Monster Squad was one of the creations of the writing/producing team of William P. D'Angelo, Harvey Bullock, & R. S. Allen for NBC, and replaced the Fugitive-inspired Run, Joe, Run when it debuted in 1976.
In the opener, Dracula (Henry Polic II, ex-When Things Were Rotten), Bruce W. Wolf (Buck Kartalian), Frank N. Stein (Michael Lane), & Walt (Fred Grandy) tangle with Bea, Queen of The Bees, or, to be more royal, Queen Bee (Alice Ghostley, who earned her camp cred with a couple of appearances a year earlier on Uncle Croc's Block).
Buck Kartalian was a character actor who'd done a zillion guest roles in the 60's & early 70's. Writer Richard Bluel was principal writer a decade earlier for The Green Hornet. Stanley Ralph Ross was also working on Wonder Woman concurrently with Squad, then would transition to cartoon work, both as a writer and actor, two years later.
If they'd bothered to relaunch the Superboy cartoons around this time, Grandy (later of The Love Boat) sounded enough like Bob Hastings to take over the part (Hastings was recurring on All in The Family at the time). At least, that's this writer's opinion.
With Spooktober right around the corner, we've got more Monster Squad on the way.
Rating: B-.
4 comments:
Not to be confused with the 1987 kids' movie of the same name or the 1980 CBS Sat AM cartoon Drak Pack, which had a similar premise.
I honestly never heard of this show until YouTuber James Rolfe of Cinemassacre.com mentioned it in one of his videos (he's a major monster movie buff). I guess The Monster Squad must've been airing opposite another show I was really into at the time, 'cause I don't recall ever coming across it, so I guess I never flipped channels during whatever other show I was glued to.
When the season started, Monster Squad aired opposite the Isis half of the Shazam!-Isis hour and the first half of the Krofft Supershow.
Having originally reviewed both Drak Pack & Monster Squad when this blog launched 10 years ago, I'd say Drak Pack was actually the worst of the two because of the premise of the original monsters having kids, who'd be the titular crimebusters.
The Krofft Supershsow? That explains why I never encountered Monster Squad; The Krofft Superhsow was one of our jams back in the day. When that came on, my brother and I were glued to the TV.
Monster Squad also suffered from having McDuff, The Talking Dog as a lead-in. Viewers flipped over to either CBS or ABC, and that was all she wrote.
Post a Comment