Showing posts with label animated. Show all posts
Showing posts with label animated. Show all posts

Monday, October 22, 2012

MONSTER-MONTH: A COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN (Day 23)

(Click to Frankensize)
“It’s thrilling and chilling,
and oh so shock filling,
The Milton the Monster Show;

It’s daring and scaring,
you’ll find yourself staring,
at Milton the Monster’s Show;

Your flesh will creep,
your heart will thump,
the sites will paralyze;

But then you’ll see the strangest things
that ever met your eyes!
It’s loony and goony,
and practicallyswoony;

You’ll shake and you’ll quake,
at the sights that they make,
on The Milton the Monster Show!

Introducing the star of the show, Milton the Monster.

He blows his stack
when he flips his lid;
Although he’s a monster
he’s just a big kid;

And now he’s ready to go,
on The Milton the Monster Show.”




The Milton the Monster Show is an animated television series that ran on ABC-TV from October of 1965 to September of 1968 and was produced and directed by Hal Seeger, who also created Batfink.



Some felt that Hal Seeger’s Milton was an attempt to capitalize on the 1964 horror/comedy craze which included The Munsters and The Addams Family TV series.  However, Milton the Monster had been in production long before those two series aired and it was slated to debut in the fall of ’64 until production delays pushed it back until October 1965.

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The series starred Milton the Monster, a Frankenstein-looking monster with a flat-topped head which seemed to emit white steam or smoke based on his mood or the situation.  Milton was created by Professor Montgomery Weirdo and his assistant Count Kook who live on Horror Hill in a haunted house.



Milton has a pleasant disposition due to an error in the Professor’s work in creating him--he used too much “tincture of tenderness” to temper his potential to do harm to his creator.  Milton was created through a process that combined liquids such as “essence of terror” and “sinister sauce” in a Milton-shaped mold.

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Bob McFadden provided the voice for Milton, which owed much to Grady Sutton’s Og Ogglby character from W.C. Fields’ film THE BANK DICK.  McFadden also voiced Professor Weirdo and his resident monsters Heebie, a skull-faced top hat-wearing zombie with a Peter Lorre voice, and Jeebie, a dumb one-eyed hairy green creature with one sharp tooth.



Professor Weirdo’s enemy was Professor Fruitcake, another mad scientist who lived in a castle on an opposite hill.  Fruitcake’s creation was Zelda the Zombie.  Other characters in the series include Fangenstein, a biker monster inspired by Marlon Brando, his sidekick, Ambercrombie the Zombie and Professor Weirdo’s aunt, the witchy Aunt Hagatha.

(Click to Frankensize)

(Click to Frankensize)

Watch MIlTON THE MONSTER for FREE at HULU:



Check out the series at these sites:







On TCM:
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
2AM - CHARLY (1968)



And finally:

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

MONSTER-MONTH: COUNTDOWN TO HALLOWEEN (Day 9)

Today, we venture into the strange world of Hanna-Barbera Animation to visit with a robot who carries the burden of the name... Frankenstein!



FRANKENSTEIN, JR. AND THE IMPOSSIBLES were a pair of Hanna-Barbera cartoons packed into a half hour of television programming for the CBS television network.  It premiered September 10, 1966.



Similar to many of the animation company’s efforts, this series was shortlived--ending after an 18 episode run.  Frankenstein Jr. is actually the name of the gigantic robot created by Professor Conroy for his  boy genius son Buzz Conroy--apparently he didn’t grasp that Frankenstein was the creator not the creation.



Set in Civic City, the adventures of young Buzz and Frankenstein, Jr. as they fight supervillains in the name of justice.  Buzz would activate his pal, “Frankie”, via an energy ring.  Frankenstein, Jr. is very similar in appearance to the very popular animated character GIGANTOR, who had a hit show at the time.



Frankie was voiced by Ted Cassidy (Lurch of THE ADDAMS FAMILY).  Buzz was voiced by Dick Beals, also famous for the voice of Chuck Jones’ Ralph Phillips for Warner Bros. and Davey of DAVEY & GOLIATH.



The target of complaints about violence in children’s television, the show was cancelled in 1968.


FIVE FRANKENSTEIN FUN FACTS:
  1. Gold Key Comics released a single issue of FRANKENSTEIN JR. AND THE  IMPOSSIBLES in 1966 as a tie-in to the TV show.  The contents of it were reprinted in “The Impossibles Annual” by Atlas Publishing & Distributing Co. Ltd., in 1968 in the United Kingdom.
  2. In 1976, Space Ghost and Frankenstein Jr. were repackaged and combined together into a single cartoon series entitled SPACE GHOST/ FRANKENSTEIN JR. SHOW for NBC.
  3. Ted Cassidy also voiced the role of Ben Grimm aka The Thing in the 1978 FANTASTIC FOUR animated series and went on  to voice and announce for animated shows like GODZILLA, THE HULK, SUPER FRIENDS and voicing the opening narration of the 1970s THE INCREDIBLE HULK.
  4. FRANKENSTEIN JR. and THE IMPOSSIBLES is available via Warner Bros. and print  on demand.
  5. Frankenstein Jr. or “Frankie” as he is referred to by Buzz, stands 30 feet tall.

And now, some merchandise featuring Frankie Jr...

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(Click to Frankensize)

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And now, some art featuring FRANKENSTEIN JR.
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Links to follow Frankie Jr. with:






And now, because THAT GUY demanded it: