mark as Herman, head of the Munsters family.  His version of the Monster was, in a word, goofy.  And it was that goofiness, that childlike awkwardness that would endear him to his audience.  If he weren’t so harmlessly goofy, his temper tantrums and larger than life expressions may’ve come off as scary to the intended audience.  He was, after all, a huge presence with all of the padding and heavy boots strapped to his six foot five inch frame topped off with green make-up and neck bolts, the seven foot tall Herman Munster could’ve been a true terror.

Of all the post-Karloff Monsters, Fred Gwynne’s comes the closest to the classic Universal look--in fact, it is so similar that a few adjustments to the make-up (darkening under the eyes, furrowing of the thick brow and an expressionless stare) and one could easily see Gwynne as a serious Frankenstein Monster.  I mean look at this expression here and tell me that it doesn’t project “sinister”:

(Click for Frankensize)

Anyway, as I was saying, THE MUNSTERS’ Herman was safe in attempting to pull off the universally known look of the UNIVERSAL PICTURES’ Frankenstein Monster because they were also owned by that very same picture company.  No threat to the copyright and so they had a free pass.

FIVE FRANKENSTEIN FUN FACTS:

1. Gwynne’s Monster had one brown eye and one chartreuse.
2. Herman Munster was a fan of Huckleberry Hound and Pat Boon albums.
3. Herman Munster was built in Germany by a Dr. Frankenstein, but was adopted at an early age and raised in Shroudshire, England by a family named Munster.
4. The idea of a family of funny monsters was first submitted to Universal Studios in the late 1940s by animator Bob Clampett, who wanted to make a cartoon series.  The project wasn’t developed until the early ‘60s, when ROCKY & BULLWINKLE writers Burns and Hayward submitted a similar treatment.  Norm Liebman and Ed Haas wrote the pilot script, “Love Thy Monster” when it was still undecided if the show would be live-action or animated.
5. Herman Munster is a U.S. Army veteran of Wrold War II.

Citations...

http://www.munsters.com

http://www.imdb.com/character/ch0028728/quotes

(Click to Frankensize)

This is an interesting final note--the test pilot for THE MUNSTERS that was never used.  Interestingly, it was shot full color (the show itself doesn’t even use color, but for the test pilot they go with color?).  Nonetheless, it is an unfinished, unpolished dress-rehersal where the interaction between the characters, their make-up and the tone of the show is  sampled.

It comes off as darker, by far, than the final product.  Perhaps more in the vein of THE ADDAMS FAMILY than they wanted.  Yvonne De Carlo’s Lily Munster does not appear, instead Herman is married to a Vampira look-alike named Phoebe played by Joan Marshall.  Eddie in this piece is played viciously by Happy Derman--surely his take was a little too scary for what the show was to become.

Neat stuff, check it out...

Gwynne retained fond recollections of Herman, saying in later life, "... I might as well tell you the truth. I love old Herman Munster. Much as I try not to, I can't stop liking that fellow."

(Click to Frankensize)

As you may or may not know I do enjoy the heck out of the old horror films that Turner Classic Movies provides we humble viewers with every October, so I will be including (when I can remember it) listings of the night’s treats and boy are there a few grand ones on tonight:

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

8pm

THE MYSTERY OF THE WAX MUSEUM (1933)

9:30pm

DOCTOR X (1932)

11:00pm

MARK OF THE VAMPIRE (1935)

12:15am

HOUSE OF DRACULA (1945)

1:30am

ZOMBIES OF MORA TAU (1957)

2:45am

NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968)

4:30am

I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE (1943)

And one more thing...?