Seriously, I wonder…
When you’re a kid, Halloween is all about that hunt for candy. Possibly about an awesome/sucky costume, too. But when you’re an adult, the tables turn; now, you are the one that had best have the good shit on tap (be the cool one; give out the good stuff, candy corn is the devil). And as such, your yearly Spooktober ritual changes. You can just buy candy, if you really want it. So you have some yearly thing you do to keep the spirits up and out of the grave.
Some watch old horror movies, others watch The Nightmare Before Christmas (then watch it again around Christmas). Some leave themselves to fate and enjoy what happens to be on the networks. And they do furnish you well; in all likelihood, not a year of your life has gone by without Charlie Brown getting a rock. But there’s one thing that’s suspiciously absent from the Halloween festivities, and it ain’t Grinch Night (though that should see more play too).
Rankin/Bass is mostly known for 3 things: 80’s Cartoons with awesome opening sequences, the most watchable animated adaptation of The Hobbit, and their (particularly stop-motion) animated holiday specials. Rudolph sees yearly runs around Christmas. As a matter of fact, at least one channel runs most of their Christmas specials, both stop-motion and 2D, a year. And yet despite the fact that they actually made some, you never see their Halloween specials. Hell, you’ll see the Easter Bunny specials before you’ll see any of their Halloween related stuff.
Which, finally, brings me to Mad Monster Party?. If you’re like me, you probably never heard of it. No one ever seems to talk about it. It literally took an act of providence to find out about it, and by that I mean the stars aligned and YouTube’s recommendation algorithm gave me something good for once. And you know what? It’s a charming little movie. I recommend you watch it sometime. Though even I can’t condone buying movies on YouTube.
So what is Mad Monster Party?, and why is it so cool? Well, by and large, it’s a sendup of the old Universal Monster films. It is, however, done in the mode of B-films of the time (any avid MST3K watcher’s familiar with that), including a twist ending. It’s actually among the last few films Boris Karloff did, and is, in fact, the last time he had anything to do with the Frankenstein mythos. You’d think horror fans would flock to it, but it’s really only got a small cult following. I mean, Christ, they got Frank Frazetta to do the poster art for it! How can you ignore that?
Its also probably got one of the smallest cast listings you’ll see outside of a one-man play. You have Boris Karloff as Dr. Frankenstein, Gale Garnett as Francesca, Phyllis Diller as The Monster’s Mate, and Alan Swift as literally every other character.
So why does Mad Monster Party? see no holiday play? Well, I’ll break down the reasons I think likely.
1. Mad Monster Party? is a feature length film
This is probably the least likely reason it doesn’t see play. After all, most channels will block off time for specials around the holidays. It is, however, over an hour and thirty minutes long. It’s one of the only four feature length stop-motion films Rankin/Bass ever made. And realistically, despite the fact that they actually had to pad the movie with some extra scenes to make the publishers at the time happy with it’s length, you really can’t cut much without diminishing it.
2. It’s obscure
This might be the most likely mark both for and against it. Compared to, oh, say, Rudolph, far fewer people have fond memories of the film. I can’t, in my life, ever remember seeing it on any schedules, though I know from what I could dig up online that it did see some televised play, likely regional. And it stopped being shown at some point, based on that as well. It did poorly on original theatrical release, with very little promotion. You could probably walk up to somebody who was alive at the time, ask them about it, and get nothing but a quizzical look back.
As of right now, Sony Pictures Television (a.k.a. the good one, as opposed to their film division) owns the television rights. Lionsgate owns the home video release, with their current release being the best quality, taken from a luckily undamaged 35mm print, cleaned up, and color corrected. That’s not the version I was able to find on the cheap, which is why my screenshots don’t look that great.
We’re talking about a movie so cultish, it makes a lot of other cult movies seem mainstream. I don’t personally think that should be the case, but it is.
3. Francesca
Another really weak one, but probably worth mentioning. Look at her; her bust is wider than her hips. Hell, I’m pretty sure the only part of her anatomy that’s larger is her head!
And make no mistake; little of that is the wardrobe. There’s one scene that probably gives censors fits (especially for a supposed family film) in which she’s stripped of her dress, leaving her in her undergarments and setting off a fight between her and The Mate. It leaves little to the imagination. Hell, that fight has actual cat fighting sounds dubbed in over it! Hilarious, but not likely to get to air.
There’s also a scene late in the movie where Felix of all people slaps her to snap her out of hysterics. There’s a bit of sting taken out of it by the ending, but values dissonance is still a thing. And at least a few of these bits would wind up a hack job in editing for general audiences. You know, assuming they even bother.
4. It’s a very timely movie
What I mean by timely is, it’s a very 60’s movie. Whereas something like Rudolph stands up to time better due to a more traditional feeling. It’s not just in the way the plot’s constructed, either. They have a nice extended Beatles reference around the middle of the movie that kids probably aren’t going to get. Not to mention the fact that it is reference after reference to films and actors most children are unfamiliar with.
5. The feel of the movie
Look, I hate to keep going back to Rudolph, but this’ll be the last time, I swear. Every year, you’ll see new merch for an over 50-year old Christmas movie. I guess that’s just a nostalgic time of year. The rest of Rankin/Bass’ oeuvre seems to err on the side of the sentimental. Mad Monster Party?, in an odd yet welcome swerve, comes out on the side of the comedic. Most of their holiday specials are meant to make you, or children, feel things. This one was made because they felt things for old monster movies, which had come back in vogue at the time.
That’s what makes it interesting to watch, but it also means that very few people actually recognize that. They just see the Rankin/Bass movie that didn’t get its audience, and who wants that? And that’s part of the reason why, within a page of results, a Google search starts getting crossplay from unrelated Halloween events and pages.
Now, I don’t think all that I’ve written is definitively true. I may have just spent well over 1000 words talking out of my ass, who knows? But we live in a world where Michael Jackson, a star that’s been dead for nearly a decade, is getting a Halloween special. Which may be apropos, but it’s still vexing. Especially since Mad Monster Party? only seems to have the most fringe of cult audiences, when it should have more. I mean, everyone I’ve mentioned it to has been interested in it. And should you ever see it, you’ll probably be a fan too.
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