The Hilarious House of Frightenstein (1971)

lester1/2jr · September 08, 2008, 09:41:27 AM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsaFDZfz8Lc

^vincent Price intro. he does poems like this throughout the show. check out the awesome theme song at about 1:00 in.

I don't know that kids would like this, but it was entertaining and different and good if you don't feel like getting into a whole movie. being that it's canadian, you have to figure the main guy probably had a masters degree of some sort and was making minimum wage. There is a bizarre uniformity to the episodes, all of which feature the same four scenerios of the frankenstein creature not coming back to life, a science lesson (one with a crazy looking turtle), and some other stuff. apparently this DVD collection is edited a bit for some reason and there are youtube clips of stuff I definately didn't see.

anyway, cheap laughs, cheap special effects and a cool theme song. I'm sold.

Psycho Circus · September 08, 2008, 10:48:08 AM

HAHAHA

I like it, it's like the start to an old NES game and you can't go wrong with Vincent Price

lester1/2jr · September 08, 2008, 01:45:43 PM

QuoteI like it, it's like the start to an old NES game

good call

it was an orthodox bad movie experience. once you get by how awful the humor is you start to want more and more. it's really self indulgent with very little attention paid to the intent to entertain children

check out the amazingly cheap special effects at a little over a minute in

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-s6bv70RsY

Psycho Circus · September 08, 2008, 01:59:24 PM

That's like an acid-trip, heh. This is really cool, I might get these episodes on DVD, just checked it out and they're on two seperate compilations. 4 episodes each I believe....groovy

Warp Ninja X · September 09, 2008, 04:02:48 PM

When CBC use to be on channel 10 here in America. Me and my big sister use to watch it in early and late for her but late for me in the 70's. The opening and ending always scare me to death.

Raffine · September 09, 2008, 11:11:59 PM

Thanks, Lester! That was truly surreal.

I thought I'd heard of just about everything horror-related from 70's TV but this is a new one on me.

Scott · September 09, 2008, 11:23:23 PM

I remember this show or something very very similiar. It must of been reruns that were playing in maybe 1973 or 74. It played right after school around 3 or 4 pm. Probably reruns on WPIX or one of the other New York City channels.

Ozzymandias · September 10, 2008, 03:36:30 AM

Ozzymandias speaks: The guy behind this was named Billy Van. He also worked on variety shows featuring Sonny and Cher, Bobby Vinton and the Hudson Brothers.

He is the guy playing the Wolfman.

Ozzymandias has spoken!!!

lester1/2jr · September 10, 2008, 10:22:30 AM

he played multiple characters on the show

Newt · September 10, 2008, 03:20:47 PM

Billy Van WAS the show! He played most of the characters: Dr Pet Vet, Bwana Clyde Batty, The Count, The Librarian (LOVE him! - a 'must see'), The Wolfman (*the editing you mentioned may well be the music: they had to remove the songs aired by The Wolfman due to lack of licensing), Grizelda the Ghastly Gourmet, the Gorilla, The Maharishi and The Oracle.

And who could forget Vincent Prices' priceless poetry, Brucie the monster who was perpetually 'out of order', Igor, Professor Julius Sumner Miller (oh physics was never so much fun!), The Mini Count, the mosquito and Super Hippy. Also the anthem "Gory, Gory TransylVANIA!" and "By the Sign of the Three-Toed Sloth!" and the endless silly, silly jokes and gags - we loved all of this as kids. My own kids get up to watch it now - at 6 am. Great fun! Cheaply put together but clever and amusing. Catch it if you can: well worth it.