The Hilarious House of Frightenstein
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| The Hilarious House of Frightenstein | |
|---|---|
 Title card for the show |
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| Genre | Sketch comedy |
| Camera setup | Single camera |
| Running time | ~48 minutes |
| Creator(s) | Billy Van |
| Starring | Billy Van Fishka Rais Guy Big Mitch Markowitz Vincent Price Julius Sumner Miller |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| Original channel | CHCH |
| Original run | 1971– |
| No. of episodes | 130 |
| IMDb profile | |
The Hilarious House of Frightenstein was a Canadian children's television series which was produced by Hamilton, Ontario's independent station CHCH in 1971. It was syndicated to television stations across Canada and the United States and occasionally still appears today in some TV markets. In Canada, the series is currently airing on Space: The Imagination Station and Drive-In Classics.
A quirky sketch comedy series, the show's cast included Billy Van, Fishka Rais, Guy Big, Mitch Markowitz, Vincent Price and Julius Sumner Miller. Van, in fact, played the vast majority of the characters.
All 130 episodes of the series were made in one single nine-month span of time starting in 1971, and the scenes with Price and Miller were all filmed within one summer.
Contents |
[edit] Theme song
Both the opening and closing credits were accompanied by a musical composition played entirely on a Moog synthesizer and written by Harry Breuer, Gary Carol and Pat Prilly. Its title is March of the Martians. The original recording can be found on an out-of-print Pickwick vinyl album called "The Happy Moog".
[edit] Characters
The chief character,Count Frightenstein (Van), was the thirteenth son of Count Dracula and was exiled to Castle Frightenstein in Canada for failing to revive Brucie J. Monster, a Frankenstein-like monster. Assisted by Igor (Rais), an overweight incompetent, and a three-foot-tall mini-Count (Big), each episode followed the Count’s efforts to revive Brucie and featured comedy skits. Each episode opened and closed with an appearance by the venerable horror star Vincent Price as he recited intentionally silly poetry with toy skulls and shrunken heads in the background.
Other characters on the show included:
- The Wolfman - A werewolf DJ at radio station EECH who spun rock and roll records while doing a Wolfman Jack impression. The Wolfman's theme song was Sly and the Family Stone's "I Want to Take You Higher". The segment featured then-current hit singles by the Rolling Stones or Sly and the Family Stone (which were referred to as ‘golden oldies’ in order to avoid dating the program), with The Wolfman and Igor dancing in silhouette against a psychedelic background. Due to licensing issues, the musical numbers are no longer shown.
- The Grammar Slammer - The Grammar Slammer was the disembodied voice (of Joe Torbay) who challenged Igor to correct grammatical errors, accompanied by an eight-foot purple monster named Bammer who threatened to beat up Igor if he failed.
- The Professor - U.S. physicist Professor Julius Sumner Miller, a veteran of the Mickey Mouse Club (where he was known as Professor Wonderful), provided science lessons on such things as thermal expansion and the cartesian diver.
- Bwana Clyde Batty - A British explorer who teaches about wild animals on Zany Zoo. His catchphrase is "ooga booga!"
- Grizelda, the Ghastly Gourmet - A witch who provides a parody of television cooking shows, she cooks suitably ghastly recipes in her cauldron. In every one of her segments, she bangs her head on the pot above her cauldron, and invariably declares the recipe a failure after it causes a small explosion.
- The Librarian - An elderly curmudgeon who unsuccessfully tries to scare the viewers by reading childrens stories, such as "Humpty Dumpty" and "Henny Penny", which he thinks are horror stories. He also sometimes reads fables with unpleasant endings. He eventually admits to not being any more frightened than the viewers, but considers reading important nonetheless.
- The Maharishi - A Hindu guru who shares bits of mystically inscrutable wisdom. Several flowers would then fall atop his head afterward.
- The Oracle - A mystic who reads out horoscopes, invariably knocking over and breaking his crystal ball in the process. He then answers questions supposedly sent in from viewers.
- Dr. Pet Vet - A veterinarian who teaches about domestic animals (whereas the Zany Zoo was about wild fauna). He always offers the day's animal to Igor as a pet, but the Sloth in the basement invariably refuses to allow Igor to keep the animal.
- The Midget Count - Played by Guy Big, this is a three-foot tall clone of The Count (and possibly the inspiration for Mini-Me in the Austin Powers movies, given that Mike Myers grew up in Southern Ontario.)
Puppets (played by Joe Torbay) included:
- Harvey Wallbanger - The postmaster of Castle Frightenstein's "dead letter office", this puppet appears in sketches with The Count or Grizelda, in which they answer letters.
- Gronk - A purple sea serpent who interacts with the Count or the Wolfman.
Other minor or interstitial characters:
- Super Hippy - Played by Markowitz, this hippie in a superhero costume appears leading in and out of commercials, sitting or flying in varying locations as he delivers some variation on "Don't change the channel, we'll be right back after these commercials."
- The Singing Soldier - A palace guard (played by Van) who gets a cream pie thrown in his face whenever he sings.
- The Mosquito - Played by Markowitz, the mosquito always tells a bad joke about insects before biting a human foot.
- A Gorilla - A person dressed in a gorilla costume (Van) would walk out of a jungle set and invariably try to scare whomever he was looking at. In every segment however he would be thwarted by a golf ball that would hit him square in the head, causing him to keel over. He usually tried to avoid the golf balls, in one instance by holding up a parasol.
[edit] DVD releases
On October 18, 2005, Empire pictures released a single DVD featuring a handful of half-hour US-syndicated episodes. The most significant change for these episodes as broadcast (apart from the length) was the addition of a laugh track.
On October 17th, 2006, Alliance Atlantis Home Video in Canada released a 3-disc box set of 13 full-length episodes, with restored Wolfman segments. The shows are not in chronological order, as only episodes that had thus far obtained music clearances for the Wolfman dance segments were included. The Wolfman theme, Sly & the Family Stone's "I Want To Take You Higher", had not yet been cleared, so the opening was altered with new music and Billy Van's voice was re-dubbed by another actor (Van died in 2003). As per recent airings in Canada on the cable networks Drive-In Classics and Space, the main Frightenstein theme is also a re-recording, due to licencing restrictions by Morning Music, Ltd.
