I was looking through the classic holiday claymation videos for my traditional Rudolph and Frosty flicks when I stumbled across “Mad Monster Party?” by Rankin Bass. I didn’t know this existed, and was excited to see their take on Halloween/Monster Movies. It started off well enough, with a James Bond-esque theme song and a tropical scene, rather than snow. I watched the opening credits and saw that Phillis Diller was in this as well, so that made it even more interesting!
This is an hour and a half long and I have only gotten a third of the way through this and already have started doing other things-like writing this review. I am going to try to tough it out and sit through the whole thing, but at this point…
Phyllis Diller is Frankenstein’s bride, I gather. Her song, “You’re Different” (I assume that’s the tile), was so degrading, but with an uplifting message. Something like “you stink and you’re different, but that’s what I like about you…” That’s the general feel to the song.
The soundtrack sounds like a pink panther cartoon and I think they tried to drag out the storyline to make this an hour and a half.
Oh, the storyline-Dr. Frankenstein has now invented a solution that, instead of creating life, destroys life. He invites monsters from all over the world to unveil his new potion, and his nephew, whom he wants to hand over the reigns to. Obviously, the nephew doesn’t know where he’s going or that he has an uncle, so he thinks he’s going to a vacation spot.
60’s reference jokes, like Dracula saying that he was the original “Bat Man”. Ha.
The problem with all these 60’s claymation shows now is that watching them in HD shows all the flaws and fingerprints in the clay.
It’s funny to watch these because now, with the jerky motion, it looks like streaming video from the early 20 hundreds.
I… am… forcing… myself… to… continue… watching…. ugh…
The good things about the movie… the claymation monsters are nice to look at. If you like jazzy soundtracks, it’s a constant jam session.
sigh…
I have to stop this. Maybe I will come back to it around october. I have Rudolph to watch.
So, I would give this maybe around 2 stars out of 5, giving credit for the amount of work it took to do this and nostalgia.