FANTASIA OBSCURA: The Obscure Rankin/Bass Special That Ain’t No ‘Rudolph’
There are some fantasy, science fiction, and horror films that not every fan has caught. Not every film ever made has been seen by the audience that lives for such fare. Some of these deserve another look, because sometimes not every film should remain obscure.
Sometimes, what’s worked for you so far is not a one-size-fits-all answer to everything…
Mad Monster Party? (1967)
(Dist.: Embassy Pictures; Dir.: Jules Bass)
Kids coming of age in the 1960s and 1970s grew up with Rankin/Bass Productions as a constant presence in their lives. Their TV series for Saturday mornings were mainstays for many, including The Jackson 5ive and The Osmonds, but even kids who played outside on the weekends would catch their work come the holidays in such classic TV specials as Rudolf, the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town. Kids would grow up as adults and have their children watch Rankin/Bass’ ThunderCats, and then have grandchildren that they’d convince to watch the holiday specials with them as a family tradition, even if it meant downloading them from iTunes first.
While the company did a lot of traditional animation, they also used stop motion, especially for their holiday specials. Working with Tadahito Mochinaga in Japan, Rankin/Bass built on the work George Pal had pioneered with his Puppetoons works on a process dubbed “Animagic.”
Their shooting of miniature models, often doing continuous takes as the studio, did not have the means to hold a scene in place if abandoned, gave the Rankin/Bass specials a distinct look that worked well for them, a distinctive visual signature that enhanced the whimsy of the holiday spirit.
Which worked really well with a Christmas story, but didn’t translate effectively when applied to the horror genre…
Our story opens on a Caribbean island with a spooky castle on it, where we find Boris Von Frankenstein (voiced by Boris Karloff) putting the final touches on his newest discovery, a form of antimatter that destroys anything it is placed upon.
Feeling giddy that he’s mastered destruction as well as creation, he puts out a call to the other monsters, who are invited to a convention where he has a special announcement to make:
Among the invitees is one Felix Flankin (voice of Allen Swift), who we discover is intended to be the heir of Dr. Frankenstein which is to be announced at the convention. This doesn’t sit well with the ‘good’ doctor’s secretary, Francesca (voiced by Gale Garnett), who’s hoping to do in Felix at her first chance.
Also not so happy are the rest of the monsters, including the bride of Frankenstein (voiced by Phyllis Diller) and the rest (all voiced by Swift as well; in fact, excluding the other three designated characters, all voices in the film were his), who scheme against Felix, his uncle, and each other, in order to get their hands on this cheap-ass version of ice-nine and thereby achieve more power in the group.
The characters are many of the familiar ones we’d seen before, with some redesigns provided by noted artists Jack Davis and Frank Frazetta due to Universal not wanting to authorize their versions being used here. The inclusion of Felix shows strongly the hand MAD magazine stalwart Harvey Kurtzman had in writing the script. (Felix seems like an unlikely heir to his Uncle Boris, although the fact that voice actor Swift is best known for his role as Simon Bar Sinister in the Underdog series may suggest that Boris sees something in him we can’t.) Diller, for her part, was asked to bring to her role her comedy routine, and so she decided to shtick it to — well, you know…
Because of all these known characters being shoved at us without much exposition, the plot feels more like a pastiche than an actual vehicle for a story, which may be on purpose. Perhaps Kurtzman also infused the script with a tone that seems to feel that you should just roll with it because this is a parody of something you should already know, right, bubula? And the fact that they just go with it and hope that the audience gets in on the jokes quickly, exposition be damned, they seem to want to hurry up and get it going.
And yet, the film drags, badly in many places. Rankin Jr. had acknowledged years later that they kept throwing in materials to expand it out, and as they did the pacing is out of whack and it gets repetitious.
There’s three I-can’t-stand-my-roommate’s-snoring gags in a row that drag down the script, and most of the places for throwaway one-liners seem to exist solely for shoehorning the jokes into the plot. A more judicious editing might have saved the film from these self-abuses.
Or not, as no matter how well the film goes, it has to deal with its musical numbers:
T
he songs for the most part are not up to the standards of Maury Laws‘ better known material years later. Every time the story needs to break into song, it just stops in its tracks for a few minutes. Which is puzzling, as the score itself outside the numbers actually works for the film, a bongo-infused agents-on-a-mission vibe suggesting Doctor No that plays off the script pretty well.
The film would have an uneventful theatrical window before becoming a TV staple in many markets. It had enough success that Rankin/Bass did a pencil animated tie-in, The Mad, Mad, Mad Monsters, for The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie block, once again giving most of the voice work to Alan Swift:
And like its predecessor, it didn’t convince anyone that Rankin/Bass should ever spend more time away from doing strictly Christmas-themed works. After succeeding so well with Rudolf and Santa, who needs these folk…?
NEXT TIME: Okay, this time we’re actually doing something holiday appropriate. It’s got Santa Claus, the North Pole, alien abductions, the whole nine yards…
