My Halloween Animation Specials Weekend continues with this classic from 1991. I was well aware of Claymation and the California Raisins and the Christmas special featuring Claymation but until a few years ago, I had never heard of this particular special.
It all starts off with Dr. Frankenstein, er I mean Frankenswine in the past as he is about to create the monster. Then we are brought to the present. We meet two pigs (Vince and Wilshire) and the snail Shelldon. They working on a carnival ride that puts you upside down and makes your money fall out of your pockets. Unfortunately it blows up and Vince vanishes. Shelldon falls into the crater and discovers the lost diary of Victor Frankenswine, which is the cause of the adventure.
Wilshire and Shelldon go to the castle and are greeted by a weird monster and are shocked to discover a party. They impersonate Dr. Jeckyll and Hyde as Wilshire searched for the monster of Frankenswine.
Eventually they are discovered by his dead skeletal pig Granny and in the course of running away from the monsters they find the lab and eventually we do see Vince again.
Overall this special was pretty good. I loved that it was actually pretty humorous like when they asked for the way to the laboratory and they were sent instead to the lavatory (or bathroom). Also w hen the monsters are ready to kill them the chainsaw maniac's chainsaw stops working and Shelldon tells him what is wrong and it starts working again.
There were also dated things like the infomercial person or the motivational speaker as those were huge in the 90s but they still work.
My only gripe would be that it got boring in places and the California Raisins never appeared lol.
I still think it is amazing on what they could and STILL can do with clay animation!
Will Vinton is the one who was a part of most oif not all of the Claymation specials in one way or another and produced this one. Barry Bruce directed it. The only voice that was familiar was Brian Cummings and that is because he voiced Dr. Mindbender in the original G.I.Joe and a lot of miscellaneous voices in other cartoons such as Gummi Bears, Beauty and the Beast, Darkwing Duck, DuckTales, Bernstein Bears (1985), Shirt Tales, Garfield and Friends, Denver the Last Dinosaur, and Pound Puppies.
Overall it was a great little special and recommend it to anyone who likes the Claymation specials!
huh I found this on vhs seal and had never heard of it before , just thought it looked cool.
ReplyDeleteThat sucks that the California Raisins never appeared in it. I remember they appeared in several Claymation specials. Love the pics for this one shoes what special is like without giving much away!
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