Like a playful snowball to the face, The Saturday Supercast is back again with episode 25!  In honor of the very merriest of seasons Jerzy, Kevin, and I decided is was the perfect time to tackle another Rankin/Bass special from the 80s as well as revisiting the G.I. Joe cartoon series.   This episode is the second of a two part exploration taking a look at the magic and wonder of some amazing Christmas themed stop motion animagic.

Beginning with The New Adventures of Pinocchio in 1960 Rankin/Bass established themselves as one of the foremost pop culture animation houses in America.  Arthur Rankin Jr. & Jules Bass (along with a bevy of puppeteers, seamstresses, artisans, animators, musicians and talented actors & voice actors) spent the better part of thirty years bringing exceptional all-ages entertainment into our homes and theaters.  In fact, from the debut of Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer in 1964 Rankin/Bass became synonymous with the Christmas season.  Between 1964 and 1985 the studio produced 18 beloved Christmas specials and feature films including Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus is Comin' To Town, The Little Drummer Boy, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, and Jack Frost.

For this special holiday episode of the Supercast we decided to kick of the discussion with a look at the obscure 1981 Rankin/Bass special, The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold…



…and we follow that up with a special guest to the round-table, Mark Rudolph of CV Comics, the Art & Story podcast, and the creator behind the Curse of the Pharaohs, to talk about a very merry episode of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, Cobra Claws are Coming to Town…



In the episode we also talk about Christmas episodes of other 80s/90s era cartoons like Batman the Animated Series (Christmas with the Joker), Justice League (Comfort and Joy), Batman: Brave and the Bold (Invasion of the Secret Santas, Part 1 & Part 2), the He-Man & She-Ra Christmas Special, the Flintstones Christmas special, the insane Star Wars Holiday Special (Find all 15 parts of the special here), and the one G1 Transformers Christmas story we can recall.  We also mention the new online video service called Jaroo.com which features free viewing of such great cartoon series as Paddington Bear, Pole Position, the Littles, Jayce and the Wheeled Warriors, Ulysses in the 31st Century, StarCom, Inspector Gadget, and Captain N the Gamemaster.

As for the Leprechaun's Christmas Gold we also get into some more great Rankin/Bass voice acting from Robert McFadden and a surprisingly well-done Irish brogue from Art Carney, Bing Crosby's rendition of Christmas in Killarney, 80s era political correctness keeping the Leprechaun's Christmas Gold a little more obscure, banshees and the folklore and superstitions that arise in different regions of the world (including banshee combs and the concept of not directly passing the salt to another person), folklore hero and villain archetypes, battling the Devil, the lack of traditional Christmas lore in the LCG special, Czech shadow puppetry, the chroma key effect, the Last Unicorn and Rankin/Bass' tradition of great animated water/waves, and Rankin/Bass' clever use of common household items in their stop motion work.

While discussing the Cobra Claws are Coming to Town we also mention our previous round-table episodes on the G.I. Joe series in episodes 19 & 20 of the Saturday Supercast as well as getting into the very tenuous Christmas message in this episode, Toys for Tots, some more of the excellent voice-work by Frank Welker (who plays Polly in this episode), Neil Ross (Shipwreck), Arthur Burghardt (Destro), Morgan Lofting (the Baroness), & Liz Aubrey (Covergirl), the impending Shout Factory DVD re-release of G.I. Joe the Movie, Covergirl's make-over as the cartoon series progressed, the writing chops of Gerry & Carla Conway and Roy & Dan Thomas, Trojan horses, the awesome costume changes of characters in 80s cartoons that feature very obvious seasonal and location changes, Joes out of costume in The Viper is Coming, revealing the real names of the G.I. Joe characters (or the hilarious lack-there-of) in episodes such as Cobra Claws are Coming to Town, The Trader, Flint's Vacation, and Captives of Cobra.

If you're interested in watching The Leprechaun's Christmas Gold, it's available as part of the newly repackaged Classic Christmas Favorites set from Warner Brothers as a special feature on the How the Grinch Stole Christmas DVD.  As for the Cobra Claws episode of G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero, you can also view it for free via Veoh, or you can find the episode on the Complete G.I. Joe series footlocker set, or on the individual season 1.3 release scheduled to hit store shelves on February 2nd, 2010.

As for us, well you can find more of Jerzy's work at:
Make Like a Tree Comics
jdrozd.blogspot.com
Art & Story Podcast

Kevin is freelance illustrator, comic creator, and podcaster whose work can be found at:
Kevin Cross.net
Big Illustration Party Time Podcast
Ghettomation Podcast
Money Mod Webcomic

…and I am a blogger and irregular podcaster whose stuff you can find, uh, here.

If you have any questions, comments, or heck, even complaints, you can drop us a line at Saturday Supercast!

Become a fan of the Saturday Supercast on Facebook or follow us on Twitter!

Subscribe Through iTunes
Podcast RSS

Direct download of the episode is available here.

Jiminycrickets these past two months have been hectic.  As you've probably already deduced there won't be anymore Boris Karloff posts as I'm way off schedule for that week of celebrating and the year is steamrolling over regardless.  On a positive note, Jerzy, Kevin and I had a chance to record some new Saturday Supercasts.  With the holiday season upon us, we decided it was the perfect time to tackle some Rankin/Bass specials from the 70s & 80s.  This episode is the first of a two part exploration taking a look at the magic and wonder of some amazing stop motion animation (Animagic for those Rankin/Bass-o-philes out there.)

Though Stop Motion Animation has been around since the turn of the 20th century (with some of the earliest work attributed to Albert E. Smith and J. Stuart Blackton's The Humpty Dumpty Circus in 1898, not to mention notable live-action/stop-motion pastiches such as The Lost World in 1925 and King Kong in 1933), it wasn't until the 50s & 60s that the medium really enjoyed a golden era.  Between the work of Ray Harryhausen & Willis O'Brian in films such as Mighty Joe Young ('49) and The 7th Voyage of Sinbad ('58), and Art Clokey's Gumby ('57) & Davey and Goliath ('60) series on television, stop motion was wowing audiences all over the world.

Beginning with The New Adventures of Pinocchio in 1960 Rankin/Bass established themselves as one of the foremost pop culture animation houses in America.   Arthur Rankin Jr. & Jules Bass (along with a bevy of puppeteers, seamstresses, artisans, animators, musicians and talented actors & voice actors) spent the better part of thirty years bringing exceptional all-ages entertainment into our homes and theaters.  In fact, from the debut of Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer in 1964 Rankin/Bass became synonymous with the Christmas season. Between 1964 and 1985 the studio produced 18 beloved Christmas specials and feature films including Frosty the Snowman, Santa Claus is Comin' To Town, The Little Drummer Boy, 'Twas the Night Before Christmas, and Jack Frost.

For this special holiday episode of the Supercast we decided to kick of the discussion with a look at the 1974 classic inspired by Phyllis McGinley's poem of the same name, The Year Without a Santa Claus…



In the episode, aside from an in depth summary of the film, we also mention some comic strip inspired seasonal specials such as Ziggy's Gift (parts 1, 2, & 3), Blondie & Dagwood, and Cathy (parts 1, 2, & 3), as well as some other 80s Christmas cartoon specials like Garfield's Christmas (parts 1, 2, & 3), Pac-Man: Christmas Comes to Pacland (parts 1, 2, & 3), and the He-Man & She-Ra Christmas Special.  We also discuss the swell Rankin/Bass tradition of casting wonderful narrators for their specials including Fred Astaire, Burl Ives, Jimmy Durante, Red Skelton, Buddy Hackett, and of course Shirley Booth in The Year Without a Santa Claus, as well as the interesting choices for voice actors including Robert McFadden (best known for playing Snarf and Slythe on Thundercats), Paul Frees, Bradley Bolke, Dick Shawn, George S. Irving, and the number one star in the world Mickey Rooney.

In addition we dig into some of TYWaSC merchandising, the newly produced sequel from Warner Brothers called A Miser Brother's Christmas (which reunites Mickey Rooney and George S. Irving), how Rankin/Bass has that It's a Small World vibe from the famous Disney attraction, growing up with and without a white Christmas, epic adventure (Rankin/Bass) vs. schmaltzy storytelling (e.g. Olive the Other Reindeer, Growing Pains Christmas special (parts 1, 2, & 3), and Santa Claus: The Movie) in holiday specials, the Boris Karloff reading of McGinley's original poem, The Life & Adventures of Santa Claus, other Rankin/Bass productions (such as Thundercats, Silverhawks, Tigersharks and the Hobbit), the weird storytelling aesthetics and well-drawn villains of Rankin/Bass productions (Kubla Kraus, Burgermeister Meisterburger, MonStar, Mum-Ra, and the Winter Warlock), the very high degree of craftsmanship in the R/B productions, The differences between the original poem and the animated special, trying to figure out when the special is set (using references and homages like the Charlie Chaplin cameo and the Keystone Cop-like police officer), the connection to the previous Christmas special Santa Claus is Comin' to Town, Murray Laws & Jules Bass' musical collaborations, as well as replacement animation.

If you're interested in watching The Year Without a Santa Claus it's available in both a stand-alone release as well as part of the newly repackaged Classic Christmas Favorites set from Warner Brothers.  You can also view it for free via youtube (parts 1, 2, 3, 4, & 5.)

As for us, well you can find more of Jerzy's work at:
Make Like a Tree Comics
jdrozd.blogspot.com
Art & Story Podcast

Kevin is freelance illustrator, comic creator, and podcaster whose work can be found at:
Kevin Cross.net
Big Illustration Party Time Podcast
Ghettomation Podcast
Money Mod Webcomic

…and you probably know where you can find my stuff…

If you have any questions, comments, or heck, even complaints, you can drop us a line at Saturday Supercast!

Become a fan of the Saturday Supercast on Facebook or follow us on Twitter!

The Sugary Serials theme song was preformed by Umberto.

Subscribe Through iTunes
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Direct download of episode 24 is available here!

Well, it's the first day of the Boris Karloff blog-a-thon, and I am totally unprepared (thanks goofy day job.)  I was working on a theme for this week's worth of Karloff tomfoolery, but the sudden unavailability of the Rankin/Bass film the Daydreamer, kicked that theme right in the short pants.  Basically, I wanted to take a look at Karloff's work in animation, both via his own personal credits (Mad Monster Party, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, and the Daydreamer) as well as the various homages I've noticed. I’m still going to try and stick to that theme, so we'll see how that goes.

For today though, I wanted to kick things off by saying that I'm one of those kids that has been deeply influenced by the man's performances without really knowing all that much about the man himself.  My first contact with a Karloff was through his narration for Chuck Jones' How the Grinch Stole Christmas, though I never made the connection that this was the same great performer that also brought Frankenstein's monster to life with the 1931 Universal classic.  Actually I don't recall ever thinking about who the man was behind Jack Pierce's wonderful makeup until I was a teenager.  I know I read about Karloff in the Crestwood House Frankenstein book in elementary school, but must not have made an impression (even though that series of books made up a huge portion of my early reading…)



Even though I count myself among the legion of Universal Horror fans, I still feel that I don't know all that much about the great Karloff, and that's one of the main reasons I wanted to take part in this blogging event.  If nothing else, I'm mighty curious about what the other 100 or so people participating have to say, or what insights into his amazing career I might uncover. 

To find the list of participating sites you should sprint on over to the Frankensteinia, Pierre Fournier's exhaustive and very well written site that covers all aspects of the monster Karloff helped to cement into the popular culture.

With that I'll leave you with an ink drawing of Karloff as the monster I did almost a decade ago…

Wow, two double-stuffed episodes in a row.  Weird.  At first I was struggling a little to get these up to 10 minutes, now I'm trying my best to keep them below 20 minutes.   Micropodcasting indeed.  Anyway, in episode 20 I spend some time discussing the 1993 action TV series Cobra…

I also talk about the show's prolific creator Stephen J. Cannell, the new FCC rules regarding "payments" for reviewing, the budget Millcreek DVD release of this series, and the soft-spoken, face-kicking Michael Dudikoff!

As promised in yesterday's Peel Here column, today's microcast is a double stuffed conversation/rant about Superman III.  From the madcap romp of an opening…

…to the uncomfortably underachieving comedy of the usually much better Richard Pryor…

There are still a couple of good moments though, including my favorite Superman movie moment, dark Supes versus Clark Kent (even if it doesn't make any logical sense)…

…and the seriously creepy Braniaic-like robot villain lady…

 

Peel Here is back after the Halloween hiatus, and I've had some fun with the research for this installment.  The wife and I recently decided it was past time for a culling of our DVD collection as we amassed an insane amount of movies and TV box-sets.  Mind you they were all purchased on the cheap as one of my hobbies is shopping around for bargain DVDs, but after awhile these things start to take up too much space and you find yourself wondering if you really need to own every comic book film ever produced, or those pesky Star Wars prequels.  Well, one of the things that I'd hoped to do was to get rid of any movies in those annoying cardboard snapper cases that Warner Brothers used to be so fond of because they stick out like a sore thumb in the collection and if the plastic spindle that holds the DVD breaks, the whole case is ruined.  I noticed that a lot of stores started carrying a 2-Disc slimcase that has all four Superman movies for $10, so I figured I could upgrade out old snapper case editions of Superman I & II.   Plus I hadn't seen Superman III or IV since the 80s and I kind of wanted to watch those again.

Well, I picked up the DVD this past weekend and Carrie and I sat down over breakfast to watch the train-wreck that is Superman III.  Holy molie was this flick schizophrenic.   I knew there was a bit of light comedy in the Superman movies, but I didn't remember that part three was, for all intents and purposes, a straight up madcap romp!  Anyway, I've recorded an episode of the newly formatted Branded Microcast talking about some of my feelings on the flick, and in conjunction I decided this would also be a great time to share my collection of Superman III Topps sticker cards from 1983…



These have to be, hands down, the ugliest Topps sticker cards ever.  It's the insanity of the patriotic border the designers decided to go with.  Those red and white stripes are enough to make you go blind, especially when you look at a handful of cards all at once like this (apologies to your retinas.)  At least all the main characters are accounted for (though we could have done without the Margot Kidder as Lois Lane sticker seeing as she's only in 5 minutes of the movie after throwing a tantrum over Richard Donner being dismissed during the filming of Superman II.)  Maybe she could have been replaced by Brad the jackass drunk who is horrible at his post-high school security job.  Can I say though how excited it makes me that I now have a Richard Pryor sticker in my collection?  Why didn't the Toy get a Topps card and sticker set?!?



As far as the rest of the set is concerned, I was a little bummed that there were no "dark" Superman stickers included, as that sequence is still a favorite of mine no matter how silly it is in the film.  The designers did pick a nice range of screen captures that encompass most of Superman's powers (heat vision, check, flying, check, super strength, check, super breath, check), though it would have been neat if they'd of used one where he picked up the frozen lake to extinguish the fire in the chemical plant.  We even get a Superman weakened by kryptonite which is nice.



I'm also glad we got at least one sticker of the Vera Webster character turning into the creepy Brainiac-like robot woman, though it would have been super-cool if they'd picked a scene just a few seconds later that had her looking like this…



Of course, like most Topps sticker card sets there were some included puzzle-back posters…



Personally I think the Superman-trapped-in-the-force-field-bubble was a slightly odd choice (I'd of gone with evil Superman and Clark Kent facing off…)  I do like the second one featuring Supes giving Richard Pryor's Gus a lift home at the end of the film…



All in all this was one heck of a bad movie on all sorts of levels.   It wasn't all that funny as a comedy, it was pretty boring as an action film, it was weirdly confusing as a romance, and it was a flat out terrible super hero/comic book movie.  We did get to see Christopher Reeve crush a piece of coal into a perfectly cut diamond to make one of the gaudiest rings known to mankind though.  Hmm.  Eh.

Anyway, come back tomorrow for a microcast where you can listen to me bitching about the movie for twenty minutes…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In this episode of the microcast I'm reminded of my tenure in the YMCA sponsored Indian guides program.  Fake bearskin ponchos, gaudy feathered necklaces, goofy yellow headbands, and some great memories of my Dad.  Here's another interesting recollection of the Guides as well…



That's me in the middle with the tacky plaid shorts…



Again, me on the back of the fire truck and my dad marching alongside with the walking stick...

 

Oh my god, three microcasts in a row?   I suppose in this post Halloween afterglow it's sort of nice to just talk about some of the stuff that's on my mind rather than try and jump right back into writing columns.  I do have a Peel Here that I want to get to this week though, so look for that later on.  Anyway, in this episode of the Branded Microcast I ramble on about the Pryde of the X-Men cartoon for a bit…

If you're interested in watching this beauty of a one-shot cartoon, it's up on youtube in nice bite-sized chunks (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5.)  I also talk about the X-Men arcade game that was sort of based on the cartoon...

Chugging along with another microcast.  Today features a rambling discussion of odd books including Choose Your Own Adventure style, sitcom adaptations, photonovels, the Pryde of the X-Men graphic novel adaptation of the cartoon pilot, fumetti, and Sadistik (Satanik/Killing) pulps.

In trying to get myself podcasting again I've decided to try and stop being so precious with the recording and research and just do it.  My new idea to is too keep these episodes short, like under 15 minutes.  Micro-podcasting.  Anyway, here's the first microcast which is all about the great golden age we're living in as far as toys are concerned…

In this episode I talk about all the properties and characters that have toys these days like the Goonies, Akira, Edward Scissorhands, Snake Plissken from Escape from New York, Ash from Army of Darkness, the new Matty Collector Ghostbusters figures, the new Matty Collector He-Man figures, as well as some older stuff that could use some new figures, namely the Karate Kid and V.

I just wanted to take a second and point to a cool part of the 40th anniversary celebration of Sesame Street that's been going on for a couple weeks now.   In honor of the milestone (and as a part of the upcoming release of the 40 years of Sesame Street DVD set) their website is featuring a 5 week series of voting polls to pick the best segments of the show.  Each week's voting is themed with a decade, and this week it's the 80s.  So head on over to the site and choose your favorite video (I'm all about the "Making Crayons" video personally…)

Well, I just wanted to do a quick re-cap of this year's Halloween Countdown.  I hope everyone enjoyed the 31 Days of Monsters, I know I enjoyed putting it together.  Though I kind of want to take a little breather, I can't help but think about what I'm going to do next year.  Hmmmm.  Anyway, enjoy the monsters!

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

Now I kind of want to take a 31 day nap!

Welcome back to the final day of my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!  I can't believe the month is over.   In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on today, All Hallows Eve.

Today's monster was voted the creepiest by my lovely wife who just couldn't stand the look of it.  This one is a Class 4 free floating spirit of some alien origin and in the episode, the Ghostbusters have to shuttle up to a space station to fight it…



I believe this is the sort of monster that falls into the category of a horror.   It's all teeth and tentacles, eyeballs and biting mouths.  Sort of like the Blob, this kind of monster doesn't seem all that scary until it starts to grow and the next thing you know there's just no running from it.  I guess it's a bit of fear through suffocation, and this guy is a bit more than I'd bet even Steve McQueen could handle.   Lucky for us the Ghostbusters were on the job.   If nothing else this monster is colored perfect for the occasion.



As for this particular cel, it's kind of neat because it's part of a scene in the episode where this monster is obscured by the gang of Ghostbusters who are trying to battle it.  So this is the first time that most of this art has seen the light of day (not that you couldn't see similar shots in other scenes...)  Here's a couple screen grabs, the first on the left with my cel, and a second which is a more natural shot of the creature on the right...

  

So that's it for the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s as another Halloween has come and by tomorrow morning it'll just be a great memory.  There was a lot of great stuff posted around the internet this year, so if you want to find your way to a lot more content you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event.  If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness from me, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the orange banner with King Kong.)  I don't know about all of you, but I plan on kicking back and watching scary movies with my wife all day and into the night.  Here's hoping we get a good lot of Trick-or-Treators, and I hope every one of you has a great Halloween.  Thanks for stopping by!

We're down to the second to last day of 2009's spooky event, the 31 Days of Monsters Countdown to Halloween.  It's the eve of All Hallow's Eve I guess, and I have my second to last set of monster cels to share.  In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on Halloween day.

Today's cel is a really fun one that falls into that category of a more finished image.  The monster is from episode 53, "The Scaring of the Green."  Typically, most background elements are separated out onto a layer of their own, be it a painting on paper behind all the stacked cels, or on a cel layer if there's movement involved in the BG elements.  This cel featuring a huge green saber-toothed cat-like bog hound monster (with super creepy spider-esque eyes) chasing Mr. Venkman is a bit of an anomaly in that the BG elements, as well as both main foreground characters are all painted on one layer…



I can see this presenting all sorts of problems in the process, most involving either syncing up the artwork in the various cels in the sequence to make sure the animation isn't so bumpy and making sure the cels are painted in the proper sequences so that everything is colored correctly and overlaps properly.  Maybe the animators were going for something more crude in a chase sequence like this and any jarring jumps between cels would work towards the tone of the sequence.  Either way, when taken out of context like this it works very well as a stand alone piece of art.



I do think the hunter green which was chose as the color of the beast was a little unfortunate as it blends in to the black line-work enough to make the shape and features of the creature a little hard to distinguish.  Luckily I have the pencil under-drawing for this piece, thought it was a little damaged by the cel (the paint on the back of the cels sometimes bonds with the paper drawing underneath, probably in the years that these were stored in warehouses.)  You get the basic drift though…



Apparently, the notation NR-5 refers to leaving paint off the cel as it's transparent on my copy of the finished cel.

I was also lucky enough to find a second cel from the same episode featuring this huge bog hound that shows it with a little more definition in the final cel…



I also dig this second one because of the little bits of light yellow green paint illustrating the creature being sucked into a ghost trap.  It's just a nice juxtaposition of a slight painterly style mixed with the clean cel art...



As weird as it might have turned out, I think maybe his spots should have been rendered in another color to help give him some more overall definition.  Anyway...

Also, for any of you Real Ghostbusters fans out there that haven't picked up any of the new DVDs, I've decided to give away a copy of the Volume 1 Steelbook edition of the show!  There are only two days left to enter, so get to the typing...



This 5-disc set contains the first 25 episodes of the series (including the 1st thirteen episode Saturday Morning run) as well as some fun special features.  So what do you have to do to win this beauty?  All you have to do is send me an e-mail (or click on the Creature From the Black Lagoon monster in the sidebar) and make sure to include the following:

-Please put "The Real Ghostbusters Contest" in the subject line.
-List your favorite monster/ghost/creature from the series.
-Include your name.

The deadline for entries is October 31st at Midnight eastern standard time.  I'll be drawing a winner at random from the e-mails, and will respond to the winner via e-mail on November 1st.  Also, if you feel inclined, I would love everyone to spread the word about the 31 Days of Monsters countdown and the contest, so hit up those social networks and tell a friend (my twitter handle is smurfwreck)!

Once again, if you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for the last installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters.   If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!  We're into the top three.  Again, as I've been reiterating all month long (imagine I'm saying this next bit super-fast like John Moschitta in a Micro Machines commercial), in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve. Whew…

I was thinking that yesterday's flying toothy head monster would have been my top choice, and it probably would be if just on the frightening scale, but today's is the one I think might take away the award for the coolest.  I've mentioned on the this site before how much I like cephalopods, and even though I haven't really gotten into H.P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos all that much, I do love squid monsters…



When I first came across this guy it was after finding the cel that's below this one, the close up of a similar creature's face.   So I was so happy when I found this zoomed-out view of one of the other spawn of Cathulhu to give the whole thing a bit more definition.  Also, how cool is it that I found a cel where the squid monster is getting his arm blown off!  As you can see from the pencil under-drawing below the destruction is being caused by a proton pack blast…



In the original animated sequence this blast is obscured by another creature in the foreground, so it's kind of cool to finally get a clear view of this type of action in the cartoon.  Looking a bit closer at the pencil drawing you can see where the animator did a bit of a test with the image by using an exacto knife to cut out the lightning-like charges that surround the blacks from the proton packs.  My guess is that it was testing the backlit animation process, but I can't be sure…



As I mentioned, I first came into contact with this guy when I found this cel below.   At a distance the create looks a lot less alien, but when you do a super close-up it gets very weird looking indeed…



These are both from one of my most favorite episodes of the series, #41 "The Collect Call of Cathulhu." 



It was also written by one of my favorite animation writers, Michael Reaves, who has provided some of the best episodes in cartoon series such as He-Man and the Masters of the Universe and Dungeons and Dragons.  I love that for some reason or another he ended up adding the "a" to Cthulhu to differentiate it.  The episode is about as steeped in H.P. Lovecraft mythos as a 30 minute syndicated cartoon could possibly be with all sorts of refrences to the world of Cthulhu like the Necronomicon, Miskatonic University, and the ficticious city of Arkham, Massachusetts.  Just great stuff!



Once again, if you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters.   If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

We're really getting down to the wire here, and imho these monsters are getting pretty messed up, especially for having aired on Network television in the mid 80s.  My 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown only has three more ghoulish creeps to unveil!  For those joining the party late, in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today we have one of the creepiest bar none.  This probably would have been my pick for the last monster, but my wife is really a better judge of what's creep-tasitc.  Ever since I saw my first Friday the 13th jump-scare back in the mid 80s I've just never been all that afraid of all things horror and monster related.  I also started reading Stephen King and Clive Barker at a pretty young age, so I think I was tempered on the scary.  That doesn't mean I don't appreciate the genre, in fact I love it to death, but I'm very rarely scared or really creeped out (giant spiders, anthropomorphized food products, and multi-armed ghoulies do a pretty good job…)



I'm finding that a lot of sharp teeth, especially ones at weird angles are also one of my soft spots.   I think, like most people, I don't like the idea of being bitten, but being torn to shreds while being bitten seems so much worse.  This guy looks like a giant shark with wings and a really flat snout, and I'll bet it would be pretty ugly of you stuck your hand in that gaping maw of his.  Sort of like that scene in Jaws 4 at the beginning when the family's youngest had his arm bitten off and he held up the tattered yellow rain slicker all wet with blood and gore.   I love that I also got a chance to slip in a bit of Peter and Egon before this list came to an end, especially when they're clearly frightened out of their gourds.

This monster is actually a converted set of roller-coaster cars.  It was the handy work of the Boogeyman, one of the Ghostbusters most famous villains.  He hails from episode #81, "The Boggeyman is Back".



As for the cel itself, I was a little bummed that the black line-work on the photocopy portion of the cel has faded so much over time.  Again, not to harp on the quality issues as it worked at the time and for the the purpose it was made for, but as a collector these overseas produced cels just don't last.  In part I'm glad I have a site like Branded to preserve what is left of some of these cels so that I can at least get a digital copy that'll serve as a record frozen in time for anyone who might be interested in cel animation for years to come.

If you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters.  Also, if you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

Well, technically, it's not a Branded podcast, but the Saturday Supercast is back after a brief hiatus with episode 23.  This time out Jerzy, Kevin, and I are filled with the spirit of the Great Pumpkin as we discuss some favorite Halloween specials from our youth.  Throughout the 60s, 70s, & 80s kids all around the western hemisphere were treated with all sorts of cartoon and claymation specials in celebration of the creepiest of holidays.  From branded mainstays like It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown and Garfield's Halloween Adventure, to one-off movies and shows like the Rankin/Bass Mad Monster Party or the Canadian gem the Devil and Daniel Mouse, cartoons have become a really great part of celebrating the spooky season.  In this episode we focus on a couple of obscure specials that we feel gives a nice overview of the genre as a whole…

Raggedy Ann & Andy in the Pumpkin Who Couldn't Smile…


…and the off-the-wall Canadian special Witch's Night Out.


We also spend some time discussing the stable of General Mills' Monster cereals, in particular the wonderful commercials, toy premiums, and the actors that the characters pay homage to including Peter Lorre, Bela Lugosi, and Boris Karloff (as well as some missed opportunities in using Vincent Price, Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing for the characters Fruit Brute and Yummy Mummy.)

This episode is chock full of content including some reminiscing over great voice actors like Daws Butler, June Foray, Les Tremayne, as well as the voice talents of Gilda Radner & Catherine O'Hara.  We also talk about James Mason's wonderful performance in the UPA Studios amazing rendition of Edgar Allen Poe's The Telltale Heart, the resurgence of the Universal Monsters in the late 50s through the 70s, Marvel and DC monster comics, Aurora monster model kits, Famous Monsters of Filmland, Mego Monster figures, Ben Cooper and Collegeville Halloween Costumes, the awesome skeleton costumes worn by Johnny and the Cobra Kai in the Karate Kid, the Drak Pack, the Groovie Goolies, Mary & Vincent Price's Treasury of Recipes cookbook, Tom Sito's Drawing the Line, the patented Chuck Jones devilish smile and his 60s & 70s specials including How the Grinch Who Stole Christmas, A Cricket in Times Square and Rikki Tikki Tavi, Dickens' A Christmas Carol, Banjo and Harmonica music, some Halloween history nuggets, Canadian animation and Canada's National Film Board, Nickelodeon, Doug, Mr. Men & Little Misses, Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends, the Halloween Specials website, the Paul Lynde Halloween Special, the iconic CBS Specials intro, the Toon into Animation podcast, Halloween is Grinch Night, and the Ghettomation podcast.

Unfortunately Witch's Night Out is out of print on VHS and currently not available for free viewing on the internet, but if you're curious about watching the Pumpkin Who Couldn't Smile, it's on youtube (part 1, part 2, and part 3.)

As for us, well you can find more of Jerzy's work at:
Make Like a Tree Comics
jdrozd.blogspot.com
Art & Story Podcast

Kevin is freelance illustrator, comic creator, and podcaster whose work can be found at:
Kevin Cross.net
Big Illustration Party Time Podcast
Ghettomation Podcast

...and well, you probably know me by now.

If you have any questions, comments, or heck, even complaints, you can drop us a line at Saturday Supercast!

Become a fan of the Saturday Supercast on Facebook!

Follow us on Twitter for show updates and more!

The Sugary Serials theme song was preformed by Umberto.

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Direct Download of the show here!

Welcome to day 27 of my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!  In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, (is anyone even reading this first paragraph anymore?) and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today's monster comes from episode 57, "Janine's Day Off", and is just downright weird, red and, well, handy.  There are way too many hands on this guy.  Between his finger goatee, the spider-like fangs coming out of his nose, his two bottom rat teeth, and the extra pair of hands coming out where his ears should be, it's just capitol F-reaky…



This monster is actually made up of a bunch of little red gremlin-like devils that were besieging the firehouse while Janine was trying to teach a temp how to take care of the guys.  Peter, in his infinite wisdom, decided to reverse the polarity on his proton pack and he blasted the creatures causing them to bind and morph together into huge handy here.



Yeah, I don't know what else I can say about this guy besides the fact that I wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley without a proton pack strapped to my back!

Once again, if you’re enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters.   If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

We're in the home stretch now on day 26.  For all of those joining me for the first time, welcome to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!  In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today is my all time favorite of the Ghostbusters monsters, not to mention the second most iconic villain from the 1st movie, the Terror Dog.  I love the librarian wraith in the first main sequence of the original film, as well as Vigo the Carpathian in the 2nd (he has one heck of an imposing stare), and I'll always have a soft spot in my heart for the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, but the Terror Dogs have always been my favorites.  When the artists and prop makers designed them they really hit the nail on the head in terms of an awesome, scary monster…



I also love this cel.  Part of it is the action of the dog smashing through the log, flinging wooden shrapnel all over the place, and part of it is that the artist just nailed the look from the movie (well except for the other-worldy blue in the body color), simplifying it just enough to translate it into the cartoon.  This is also an interesting piece for me because the guy who originally applied the paint to the log chose a color that was too bright and so they printed out a second copy of the line-work on another cel, re-painted the log and the bits of wood and then taped it over the original cel.  This provided me with a peek into another example of the process, an almost paint-free cel that has the line-work photocopied onto it…



I could guess what it would look like, but now I don't have to.   Take that imagination!  Seriously though, it's just a neat little addition to the collection.



I also managed to pick up another cel in the sequence of the Devil Dog's attack with a pratfall gag that leads into the jump above…



This one also came with a "corrected" cel taped to the top.   I decided not to scan it so that you could see the original color chosen for the log.  Though the Terror Dogs are pretty a pretty darn important part of what makes up the look and feel of the Ghostbusters franchise, they weren't in the cartoon nearly as much as Stay Puft. 



In fact they only make an appearance in two episodes, #73, "Egon's Ghost" (where is where these cels hail from), and #88, "Copycat".  They are in the second version of the opening credits though...



Also, for any of you Real Ghostbusters fans out there that haven't picked up any of the new DVDs, I've decided to give away a copy of the Volume 1 Steelbook edition of the show!  There are only five days left to enter, so get to the typing...



This 5-disc set contains the first 25 episodes of the series (including the 1st thirteen episode Saturday Morning run) as well as some fun special features.  So what do you have to do to win this beauty?  All you have to do is send me an e-mail (or click on the Creature From the Black Lagoon monster in the sidebar) and make sure to include the following:

-Please put "The Real Ghostbusters Contest" in the subject line.
-List your favorite monster/ghost/creature from the series.
-Include your name.

The deadline for entries is October 31st at Midnight eastern standard time.  I'll be drawing a winner at random from the e-mails, and will respond to the winner via e-mail on November 1st.  Also, if you feel inclined, I would love everyone to spread the word about the 31 Days of Monsters countdown and the contest, so hit up those social networks and tell a friend (my twitter handle is smurfwreck)!

If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

Well, we're into the last week of the Halloween festivities here at Branded in the 80s; there are only seven entries left in my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown.  As I've been reminding you all this past month, in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today's monster has a classic design, the ectoplasmic wraith…



I really like the simplicity in this cel, so much so that I don't even miss any additional layers of shadow in the coloring, which is something I tend to prefer in well done cel animation.  This is also, for all intents and purposes, what I expect to see if I ever encounter a ghost, and I can tell you right now that I'd poop myself twice if I do see something like this.  I can only imagine the wailing moans that would come out of those decomposing lungs.  I'd like to note that the cel above and the drawing below were both slightly damaged.  There's a bit of a krinkled warp to the cel and the paper where the wraith is reaching out.

Though I like the simplicity of the one-color palette of this cel, I do sort of lament the nixing of suggestions made by the animator that penciled the original key pose below…



When the pencils were done I think it was the artist's intent to have the eyes and inside of the mouth around the tongue either different shades of green or in other colors (I'm guessing by those area being highlighted in colored pencil, something I've noticed in other cels and their accompanying drawings.)   I think those additions would really have made this cel pop.  Who knows, maybe the overall use of mint green was an error.   Taking these cels out of context as individual pieces of art has it's drawbacks as they weren't intended to be viewed as such, but it's the most visceral connection I have to the cartoons I grew up loving, so that's what I'm going to do…

Anyway, this is actually the spirit of Famine, one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse.  He appears in episode #49, "Apocalypse - What, Now?" As you can see in the cel below he's riding a steed and is carrying a scale (as used during times of famine to measure out portions of bread.)  Unfortunately he's not riding a black steed, but honestly I'm surprised that this sort of content made it to air on an 80s cartoon in general.  I'd love to find some close-up cels of the other riders, War (I'm assuming the blue horseman in the middle), Pestilence (that yellow-orange guy on the right), and Death (following up the herd.)



In the episode, Peter inadvertently wins a mystical book at auction that contains the trapped spirits of the 4 Horsemen.   While looking for some light reading during lunch, Janine unwittingly sets them free to wreck havoc on New York.





If you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters.   If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!  In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

For today I offer a portrait of a monster in transition, well sort of...



This ugly mug hails from episode 27, "Doctor, Doctor", and is one of the weirder in the series.  Basically, this is the more or less final form of a hybrid creature.  While fighting a specter in a chemical plant, the Ghostbusters inadvertently create a new creature though they don't realize it at first.  The "thing" is actually covering all of the guys up to the neck like a huge glop of red goo (reminding me a lot of the imagery in GBII.)  The guys are admitted into the hospital and while there the goo on each of them starts morphing.  One gets an eye, one a nose, one an ear, and one a mouth.  Eventually the glop slides off of them and forms into a single creature, the disgusting monster you see above!



I find the idea of creatures like this that seem to be made from monster putty are kind of freaky because it would be really hard to dispatch them if the need arose.   I mean how do you stop a hulking brute of a creature when you can punch right through them and it doesn't phase him in the least?  You have to resort to trapping them at that point, luring them into a place where they can get zapped by a downed power line or tricked into falling into a vat of battery acid or something.  When you can't just stop them with a shovel to the face then the whole thing becomes a heck of a lot more daunting…

As for the cel itself, I really like the little details; the bits of leftover hair, the gross bubble of goo in the right ear, and those gnarly teeth.  Just plain ghoulish!



Once again, if you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters.  If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!   In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

It's day 23, and this monster is one of the few that really grossed my wife out…



There's just something unsettling and sickly about his slug-like body, the ultra creepy bone spikes for legs, and the puffiness around his fangs.  I'd hate to see something like this crawling around in my garden. 

This cel also marks the 2nd appearance (3rd if you count the preamble post last September 25th) of slimmer on the countdown, though the one on the Stay Puft cel was so tiny you could have missed him.  I didn't really want to add a cel of slimmer as a stand alone monster since he's really an ally of the Ghostbusters in the cartoon, and honestly, it just seemed a bit obvious.   But I couldn't keep him off the countdown altogether. 

Actually, this really isn't Slimer, but a doppelganger from the containment unit limbo world.  I didn't realize this until I recently watched this episode. I had noticed that there is kind of a weird aspect to this particular drawing of "Slimer".  I didn't remember him every having claws in the cartoon.   I know he has fingernails in the movie versions, but it's kind of weird to see him drawn like this in the cartoon…



When I popped in this episode to get a screen capture for reference, I realized that this wasn't actually Slimer.  So there, it doesn't even really count towards another Slimer on this list!





Contest Update!  There are only 8 days left to enter to win a copy of the first volume of the Real Ghostbusters steelbook set!



This 5-disc set contains the first 25 episodes of the series (including the 1st thirteen episode Saturday Morning run) as well as some fun special features.  So what do you have to do to win this beauty?  All you have to do is send me an e-mail (or click on the Creature From the Black Lagoon monster in the sidebar) and make sure to include the following:

-Please put "The Real Ghostbusters Contest" in the subject line.
-List your favorite monster/ghost/creature from the series.
-Include your name.

The deadline for entries is October 31st at Midnight eastern standard time.  I'll be drawing a winner at random from the e-mails, and will respond to the winner via e-mail on November 1st.  Also, if you feel inclined, I would love everyone to spread the word about the 31 Days of Monsters countdown and the contest, so hit up those social networks and tell a friend (my twitter handle is smurfwreck)!

Also, if you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

Well, we're entering the top 10 of the creepiest monsters on this 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!  In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

It's day twenty two, and I have to say this is a crazy monster.  I've got the feeling that this is an alien, what with all the tentacles and that dome-like shape to his noggin (I haven't had a chance to watch this episode yet if you can't already tell…)



The aspect that really creeps me out is the sideways slit of the bottom portion on his mouth.  It's sort of like the mouth on the Predator, only with more protruding teeth/fangs.  Again, like back on day seven with the Devil, I'm really enjoying the use of aqua blue and orange.  As opposite colors go they tend to remind of me of sports team logos, but I think it works well in this floating tentacled monstrosity.  I also think it's a hoot that he's chucking bowling balls (I'm assuming) at the Ghostbusters.   On top of all this is his general squid-ness, which I always respond to in monsters.  Seems like a perfect time to show off the awesome commission my wife had Mark Rudolph draw for me this past summer...



Once again, if you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters.   If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!  We're closing out the third week and it's really been a blast so far.  For those of you who are just coming to this Halloween blogging event here at Branded in the 80s, in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today's monster is a favorite amongst fans of the Real Ghostbusters.  Its name is Hob Anagarak and he hails from episode 52, "Cold Cash and Hot Water".  According to Inuit legend, this beast is the 1st demon sent to watch over a pre-human fledgling Earth.  Eventually he was magically frozen in an obelisk-esque block of lack ice and was lost in the frozen tundra of Alaska.  Peter Venkman's father ends up finding him, and all Carl Denham-like (from King Kong), he brings the frozen monster to New York and then stupidly sets him free...



All I know for certain is that after taking a look at those massive claws, those glowing yellow eyes, and that incredibly long purple tongue jutting out of that mouth full of razor shard teeth and I was a bit frightened.  Add to this the fiery red glare emanating off of him, and it just makes for a creepy image.  I wish I could get a better look at this guy...



Even in the episode this guy ends up blending into the background, so these cels are probably some of the clearest images available of the demon.  I found a slightly different view of this crazy beast.  Just look at those tusk fangs!   Sheesh.  This guy is freaky.



Also, for any of you Real Ghostbusters fans out there that haven't picked up any of the new DVDs, I've decided to give away a copy of the Volume 1 Steelbook edition of the show!  There are only 10 days left to enter the contest, so get cracking.



This 5-disc set contains the first 25 episodes of the series (including the 1st thirteen episode Saturday Morning run) as well as some fun special features.  So what do you have to do to win this beauty?  All you have to do is send me an e-mail (or click on the Creature From the Black Lagoon monster in the sidebar) and make sure to include the following:

-Please put "The Real Ghostbusters Contest" in the subject line.
-List your favorite monster/ghost/creature from the series.
-Include your name.

The deadline for entries is October 31st at Midnight eastern standard time.  I'll be drawing a winner at random from the e-mails, and will respond to the winner via e-mail on November 1st.  Also, if you feel inclined, I would love everyone to spread the word about the 31 Days of Monsters countdown and the contest, so hit up those social networks and tell a friend (my twitter handle is smurfwreck)!

If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the orange banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

It's beginning to feel a lot like…Day 20…here at my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!   I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

So, how do you follow up a really big purple and green spider monster?  Why with something that would eat said spider monster as a snack, namely this freakishly creepy bat monster of course!



Whereas I have a huge phobia of spiders, I was never really all that bothered by bats.   In my eyes they fall more into the cool section of the animal kingdom what with their natural use of sonar, their keen fashion sense (read, neat looking wings) and their hanging front one foot sleeping arrangements.   I know a lot of folks get easily freaked out by bats, most likely because of the fear of rabies, but I think they get a bad rep most of the time.  This guy here though, he might deserve it…



As far as bat monsters go, I'm really fond of the whole man-bat sort of creatures, particularly with examples like the Man-Bat on the Batman: the Animated Series and the scenes with Gary Oldman as the monster bat in Coppola's version of Dracula.   There's also a great, though quick, shot of Dracula as a man-bat in the Monster Squad that I've always loved.  There is a bit of an identification dilemma with this guy though.  In this episode of the Real Ghostbusters (epi. 91, "Translyvanian Homesick Blues") there is a character, a vampire, named Count Volstock who morphs into a creature like this.  But there are also holographic (but none the less scary) man-bats that are huge and take this form as well...



I couldn't find either of these exact cels, so I'm not sure if this is Volstock or the man-bats.  Also, I would have loved it of I'd managed to find a cel where the eyes of the bat were translucent red (for the neat backlit effect in the screencap above.)  Maybe one day.  Also, I really dug that the character designers worked a little bit of Christopher Lee into old Volstock.  Just a nice touch...

If you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters.  If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!  I can't believe it’s already day 19.  Well, as I've been saying, in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

So what's more frightening than a 8 legged brown hairy spider crawling on the wall next to you while you watch TV?  How about a half ton purple and green spider with 10 appendages (two of which end in tiny pinching crab claws)…



I hate spiders.  I mean I REALLY hate spiders.  Hates them so.  I think the day I run across a brown recluse I'm going to stroke out on the spot.  To make matters worse, we've been getting these super creepy red spiders in the apartment lately that have slick hard bodies (my wife loved me enough to describe the crunching sound it makes when you kill one with a tissue), and honestly that was one of my worst nightmares.  Red spiders means that I'll almost always be able to pick them out when they're slinking around as we have beige carpeting and white walls.  At least some of the lighter brown ones blend in.  Out of sight, out of mind you know.   Anyway, I always hate having to sit through giant spider scenes in flicks like Return of the King or the Mist.  Arachnophobia and Kingdom of the Spiders, for some reason, I can handle.



Once again, if you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters.  If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!  We're up to Day 18.  In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today we've got an ugly little bugger.  It's looks like a rat that was turned inside out.   I guess I'll call him Pinky.



When I received this one in the mail I was surprised to find that it was a heavily corrected cel.   So much so that there was a copy of the original line work on a second layer that was colored correctly.  It took a bit of work to separate the two layers as the pink paint on the back of the top layer had adhered to the layer beneath, but after I worked them apart I was treated to an alternate color scheme.  The much more muted and realistic red-brown is kind of creepy.  I wonder if that was the reason it was changed to a day-glo pink, or if it was just a mistake…



This guy hails from episode #50, "Lost & Foundry".  He was spooking up a metal processing plant and he ends up having his ions dispersed into a batch of molten metal.  Of course he ends up getting processed into items that end up in the Ghostbuster's firehouse and he eventually forms into a gigantic metal specter/creature.  In the episode he moves pretty quickly so there aren't a lot of great shots where you really get a chance to see him in detail, which is another nice aspect of collecting cels like this.





Once again, if you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters.  If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

Well, it's day 13 of my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown and I haven't been slowing down at all (which is nice considering how grueling this posting schedule was in years past.)  Like I've mentioned about two hundred thousand times so far, in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today's monster is pretty straight forward, the Mutant Ghost Thug. Complete with tipped forward bowler, wife-beater shirt, and hitched up waders, this guy looks like he could knock your head off just as soon as look at you (with all four of his beady yellow eyes…)



In the episode, #104 "Partners in Slime", this guy is an example of the muscle utilized by a mob boss ghost named Poso.  What kind of struck me while watching it was how off the mark the series was starting to get around this time.  At this point ghosts are trying to take down the Ghostbusters left and right, and there's no rhyme or reason to the styling of the characters.  Why a mob boss?  Why not I guess, as it doesn't do anything for the story.  Also, when I first saw this cel, I expected the voice to come out of this guy would be really imposing.  In reality he ended up in the very whiney annoying kind of range.  I still love his design though...



He's just a pretty imposing yet simple figure.  The one aspect that I really dig is the pencil under-drawing, which is just rendered so well.  I'm not sure if this was a favorite of the animator, or if he was just in the zone that day, but the line work looks so fluid and perfect.  It doesn't feel rushed like so many of these drawings tend to (knowing the time crunch these studios were under to turn around 65 hand-drawn and painted episodes in under a year.)  This is one I'm going to consider framing when I get the time.



Also, for any of you Real Ghostbusters fans out there that haven't picked up any of the new DVDs, I've decided to give away a copy of the Volume 1 Steelbook edition of the show!



This 5-disc set contains the first 25 episodes of the series (including the 1st thirteen episode Saturday Morning run) as well as some fun special features.  So what do you have to do to win this beauty?  All you have to do is send me an e-mail (or click on the Creature From the Black Lagoon monster in the sidebar) and make sure to include the following:

-Please put "The Real Ghostbusters Contest" in the subject line.
-List your favorite monster/ghost/creature from the series.
-Include your name.

The deadline for entries is October 31st at Midnight eastern standard time.  I'll be drawing a winner at random from the e-mails, and will respond to the winner via e-mail on November 1st.  Also, if you feel inclined, I would love everyone to spread the word about the 31 Days of Monsters countdown and the contest, so hit up those social networks and tell a friend (my twitter handle is smurfwreck)!

Once again, if you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters.   If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown, day 16!  In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today's monster is one of the more infamous in the Real Ghostbusters cannon, the Sandman…



For me, it's not the visuals that make this character so frightening; it's a mixture of his power (being able to put you to sleep and making your nightmares a walking reality for others) and his super eerie voice.   Click here, or on his ugly mug below to hear him go on a diatribe…



The idea that my unconscious fears would both be revealed to others while I slept, and find their way into reality is just bone chilling to me.  We all have our secret secrets, and there's a reason we keep them hidden so deep that only your subconscious dwells on them.  That's one of the things I hate about nightmares, it's not confronting these demons as much as this weird feeling that while I'm fighting them in my sleep others can see them.   If my friends and family worm their way into m dreams it's like they're really there and when I wake those people will have a memory of my dream.   It's like a shared experience, at least for me in my own head and it makes it hard to look some of these people in the eye afterward.  The Sandman has domain over this realm and the idea that he could pry open your mind and makes this dark stuff slither out is just plain scary.



Luckily for me this is only a cartoon.  It's only a cartoon, It's only a cartoon…

Make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s.  Also, you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!  This is just a quick post to recap the first half of this year's countdown (including the #0 cel I posted towards the end of September.)  I can't wait to get to the next 16 monsters!

   

   

   

   

Also, for any of you Real Ghostbusters fans out there that haven't picked up any of the new DVDs, I've decided to give away a copy of the Volume 1 Steelbook edition of the show!



This 5-disc set contains the first 25 episodes of the series (including the 1st thirteen episode Saturday Morning run) as well as some fun special features.  So what do you have to do to win this beauty?  All you have to do is send me an e-mail (or click on the Creature From the Black Lagoon monster in the sidebar) and make sure to include the following:

-Please put "The Real Ghostbusters Contest" in the subject line.
-List your favorite monster/ghost/creature from the series.
-Include your name.

The deadline for entries is October 31st at Midnight eastern standard time.  I'll be drawing a winner at random from the e-mails, and will respond to the winner via e-mail on November 1st.  Also, if you feel inclined, I would love everyone to spread the word about the 31 Days of Monsters countdown and the contest, so hit up those social networks and tell a friend (my twitter handle is smurfwreck)!

If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event!

We're all the way up to the halfway point of the 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!  I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today's monster is a Minotaur/animal Spirit from episode #80, "It's a Jungle Out There".  This guy ends up making a bunch of animals throughout New York super intelligent…



Minotaurs are already sort of imposing and scary, but this guy takes the cake in that department.  Just look at all those extra tusks & horns (not to mention that sharp set of choppers he's sporting!)  What's kind of weird is that while watching the episode I was really getting freaked out by the clopping of his hooves.  Don't know why exactly, but it just got to me.



I think to offset the creepy factor of this monster, the writers decided to add a bit of levity in the episode by introducing Egon's patented rocket roller skates. 



Also, to get a flavor of what some of the super intelligent animal imagery was like, check out these cels (from last year's countdown.)  I had assumed that the ape, deer, and hippo were standing in front of the fall out from an explosion, but it turns out it was just the exhaust from the Ecto-1's tail pipe.



Once again, if you're enjoying these daily Real Ghostbusters monster posts, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment and tell a friend about the 31 Days of Monsters.  If you'd like to read more Halloween-y goodness, you can also click on the Halloween Archive link to the left (the banner with King Kong), as well as heading on over to the Countdown to Halloween to check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!  I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve. It's day 14 of the countdown, and we're getting pretty close to the halfway mark.  Whew.  Today's Moss Monster digs into that dark recess of fear in my psyche with his multiple sets of arms.  To be honest, most of my fears stem from slightly odd irrational places.  Sure I have a fear of spiders, an intense one, and it because of all the classic reasons be it the fear of being bitten, crawled on, the sticky clinging webs, their little hairy bodies, the quickness with which they scuttle about, etc.   But the overarching issue is with the multiple legs.  The idea of multiple appendages just really creeps me the hell out.  There are some exceptions; ants for instance don't do much except make me mad.  Well, with Moss Man here, it's leaning towards the uncomfortable nature of multiple limbs…

It doesn't help his case that his mouth looks so drippy, and that he has some weirdly spaced teeth.  This guy is also a great example of where/when the character designs on the ghosts and the tone of the stories started diverging in the series.  The episode that features ol' Moss Man here is #113b, "Slimer's Streak", and it has a pretty silly premise involving a weird train conductor ghost that puts the Ghostbusters in a game world.

This guy, as weird and frightening as he appears (to me at least) is basically a ghost dedicated to the game of tag.  You know, Ghosts in the Graveyard, "Tag you're it!"  With a goofy high-pitched, child-like voice and his playful demeanor he comes off very harmless.  The eyes should have been a tip off to his more cartoon-y nature, but that mouth and his many limbs still freak me out...

If you're enjoying these monsters and ghosts, then come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s.  Also, you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

I just wanted to take a second and help spread the word about another interesting blogging event coming up next month.  In honor of the amazing Boris Karloff, Pierre Fournier of the wonderful Frankenstenia is putting together a week-long discussion of the master thespian and all around gentle monster. I'll let Pierre explain in his own words…

"Beginning on November 23 — Karloff's 122nd birthday — and on through the 29th, bloggers far and wide are invited to post something about Boris, his life and his wide-ranging career.

There is much to explore… His film work spanned five decades.  He clocked some 75 films through the silent era before he landed and nailed the iconic part of The Monster in Frankenstein, a film that is almost 80 years old and still seen and admired.  The sequel, The Bride of Frankenstein, is a motion picture classic.  In his path through the history of horror films, Karloff collaborated with James Whale, Val Lewton, Mario Bava and Roger Corman.  He proved equally at ease in all genres, including comedies.

Away from films, Boris Karloff became a Broadway star with Arsenic and Old Lace, The Lark and he was Captain Hook in Peter Pan.

He enjoyed a successful radio career and he was one of the first Hollywood actors to embrace television, appearing in live drama, in his own series — notably Colonel March of Scotland Yard and Thriller — and as a frequent and popular guest on talk and variety shows.  He was the model and the Grammy Award-winning voice of The Grinch.  He made numerous spoken word records, reading fairy tales to children and, in print, he lent his name to horror and mystery anthologies and a line of comic books.

In real life, Boris Karloff was a gentleman, a cricket fan and a brave founding member of the Screen Actor's Guild.

It's been forty years since Boris Karloff passed away, yet his star shines as bright as ever.  This November 23, bloggers will come together and share film reviews, profiles, images, thoughts and remembrances and, I am sure, surprises.  I, as a reader, am looking forward to it."

I plan on participating in this event.  It'll help to wean myself off of all of this Halloween blogging, and honestly, I'm always eager to talk about Mr. Karloff.  For more information head on over to Frankensteinia, which is also always a treat.

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!   In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today's set of sewer rat monsters is sort of a repeat from last year's countdown.   These were actually the cels that got me excited enough to try and compile a whole month's worth of Real Ghostbusters monsters for this years countdown, so I figured they deserved to be on the list.  Also, I didn't have a whole lot to say last year…



Looking back at these, I have to wonder if huge sharp teeth were the writer/character designer's ace in the hole in terms of bringing really creepy imagery into the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.   In preparation for this month's countdown I watched a bunch of episodes and quickly scanned through the rest to try and get an overview of what the various monsters, ghosts, and creepazoids looked like as I hadn't sat down and watched this show in years. 

The more I watched the more I realized that even though there are a lot of scary aspects to the show, a lot of the imagery was more on the tame side of things. I mean it is a cartoon aimed at kids after all, but there are some interesting ghostly concepts that were in the movies that didn’t make it into the show.  Take for instance the initial library ghost.   Whereas her spectral visage was pretty intimidating in and of itself, her transformation into a wailing banshee with sunken eyes and whipping hair was terrifying for the few seconds it appeared on screen.  This sort of thing probably didn't work for the network censors.

But time and again, while scanning through the episodes, I kept noticing that on the creatures that the writers really wanted to come across as terrifying there would almost always be a mouthful of gnarly sharp teeth.  I mean, I'm assuming that as long as these teeth weren't used to actually visually render a background character limb from limb, then it was probably kosher to stick them on a creature.  Teeth in an of themselves aren't really weapons per-se, we've all got 'em (to one extent or another.)  Anyway, these overgrown subway/sewer rats use this idea in spades…



Here's a bit I wrote last year about the pencils…

"As for interesting aspects to this first cel, I really dig the pencil under drawing that I scored with it.  I'm not sure if the under drawing is hinting at the next drawing (which I suspect), or referencing the previous drawing and cel, but I love the alternate view of the creatures with their sharp-toothed mouths all agape.  The creatures sure seem a heck of a lot more fierce that way to boot."

Again, I love getting a glimpse into the process like this.





Hope you're all enjoying these monsters, I know I'm enjoying posting about them.  If you do, make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s.  Also, you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event.   If you're so inclined, you can also dig into my Halloween Blogging archives and read through the last few All Hallows Eve seasons...

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!  In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.  

Today I present one of my favorite monsters from the series, the King Troll from from the 5th, first season episode, "Troll Bridge"…



Besides the fact that this is one of the episodes that I remember watching back in the 80s, it's also one of the few cels that I've managed to pick up that feature the Ecto-1…



As for the King Troll, I really dig the character design.   He's imposing and weirdly satyr-like with his legs resembling a goat's…



Also, the writers/design artists on the series took inspiration for a weird source when it came to the trolls in this episode.  They drew from Road Warrior imagery, a sort of rag-tag group that's scrounged pots and pans as armor and they've constructed vehicles that look a lot like the stuff in that George Miller film.  You can see the design of the two main villains from Road Warrior in the King Troll as well…





Make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s.  Also, you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!  It's day eleven and in honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve. 

Today's monster, like Moriarty yesterday, sort of has that Scooby Doo-esque vibe to him.   This Pharaoh Zombie character design is pretty cool, especially in a Stargate sort of way…



The design reminds me a whole heck of a lot of a pair of Vans shoes I saw recently that featured the Iron Maiden mascot Eddie re-imagined as a pharaoh/Sphinx god…



This monster hails from episode 69, "The Long Long Log Etc. Goodbye", and is actually the final form of a possessed (by King Todd) thief named Blackie who morphs into this ancient Egyptian mummy monster.  I only got a chance to skim the episode, but if nothing else, picking up these monster cels has really lit a fire under me to go back and watch through the entire Real Ghostbusters series.  There really were a lot of cool concepts being thrown around on the show...





Make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s.  Also, you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event.  Tell 'em Shawn Robare of Branded sent ya!

Welcome to day 10 of my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!  In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today's monster comes from one of my favorite episodes of the Real Ghostbusters, "Elementary My Dear Watson".  It features the odd appearance of Sherlock Holmes & Dr. Watson, as well as their evil arch enemy Moriarty (as well as his creepy hound.)  These characters are exactly ghosts, but physical manifestations based on the energy of a million of people's collective subconsciouses.   The episode has a very Time After Time vibe to it (even though in that flick it's H.G. Wells in the Holmes role, and Jack the Ripper as Moriarty)  I came across a couple of Moriarty cels, the first of which is a bit unrecognizable.

Of all monster imagery I tend to respond to three general archetypes, the lumbering Frankenstein's monster, the various incarnations of the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and the utter simplicity of the reanimated skeleton.    I love the skeleton fights in the Harryhausen flicks, the cheap scare in the House on Haunted Hill, and the weird obsessive nature of the titular antique in the Peter Cushing Amicus vehicle the Skull.  The human skull in general has reached a point of iconography so common that it's almost losing meaning as a form of shorthand.  Also, much like the nude form, it's always more potent when loosely draped with something, be it sinew or muscle tissue, or in the least defined eyes instead of deep black pools of nothing.  This skeleton is the initial incarnation of the evil Moriarty, and though it's not his final form, with its eerie halo of noxious ectoplasm, it makes for a very striking image.  It's also the beginning of a very similar (thought vastly truncated) "coming together" sequence as seen in the first two Hellraiser films.





This is my first exposure to a cel that has any for of airbrushing instead of flat painting.  For some reason the airbrushed paint didn't fare so well over time.  The separate layer with the green was basically flaking off the cel.  The paint is almost a fine powder that was being held in place by the skeleton cel on top of it…







Anyway, on to a more defined look for the master criminal.  Whereas the trio of monster/ghosts yesterday seemed to be of the Muppet variety, the character design on Moriarty and his Hound (of the Baskervilles persuasion I'm assuming) seem more in line with something you'd see on an episode of Scooby Doo...





There's something about a pale-skinned gaunt guy in a riding coat and top hat that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside.  I think it's because I equate this getup with the character design of the hitchhikers in Disney's Haunted Mansion ride, which was one of the attractions that my parents tended to avoid whenever we'd hit up Disney World (my parents were creatures of habit and would avoid stuff like Splash Mountain, Tom Sawyer Island, and the Toontown Fair every trip…)  I think because I visited it the least, by the time I first rode the Haunted Mansion it pretty much blew my mind.  Mixed with my love of Halloween and all things horror, it's probably my favorite ride at Disney, though I do so lament the long closed 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea...



There are still 21 monsters left to showcase, so make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s.  Also, you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!   In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.   These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.  

For day nine of the countdown I've got another trio of monster/ghosts that illustrates the level of cartoon-y-ness this series reaches.  On the one hand there are a lot of very freaky monster designs (coming later this month), yet on the other it's not strange to find a group like this one that feels a little more at home with the Muppets than in the netherworld…



Of course even with these three the spectrum of creepiness is sort of represented.  While the big light purple guy up front looks like a mutant Kermit, the red on the right is pretty weird.  Just look at those weird tube worm-looking deals on his head.  Are those eyes at the end of those?  Ew.



Personally, my favorite of the three is the unassuming light blue guy in the background.  Turns out this was a series of cels, and you can get a bit of a clearer idea of what he looks like by removing the cel with the purple monster in the front.  Unfortunately he's still obscured a bit by the red guy as they're on the same cel, but you get the basic gist of his design.   I like his way-too-thin skeletal hips, and his humpbacked stance…



These guys hail from one of the later series episodes, #100, Something's Going Round to be more precise.  The red eye-tentacle/worm guy is Dr. McCatheter, a devious ghost who masqueraded as a health expert doctor trying to convince the Ghostbusters that they're allergic to ghosts. 



Though it's kind of fun watching the guys morph into all sorts of old shapes and colors (even plaid), it definitely falls on the more cartoon-y side of the scale in terms of the tone of the series.  The story isn't very tight and it ends up feeling a lot like your basic 80s cartoons.







Make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s.  Also, you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…

Welcome to the second week of my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!  I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.   These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve. 

Opening up this 2nd week (as far as the count of days goes) is one of the Ghostbusters themselves, Egon Spengler.  This cel is from episode 45, "Egon on the Rampage".  Basically, Egon gets possessed by a demon from another dimension and hulks out going on a, a, well,  rampage like the title suggests, scooping up damsels in distress and the like…



I thought this cel was kind of interesting because of the mixture of character homages mixed into the design.  There's a little bit of the Hulk in there, with the increased size and tattered jumpsuit still clinging to him (not to mention the unnatural coloring), but there's also a little bit of the Wolfman to that design too with his hairy forearms and fangs.  On top of this Egon's already bouffant hair is taken to a drastic height that borders on a Bride of Frankenstein level. 



Also, in some of the other cels from this same episode I noticed he sort of has a King Kong aspect to him, the unruly beast that really does have a heart of gold and just want to be left alone…



Again, there are what I'm pretty sure are Japanese Katakana kana notating where the artwork needs to remain clear.   Not sure of the translation just yet, but the syllable translations of the kana to English are "chi" (the kana that looks like a fancy seven) and "ki" (the kana that looks like a "t" with a double cross.)  This whole process is like the reverse of a typical illustrative shorthand when inking line art where the artist makes "x" tic marks in areas that need to be filling in with solid blacks.

Again, I hope everyone has been digging this countdown, and if so make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s.  Also, you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event.   I know I've been enjoying the heck out of what others are putting together this year…

Welcome back to my 31 Days of Monsters Halloween countdown!  In honor of the 25th anniversary of the Ghostbusters franchise, not to mention my love of 80s animation, I'm counting down 31 of my favorite monsters from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  These animation cels are culled from my personal collection, and my wife and I tried our best to put them in a not-so-scary to really-freaking-creepy kind of order with the creepiest falling on All Hallows Eve.

Today brings probably the ultimate baddy, though it might depend on which side of the fence you sit on, spirituality-wise that is.  What more can I say then, the Devil (insert DUH DUH DUNNNNN reveal music here…)



Actually, it's not exactly the Devil per-se, but a dybbuk.  According to the show (he appears in episode 71, The Devil to Pay), a dybbuk is just a minor demon, but according to Jewish folklore it's a demon denied access to Gehenna for committing a serious transgression in life that spends the after life maliciously possessing humans. 



The character on the show is named Dyb Devlin the host of a hot (couldn't resist the pun) new game show called Race the Devil.  He figures he can get a promotion (according to the episode's writer Dennys J. McCoy in the special features on the DVD) to a highler level by taking the Ghostbuster's souls, but I'm betting the initial idea was that he was just trying to gain access to Hell.  At the same time I think the writers also wanted this to be the one and only Devil as this episode fits the Devil's archetypical "purchasing your soul" story structure.  This is the kind of concept and brave writing (for a children's show) that I think makes the Real Ghostbusters series stand apart from a lot of other 80s cartoons (though we did see something very similar in the Wizard of Stone Mountain episode of He-Man.)

Is it weird that I was super excited about the color of today's monster/deity?  When putting the list together one of the thoughts in the back of my mind was color, and trying to make sure that I represented the spectrum with these creatures and ghosts.  So we've got that orange thing covered.  I'll be honest though, I'm not all that excited about the coat matching the face in terms of color scheme, but what-are-ya-gonna-do?   I am digging the blue hair though…

As far as the imagery goes, call him Satan, ol' Scratch, Beelzebub, the Source of All Evil, Lucifer, Baphomet, Belial, Mephistopheles, Randall Flagg, Apollyon Satan, Clute, Diablo, Ol' Gooseberry, or that drunk guy my mom married when I was six, the Devil is pretty much the end all be all of bad guys (well, except for maybe the Nothing from the Neverending Story.)   He's kind of low on the list because of all his various incarnations (visually), this is one of the tamer versions.  My personal favorite on the way creepy meter is from the Christopher Lee-starring Hammer flick the Devil Rides Out, where he appears momentarily on a stump with the full on goats head and all.  C-R-E-E-P-Y, creepy.



I'm just warming up, so make sure to come back tomorrow for another installment of the 31 Days of Monsters here at Branded in the 80s.   If you're interested in reading up on some of the Halloween seasons past, you can check out my All Hallows Eve archive.  Also, you can head on over to the Countdown to Halloween and check out lists of a bunch of other sites participating in this year's Halloween blogging event…