1983 | Color | 30 Min | Halloween Special | NR | Lionsgate
Director: Hal Mason
Writer: John Barrett
Stars:
Tom Smothers
Louis Nye
Hans Conried
When it comes to Thrift store sales like 10 VHS of a buck and two of those tapes you spot our odd Halloween specials that are long forgotten you just have to take the leap, right?
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| Sue Raney does not sing but her voice is perfect for the part of Patti Bear. |
Most of us remember Ted E. Bear from his early seventies Christmas special The Bear That Slept Through Christmas. In fact, I loved the special and watched it all the time. As for Bear Scare well somehow this one escaped me. So time to pop some kettle corn grab the remote and fire up the glorious VCR.
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| Louis Nye and Lucille Bliss voice our villans |
Ok, wait for a second what is going on here? The animation it... it is like watching an old film strip movie back from grade school. I'm not sure I understand but there is no fluid movement at all! This is so hard to watch grrr I will give it a minute. So the story goes the Monsters of Scare Mountain are about to invade the city. Somehow our Hero Ted is nominated to go up the mountain to see what he could see (ok stop singing that camp song).
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| Tom Smothers is the voice of Ted |
He runs into Drac who has to walk home because he can not turn into a bat (The Bat jokes are on point and a true highlight here.) They talk and become friends but Drac is still off to take over the world. Lets back up to the animation ten minutes in and nothing has changed but the story is really good so far so you kind of forgive and forget moving on with the story.
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| This Is Thriller, Thriller night. |
We are treated to some really clever puns throughout the monster city like Monster Burger and Madison Scare Garden's where everybody is set to meet. Here comes some fun monster shindig with dancing witches and monsters galore the set off to invade the city. Thankfully Ted is there to tell us that monsters are only in our heads nobody gets scared Drac is defeated and the town moves on. Phew.
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| Look at those glorious Drop Out Marks |
So again the rough animation takes some time to get used too but the story is rather cute and helps you forget about all the other stuff. My biggest gripe is small look at the cover you see all the heavy hitters Fran and Wolf-man hanging out with Drac spoiler alert they are not in it at all!! I was so mad, I did love the witch and she has a pretty good roll but no Frank come on people! In the end, Ted E. Bear and his friends give us a nice little treat for Halloween, unlike his Christmas special I can not see me revisiting this one too soon.
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| 3 out of 5 Stars |
Frank and the Wolf man don't even attend the monster pep rally at Madison Scare Gardens? I would be disappointed too. This was probably watched a zillion times by some child hence the poor video quality.
ReplyDeleteTrue but the poor video quality had a charm about it.
DeleteGonna be honest: The way they were animated that way like slide shows reminds me of the Katie & Orbie series, except at least the latter was less boring.
ReplyDelete