Maniac Mansion (TV series)
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| Maniac Mansion | |
|---|---|
| Format | science fiction comedy |
| Created by | Eugene Levy |
| Starring | Joe Flaherty Deborah Theaker |
| Opening theme | sung by Jane Siberry [1] |
| Country of origin |  Canada |
| Language(s) | English |
| No. of episodes | 66 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Michael Short David Flaherty John Hemphill |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | The Family Channel YTV |
| Original run | 1990 – 1993 |
| External links | |
| IMDb profile | |
Maniac Mansion is a Canadian television series based on the video game of the same name. The series, produced by Atlantis Films for The Family Channel in the United States and YTV in Canada, aired from 1990–1993 for three complete seasons. There were 66 30-minute programs in all.
Contents |
[edit] Plot summary
The plot of the show is loosely based on the 1980s computer game Maniac Mansion, with several liberties being taken with the characters and stories.
The show centers around the Edison family, headed up by father Fred (Joe Flaherty), a mad scientist, and his wife Casey (Deborah Theaker), and comprised of teenage Tina (Kathleen Robertson), pubescent Ike (Avi Phillips), toddler Turner (George Buza), and Casey's sister Idella (Mary Charlotte-Wilcox) and her husband Harry (John Hemphill). Prior to the beginning of the series, Fred came into possession of an evil meteor which mutated his son Turner into a giant and Harry into a fly; the recurring plotline of the series found Fred performing various outlandish experiments to turn them back into normal looking people. Aside from these plot elements, the show largely followed the format of a typical sitcom, with plots revolving around sibling rivalry, marriage troubles, wacky neighbors, and teen angst.
The series was cancelled after three seasons and 66 episodes, most likely due to poor ratings in North America. The series has been re-run several times in the 1990s but, apparently, it has not been shown on Canadian Television since the turn of the century. At this time there are no known plans for the series to be released on DVD.
[edit] Characters
[edit] Main characters
- Dr. Fred Edison (Joe Flaherty)
- Casey Edison (Deborah Theaker)
- Tina Edison (Kathleen Robertson)
- Ike Edison (Avi Phillips)
- Turner Edison (George Buza)
- Idella Muckle Orca (Mary Charlotte Wilcox)
- Harry the Fly (John Hemphill)
[edit] Differences from the game
Although the series and game share many superficial differences, they are vastly different in terms of plot and characterization:
- The Edisons are not the main characters of the game; twenty years prior to the beginning of the game, Fred was an insane but benign scientist who discovered a sentient meteor in his front yard. The meteor slowly gained Fred's confidence, then convinced him to build a machine which, when activated, gave the meteor control over Fred's mind. For the next twenty years, the meteor, for apparently purely sadistic purposes, instructed Fred in the construction of a massive machine with which to suck the brains out of teenagers. A day prior to the game's events, Fred kidnaps his first victim, a cheerleader named Sandy, and brings her to the mansion to have her brains sucked out. The game itself revolves around Sandy's boyfriend and two of his friends breaking into Fred's mansion to save her.
- In the game, Fred's wife's name is Edna. Fred and Edna are depicted as being in their sixties or seventies; Fred's son, Ed, is a giant, like his counterpart Turner, but is depicted as being in his thirties or forties, and his gigantism is never attributed to the meteor's influence; a photorealistic depiction of Ed on the back of the game box depicted him as having acromegaly.
- In the game, Fred and his wife sleep in separate bedrooms; Edna's bedroom is designed to look like a prostitute's boudoir, while Fred's is empty except for a bed and a HAM radio. Five years prior to the beginning of the game, Fred stopped having sex with Edna, in addition to ceasing eating and sleeping; as a result, Edna spends the game in a perpetual state of sexual frustration, and threatens to rape male characters whenever she encounters them.
- Ed is a survivalist who has been single-handedly orchestrating a raid on Fred's laboratory to free his father from the meteor's influence. He spends most of the game waiting for "commando plans" to arrive by mail, and, once he receives them, perfecting the final stages of his plan. A minor subplot revolves around Ed having a childlike, sometimes quasi-sexual fascination with his pet hamster.
- Rather than the fourth member of the family being Edna's brother, it is her cousin, Ted; Ted died several years prior to the start of the game. After his death, he was mummified in the style of ancient Egyptian embalming, and his corpse--complete with eyeglasses--left dangling from the shower rod in the mansion's bathroom. A running gag throughout the game insinuates that, in spite of being dead, Ted is animate-- his "bedroom" includes a coffin with a built-in television, and he owns a fetish poster of a nude woman wrapped in bandages as if she were a mummy--but the player never actually sees Ted move or speak, unless they turn the shower on. In this case, Ted's body appears to drift away from the water, leaving the player to interpret if the water caused Ted's body to float away or if Ted moved himself to avoid becoming wet.
- The Edisons have two pets, a pair of talking, ambulatory, disembodied octopus tentacles, that act as the family's servants.
[edit] See also
- Maniac Mansion (computer game)
