Television airings of the classic Universal
Monsters movies had given the franchise a renewed popularity in the 1960s.
Having grown up with those films, Filmation producer Lou Scheimer decided to create a
humorous homage to them.
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| Welcome to Horrible Hall. |
Scheimer tasked Rowan and Martin’s
Laugh-In writers Jack Mendelsohn
and Jim Mulligan
with developing the series. They ultimately settled on the scenario of a group
of monsters living together in a castle and performing in a band. Initially,
the castle, named Horrible Hall, was meant to be an inn that would be
frequented by various guest monsters and ghouls resulting in the title Monster
Inn; emphasizing both the setting and serving as a parody of the Laugh-In
title, of which the show would take heavy influence from in all its
incarnations. There would also be a villain named Sydney Sneaking-Slyly trying
to get to a treasure buried beneath the castle. Once that aspect was dropped,
the name “The Kookie Spookies” was adopted for much of the show’s early
production until they were forced to change it as it sounded too close to Hasbro’s short-lived “Kooky Spooky” toyline.
Ultimately, the group and the show became “The Groovie Goolies” (the unique
spelling designed to avoid any claims of copyright infringement from other
companies; although the traditional “ghoul” did appear from time to time).
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| Frankie, Drac and Wolfie play for Bella, Orville, Hagatha, Hauntleory, Icky, Goo, Ratso and Batso. |
The Goolies were comprised of Drac
(Larry Storch), a pastiche of Dracula,
the short-tempered leader who played the pipe organ; Frankie (Howard Morris, doing
a loose impersonation of Boris
Karloff), based on Frankenstein’s
monster, who was the easygoing head of the Muscleleum Gymnasium and played
either bone xylophones or drums (later misinformation would call Frankie the
son of Drac and Hagatha); and Wolfie (also Morris), based on the wolfman, who spoke in a
mix of beatnik, surfer and hippie slang and played a lyre-like instrument. Other
residents of Horrible Hall included Hagatha (Storch & Morris), a plump
witch that served as the chef and had a sentient broom named Broomhilda; Bella
La Ghostly (a play on Bela Lugosi,
voiced by Jane Webb), the vampiric switchboard operator; Dr. Jekyll and Hyde
(Morris), the resident doctor with a human and a monstrous head (a play on the
dual nature of the original
monster); Mummy (Morris, impersonating W.C.
Fields), the resident newscaster with a penchant for first aid that often
became unraveled; Boneapart (Larry D. Mann), a skittish skeleton in a Napoleon hat (a nod
to his namesake) that often fell apart; Ghoulihand (Storch), a giant talking
glove; Batso and Ratso (initially Storch, but later Dallas McKennon), two imps
who often stole treats and played mean practical jokes that often backfired on
them; Hauntleroy (Morris), Hagatha’s nephew who was selfish and two-faced; and
Icky (Storch) and Goo (McKennon), two gargoyle-like creatures that were the
resident pets along with Rover (Mann), Frankie’s pet dinosaur, and Fido,
Wolfie’s pet piranha. Of course, other familiar trappings from the genre made
appearances such as ghosts, man-eating plants and sentient furniture.
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| Sabrina being bored by Drac. |
Sabrina and the Groovie Goolies debuted
on CBS on September 12, 1970. The hour-long
program featured two 15-minute Sabrina segments and a 30-minute block of
Goolies, with both sets of characters crossing over into each other’s
shows and the Goolies said to be Sabrina’s cousins. The show was picked up by
Head of Children’s Programming Fred
Silverman who was looking for a compliment to their successful Scooby-Doo,
Where Are You! Since both shows featured witches, it was decided
to package Goolies together with Filmation’s other offering: Sabrina
the Teenage Witch, a spin-off of their popular The
Archie Show.
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| Ratso and Batso trading barbs during Weird Window Time. |
The series was written by Mendelsohn
and Mulligan with Bob Ogle, Chuck Menville, Len Janson, Jim Ryan and Bill Danch. As said, the show
took strong inspiration from Laugh-In and featured a similar structure
of quick skits and jokes. “Weird Windows Time” was a direct spoof of Laugh-In’s
Joke Wall, where the
Goolies would pop out of various places and trade jokes. Each Goolie had a
special segment: Dracula’s Schoolhouse, where Drac taught mad science;
Hagatha’s Bedtime Stories, where she read a popular fairy tale to Frankie and
the other residents all acted out the roles; Home Movies, which had the
character’s watching videos from their pasts; The Mummy’s Wrap-Up, where Mummy
would deliver news stories about other monsters; and Wolfie’s Theater, which
was similar to Hagatha’s stories but with a stage performance set-up. Often,
the characters would deliver educational tips about various subjects to the
audience. A recurring gag saw Frankie being struck by lightning and then
remarking “I needed that!”, as well as possessing the dual identity of inept
superhero Super Ghoul.
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| The Mummies and the Puppies. |
Each episode also featured two musical numbers; one performed by the
Goolies, and another by a guest band. Those bands included The Bare Bones Band,
comprised of three skeletons; The Mummies and the Puppies (a play on The Mamas and the Papas),
comprised of a family of mummies and dogs; The Rolling Headstones (a play on The Rolling Stones), made up of three
living tombstones; and The Spirits of ’76, which had three ghosts wearing the tricorne hats common during
the 18th Century. Other groups conceived of during pre-production
but not used were The Japanese Beatles, The Rolling Rocks, The Door Jammers and
The Snapping Turtles. The songs were written by and arranged by Richard Delvy (as Linda Martin),
Ed Fournier (as Sherry
Gayden) and Dick Monda. Fournier
and Monda also provided vocals with Bob Markland, Chris Sciarrotta
and Dave Mani. The
series’ background music was composed by Ray Ellis (as Jeff Michael),
with additional music and sound effects provided by Horita-Mahana Corp. and Jan
Moore. The titles of the songs would go on to provide episode titles for home
media releases, as the original episodes went untitled and were only classified
by their production numbers.
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| Some random tomfoolery. |
Sabrina and the Groovie Goolies was the highest-rated children’s program in 1970. In 1971, CBS split up the two shows. Sabrina was removed from the Goolies intro and replaced with clips from “The Monster Trio” song number, and was omitted by changes to the theme song’s lyrics. They also moved the show to Sunday mornings and paired it with Tom and Jerry. After a single season there, CBS cancelled Goolies. However, the characters continued to appear in Sabrina. In 1972, they appeared on rival network ABC in Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies, which aired as part of The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie. ABC would later broadcast reruns of Goolies in 1975. The characters made two final new appearances in episodes of The New Archie and Sabrina Hour, and Frankie was featured in the show’s closing credits. Despite its short run, Goolies was broadcast globally and translated into many languages. The show was so popular in France that the characters were included on a float in France’s 1986 Carnaval de Cholet.
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| The Groovie Goolies rocking out. |
As with The Archie Show and The Hardy Boys, Filmation heavily pushed the musical aspect of the series. An album of 10 songs was released by RCA Victor Records in 1970; 8 of them had been featured on the show with “Save Your Good Lovin’ For Me” going on to be the only single, while “We Go So Good Together” and “Spend Some Time Together” were exclusive to the album. Featured on the cover was Monda, Fournier and songwriter Jeffrey Thomas in costume as Drac, Wolfie and Frankie, respectively; roles they would later reprise for the live-action segment of Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies, although Thomas and Fournier switched roles (home releases of the special would omit the live segments). Neither release sold particularly well, although a revised version of “Chick-a-Boom (Don’t Ya Jes’ Love It)” by Monda under the alias Daddy Dewdrop reached at #9 on the Billboard singles chart. A live version of the Goolies briefly toured in 1971 lip-synching to the series’ songs. Their make-up was provided by Wes and Robert Dawn.
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| A spider provides a tennis net for the Goolies and Mummy. |
The French version received its own album in 1983 by Magical Ring
Records under the translated title “Les
Croque Monstres”. Only the theme song was carried over and translated; the
rest of the songs were new monster-themed ones and covers of other hit songs. To
promote the album, a band dressed up as the Goolies (including Mummy) performed
the theme song. The album would be reissued
in 2013 by Balthazar
Music with a slightly different track order. In 1992, Bonton released a pair
of albums titled Bubusou
in Czechoslovakia featuring all 33 of the show’s songs translated by Jiří Josek.
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| Character models. |
Groovie Goolies saw numerous releases onto home media. On VHS in
the United States, Embassy
Home Entertainment released Haunted
Hijinks in 1985 and United
American Video released Double
Feature in 1989 and Live from Horrible Hall in 1990. In
the United Kingdom, Select Video released Groovie Ghouls in 1985 that
would be re-released
by Kids Kollection in 1990, and Intervision Video
included three episodes in both volumes of Filmation’s Children’s Cartoon
Festival: Groovie Goolies in 1988. In Germany, Select Video released Geisterstunde
in Horrible Hall in 1986, Die Lustige Monster Show: Im Horrorschlob &
Das Gruselkabinett in 1990. Argentina and France had one release each
with Mis Adorables Monstuitos from Buena Onda Home Video in 1986 and Les
Croque Monstres by Sunbird Junior in 1989. On DVD, in the United States BCI/Eclipse
released The
Saturday “Mourning” Collection in 2006 which contained the whole
series, then split it up between the two The
Frightfully Funny Collection releases in 2008. Universal Pictures Home Entertainment would
release a best-of collection in 2012 called simply Groovie
Goolies. In 2009, Savor Ediciones
Emon released the complete series in Spain as Mis
Queridos Monstruos, and Australia would get their
own release in 2016 from Universal Pictures.
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| Bella helping in the kitchen. |
Goolies received its fair share of merchandising as well. During
the show’s run, there was a coloring
book and a magic
slate produced by Whitman, puzzles
depicting scenes from the show made by Fairchild, a collection of figurines
by Chemtoy Corporation, candy with prizes,
and a series of costumes
by Ben Cooper, Inc.
The theme song, re-recorded
by the Toadies, was included on the 1995 tribute
album Saturday
Morning: Cartoons’ Greatest Hits from MCA Records. In
2010, Monstarz released limited edition maquettes of Drac,
Frankie
and Wolife.
In 2017, Hot Toy Cars partnered with LB
Customz to make two limited edition die-cast cars featuring graphics of the
Goolies in the form of a VW
Drag Bus and a Dairy
Delivery truck.
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| Drac taking the skelevator. |
In 1977, Filmation produced the package program The Groovie Goolies and
Friends comprised of their properties that had too few episodes
to syndicate individually. Goolies reruns were rotated with The
New Adventures of Waldo Kitty, Lassie’s
Rescue Rangers, The
New Adventures of Gilligan, My Favorite Martians, M-U-S-H., Fraidy
Cat and Wacky and Packy. While each show retained their original end
credits, Filmation created a new intro for the package and animated new bumper
segments where the Goolies would interact with the characters from the other
shows.
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| Drac and Bella moonlighting with Prime Evil on GhostBusters. |
Over the years, Filmation planned several revivals of the show in various
forms that never saw fruition. The idea of a feature film was floated in 1978,
and in 1984 Filmation came up with the concept of Fright Camp which
would star the children of the original Goolies attending a summer camp. They
also toyed around with The Goolies, which would have featured the
characters as toddlers as part of the growing babyfication craze started by Jim
Henson’s Muppet Babies. Ultimately, Goolies would live on
in Filmation’s GhostBusters
cartoon via recycled elements, including the Skelevator (an elevator made
of bone), a skeleton character who fell apart, and the appearance of Drac and
Bella’s character models and animations as new characters.
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