Video Mad Monster Party part 9

Since it is Halloween time, I have decided to upload one of my favorite animated movies, Mad Monster Party. After the success the Rankin Bass studio had with their famous special Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, the team decided that they would make way to theatrical features. So they made a deal with a producer called Joseph E. Levine that they would make 3 features.

Their first one combined live action with stop motion, which was called The Daydreamer. Their second project was one that I had uploaded before, called The Wacky World of Mother Goose, starring Margaret Rutherford as the voice of Mother Goose.

And this project is their most famous one, released in 1967. A well organized team of movie workers helped make this project. Boris Karloff, better known as Frankenstein from the movies, came on to the project on one of his last movies to date.

Some woman named Gale Garnett came in to voice Francesca. Allen Swift, who was good at imitating celebrity voices, signed on to do a Jimmy Stewart for Felix Flankin, Bela Lugosi for Dracula, Alec Guiness (better known as Obi Wan Kenobi) for Dr. Jekyll, and Peter Lorre for Yetch. The characters were designed pretty well too, as Jack Davis from Mad Magazine did it. Even he told Rankin/Bass historian Rick Goldschmidt that Boris Karloffs Frankenstein scared him as a kid. Maury Laws, who is a significant figure in the world of Rankin Bass, did the score for this movie.

A soundtrack CD of his score was talked about at some convention in 1967, but it was never released until 1998, when the entire score, and the songs from the movie, were released on a CD by Percepto Records. During the 1970s on every Halloween season, this movie would air on Channel 5 in New York City. When it was released on home video, it was a poor, washed out, terrible 16mm print they used for it.

But sometime during 1998, either Sony Columbia dudes or cult movie fans discovered a pristine print for this movie, and this was the basis for the later home video release and the DVD release. And the most awesome part about this movie was that this flick inspired Tim Burton to create his ever famous The Nightmare Before Christmas movie, which is now on a 2-disc special edition DVD. Enjoy the movie everyone!