It's the Silliest Party of the Year... and you're all invited!

At long last, a Motion Picture with absolutely no cultural value!!

Crawl, fly, slither and slink to the underground party of the year!


The only theatrical feature from Rankin/Bass -- the outfit behind countless animated holiday TV specials including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman -- this quaint and colorful production pays amusing homage to nearly every movie monster in Universal's catalog, even to the extent of recruiting Boris Karloff to supply the voice of Baron Von Frankenstein. The story begins as the aged Baron invites all members of the Worldwide Organization of Monsters to attend the unveiling of his ultimate creation, a potion capable of destroying all matter. Before the assembled guests -- including Count Dracula, The Wolf Man, The Mummy, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Invisible Man, and The Creature from the Black Lagoon -- Frankenstein announces his retirement as the group's leader and the selection of his successor: his bookish, allergy-ridden nephew Felix. Chaos ensues, as nearly every creep and creature on the list begins conspiring against each other in a bid for the coveted office, including the Baron's outrageously voluptuous assistant Francesca (whose very presence stretches the film's "G" rating). The "Animagic" technique of stop-motion puppets is a refreshing medium for the larger-than-life monsters, and the parade of horror movie put-ons should delight viewers of all ages. Though the original negative was believed lost to neglect after the film's poor box-office performance, a pristine print has resurfaced, much to the delight of devoted fans who first discovered this gem via Halloween TV airings


The film was created using Rankin/Bass' "Animagic" stop motion animation process. The process involved photographing figurines in still shots and re-positioning them after each shot, the same approach used in Art Clokey's Davey and Goliath and to create the giant ape in the original King Kong. In fact, a Kong-like creature makes a featured appearance in this film, although due to rights issues he is known only as "It." Rankin/Bass had created several stop motion productions before this, spurred by their first, the enormously successful television special Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer from 1964.
Classic monster movies were enjoying a resurgence in popularity in the late 1960s, and humorous monsters like The Addams Family and The Munsters were enormously popular. This campy film is a spoof of horror themes, complete with musical numbers and inside jokes.
Mad Magazine creator Harvey Kurtzman penned the script (with another writer, Len Korobkin) and Mad artist Jack Davis designed many of the characters. Davis was a natural for the job, being famous both for his humor work and his monster stories in the pages of EC Comics. It has long been rumored that Forrest J. Ackerman had a hand in the script, but while the dialogue is rife with Famous Monsters of Filmland-like puns, Ackerman's involvement has never been confirmed and his name never appeared in the on-screen credits or in original promotion for the film at the time of its release. In fact, Rankin/Bass historian Rick Goldschmidt, in liner notes accompanying the Anchor Bay DVD release, denied Ackerman was ever involved, at the same time as the DVD packaging promoted Ackerman's name. Goldschmidt repeated this on this in a 2006 blog entry, based on his interviews with Korobkin, who claimed to have written the original screenplay which then was revised by Kurtzman, but never worked with Ackerman.[2]
Although mostly intended as a children's film, the film does feature some of Kurtzman's typically dark humor and a few mildly risqué jokes: Francesca falls over in one scene, and when Felix struggles to lift her she says, "I wanted you to know I'm no easy pick-up." In another scene, a character briefly has his head replaced with a cooked pig's ... and a "kids' picture" ending with a mushroom cloud would have been a bold move at the time.
The stop motion cute/ghastly look of the creatures in this film was very influential on Tim Burton's Vincent, The Nightmare Before Christmas and Corpse Bride; in particular, Burton creations strongly resemble the little monsters seen in the Stay One Step Ahead number.
In addition to the famous monsters seen in the film, Mad Monster Party also features several celebrity likenesses. Karloff and Diller's characters are both designed to look like the actors portraying them, while Baron Frankenstein's lackey, Yetch, is a physical and vocal caricature of Peter Lorre.
Mad Monster Party was one of several child-friendly projects Karloff lent his voice to in his final years (such as the TV adaptation of How the Grinch Stole Christmas). It was his final involvement in a production connected to the Frankenstein mythos that had propelled him to stardom some 36 years earlier.


Release Date: March 7, 1969


Distrib: Embassy Pictures