Jim Knipfel Oct 31, 2018
Rankin-Bass teamed up with Boris Karloff, Mad Magazine, Forry Ackerman, and Frank Frazetta for a Halloween special. What the hell?
Three years after producing 1964’s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer but before going on to make other warm-hearted and sincere animated holiday standards like Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, The Little Drummer Boy, Frosty the Snowman and the questionable Here Comes Peter Cottontail, Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass took a hard left turn into the dark, delightfully strange, and intensely geeky with Mad Monster Party.
Predating Tim Burton and Henry Selick’s Nightmare Before Christmas by over a quarter-century, the sinister duo’s stop-motion musical comedy celebration of classic Universal horror, which was released as a theatrical feature before becoming a semi-regular October TV standby, never quite cornered the Halloween specials market as planned. Somehow it was never able to lure audiences away from that damned Great Pumpkin.
Rankin-Bass teamed up with Boris Karloff, Mad Magazine, Forry Ackerman, and Frank Frazetta for a Halloween special. What the hell?
Three years after producing 1964’s Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer but before going on to make other warm-hearted and sincere animated holiday standards like Santa Claus Is Comin’ to Town, The Little Drummer Boy, Frosty the Snowman and the questionable Here Comes Peter Cottontail, Arthur Rankin and Jules Bass took a hard left turn into the dark, delightfully strange, and intensely geeky with Mad Monster Party.
Predating Tim Burton and Henry Selick’s Nightmare Before Christmas by over a quarter-century, the sinister duo’s stop-motion musical comedy celebration of classic Universal horror, which was released as a theatrical feature before becoming a semi-regular October TV standby, never quite cornered the Halloween specials market as planned. Somehow it was never able to lure audiences away from that damned Great Pumpkin.
- 10/3/2015
- Den of Geek
Mad Monster Party (1967) is screening at 7pm Thursday, December 5th at Schlafly Bottleworks – 7260 Southwest Ave St Louis, Mo 63143. Doors open at 6:30pm. It’s a fundraiser for Helping Kids Together. Attend wearing a monster costume and you may win a DVD of the film!
“Rankin/Bass” is a moniker long associated with television for the company’s long line of animated specials, the best-known being Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer which first aired in 1964. Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass brought their craft to the big screen the first with Willy McBean And His Magic Machine in 1965, which was a flop as were their primarily live-action Hans Christian Andersen musical The Daydreamer (1966) and the traditionally-animated The Wacky World Of Mother Goose (1967). While Rankin/Bass was soon to become a fixture in holiday television, a fact we were all reminded of every December, the studio tried once more for cinematic success...
“Rankin/Bass” is a moniker long associated with television for the company’s long line of animated specials, the best-known being Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer which first aired in 1964. Arthur Rankin Jr. and Jules Bass brought their craft to the big screen the first with Willy McBean And His Magic Machine in 1965, which was a flop as were their primarily live-action Hans Christian Andersen musical The Daydreamer (1966) and the traditionally-animated The Wacky World Of Mother Goose (1967). While Rankin/Bass was soon to become a fixture in holiday television, a fact we were all reminded of every December, the studio tried once more for cinematic success...
- 11/25/2013
- by Tom Stockman
- WeAreMovieGeeks.com
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