Witch Hazel & A Couple of Rag Dolls

Here's another vintage Halloween-themed post.CBS seemed to be the network that had the most and more frequently repeated animated Halloween specials. In the 1970s, CBS was also the home of Bugs Bunny and the rest of the Warner Bros., Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies characters, so it seemed pretty natural that a Bugs Bunny-themed Halloween cartoon would eventually air. Bugs Bunny was already a popular Halloween costume and starred in numerous Halloween comic books.In 1977 BUGS BUNNY'S HOWL-OWEEN SPECIAL debuted. This was not a new cartoon - in fact it was a "clip show" made up of 10 Bugs Bunny theatrical one-reelers.
Many of the shorts featured a scene-stealing character named Witch Hazel who Chuck Jones created in 1954 as an adversary for Bugs in Bewitched Bunny. Hazel proved so popular with audiences that she returned two years later in Broomstick Bunny and again in 1959's A Witch's Tangled Hare. A Disney character with the same named appeared earlier, but had little in common with Chuck's Hazel other than voice actress June Foray who voiced both. (Only after Bea Benaderet was unavailable to return for the second short).
Hazel also appeared briefly in 1963's Transylvania 6-5000 and then took on Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales in 1966's A Haunting We will Go. She later resurfaced in the dreadful feature Space Jam (1996) and in several episodes of WB cartoon shows.

Airing after Bug's annual outing was RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY IN THE PUMPKIN WHO COULDN'T SMILE - that's a mouthful! Ann & Andy were introduced to the public in 1918 and 1920 as storybook characters in a series of books written and illustrated by Johnny Gruelle. They made the leap to animation in the 1940s in three theatrical shorts. In 1977, a feature film called RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY: A MUSICAL ADVENTURE met some success - enough for former Bugs Bunny animator Chuck Jones to adapt them for television with June Foray (!) providing the voice of Ann! Is there nothing this woman cannot voice?!

This special continued to air on CBS for a few years, and later on the Disney Channel.

Having never seen it, I'd be interested to see what life Jones was able to breath into these ragdolls. For more on the history of Raggedy Ann & Andy go here and here.

PHANTASM

Last year at this time I had the wonderful opportunity to attend a special 30th Anniversary screening of PHANTASM (1979) written and directed by Don Coscarelli - and attended by the director and several of the film's stars.
This truly unique and captivating supernatural horror classic is best known for introducing two awesome things to American cinema: The Tall Man (played by the menacing Angus Scrimm)......and his deadly silver spheres.
The story goes like this: free-spirited musician Jody Pearson (Bill Thornberry) is saddled with raising his teenage brother.The kid, Mike (Michael Baldwin), is still reeling from strange deaths of their parents.
Jody's pal Tommy has suddenly died after having rough sex with a shapely blond in the cemetery. Mike suspects that the creepy mortician is responsible for all the recent deaths - after all he can lift Tommy's coffin with just one hand!Boy detective Mike figures out that the towering dude has been killing all the good folks of their hometown by disguising himself as a voluptuous blond and seducing them and then turning them into dwarf zombies that look like Jawas from STAR WARS!
Seriously, this is the plotline.
By the way, the Tall Man's fingers ooze yellow blood when they are cut off–then they turn into insects. It's warped, twisted, and totally trippy.
Jody's pal Reggie (Reggie Bannister), a follically challenged musician/ice cream man soon joins the brothers in their pursuit of The Tall Man.
The trio discover a room in the funeral home that is full of canisters containing the dwarfs, who are being sent to another dimension to be slaves. This leads to a spooky mausoleum that houses two silver posts that serve as a gateway to that other dimension.
The Tall Man uses his flying silver spheres to eliminate anyone who gets in his way. The spheres hunt down victims, then attach themselves to their foreheads and drill into the skull, causing blood to spew through a spout. Fun!Before you know it, horny Reggie is seduced and murdered by the blond killer/The Tall Man. Jody locks Michael in his room while he goes to kill The Tall Man, but Michael goes all MacGuyver and escapes by hammering a bullet against the door. The brothers soon devise a plan to lure the Tall Man into a deserted mine shaft and trap him inside.
SPOILER: After apparently successfully eliminating The Tall Man, Mike awakens in his house, with the thought-to-be-dead Reggie sitting next to him - it seems that Mike was simply having a really vivid nightmare, and that his Jody died in a car crash caused by The Tall Man. Reggie convinces Mike to go on a road trip with him.This revelation leads us to believe that the everything we've seen so far has been a dream - until the Tall Man reaches out through a mirror hanging on Mike's closet door, pulling him into the bedroom mirror and possibly another dimension.
I know this sounds totally ridiculous, but it's really a lot of fun. Some disturbing images and shocking scenes give PHANTASM a 10 out 10 in my book.The original score by Fred Myrow and Malcolm Seagrave is also quite chilling.

Followed by:* Phantasm II (1988)

* Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (1994)* Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998)

Bob Guccione 1930-2010

Tom Bosley 1927-2010

Barbara Billingsley 1915-2010

Simon MacCorkindale 1952-2010

Welcome Foolish Mortals...

I may have mentioned at some point that my all time favorite theme-park ride is Disney's Haunted Mansion. On my recent visit to the Anaheim park, my friend Lance told me about a record he had as a kid which featured a young Ron Howard trapped inside the mansion.
I quickly pulled out my iPhone and looked up The Story and Song from The Haunted Mansion.
Turns out this hard-to-find Disneyland Records Storyteller long-playing featured the creepy soundtrack from the Disneyland attraction plus a narrated story about two teenagers who visit a haunted house.
So, while shopping on Main Street USA, we popped into the book & record shop - only to find that The Story and Song from The Haunted Mansion is now out on cd! So of course we bought it!
As soon as we got in the car, we popped it in the cd player!The story is narrated by Disney (and Frosted Flakes) Legend Thurl Ravenscroft - and tells the tale of Mike and Karen, two siblings who take refuge inside a eerie house during a thunderstorm.
Mike is indeed portrayed by Ron Howard and Robie Lester is Karen.
The two basically go through the mansion the way a guest would encountering many of the mansion's characters and experiencing much of the classic music and sound effects. Their Ghost Host is voiced by Pete Renoudet, rather than Paul Frees.
The cd also comes with an extended version of the song Grim Grinning Ghosts and a collection of awesome Collin Campbell artwork (which has graced this post) created for the 1969 vinyl release. Listening to it on the way home was the perfect way to cap off a perfect day at the Happiest Place on Earth.

10-10-10

whatever.

PRETTY Season 2 Coming Soon!

PRETTY, the hit web series of which I am one of the producers, will be beginning its second season in a few weeks. Returning are all the fantastic characters from season one, plus a whole slew of friends and family that expand the story of the Champagnes and their quest for pageant stardom. We've got some great guest stars from film, sitcoms, soaps (and even a prime-time procedural) plus some very big surprises are in store for our fans - and we hope to win over many more new fans with the outrageous happenings in the world of Michael, Ribina and Annette. If you liked the first season, this one is going to blow your mind. Now repeat after me.."There is a unicorn, his name is Gumdrop..."