The Hilarious House of Frightenstein
Encyclopedia
The Hilarious House of Frightenstein was a Canadian
children's television
series produced by Hamilton, Ontario
's independent station CHCH-TV
in 1971. It was syndicated to television stations across Canada and the United States
and occasionally still appears today in some television markets. In Canada, the series is currently airing on Space, TV Land Canada
, Drive-In Classics
and MTV2.
A quirky sketch comedy series, the show's cast included Billy Van
, Fishka Rais
, Guy Big
, Mitch Markowitz
, Vincent Price
, and Julius Sumner Miller
. Van played most of the characters on the show.
All 130 episodes were made in a single nine-month span starting in 1971; the scenes with Price and Miller were all filmed within one summer.
envisioning the initial concept and then inviting a room full of creative friends to a spaghetti and champagne 'brainstorming' dinner party in his double suite at the Windsor Arms Hotel in Toronto. Markowitz directed the brainstorming session while his assistant Roger John Greco made notes of everything said.
Previously CHCH had broadcast two other Markowitz shows: The Randy Dandy Show for children, starring Rafael Markowitz as Randy Dandy, who sold soda pop and potato chips on the side; and The Ed Allen Show, an exercise program. CHCH approved the production of Frightenstein to take advantage of their station's new ability to reach into the Toronto market for advertising dollars.
Randy Dandy's soda pop venture was later taken up by the Count when he promoted Dracola from the castle to raise money for his Brucie project.
Sid Biby led the station at this time. The Hilarious House of Frightenstein was one of the most ambitious shows attempted by Canadian producers during this era.
Markowitz later began production of an animated cartoon version of the show with animator Al Guest that never got to air.
and written by Harry Breuer, Gary Carol, Jean Jacques Perrey and Pat Prilly. Its title is "March of the Martians". The original recording can be found on an out-of-print Pickwick
vinyl album called The Happy Moog.
The chief character, Count Frightenstein (Van), was the thirteenth son of Count Dracula
and was exiled to Castle Frightenstein in Frankenstone, Canada for failing to revive Brucie J. Monster, a Frankenstein-like monster. Assisted by Igor (Rais), an overweight incompetent, and a three-foot-tall mini-Count (Big), each episode followed the Count’s efforts to revive Brucie and featured comedy sketches. Each episode opened and closed with an appearance by the venerable horror star Vincent Price as he recited intentionally silly poetry with toy skulls and shrunken heads in the background. Price also did introductions for segments within the show.
Fishka Rais, who played the character Igor was an accomplished jazz singer from South Africa.
Other characters on the show included the following. All were played by Billy Van unless noted.
The psychedelic background was 'discovered' by the CHCH crew who revealed it to Markowitz, who put it in the show. The effect was video feedback produced by pointing the studio video camera at a studio video monitor. Markowitz added the blue screen and another feedback camera to create the layered effect.
When Julius Sumner Miller first arrived from California at Toronto's Malton Airport to begin the drive to CHCH in Hamilton, he refused to ride with Markowitz in the Cadillac limo in favour of riding with his science equipment in a station wagon driven by Markowitz's assistant John Greco. The two cars left the airport together but the station wagon was soon separated from the limo and Sumner Miller was now headed for London, Ontario rather than Hamilton. It was early summer and Sumner Miller had a short-sleeve shirt on coming from California. Eventually his driver realized his error and headed south toward Hamilton by farm roads making Sumner Miller nervous. Sumner Miller was more upset when he was driven into a freak snow storm. Eventually they arrived safely at the CHCH television station in Hamilton.
Griselda's make-up took hours to put on and Van would work long hours to make the most of the make-up every shooting day. As the day wore on into night Van became increasingly punchy providing hours of out-take laughs for the crew at the CHCH studio.
Guy was originally slated to play the main role as the Count but his speaking voice would not hold out for more than a few hours. Billy Van was playing his part in Party Game
, another of Markowitz's shows, and he was called in to audition for the role of the Count and was hired for the lead role where his various talents were more fully revealed.
Puppet
s (played by Joe Torbay
) included:
Other minor or interstitial characters:
The Gorilla was sometimes played by Paul Shultz who also worked in the prop department.
.
On October 17, 2006, Alliance Atlantis Home Video in Canada released a 3-disc box set of 13 full-length episodes, with restored Wolfman segments. The shows are not in chronological order, as only episodes that had thus far obtained music clearances for the Wolfman dance segments were included. The Wolfman theme, Sly & the Family Stone
's "I Want To Take You Higher", had not yet been cleared, so the opening was altered with new music by The Tijuana Bibles from Toronto, and Billy Van's voice was redubbed by another Toronto voice actor (Van died in 2003). As per recent airings in Canada on the cable networks Drive-In Classics and Space, the main Frightenstein theme is also a re-recording, because of licencing restrictions by Morning Music, Ltd.
Critical Mass Releasing Inc. of Toronto
released the series in 2006 for broadcast on CHUM Television stations.http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:6w28MJjHG18J:www.nkpr.net/pressreleases/DVD_Press_release_Nov06.pdf+critical+mass+releasing&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=14&gl=ca
A second set of 9 episodes was released by Critical Mass in late 2008.
program This Movie Sucks!
, which is another program produced and broadcast by CHCH. In the episode the hosts refer to them being in a studio that has produced many classic television shows, and Ed comments that they have the coffee maker from The Hilarious House of Frightenstein, along with the original coffee.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
children's television
Television
Television is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochrome or colored, with accompanying sound...
series produced by Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...
's independent station CHCH-TV
CHCH-TV
CHCH-DT, channel 11, is a television station originating in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, with transmitters located throughout Ontario. CHCH currently operates as an independent station, having previously served as a CBC Television affiliate, and more recently as the flagship station of the...
in 1971. It was syndicated to television stations across Canada and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and occasionally still appears today in some television markets. In Canada, the series is currently airing on Space, TV Land Canada
TV Land Canada
Comedy Gold is a Canadian English language Category B specialty channel that focuses primarily on sitcoms from the 1970s to 1990s. It is wholly owned by Bell Media and is an offshoot of The Comedy Network.-History:...
, Drive-In Classics
Drive-In Classics
Sundance Channel is a Canadian English language Category B specialty channel owned by Corus Entertainment. Sundance Channel airs programming focused on independent films, documentaries, music-series', dramas and more.-As Drive-In Classics:...
and MTV2.
A quirky sketch comedy series, the show's cast included Billy Van
Billy Van
William Allan Van Evera, , known by the stage name Billy Van, was a Canadian comedian, actor and singer.-Biography:...
, Fishka Rais
Fishka Rais
Fishka Rais was a South African born Canadian actor. He appeared in the children's television series The Hilarious House of Frightenstein as Igor and also appeared in the movie Cannibal Girls, credited as Kingfish playing The Butcher....
, Guy Big
Guy Big
Guy Big was the stage name of Alan Hoffman, a Canadian actor. He appeared in the children's television series The Hilarious House of Frightenstein as the midget count and also appeared in the movie Find the Lady as Miniature man...
, Mitch Markowitz
Mitch Markowitz
Mitch Markowitz is a Canadian television executive who began his work on The Hilarious House of Frightenstein as an associate producer as well as portraying the characters of Superhippie and Mosquito. He was also an executive story editor on Best of the West...
, Vincent Price
Vincent Price
Vincent Leonard Price, Jr. was an American actor, well known for his distinctive voice and serio-comic attitude in a series of horror films made in the latter part of his career.-Early life and career:Price was born in St...
, and Julius Sumner Miller
Julius Sumner Miller
Julius Sumner Miller was an American physicist and television personality. He is best known for his work on children's television programs in North America and Australia.-Off-screen:...
. Van played most of the characters on the show.
All 130 episodes were made in a single nine-month span starting in 1971; the scenes with Price and Miller were all filmed within one summer.
Origins
The production started with Riff MarkowitzRiff Markowitz
Rafael Markowitz is the managing director, MC and co-founder of The Fabulous Palm Springs Follies, which performs at the historic Plaza Theatre in downtown Palm Springs, California, United States. He is also a writer, television producer and director.-Biography:Markowitz was born in New York but...
envisioning the initial concept and then inviting a room full of creative friends to a spaghetti and champagne 'brainstorming' dinner party in his double suite at the Windsor Arms Hotel in Toronto. Markowitz directed the brainstorming session while his assistant Roger John Greco made notes of everything said.
Previously CHCH had broadcast two other Markowitz shows: The Randy Dandy Show for children, starring Rafael Markowitz as Randy Dandy, who sold soda pop and potato chips on the side; and The Ed Allen Show, an exercise program. CHCH approved the production of Frightenstein to take advantage of their station's new ability to reach into the Toronto market for advertising dollars.
Randy Dandy's soda pop venture was later taken up by the Count when he promoted Dracola from the castle to raise money for his Brucie project.
Sid Biby led the station at this time. The Hilarious House of Frightenstein was one of the most ambitious shows attempted by Canadian producers during this era.
Markowitz later began production of an animated cartoon version of the show with animator Al Guest that never got to air.
Theme song
Both the opening and closing credits were accompanied by a musical composition played entirely on a Moog synthesizerMoog synthesizer
Moog synthesizer may refer to any number of analog synthesizers designed by Dr. Robert Moog or manufactured by Moog Music, and is commonly used as a generic term for older-generation analog music synthesizers. The Moog company pioneered the commercial manufacture of modular voltage-controlled...
and written by Harry Breuer, Gary Carol, Jean Jacques Perrey and Pat Prilly. Its title is "March of the Martians". The original recording can be found on an out-of-print Pickwick
Pickwick Records
Pickwick Records was an American record label and distributor known for its budget album releases of sound-alike recordings, bargain bin reissues and repackagings under the brands Design, Bravo , Hurrah, Grand Prix, and children's records on the Cricket and Happy Time labels.The label is also...
vinyl album called The Happy Moog.
Characters
Count Dracula
Count Dracula is a fictional character, the titular antagonist of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula and archetypal vampire. Some aspects of his character have been inspired by the 15th century Romanian general and Wallachian Prince Vlad III the Impaler...
and was exiled to Castle Frightenstein in Frankenstone, Canada for failing to revive Brucie J. Monster, a Frankenstein-like monster. Assisted by Igor (Rais), an overweight incompetent, and a three-foot-tall mini-Count (Big), each episode followed the Count’s efforts to revive Brucie and featured comedy sketches. Each episode opened and closed with an appearance by the venerable horror star Vincent Price as he recited intentionally silly poetry with toy skulls and shrunken heads in the background. Price also did introductions for segments within the show.
Fishka Rais, who played the character Igor was an accomplished jazz singer from South Africa.
Other characters on the show included the following. All were played by Billy Van unless noted.
- The Wolfman - A werewolf disk jockey at radio station EECH who spun rock and rollRock and rollRock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
records while doing a Wolfman JackWolfman JackRobert Weston Smith, known commonly as Wolfman Jack was a gravelly voiced US disc jockey who became famous in the 1960s and 1970s.-Early career:...
impression. The Wolfman's theme song was Sly and the Family Stone's "I Want to Take You Higher". The segment featured then-current hit singles by the Rolling Stones, Sly and the Family Stone, Three Dog NightThree Dog NightThree Dog Night is an American rock band best known for their music from 1968 to 1975. During that time the band charted 21 Billboard top 40 hits in America, three of which reached Number One...
or other Top 40 radio stars of the time (which were referred to as ‘golden oldies’ in order to avoid dating the program), with The Wolfman and Igor dancing in silhouette against a psychedelic background. Owing to licensing issues, the musical numbers are no longer shown on reruns.
The psychedelic background was 'discovered' by the CHCH crew who revealed it to Markowitz, who put it in the show. The effect was video feedback produced by pointing the studio video camera at a studio video monitor. Markowitz added the blue screen and another feedback camera to create the layered effect.
- The Grammar Slammer - The GrammarGrammarIn linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...
Slammer was the disembodied voice (of Billy VanBilly VanWilliam Allan Van Evera, , known by the stage name Billy Van, was a Canadian comedian, actor and singer.-Biography:...
) who challenged Igor to correct grammatical errors, accompanied by an eight-foot purple monster named Bammer who threatened to beat up Igor if he failed.
- The Professor - U.S.United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
physicistPhysicistA physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
Professor Julius Sumner MillerJulius Sumner MillerJulius Sumner Miller was an American physicist and television personality. He is best known for his work on children's television programs in North America and Australia.-Off-screen:...
, a veteran of the Mickey Mouse ClubMickey Mouse ClubThe Mickey Mouse Club is an American variety television show that began in 1955, produced by Walt Disney Productions and televised by the ABC, featuring a regular but ever-changing cast of teenage performers. The Mickey Mouse Club was created by Walt Disney...
(where he was known as Professor Wonderful), provided science lessons on such things as thermal expansionThermal expansionThermal expansion is the tendency of matter to change in volume in response to a change in temperature.When a substance is heated, its particles begin moving more and thus usually maintain a greater average separation. Materials which contract with increasing temperature are rare; this effect is...
and the cartesian diverCartesian diverA Cartesian diver or Cartesian devil is a classic science experiment, named for René Descartes, which demonstrates the principle of buoyancy and the ideal gas law.-Experiment description:...
.
When Julius Sumner Miller first arrived from California at Toronto's Malton Airport to begin the drive to CHCH in Hamilton, he refused to ride with Markowitz in the Cadillac limo in favour of riding with his science equipment in a station wagon driven by Markowitz's assistant John Greco. The two cars left the airport together but the station wagon was soon separated from the limo and Sumner Miller was now headed for London, Ontario rather than Hamilton. It was early summer and Sumner Miller had a short-sleeve shirt on coming from California. Eventually his driver realized his error and headed south toward Hamilton by farm roads making Sumner Miller nervous. Sumner Miller was more upset when he was driven into a freak snow storm. Eventually they arrived safely at the CHCH television station in Hamilton.
- Bwana Clyde Batty - A British explorer character, who gave Billy VanBilly VanWilliam Allan Van Evera, , known by the stage name Billy Van, was a Canadian comedian, actor and singer.-Biography:...
a chance to use his Micheal Caine impression, who teaches about wild animals on Zany Zoo and His name is a spoofParodyA parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
of animal trainer Clyde BeattyClyde BeattyClyde Beatty joined the circus as a cage cleaner as a teen and became famous as a lion tamer and animal trainer. He also became a circus impresario who owned his own show that later merged with the Cole Bros. Circus to form the Clyde Beatty-Cole Bros...
. His catchphrase is "ooga booga!"
- Dr. Pet Vet - A veterinarianVeterinarianA veterinary physician, colloquially called a vet, shortened from veterinarian or veterinary surgeon , is a professional who treats disease, disorder and injury in animals....
who teaches about domestic animals (whereas the Zany Zoo was about wild fauna). He always offers the day's animal to Igor as a pet, but the Sloth in the basement invariably refuses to allow Igor to keep the animal.
- Grizelda, the Ghastly Gourmet - A witch who provides a parody of television cooking shows, she cooks suitably ghastly recipes in her cauldron. In every one of her segments, she bangs her head on the pot above her cauldron, and invariably declares the recipe a failure after it causes a small explosion. Grizelda would sometimes wrestle "Polly" a taxidermically-stuffed Golden EagleGolden EagleThe Golden Eagle is one of the best known birds of prey in the Northern Hemisphere. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. Once widespread across the Holarctic, it has disappeared from many of the more heavily populated areas...
for the recipe or for a secret ingredient going in the pot that day. The iron cauldron was a real one borrowed from a tiny farm museum north of Toronto. It was set up with dry ice for the 'boiling' effect. Grizelda was very vain, often comparing her "beauty" to that of famous women of the era, including Goldie HawnGoldie HawnGoldie Jeanne Hawn is an American actress, film director, producer, and occasional singer. Hawn is known for her roles in Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, Private Benjamin, Foul Play, Overboard, Bird on a Wire, Death Becomes Her, The First Wives Club, and Cactus Flower, for which she won the 1969...
and Margaret TrudeauMargaret TrudeauMargaret Joan Sinclair Trudeau Kemper is the former wife of the late Pierre Trudeau, the 15th Prime Minister of Canada.-Early years and marriage:...
.
Griselda's make-up took hours to put on and Van would work long hours to make the most of the make-up every shooting day. As the day wore on into night Van became increasingly punchy providing hours of out-take laughs for the crew at the CHCH studio.
- The Librarian - An elderly curmudgeon who unsuccessfully tries to scare the viewers by reading children's stories, such as "Humpty DumptyHumpty DumptyHumpty Dumpty is a character in an English language nursery rhyme, probably originally a riddle and one of the best known in the English-speaking world. He is typically portrayed as an egg and has appeared or been referred to in a large number of works of literature and popular culture...
" and "Henny Penny", which he thinks are horror stories. He also sometimes reads fables with unpleasant endings. He eventually admits to not being any more frightened than the viewers, but considers reading important nonetheless. He would occasionally hit "Polly", a taxidermically- stuffed golden eagleGolden EagleThe Golden Eagle is one of the best known birds of prey in the Northern Hemisphere. Like all eagles, it belongs to the family Accipitridae. Once widespread across the Holarctic, it has disappeared from many of the more heavily populated areas...
perched near his chair.
- The Maharishi - A HinduHinduHindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
guruGuruA guru is one who is regarded as having great knowledge, wisdom, and authority in a certain area, and who uses it to guide others . Other forms of manifestation of this principle can include parents, school teachers, non-human objects and even one's own intellectual discipline, if the...
who shares bits of mystically inscrutable wisdom. A large bag of flowers (dyed Carnations) would then fall atop his head afterward.
- The Oracle - A mystic who reads out horoscopeHoroscopeIn astrology, a horoscope is a chart or diagram representing the positions of the Sun, Moon, planets, the astrological aspects, and sensitive angles at the time of an event, such as the moment of a person's birth. The word horoscope is derived from Greek words meaning "a look at the hours" In...
s in a Peter LorrePeter LorrePeter Lorre was an Austrian-American actor frequently typecast as a sinister foreigner.He caused an international sensation in 1931 with his portrayal of a serial killer who preys on little girls in the German film M...
voice, invariably knocking over and breaking his crystal ballCrystal ballA crystal ball is a crystal or glass ball believed by some people to aid in the performance of clairvoyance. It is sometimes known as a shew stone...
in the process. He also would often get his hand temporarily stuck inside his replacement crystal ball. He then answers questions supposedly sent in from viewers.
- The Midget Count - Played by Guy Big, this is a Mini-MeMini-MeMini-Me is a character played by Verne Troyer in the second and third Austin Powers movies: Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me and Austin Powers in Goldmember.-History:...
-style three-foot tall clone of The Count.
Guy was originally slated to play the main role as the Count but his speaking voice would not hold out for more than a few hours. Billy Van was playing his part in Party Game
Party Game (game show)
Party Game was a Canadian television game show in the 1970s, produced by Hamilton independent station CHCH-TV from 1970 to 1981. It aired throughout Canada in syndication, broadcast on 32 stations at its peak....
, another of Markowitz's shows, and he was called in to audition for the role of the Count and was hired for the lead role where his various talents were more fully revealed.
Puppet
Puppet
A puppet is an inanimate object or representational figure animated or manipulated by an entertainer, who is called a puppeteer. It is used in puppetry, a play or a presentation that is a very ancient form of theatre....
s (played by Joe Torbay
Joe Torbay
Joe Torbay was a Canadian puppeteer and television personality. He was best known for puppeteering the characters of Gronk, Harvey Wallbanger and Grammar Slammer Bammer in the television series The Hilarious House of Frightenstein.Torbay also was regularly heard on CKWR-FM radio in Waterloo,...
) included:
- Harvey Wallbanger - The postmaster of Castle Frightenstein's "dead letter office", this puppet appears in sketches with The Count or Grizelda in which they answer letters.
- Gronk - A purple sea serpent who interacts with the Count or the Wolfman. Gronk would announce his presence with a loud call of "Gronk!" Gronk's segments usually had the Count reading a book; the Count would then start explaining what the book was about, with Gronk interrupting him, usually mid-sentence, with a completely incorrect conclusion to what the Count had been reading. This would happen several times, leading to greater and greater frustration on the part of the Count. Segments with the Wolfman were generally one or two line jokes.
- The Grammar Slammer Bammer - A large purple puppet who would correct Igor's poor grammar.
Other minor or interstitial characters:
- Super Hippy - Played by Mitchell Markowitz (Rafael Markowitz's younger brother), this hippieHippieThe hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
in a superheroSuperheroA superhero is a type of stock character, possessing "extraordinary or superhuman powers", dedicated to protecting the public. Since the debut of the prototypical superhero Superman in 1938, stories of superheroes — ranging from brief episodic adventures to continuing years-long sagas —...
costume appears leading in and out of commercials, sitting or flying in varying locations as he delivers some variation on "Don't change the channel, we'll be right back after these commercials."
- The Singing Soldier - Played by Billy Van. A light-operetta styled palace guard who gets a cream pie thrown in his face whenever he starts to sing "Indian Love CallIndian Love Call"Indian Love Call" is a song from Rose-Marie, a 1924 operetta-style Broadway musical with music by Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart, and book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II...
" from Rose-MarieRose-MarieRose-Marie is an operetta-style musical with music by Rudolf Friml and Herbert Stothart, and book and lyrics by Otto Harbach and Oscar Hammerstein II. The story takes place in the Canadian Rockies and concerns Rose-Marie La Flemme, a French Canadian girl who loves miner Jim Kenyon...
.
- The Mosquito - Played by Mitchell Markowitz, the mosquito always tells a bad joke about insects before biting a human foot.
- The Gorilla - Played by Billy VanBilly VanWilliam Allan Van Evera, , known by the stage name Billy Van, was a Canadian comedian, actor and singer.-Biography:...
. Billy, dressed in a gorilla costume, would walk out of a jungle set and invariably try to scare whomever he was looking at. In every segment, however, he would be thwarted by a ping-pong ball that would hit him square in the head, causing him to keel over. He often tried to avoid the ping-pong balls, in one instance by holding up a parasol.
The Gorilla was sometimes played by Paul Shultz who also worked in the prop department.
DVD releases
On October 18, 2005, Empire pictures released a single DVD featuring a handful of half-hour US-syndicated episodes. The most significant change for these episodes as broadcast (apart from the length) was the addition of a laugh trackLaugh track
A laugh track is a separate soundtrack invented by Charles "Charley" Douglass, with the artificial sound of audience laughter, made to be inserted into television programming of comedy shows and sitcoms.The term "laugh track" does not apply to the genuine audience laughter on shows that shoot in...
.
On October 17, 2006, Alliance Atlantis Home Video in Canada released a 3-disc box set of 13 full-length episodes, with restored Wolfman segments. The shows are not in chronological order, as only episodes that had thus far obtained music clearances for the Wolfman dance segments were included. The Wolfman theme, Sly & the Family Stone
Sly & the Family Stone
Sly and the Family Stone were an American rock, funk, and soul band from San Francisco, California. Active from 1966 to 1983, the band was pivotal in the development of soul, funk, and psychedelic music...
's "I Want To Take You Higher", had not yet been cleared, so the opening was altered with new music by The Tijuana Bibles from Toronto, and Billy Van's voice was redubbed by another Toronto voice actor (Van died in 2003). As per recent airings in Canada on the cable networks Drive-In Classics and Space, the main Frightenstein theme is also a re-recording, because of licencing restrictions by Morning Music, Ltd.
Critical Mass Releasing Inc. of Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
released the series in 2006 for broadcast on CHUM Television stations.http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:6w28MJjHG18J:www.nkpr.net/pressreleases/DVD_Press_release_Nov06.pdf+critical+mass+releasing&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=14&gl=ca
A second set of 9 episodes was released by Critical Mass in late 2008.
Memorable quotes
- Opening Poem - Vincent Price - "Another lovely day begins, for ghosts and ghouls with greenish skin. So close your eyes, and you will find that you've arrived in Frightenstein. Perhaps the Count will find a way to make his monster work today. For if he solves this monster-mania, he can return to Transylvania. So welcome where the sun won't shine, to the castle of Count Frightenstein!"
- National Anthem - Igor/Fishka Rais - "Gory, gory Transylvania! Where werewolves and bats will always maim ya. The murky moors will likely claim ya, As we go stumbling through." Sung to the tune of "The Battle Hymn of the RepublicThe Battle Hymn of the Republic"The Battle Hymn of the Republic" is a hymn by American writer Julia Ward Howe using the music from the song "John Brown's Body". Howe's more famous lyrics were written in November 1861 and first published in The Atlantic Monthly in February 1862. It became popular during the American Civil War...
". Sung once before the Count recites The Pledge, hummed during the count's pledge, and repeated afterwards with a big finish, usually topped off by The Count singing the last word.
- Pledge - Count/Billy Van - "I pledge by the sign of the three-toed sloth, to do my best, to do my duty. To always obey the laws of the werewolf pack. And to never rest, until Brucie lives once more, and takes his rightful place in the annals of distinguished monsters, and I can once again return to that most goriest of homelands..." Many times The Count is showing off his heart shaped three-toed sloth pendant (on an elastic black string around his neck) to the camera. After the first line, he lets go of it, it flies back against his throat, and The Count does a choked/injured double take before going on with the rest of the pledge.
- Closing Poem - Vincent Price - "The castle lights are growing dim. There's no one left but me...and him. When next we meet in Frankenstone - don't come alone."
In other media
The Hilarious House of Frightenstein was referenced in the first episode of the Ed the SockEd the Sock
Ed the Sock is a puppet, created and voiced by Steven Kerzner, that became a Canadian television personality in the 1990s, best known for his appearances hosting programming on MuchMusic and his own talk show, Ed's Night Party, later renamed Ed & Red's Night Party...
program This Movie Sucks!
This Movie Sucks!
This Movie Sucks! is a Canadian comedy television series hosted by Ed the Sock, premièring on May 28, 2010, two years after Ed's Night Party went off the air. The show is similar to another former Ed the Sock series, Ed's Nite In...
, which is another program produced and broadcast by CHCH. In the episode the hosts refer to them being in a studio that has produced many classic television shows, and Ed comments that they have the coffee maker from The Hilarious House of Frightenstein, along with the original coffee.