Dracula Saved Halloween for You and Me

Here we are again. The Halloween season is slowly coming to a close and that means once again I'm talking about The Halloween that Almost Wasn't/The Night Dracula Saved the World. It's my favorite Halloween special... I've said that each time. I said it because I meant it. When I was a kid, Halloween was this weird patchwork holiday. Spooky, creepy, scary... but also ratchet as hell sometimes. The Disney Channel, for example, a big company with lots of money and slick polish would fill October with tons of old specials like this.

It's got the production value of a school play, almost amateurish things happen on screen like when the Wolfman is standing in view before he's supposed to go through a door. The Mummy just falls on his ass a few times. But... it's funny as hell. Like, legitimately funny. There's a fun script and the actors are obviously having a great time. It's a good thing the special is easily watchable, because none would believe that this thing exists. Despite all that, it's so very Halloween at it's core. Pure Pumpkin Spiced Mayhem. Happy Halloween everybody.

What's going on with Igor?

A.1. is delicious, everyone loves it. Know who else everyone loves? Boris Karloff. Boris has been Frankenstein's monster most famously, but has starred in countless movies and shows. He's a perfect pitchman to sell A.1 during the spooky season, speaking of... A.1 has 13 seasonings! Spooky mad scientist aside, what the hell is going on with Igor?

Frankentron [Universal Monsters x Transformers]

Like Draculus before, I was super excited when Frankentron was announced and pre-ordered one right away. The Universal Monsters have been a life long fandom of mine and having them Crossover with Transformers is just pure bliss. If you would have told the small child version of myself always toting his Remco Frankenstein Monster around that one day there would be a Transformers version of it... well, you'd have one happy little boy. Frankentron is a pretty heavy remold of the Siege Impactor toy with several new parts. I really liked Impactor and think it was a good choice for a base mold. His blocky yet well articulated design really lends itself to the classic Frankenstein Monster look. Let's talk about the new parts. Frankentron has open palm hands perfect for classic lumbering poses. Then there's his new chest that looks like a bare chested monster.

Of course there's the new head with that signature flat top. It's really a great robotic take on the classic Jack Pierce design. Last, but certainly not least is the new Tesla Coil weapon with electricity effect. This serves as the monsters tank cannon, or a weapon in robot mode. It has a cool burst of purple energy that can be attached for an attack effect. I like to pose it upwards in robot mode with the intention of generation energy for the creature to use in a rampage. Transformation is pretty easy. Aside from folding a few parts here and there, Frankentron basically folds over in a 'touch your toes' position. Those few parts I mentioned fold into place and with that Tesla Coil weapon inserted you've got one wild Cybertronian Tank that shoots electricity. It's as though Dr. Frankenstin developed a Maser Tank. After Draculus I wasn't expecting another Universal Monster to get the Transformers treatment and they made a really great figure. I hope the rest of the monsters find their way to Cybertron. Happy Halloween!

Dracula and Saved Halloween and maybe the World

As Pumpkin Spiced Mayhem comes to an end, it's time for a viewing of my all time favorite Halloween special. The Halloween that Almost Wasn't/The Night Dracula Saved the World is about Dracula and his fellow monsters trying to prevent the Witch from quitting her duties to fly over the moon at Halloween. It's hilarious and full of noticeable little goofs that make it even better. Happy Halloween everybody, thankfully Dracula saved it... and/or the world. Maybe both.

Enough to Make you Hallowscream

I've never been to Kentucky Kingdom, but judging by this commercial from 1995, it's pretty great during Halloween. While I'm sure in more recent years they've probably updated the scares with more modern frights... there's just something special about those classic monsters running around and scaring folks.

Make Mine Monster

TOMY is a company readers of the site should be well acquainted with. They merged with Takara in 2005 and the shared logo has been printed on Transformers packages ever since. Not to mention Zoids, Starriors, and other cool toys. TOMY makes A LOT of toys, big and small... which brings us to the Mighty Men and Monsters drawing set from 1978. It's a gadget where you arrange various plates and stencil in a monster or super hero. Pretty neat. The real draw here is the commercial itself. Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Mummy are having a great time in a spooky castle drawing all sorts of cool pictures. Best brunch ever.

Beware of the Castle of Doom

Troll dolls were all the rage in the early 90's. I myself had quite a few and honestly still kinda dig them. The Norfin brand of Trolls even got a few direct to video cartoons! Castle of Doom, their Halloween special is something interesting. Some good natured trolls find themselves in a haunted castle pursued by Frankenstein, Dracula, and The Wolfman as trolls. There's a mad scientist too! Look, if I were to tell you there was a Halloween Troll OVA, would you believe me? Good thing I found an upload of the VHS. Ironically, troll dolls are also known as Dam dolls thanks to being created by a dude named Thomas Dam.

Is my National Holiday

We're winding down the spooky season and it's time to dust off my absolute favorite Halloween special. The Halloween That Almost Wasn't/The Night Dracula Saved The World. It has two names depending on how it's distributed, but the same all time great. There's just something special about a bunch of TV actors getting together and putting on a silly production with an obvious shoe string production for the holiday. Well, I say shoe string... they're was obviously a lot of *ahem* substances in use. That couldn't have been cheap. The Mummy has a pretty hard time staying upright after awhile.  It's a great special though. Halloween in it's purest form.

House of Magoo

Mr Magoo has meet with Frankenstein before, but let's not worry about that shall we? It's Halloween and nothing better than a stay at Hotel Transylvania! Well, it's not that either, but what it is... it's a blind old man who has mistaken Frankenstein Castle for a hotel. For some reason the Dr wants to use Magoo's brain for his monster who currently has the brain of a rooster. Just watch it, it's good... I promise.

Frankenbutter

 

For a long time, Reese's was very adamant that chocolate and peanut butter combined needed to be explained. One thing that doesn't need to be explained is how integral Reese's is to the Halloween experience. We all know how coveted those peanut butter cups are in your trick or treat bag. I'd share some of those Tootsie Rolls, trade a Jolly Rancher... but you'd likely get stabbed over a Reese's. It's such a part of the holiday that the annual bat, pumpkin, and ghosts editions are a tradition almost as important as plastic fangs. There's no mystery as to why the package is orange.

Weekly Halloween: Dracula vs Frankenstein

 

Nothing says Halloween more than Dracula and Frankenstein. That being said, I'm sure a bag of Halloween candy costs more than this film did to make. Still, it's got all the markings of the Horror Marathon that'll play while you give out that candy to trick or treaters between bites of pizza. It's even got Lon Chaney Jr! Sadly it's during the last unflattering days of his career, but it's still always good to see him. The monsters headquarters in the movie is even underneath a haunted attraction! Look, it's not a great movie. However, you tell me a team of monsters have a base under a haunted attraction and I'm sold. Trick or treat guys.

Mr. Magoo's Frankenstein

Mr. Magoo is an old man who can hardly see, which makes him a perfect character to star in a production of Frankenstein. Of course he can see just fine in the production and and... look, I didn't make the cartoon. I wasn't even born yet when it aired. However, I can say this is a pretty fun version of Frankenstein. It's from the series "The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo", which had the old man as an actor in various adaptions of classic stories. You know, Like Alf Tales, but with a character nobody cares about.

Frankenstein Ruins The Party

I've never eaten at a Roy Roger's restaurant before and likely never will. There's none around me... I'm also a heart patient and can't even fathom eating a fast food fried chicken dinner. I do admit $1.99 is a pretty good price for all that food. It's so cheap that everyone attending this Halloween party gets one all their own! Even though it's quickly going down the toilet. I mean, inappropriate Frankenstein is just... *sigh*.

Who invited him?

Soda Monster

Halloween Is Not Canceled, Thanks To Dracula

I've been hearing it all year. Halloween is canceled. Yet here we are celebrating the spooky shit out of it. Pandemic be damned, we all flew over the moon and rang in the best season of the year. 

It's not Halloween yet, at least not until we all watch my favorite Halloween Special of all time- The Halloween That Almost Wasn't! Seems a little more fitting this year huh? The video attached above is a pretty good copy of the VHS release (with alternate 'The Night Dracula Saved The World' title).

I'm not ashamed to admit I watch it throughout the year. Just like old Halloween commercials and a few other choice specials, it's some of my favorite things to watch. I love it so. 

The season is winding down, I know. Soon I'll have to pack the pumpkins away and wait another year for... who am I kidding? Everyday is Halloween on Zone Base. They'll be spooky shit all year. It's even in the sites description. It's a site about robots AND monsters. Duh.

If you watch the video from my site, or later on TV, enjoy Dracula and the gang saving Halloween. They had to save it from a fed up Witch. We had to save it from a freaking pandemic. Admittedly he probably had an easier job.

Malicious And Rotten's Excellent Adventure

It's been a weird night year huh? Good thing it's the spooky season and we can find fun and laughter in cheap plastic fangs and pumpkin flavored everything. I've mentioned at the beginning of this years shindig that I was going to double dip and I meant it. But how can I not double dip when the pumpkin spice mayhem is so wonderful? 

"Witch's Night Out" is a semi obscure Halloween cartoon from 1978. I say semi as every year it seems more people discover it's weird ass. A sequel to a Christmas cartoon called "The Gift Of Winter" (which was even weirder assed) about a Witch who shows some kids a good time on Halloween before her wand gets lost. Two local townies named Malicious and Rotten discover the wand and all hell breaks loose. 

This was on my regular viewing list as a kid... and as an adult. After it's initial run on TV, Disney Channel would regularly show it during October (man, Disney is so good at Halloween). It's on one of those VHS Halloween mix tapes I've talked about here before, but thankfully it's widely available to view online. There's some top level talent here. Dan Aykroyd, Gilda Radner, and Catherine O'Hara to name a few. It's kinda amazing.

Unfortunately Peter Cullen Was A Werewolf

There's probably more forgotten Halloween specials than fondly remembered ones. While that's mostly a tragedy, in the Case of 'Boo!', it's for the best. It's not a bad idea. Take the classic monsters and put them in a silly variety show together during the formats heyday. Couple of musical numbers, a bunch of silly skits. Sure fire idea right? Unfortunately it's probably the worst thing ever made. I would say it's arguably worse than the Star Wars Holiday Special... but I've been able to watch that in it's entirety. I can't get through the first 15 minutes of this. Sure I've skipped around and watched a bit here and there. But straight forward? No way. It's fucking horrible.

If you can make it to minute marker 9:16... or just skip forward... you'll notice who gets top billing. Peter Cullen as the werewolf. The Peter Cullen? Maybe there is another? Possibly. But I can't find any other with a Google search. I also can't find this credit on any of his profiles either. Would you put this on your resume? It's fucking horrible.

The special is only an hour long, which you probably won't watch the entirety of. If I haven't been clear enough, it's fucking horrible. I first ran across it last summer while digging for material for the site. You guys think old Pop Secret commercials just fall out of the sky? I sat through 10 minutes before passing out thanks to that way Dracula kept singing 'do' rendering my brain incapable of thought for a full 10 minutes. Know what can happen in 10 minutes? You can hit the back button on your Roku remote, that's what.

It's fucking horrible.

Will Vinton Sends A Pig To Castle Frankenswine

After the assault from the past few days of Kidding Around, I felt like you all would appreciate something... better. Will Vinton's Claymation Comedy of Horrors is a claymation Halloween special that aired in the early 90's. I didn't see this on Halloween though. My first exposure to it came from a random re-airing of it in the middle of the summer. On a local CBS affiliate no less! Back in those days I'd regularly look through the TV Guide for something cool and usually tape it.

I was always nuts for Halloween, so I had started a Halloween special tape that summer. Most sitcoms would rerun holiday episodes regardless of the time of year. This doubled for shows that had went to syndication. TV Guide was pretty dependable for a brief synopsis of what episode was coming on, so I was able to curate a tape full of specials pretty easily. 

From summer break to the actual season, I somehow made a full 8 hr VHS of Halloween specials that year. The tape is still in my Mom's possession, but I have no clue if it's even watchable. It was on regular rotation in my bedroom throughout the years. Last time I watched it the auto tracking couldn't keep up and it kept making weird squiggly noises. If you lived through the VHS days, you know the ones I'm talking about.

On it is this little show that I saw listed on a random summer evening on CBS. It's pretty fun. Basically a pig and his snail employee find a treasure map which leads to Frankenswine's (pigs, get it?) Castle on Halloween night. They encounter all sorts of monsters in a pretty great looking production. It's pretty obscure, I don't think it has much of a fan following like other Halloween specials. That's ok, not everything has to be a cult classic. I suppose anyway.

Dracula Is A Dickhead

Real talk, I love Pepsi. You might have noticed. You might have noticed I love the Universal Monsters, or even the reason we're here right now. Halloween. I love all three. For a while in the 90's Pepsi and Universal Studios had a partnership with some sort of promotion usually around Halloween. It was great. Normally you could win tickets to Halloween Horror Nights or free snacks. Pepsi products even had great clip out art of the monsters. Times were good. 

The point I'm about to make isn't about the good times, it's about Dracula needing his ass kicked. I hope you've already watched the above clip. There's Frankenstein (let's not be that guy) carrying a Pepsi truck. Really struggling too. Sure he's strong, but you know that thing is heavy. As a big guy, I often get stuck carrying the heavy thing while the others just walk the fuck off. I feel your pain Frankenstein. 

Then he gets to the party where everybody else is having a good time. He brings some soda and chips and what does Dracula say? "What? No dip?" Look at his face, I felt that. I FELT THAT. FUCK YOU DRACULA AND YOUR STUPID CAPE. Take your fake fancy ass down to Kroger and get some your own damn self. Fucking asshole.

What did the Wolfman bring? Weed? Great, like a small portion of the party is going to enjoy that while the rest just try to pretend they aren't uncomfortable. Meanwhile, the Phantom is really upset about it. What if the cops come? What if I get a random drug test at work tomorrow and that second hand shit makes me fail it? I have bills man! You know the Mummy brought a snack tray and everybody saw the Aldi label. He's like royalty or something. I'm not saying he should have went to Whole Foods or anything, but come on. Seriously.

Know what Dracula brought? Jack shit. He just showed up acting like Mr. Cool and everyone just loved him. He's that guy who shows up late and just takes charge after everyone has been working the whole time. Did you decide to bring everybody donuts? He's the one who's going to complain that it's not another brand. Know what, I hope Frankenstein got some dip with a lot of garlic. Fuck that guy.

Avoid Peanut Butter Chews At The Magic Manor

Your costume has to be on point if you plan to get plenty of candy this Halloween. Thankfully The Magic Manor has all those masks of gorillas and old men to avoid. They also have classic monster masks and make up so you can actually have a good costume. Real talk, gorilla and old man masks get you those gross peanut butter chew things. Frankenstein? Fucking Skittles.