Tag Archives: Nightmare Nostalgia

Retro Toy Corner, Saturday Morning Cartoons

The Long Lost Creepy Crawlers Cartoon You Probably Forgot About

Image June 2, 2018 Patti PaulterGeist Leave a comment

They’re slimy,. They crawl, and go splat.. splat.. and SPLAAAAAT!!!

There’s no doubt about it. Nothing sounds more nostalgic, (and frankly funnier than shit) than producing with your little hands, slimy bugs to set upon Dad’s forehead while he snoozes away on the couch once upon a lazy Sunday afternoon. The familiar freshly-baked Plasti-Goop smell all 90’s kids will instantly recognize is something we all collectively can agree was the jam back in the day. And it seems some things never change, as in recent news via Variety, Paramount has snagged up those slimy rights an official Creepy Crawlers live-action film has been greenlit for production!

Be still my gooey heart.

Anywho, yes nostalgic boils and ghouls. The testosterone infused Easy-Bake-Oven childhood relic is getting its own film from the same people who brought Goosebumps to life on the big screen. While that’s pretty much all that’s known thus far, I can (because I’m a positive thinker) make a fair assumption a similar formula may be followed and it’s going to be a fun piece of nostalgic entertainment. However with this in mind, did you know this isn’t the first time Creepy Crawlers has been adapted onto on-screen entertainment?

With the success of a certain rip-off concerning dino-mite, morphing Japanese superheroes, Saban Entertainment tried their hands in the animation department with, what else, the Creepy Crawlers line! I often wonder what these pitches in the writer’s room sound like to everyone else sitting around a table. Like, “Hey! You know that slime crap that bakes into bugs that annoys the crap outta parents?! Let’s make a series about that!” Then again, the glorious era we speak of was very keen to nabbing up R-Rated programming like Tales From the Crypt and The Toxic Avenger and making them kid-friendly for Saturday mornings. Man… did we have it made or what?!

The Creepy Crawlers series debuted in the US in October 1994 with the simple premise of goodies vs baddies. Except the kicker is, the Creepy Crawler hybrid monsters portrayed in the series were indeed the good guys! And of course, they had to have a pint-sized human sidekick to move the story along and enter humanoid kid Chris. The series kicks off with Chris who is fascinated by magic and wizardry, working in a magic shop under the kind of nutty magician Professor Googengrime. And yes, he looks just like you would think with a name like that. Anyway, the talented little Chris builds and develops something he calls “The Magic Maker”. Which of course, is supposed to mimic the Creepy Crawlers toy oven. Googengrime dismisses it as garbage but unbeknownest to him will be the source of power becoming the bane of his very existence. Now here where a show about mutant bugs gets weird: Once-every-thousand-years, a planetary alignment called by Googenbrime the Magical Millennium Moment, rains down cosmic energies. As fate would have it, these lights rain down on the magic shop, which somehow made the Magic Maker capable of creating strange, man-sized bug/magic trick composite mutant creatures. Enter the Creepy Crawlers mutants Hocus Locust, Volt Jolt and T-3 and now we have a series that pits the buggy monstrosities along with Chris against the evil Googengrime who duh, now wants the Magic Maker for world-domination purposes. More Creepy Crawlers hybrids came later in the series, however, the original three named above we’re the main focus for most of the series run.

Creepy Crawlers the Animated Series only lasted two seasons with a total of 23 episodes. I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone that remembers the cartoon with a nostalgic fondness and I’m not so sure why that is?! Personally, I think it’s a fun, run-of-the-mill Saturday morning gem that reminds me a little of early Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles episodes. In any regard, I can always appreciate any attempt at basing a cartoon off of a beloved horror-themed product of our childhood.

Special shout out to YouTube uploader Bsh for posting the first full episode of the series! So if you’re interested in the origins of buggy heroes, grab yourself a bowl of cereal and make Saturday Morning a party!

Creature Features

Creature Feature: Reverend Kane, the Most Underrated Villian in Horror History

Image May 31, 2018 Patti PaulterGeist 3 Comments

Nightmare Nostalgia Presents Creature Feature: An ongoing tip of the hat to some of horror’s greatest monsters throughout the genre that don’t seem to get the recognition they wholeheartedly deserve.

On the heels of a recent Poltergeist II movie anniversary and what would have been the 98th birthday of one Julian Beck, we won’t just tip any hat, but our oversized black felt-wool head-huggers and sing the gospel of all the “Holy Temples” to the man who gave everything, including his failing health, to a character that will forever be burned into our brains as one of the downright scariest in horror history.

Born on May 31, 1925, Julian Beck wore many hats in the entertainment business, not just the creepy pastor topper we’ve all come to associate him with via Poltergeist II. The on-screen preacher began his love affair with the arts and dabbled in painting abstract expressionist pieces in the early 1940’s until meeting his future wife, Judith Malina who had a tremendously immense passion for the theatre. The love-connection turned into theater history and the pair later founded the prestigious, and often controversial, Living Theater which focused on giving the audience an immersive and shocking experience to take home, reflect, and learn from. Beck, a self-proclaimed anarchist who on several occasions had plenty of trouble with the law, lived by the saying, “If one can experiment in theater, one can experiment in life.” With close to 40 years of embracing these types of convictions inside and out of the theater, Beck’s finest hour came (kind of ironically), in the on-screen role as a passed-on pastor from another time who beat to his own drum as well. I’d say in a way more terrifying and psychotic manner, but you catch my drift here.

Keeping in horror franchise tradition, (although usually via accident-you never know if a sequel will follow) we normally don’t get a whole lot of backstory on the main antagonist. As a matter of fact, the name of Henry Kane was never mentioned once during the first film. Good ole’ Tangina warned of a malevolent presence in the home that she referred to as only, “the beast”. The Other Side, the follow-up four years after the original Cuesta Verde neighborhood nightmare gives us all the answers and a face to said beast with, of course, Julian Beck. And because of his creepy ass performance, I briskly walk a little bit faster past any senior living communities.

His soft-spoken demeanor could go from 0-100 real quick during his little temper tantrums, giving way to a visual about 8,000 teeth in the man’s mouth. Of course, I’m exaggerating a tad but I’d call you a liar if you didn’t think he had an extra set of chompers in there when his face twisted with anger. Besides angry dentures and walking around softly singing culty hymns, Kane’s dagger of a stare was enough on its own to make you avoid this dude walking down the street. Proving that an over-abundant amount of gore and make-up aren’t needed to give someone the skeevies. Not to take anything away from Kane’s other forms in the film including that incredibly EPIC H.R. Giger Tequila-Worm vomit monster (played by Noble Craig). But as Carol Anne said herself in Poltergeist III, “remember, less is more.”

Unfortunately, however, Beck’s look of a resurrected corpse throughout the film wasn’t movie magic but due to a 1983 diagnosis of the often fatal pancreatic cancer. Beck knew his days on Earth were coming to an end and gave everything he had to the role that launched his name into horror infamy. Often in pain on set, and if you look closely into his eyes via the clip above it’s painfully obvious, Beck used his unfortunate circumstances and threw himself into the role of the nefarious cult leader. Little Heather O’Rourke herself was so frightened by his unfiltered skeletal appearance, she burst into tears upon the pair’s first meeting.

I would have run like a bitch too sweetheart.

Today on the anniversary of the life of one Julian Beck, we appreciate his dedication to a role that was to be his last, and sadly never lived to see on screen. I can also appreciate that due to the Kane character, I’ve never wanted to open my door on a rainy day; especially to an elderly gentleman on the other end. Thanks for the eternal nightmares Reverend.

Lists

Horror Heroes: 5 Fun Facts You May Not Know About the Crypt Keeper

Image May 26, 2018 Patti PaulterGeist Leave a comment

I remember quite distinctly the first time an eight-year-old version of myself, had snuck into the hallway of my childhood home upon hearing some hauntingly delightful music blaring from the television well past my bedtime. Being the nosy little fucker I am, I ninja-ed my way out my bedroom door and into our hallway where I peeked around a corner that held a slightly obstructed, yet palatable view of our living room- but most importantly here, the television set. In which I had a great view of in my little corner of secrecy. I spotted my parents snuggled up on our Roseanne-esque sofa, eyes fixed at our beastly Sony TV that sat heavily on the shag carpet where visions of thunder, lightning, an obvious haunted house, and cackling laughter filled the screen. And that’s when I caught my first glimpse of one of THEE most important staples of any ’90s kid’s childhood- The Crypt Keeper.

Of course, I wasn’t the greatest sneakster, so I was spotted pretty quickly during the first few minutes of the program. Although, much to my delight and having the coolest dad ever, he invited me to join in to watch alongside and thus begun a Saturday night ritual of tits, gore, and the most awfully awesome puns from the Crypt Keeper that I repeated to friends the following Monday before the school bell rang. Parenting at it’s finest, am I right?! I guess I was pretty lucky to have the sort of father who had no shame in lying to my mother saying he was taking me to the movies to see Lady and the Tramp when what he really meant to say was he was taking his ten-year-old daughter to the cinema to watch The Exorcist III, (and yes, I loved every second of being scared shitless from the articulate Gemini Killer.) Anyway, twenty some odd years later and episodes via Tales From the Crypt remains a beloved staple in my rotation slot, as I’m sure with many of you boils and ghouls as well. On that note, I figured I’d tip my hat to the putrid host with the most and drop a few HAXILERATING fun facts about the gangly little puppet we all fell in love with his first appearance back in 1989.

5. Jeepers Keeper, Where’d You Get Those Eyes?

Yep, if you ever thought to yourself, “Hey self, ole’ Crypty boy’s eyes look a tad familiar,” then you are right about that young padawan. Infamous creature designer Kevin Yagher used a clear pair of his previous creation’s baby blues’ Chucky, as part of the design for the animatronic Crypt Keeper. Also, much like with the little Lake Shore Strangler, it also took a skilled team of six people to operate the Keeper’s animatronics.

5. The Crypt Keeper Actually Has an Origins Story

In case it has been some time since you’ve revisited the series or perhaps missed this one entirely, season two intentionally gave us a surprise origin story of our favorite undead master of bad puns and shock tales. Episode 14 appropriately titled Lower Berth brings us to Feeley’s Fantastic Fairway of Freaks, where we meet a rather sensitive two-headed mutant corpse named Enoch who has a boner for an ancient mummy named Myrna. Enoch escapes the freak show and the hands of his abusive owner with Myrna and they have an ummm, interesting night in a dank cave before they are discovered a year later and taken back to the carnival prison. That is, however, not before a hellish offspring is birthed by Myrna- the Crypt Keeper. And he’s totally kind of cute! In the post discussion of the story with the Keeper, he states his parents are still at the carnival today, 80 years later. So, I suppose that makes the Keeper 80 years old at the time of the tale.

3. There Are Two Versions Out There Of Each Episode

Robert Zemeckis and fellow producers knew they had syndication gold on their hands, so they wanted to plan ahead for Tales to maybe be eventually broadcast on other stations that weren’t so shall we say, lenient when it comes to sex, language, and gore. and that’s exactly what happened in the Summer of 1994 over at FOX as they picked up the series as part of their late-night programming. The episodes were re-edited with alternate scenes that cut out all the naughty fun stuff, and actors were instructed to loop those hilarious dubs of non-foul language into scenes while shooting. Fuckin’ became friggin’ and so on. It was nice for those who didn’t have a subscription to HBO or if you some serious uptight parents that allowed this version to be seen. There’s always a silver lining.

2. The Series Got Reworked As a Game Show

The 90’s were the prime era for kids and weirdly fun game shows. With gems like Legends of the Hidden Temple and Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, why not base a kid-friendly game show on a series known for tits and blood?! Although it only lasted one season, Secrets of the Crypt Keeper’s Haunted House came to Universal Orlando and syndicated into CBS Saturday mornings in 1996 featuring John Kassir and his puppet alter ego. Two teams with team names of “scary creatures” of a pair of kiddies competed for the glorious and coveted prize of a brand new Apple computer by answering questions from a giant floating head and successfully completing obstacles such as Fireball Alley and The Swamp From Hell. All while CK is taunting them in the process, because hey, that’s what he does right? Even with just one season under their belt, the program did somehow get nominated for a Daytime Emmy in the Outstanding Game Show category. Of course, that win went to The Price is Right but it’s kind of cool it got some recognition!

1. The Crypt Keeper Released a Christmas Album

Oh yes, we’re decking the halls with parts of Charlie with this pun-tastic holiday album featuring the Crypt Keeper! Released in 1994 by Warner Bros., the horror holiday affair with the late night ghoul of fright including such national treasure tracks as “We Wish You’d Bury The Missus”, “Twelve Days of Cryptmas”, and the all-important rap song featuring the horror icon! I mean, Freddy had the Fat Boys and Maniac Cop got into the rap game. It only seems appropriate for the king of wordplay to hop on that bandwagon and drop some sick rhymes too!