Scared Pinkless

The Pink Panther and his gang are alongside the classic cartoons that I grew up with and still love watching to this day. Timeless and endlessly entertaining, there's always one for the occasion and today is a good time to look at Pink Plasma. In Pink Plasma the panther finding himself in a spooky castle full of monsters and other classic haunted house tropes. This one feels like a Halloween greeting card to me. No jokes this time, let's just watch a great cartoon.

Halfway 2 Halloween~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.

originally posted 8/25/2023

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.

Weekly Halloween: The Haunting of Grayskull

 

Castle Grayskull is a spooky place. It's a big, old,and decrepit castle with a freaking skull for a front door. Inside is all sorts of magic and sorcery. Hard to believe this is the good guys place, but it is... well unless Skeletor takes over and becomes Master of the Universe. While there's all sorts of scary things within, one particular ghost serves a purpose. The Spirit of Grayskull is the voice of the castle itself. He serves to guide those within on matters like the power sword and becoming King of the Castle. 

Originally the spirit was depicted as a cloud like skull face and was a more involved  fictionally in the early days, but did stick around. He appears in the original Filmation cartoon as a disembodied head. Later in Classics, it was established to be the ghostly form of King Grayskull himself. Personally I prefer those earlier depictions. Eternia and all it's citizens were more raw and that floating skull coming out of a skull shaped haunted castle was just perfect.

Barney Is An Asshole

I've never understood why the characters in cereal commercials just don't buy a box of their own. It'd certainly be cheaper than all the costumes and props used just to steal a bowl. Then there's instances like this where Fred is on some sort of trip to a haunted castle. Of course it's the perfect time for some Fruity Pebbles and dammit Barney. Just dammit, can Fred just eat his fucking cereal in peace? 

Maestros Del Universo Tiene Muchos Fantasmas

I'm going to make the MOTU/Halloween comparison again. Eventually I'm going to find whatever haunted attraction they filmed some of these old live action commercials at. This one in particular as it has a life sized replica of the iron wolf door from Snake Mountain! I do often wonder if I'm the only person making the He-Man/horror connection.

When it comes to Eternia, I wonder just how much of it is demonic haunted houses compared to space opera? Is there warring design groups? The metal guys vs Epcot season pass holders? Somebody has to be in the middle negotiating demonic haunted castles and space ships.

A Mountain Of Snakes

Hey Rob, are you going to make another comparison to He-Man's villains and Halloween decorations/satanic panic? Yes. Since Skeletor was inspired by a skeleton in a haunted house that scared a Mattel toy designer when he was a kid, it's only natural that he would live in a haunted house. Rivaling Castle Grayskull as the headquarters of the evil warriors on Eternia, is the freaky Snake Mountain. Once again as an adult, I kinda see where some of those parental groups were coming from. That talking mountain face you saw in the commercial above? It's literally a demon. It's one of the toys selling features on the box.

Just look at that thing. A scary bridge to cross in front of terrible monster faces, evil lurks behind every corner. Somebody chained Man-At-Arms up by his arms. Or by his At-Arms. Does he have legs or At-Legs? Look at the front door on top of the mountain. Big bat adorned gate with a wolfs head door and guarded by a giant snake. Classic spooky shit. Like I said, Skeletor was inspired by a prop at a haunted house, so he naturally lives in one. Makes me wonder what that haunted house the designer was at looked like. Because if it's anything like this, I kinda want to go.

In the cartoon, Snake Mountain was basically just that. A mountain with a snake on it. I don't know if that's due to designs not being finalized at the time of production or somebody at Filmation got the creeps. Thinking about it, the toy line and it's assorted artwork is a lot more scary looking than the cartoon. As if somebody thought to sanitize it out before putting on TV. For example, let's look at Skeletor. Below is a head shot of his toy, a story book, and the cartoon.

see what I mean?

I've always wondered, ... is Snake Mountain alive? When my cousin would come over and we'd play He-Man, who got to be Snake Mountain was a regular subject. For those who are either not in the know, or couldn't tell in the commercial. The wolf head was a microphone that you could speak into and a speaker would amplify it in a 'scary' voice. The mountain was covered in heads, a wolf head, a demon face, a few other faces, and the giant snake.

Now the snake was probably alive as it could move around to attack heroic warriors. Or solicitors. The demon face's mouth can move, which would make you think the scary voice is coming from it. I guess. I wonder if the demon uses the wolf head as a conduit for possession. I mean, just look at the kid using it in the commercial. Forever cursed. Forever dammed. Forever the voice of Snake Mountain. Giant asshole.

Something Spooky at 5 past the hour

I'm from Georgia and I was raised in the suburban areas that surrounded Atlanta. Being a child in the 80's and a teenager in the 90's put's me in a very odd spot. You see, when I was a kid, TBS was a local channel. Yes, the same TBS you probably watch Conan O'Brien on now used to be local UHF television when I was a child. Back then, all it ever seemed to show was old syndicated reruns, local sports, WCW wrestling, old movies, and old cartoons. All starting 5 minutes after the hour, to give you time to flip from what you were watching before the show started.

While this may sound bogus, it wasn't, it was bad ass. They'd arrange the shows into odd blocks. Tom and Jerry's Funhouse on TBS was like a mix tape of Looney Tunes, Fleischer, and Tom and Jerry shorts with Kid's Beat news segments hosted by Josh and Audra. Most kids were pretty big fans of the show as it came on in the afternoon and in the morning with odd local news interlaced. Therefore you could watch cartoons before getting on the bus. IF anything I had to sit through five minutes of local news before it got flipped to TBS. The news was really just the weather because nothing ever happened back then. Except Jonestown.

The cartoon block was so popular that it sprung various specials. Which brings us here today. Above is the bumber segments from the Tom and Jerry Halloween Special. A special that came on approximately 900 million bazillion times all through October every year. The segments aired between various 'spooky' cartoons and... in the video preview up there I swear Josh is smoking a joint.

Even with the hokiness of local television productions, they really put some effort into the special. Josh and Audra have a different costume in each segment and they filmed it at The Rhodes Hall Haunted Castle. For the record, that's not a haunted attraction... we just have a haunted castle in Georgia for some reason. Georgia's pretty weird.

Warduke is everything

I'm not a Dungeons and Dragons guy. I've tried to play it, it seems awesome, I'm just not a role player. I've certainly enjoyed D&D in other forms. The cartoon (which was awesome), the old toy line, various books and the occasional video game. You know, stuff. The stuff is great. One character that I've always loved and held in high regard is Warduke. Warduke is good stuff.

I was first introduced to Mr. Duke by getting his action figure, then he'd pop up on the cartoon and other outlets (odd children's book via weekly reader and other stuff). Just pure bad ass. One day I'm going to replace my old action figure of him (his parts lay in memorial at my Mom's house). Though despite only getting that one action figure, I've kinda gotten him in other forms. It's a stretch, but work with me here, I'm going somewhere with this. Somewhere bad ass.

Warduke has a very distinct looking design. Know how you see a skeleton warrior and Skeletor just pops in your mind? A red and blue robot, that's nobody else than Optimus Prime. Warduke has that kind of design for me. Death Adder, Sideways, Powers of Pain... the list could go on, but I've made my point. If not, look I don't know what to tell you. I totally made it, ok? You fucking know I did.

I don't know if Warduke's design is based on an older thing, and really I don't care. Warduke is just my general name for that look. Every gelatin is Jello, every tissue is Kleenex, every kinda mid evil/bat wing head heavy metal looking dude is Warduke. I feel like every air brushed carnival ride has featured Warduke in some way. I know I've seen variations of his design on haunted houses in the shady parking lot carnivals a million times. That's how the old cartoon started, so you might want to be careful riding one of those. You'll either be transported to the world of Dungeons & Dragons, or catch some weird disease. The seats on those things man... what are those stains even from?

Is it poop?