I'm glad Phyllis Diller remembered the film so fondly; she was one of the primary reasons "Mad Monster Party" works as well as it does. They should have given her the puppet; better yet, the puppets should have been preserved and put in a museum. It's sad that some of them were allowed to deteriorate, as this documentary alleges, but you may recall that in 2020 Rudolph and Santa (in decent shape) were sold at auction for over $300,000 by their then-owner. So they couldn't have been all that fragile. The so-called Animagic may seem clunky and antiquated to generations brought up on CGI, but it was cutting edge in its time. Even now, it has a lot more personality than today's mushy, cold, heartless, soulless computer animation (smooth animation is not necessarily good animation; you need strong poses to convey the character's attitude). Thank you, Rankin and Bass.
This was absolutely the best animation I've seen to date. What amazing work the production applied to make this so successful. I was amazed when I first saw it featured on television and wanted everyone to see it. Fantastic story it will never be forgotten ♥️
The scene with Boris Karlof singing and playing the banjo to convince his nephew to take over the laboratory, as weird creatures creep up on him, was one of the most surreal/funniest things in the movie.
Along with King Kong , Mighty Joe Young, Destroy All Monsters, Alakazam The Great ,Godzilla The Mad Monster Party were broadcasted every Thanksgiving in the 70s when I was a Child. Fantastic times .
I always watched "Mad Monster Party" whenever it was aired on tv here in NYC in the 1970's. I always enjoyed watching this movie and have fond memories of this movie and I really did enjoy watching this insightful documentary about this classic Rankin/Bass project!
I must have been all of 13 or 14 when this came out. We always scanned the new issue of TV Guide and when we saw this we just had to see it. Unforgetable.
One of the overlooked fads of the 1960s was the nostalgia for classic movie monsters ( Dracula , Frankenstein ,the Werewolf ...) Mad Monster Party was right on the heels of The Munsters and The Addams Family
Thank you, thank you and thank you. A favorite childhood film, and the depth of their background info is enlightening. The voice artists played such a key role.
Thank you! As a film teacher instructing students to stop motion this was just awesome! i loved all these movies when i was a Kid in the 1960's. My friends and i could not wait for Mad, Mad to come on TV around Halloween, Halloween would not have been the same without it. i think they need a re-make? How about it Tim Burton!
I saw this on a Moline Illinois tv station on a Saturday afternoon in the summer. I think I was eight. Loved it! Didn't see it again until my 20s when it was shown on TNT.
I grew up in Chicago land in the early 1970s and it was always played around Halloween. WGN ? Maybe. Then there was of course Bozo, Ray Rayner, BJ and the Dirty Dragon show... Good times.
What a brilliant work of art, and such HUGE names connected with this film. I loved discovering that Jack Davis of MAD fame was behind the scenes with character illustrations. That's just so cool.
I remember this was shown on tv several times in the early 70’s - then nothing. Why?? Was it the studios that owned the rights to the monsters being greedy?
Great documentary. Thanks for sharing. One minor suggestion for the future: have the script card held lower and closer to the camera so the host reading isn't as obvious. Good stuff!
Its the greatest puppet horror comedy ever, i watched it the First and last time in the austrian TV in german language end of the 70ties and then never anymore. I have 400 Satellit channels now and more at home in Vienna by cable TV, not one channel is able to Show this super cult movie, i zapp and zapp always more then 400 channels and mostly there are only trash, stupid sitcoms, boring reports, but never any classic, old movie, of course not the amazing MAD Monster Party. Why? 2 years ago i could watch this movie in full lenght, then they delete it here on RU-vid, here are only some clips and Trailers. The movie was/is in english, no Problem for me to watch it in Original language, but why its delete here? Its couriouse, today i Chat with somebody in the Philippines and there is the movie not delated on RU-vid, you can watch there the full movie in english. Why not here in Austria and in whole Europe? I want to buy the DVD of this movie, but its not exist, one time somebody offer an original VHS TAPE of this movie, its not long ago, for an expensive prize, it was Sold very quick. Why its deleted here from RU-vid in Europe and not in other continents like America and Asia? Can somebody explain me why?
I've never watched this film but being a huge Boris Karloff fan and growing up with Rudolph, I'm really hoping to one day. By the way, Boris Karloff could sing, there's videos and audio footage on RU-vid of him singing on the Rosemary Clooney show, as Captain Hook in the '50s Peter Pan musical, with Vincent Price on The Red Skelton Show, etc. I notice that he avoided singing in his old age, however, most likely due to the fact that he had emphysema and lived the last years of his life with only half a lung still operating.
The 2-part documentary (Making Of A Classic- Mad Monster Party - Parts 1 and 2) on the making of "Mad Monster Party"(1967), although very good and informative, astonishingly totally failed to examine the magnificent and memorable music score from that film! How could the producer of that documentary completely overlook that hugely important aspect of that classic stop-animation movie! Fortunately there is a separate video documentary examination of that classic music score on RU-vid.
@@user-xu4ow3bu6f . I have been trying to find that videoclip documentary about the music from "Mad Monster Party"(1967) that I saw some time ago on RU-vid, but so far have been unable to find it. I should have written down the title of that documentary at the time I saw it.
Mad Monster Party is such a fun and nostalgic film. The only other stop motion movies that I watch around Halloween time each year, next to this, include The Nightmare Before Christmas, Wallace and Gromit in The Case of the Were-Rabbit, and The Corpse Bride. We also need to give credit to Ethel Ennis for singing three songs in MMP. Really nice voice. Even though MMP stole the ending from "Some Like it Hot", I don't even care; plus, it's clearly an affectionate homage to one of the best comedy movies ever made.
About 19 years ago in 2002 my friend and I where at the Ontario Mills Mall here in So Cal at the Blockbuster music store and I had two CDs but only had enough $ fir one. I had Nancy Sinatras greatest hits and the Soundtrack for Mad Monster Party. I chose Nancy Sinatra. My point is the Soundtrack did exist because i had it to buy.
WDCA 20 in Washington DC showed this on New Years eve 1971. The title song immediately stuck with me. The only other flick that I've ever seen Gale Garnett in is that laughable but entertaining 1980 sci fi/horror film "The Children".
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Agreed. They could have had him facing the camera directly instead of looking up at a teleprompter, and also given some kind of macabre setting to sit in-- maybe an antique chair with a candelabra next to it.
It's a shame they have to send everything to Japan for animation obviously for monetary reasons and then the uneducated Japanese artist so to speak destroyed the dolls with their spray
