My first memory of The Hilarious House of Frightenstein was that while no local channel picked up the show when it became available in the US, it did air in New York on WNEW (now WNYW) weekday afternoons for a time in the mid-70's.
The show was produced in Canada, where it aired on Saturday mornings. Actor-comedian Billy Van played a grand total of 8 characters, including Count Frightenstein, who'd been exiled from Transylvania, as Vincent Price's opening poem explains, because he couldn't bring his monster back to life.
The crux of the show centered on the count's efforts to restore his creation, but there were plenty of distractions, allowing Van to play other characters, both male & female. American audiences know Van better from his time as a supporting player with Sonny & Cher and the Hudson Brothers, among others.
Professor Julius Summer Miller, a frequent guest on the original Mickey Mouse Club, turned up here regularly to drop some real science.
While Frightenstein was a half-hour show in American syndication, it was really a hour-long show when it first aired in Canada. Back in those days, American syndicators cut hour-long shows into half-hours, simply because they didn't believe back then that there was money to be made from a first-run, hour-long syndicated show, aside from talk shows (i.e. Mike Douglas, Merv Griffin). Hence, 130 hour long episodes turned into 260 half hours for American consumption. You'd have to believe Price was a huge selling point.
Here's the intro:
American audiences had already seen Filmation's Groovie Goolies try to copy Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, but while there wasn't a joke wall here, and Price was familiar with Laugh-In, after all, Frightenstein's producers trod the same ground.
Rating: B.
4 comments:
I first learned about Frightenstein in a post by Jeff Harris of Toon Zone (now the Anime Superhero Forum). For a time, the show aired on Canada's equivalent to SyFy, Space. I never saw it, but I do remember Billy Van from The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show.
Part of a pretty hip repertory company that also had Peter "Transformers and everything else" Cullen, Murray "Unknown Comic" Langston, and Freeman King (later of Dance Fever).
Freeman King was also on Sonny & Cher.
Hmm, given the time frame and country of origin, I wonder if Count Frightenstein served as the inspiration for Joe Flaherty's Count Floyd character from SCTV?
I'm going to say yes.
Seeing as how SCTV bowed five years after Frightenstein, it makes sense.
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