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Rankin/Bass, creators of the "Animagic" television classic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, jumped to the big screen for this 1967 Halloween spooktacular (couldn't resist, sorry) featuring Boris Karloff, Frankenstein, The Werewolf, The Mummy, Dr. Jeckyl, The Creature, The Hunchback, The Invisible Man, and...Phyllis Diller! Ahhhh!
More details on the film, and the cartoon follow-up Mad Mad Monsters here.
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Lots of fascinating people were involved in Mad Monster Party. I love the look and concept of the movie - although an hour and a half of Rankin Bass is a bit much for one sitting.
1) Phyllis Diller apparently bought a grand piano and had it delivered to her penthouse suite in the hotel she was staying in, in order to practice her songs for the film.
2)Harvey Kurtzman(!) has a credit as one of the scriptwriters but he says he quit after the first day and tried to have his name removed. He said they gave him a bunch of money and used nothing that he wrote in the end. I believe he was quoted as calling the movie "a piece of shit" or something to that effect. I always had thought Kurtzman must have put the MAD in the Mad Monster Party, but nope.
3) Boris Karloff. Nuff said.
There was a soundtrack LP released when the film came out that is extremely rare. It's been re-issued on CD, but to find the album would certainly be sweet.
Posted by: Listener Kliph | October 23, 2007 at 02:42 AM
Oh man, I remember the TV commercials for this when it first came out - "Phyllis Diller - the hostess with the leastest!" Heady stuff for an 11-year-old whose pop-culture junkiedom was still in its nascence.
Posted by: Parq | October 23, 2007 at 08:52 AM
And honey-voiced New Zealand folk singer Gale Garnett as femme-fatale Francesca. I've seen this movie aboutt a dozen times in my life (it was a mainstay of Tom Hatten's weekly, Sunday afternoon "Family Film Festival" on KTLA-5 in L.A. in the late 70s/early 80s, if anyone here is old enough to remember that) and still, everytime I hear "Never Was a Love Like Mine", I melt.
BTW, I heard a rumor that they're (gag!) doing a REMAKE.
Posted by: mike. | October 23, 2007 at 02:27 PM
Watch it every year at this time, even though as someone pointed out, the idea of it is better than the actual product.
Posted by: Texecution | October 23, 2007 at 03:56 PM
I got this last year on DVD, and will watch it every Halloween from now on. I remember watching this that year when it came out on TV. I've also made a rip of the soundtrack of the dvd and shared it HERE.
Dave
Posted by: Dave | October 24, 2007 at 01:22 AM
Wow! Is that the Grateful Dead playing "Touch of Grey"?
Posted by: Hebrew School | October 25, 2007 at 02:52 PM