“Oh what a fine party we’ll have when they all arrive, eh my boy?”
Tonight on TCM it’s an all Rankin/Bass feature production evening, with “Mad Monster Party?” getting it’s first prime-time broadcast on TCM, followed by the two other films they did through Joseph E. Levine’s Avco/Embassey Pictures.
First up is the all-time classic “Mad Monster Party?”, one of the greatest animated features of all time, with gorgeous songs by the great Maury Laws and Jules Bass. The voice cast has the greats Boris Karloff and Phillis Diller, Gale Garnett unforgettable as Francesca, and Allen Swift as almost everybody else.
The film has wonderful stop-motion animation, along with great songs, including the title song sung by Ethel Ennis, one of the greatest title songs of all time, simply spectacular. The other musical highlight is “It’s Our Time” sung by Francesca while conspiring with Dracula, a song that if you listen is an unbelievably beautiful love song, though used for scheming in the context of the film, showing the multiple levels that the songwriters were nurturing with their art.
At 10pm the 1966 delight “The Daydreamer” airs, with an all-star voice cast including Vincent Price and Hayley Mills, with live-action portions with Jack Gilford, Ray Bolger, and Paul O’Keefe as the daydreamer. The live-action is middling, but the stop-motion animation is excellent.
Finally at 12am they have the less known “The Wacky World Of Mother Goose” from 1967, with the great Margaret Rutherford as the title character, in a cel-animated film. More a children’s film than their usual, but still worthwhile.
Tonight “Stay One Step Ahead” and the full moon will bring out the monster in you.
“Well Francesca, none of us are perfect, are perfect, are perfect…”
“Yeah.”