Arthur Rankin, Jr. and Jules Bass were, and to many still are, the undisputed kings of the holiday special. Their innovative stop-motion films, including Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964), Santa Claus is Coming to Town (1970), and The Year Without a Santa Claus (1974), are mainstays of the Christmas season and have been endlessly influential and often parodied for generations. Perhaps lesser known but deserving of the same esteem is their 1967 animated film, Mad Monster Party? (yes, the question mark is part of the title), the ultimate musical monster mash extravaganza for the ages. Over the years since its release, it has slowly become a cult classic that has been sought out by Monster fans the world over. Where else, after all, can you find every classic monster imaginable from across time, film studios, and various copyright entanglements all in one place? And in creating this gem, Rankin-Bass captured lightning in a bottle.
The mid-1960s were the watershed moment for Rankin-Bass, with all the elements that would make them such a creative force coming together. Conceptual artist Jack Davis, who joined the company soon after Rudolph aired, brought a fresh and distinctive look to the specials, and specifically the monsters in Mad Monster Party? Though drawn from the classic look of the Universal Monsters (and a few others), Davis gave them a unique style that evokes the original movies while augmenting the look into something appealing for all ages. When these designs were paired with the storyboards of Don Duga, who beautifully captured the Expressionistic style of F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang with the classic monster template set by Tod Browning and James Whale, there was magic in the making. With a very funny script by Len Korobkin and Harvey Kurtzman, the film was ready to be brought to life.
Not long before the making of Rudolph, Rankin discovered the Japanese stop-motion animation company MOM Productions. Rankin was thoroughly taken with their work and, with some direction from himself and Bass, dubbed it “AniMagic.” Of course, stop-motion had been around for decades and had changed very little since the pioneering work of Willis O’Brien (The Lost World, 1927; King Kong, 1933) and Ray Harryhausen (The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, 1953; The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad, 1958; Jason and the Argonauts, 1963). Rankin saw the potential of using stop motion on television to stand out from the crowd of traditionally animated series and specials. This, combined with creative stories, unique designs of the characters, and artful execution, worked like gangbusters.
The creative team was rounded out by composer and songwriter Maury Laws, who first joined the company for The Daydreamer in 1966 and continued to work with Rankin-Bass for many years. His songs, with lyrics by Jules Bass, capture the fun of the era and the spirit of the holiday featured in each special. For Mad Monster Party?, Laws and Bass wrote the Bond-esque main theme sung by Ethel Ennis doing her best Shirley Bassey, “You’re Different”—the Monster’s Mate’s ode to her man, “Mr. Mummy”—performed by a Beatle-haired band of skeletons called Little Tibia and the Fibula, “It’s Our Time to Shine,” the love song “Never Was a Love Like Mine,” and the earworm “Stay One Step Ahead” sung, or rather spoken in rhythm, by the star of the film Boris Karloff.
Karloff was still the biggest horror star in the world in the late 1960s thanks to a resurgence courtesy of Roger Corman, Mario Bava, and the Grinch, for whom he had provided voices the year before. Also receiving star billing was comedienne and television pioneer Phyllis Diller, credited as “The Monster’s Mate” but never given a name, though the Frankenstein Monster itself is given the name Fang. Gale Garnett was brought in to voice the female lead, Francesca, Dr. Frankenstein’s secretary. All the other voices in the film were provided by the incomparable Allen Swift, a master of celebrity imitation, along with providing plenty of original voices. In Mad Monster Party?, he provides Felix with the voice of Jimmy Stewart, Yetch with Peter Lorre, and Dracula with, of course, more than a little Lugosi, along with unique voices for most of the other monsters.
The film itself is a monster lover’s dream, packing its 90 minutes with more monsters than arguably any other movie ever made, surpassing even the classic Universal Monster mashups like House of Frankenstein (1944) and House of Dracula (1945), while clearly looking to them and the Abbott and Costello Meet the Monsters films for inspiration. The story is simple. An aging Dr. Boris von Frankenstein (Karloff) sends out invitations to all his monster friends to announce his greatest discovery, and they all congregate at his castle. Among the guests is Felix Flanken, the Baron’s klutzy nephew, whom Frankenstein plans to make his successor as Chairman of the Board of Monsters Incorporated, the worldwide council of monsters. Dracula, the Monster’s Mate, and Francesca each feel they are best suited to follow in the Baron’s footsteps and seek to sabotage Felix. It all culminates with Francesca falling in love with Felix and the monsters joining forces to capture the couple, but they are foiled by the arrival of royalty—King Kong.
Of course, Mad Monster Party? is less about plot and more about the madcap monster fun to be had along the way. Some of the most memorable moments include a monster food fight, a series of nocturnal rivalries between snoring roommates, and a picnic between Felix and Francesca that leads to Dracula losing his fangs in a tree. Joining in on the fun are the Wolf Man, the Invisible Man, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Gill Man, the Hunchback of Notre Dame, the Mummy, and Yetch, Frankenstein’s Peter Lorre-inspired servant. On top of all this is a whole army of zombies dressed like bellboys. It is all truly inspired madness.
By Arthur Rankin’s own admission, the pacing is bogged down at times as the original script was lengthened to feature length due to the success of Rudolph. Even in these padded sequences, such as the zombies flying airplanes and the Chef Machiavelli sequence, are still a lot of fun and well executed. At times, they are reminiscent of Abbott and Costello or Marx Brothers routines that do not necessarily forward the plot but supply plenty of good laughs.
Though still best known, and probably always will be, for their Christmas output, Rankin-Bass made specials to last year-round, including two more Halloween specials in 1972, Jack O’ Lantern and Mad Mad Monsters, both of which are traditional hand-drawn animation features. In Jack O’Lantern, made for the television series Festival of Family Classics, a leprechaun changes himself into a pumpkin for the winter. He comes to life as a kind of scarecrow with a Jack-o-lantern head and helps a pair of children scare off witches and warlocks. Mad Mad Monsters is an official follow-up to Mad Monster Party? in which the monsters attend the wedding of the Frankenstein Monster and his Bride at the Transylvania Astoria Hotel. Allen Swift returned to voice the monsters, but the absence of Boris Karloff and Phyllis Diller, along with the traditional rather than stop-motion animation, all make for a very different experience.
All told, there is nothing quite like Mad Monster Party? It is perfect entertainment for the whole family during the Halloween season. It is a “barrage of jokes” kind of movie, many of which hit, though some admittedly don’t, and some of them go by so quickly that it may well take multiple viewings to catch them all. I first came to the movie as a Frankenstein completist but have found myself returning to it time and again and enjoying it more each time. It may not reach the heights of the very best Frankenstein and monster parodies like Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), Young Frankenstein (1974), and The Man with Two Brains (1983), but few films can. And if you love monsters, Mad Monster Party? is second to none for sheer volume of monster laughs and mayhem.
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