Even with the great Genndy Tartakovsky behind the screen, I held out almost no hope for “Hotel Transylvania,” because even in an animated film for kids, Adam Sandler is never above casting his slew of pseudo talented friends as the supporting cast. Like most Sandler productions, “Hotel Transylvania” can occasionally be loud and silly, but when it reaches down for a heart, it manages to be a sweet bit of family fare.
Rankin Bass’s “Mad Monster Party” (or “Mad Monster Party?”) is a monster bash of animated proportions that brings the great Boris Karloff aboard to lend credibility to an already fun animated film. Comprised of some excellent voice work and some classic stop motion animation from the Rankin Bass studio, “Mad Monster Party” sets down on the geeky and lovable Felix Flankin, a pharmacist with an allergy problem who is called to his old uncle Baron Boris von Frankenstein’s island for a party where he plans to announce to his monster community that he’s giving up the life of monster making and plans to hand over the business to his nephew.
What Stephen King’s adaptation of “Cycle of the Werewolf” has going for it, beyond everything else, is heart. In many ways, “Silver Bullet” is a multi-faceted horror film that can appeal to fans of family dramas and murder mysteries. “Silver Bullet” is a tension soaked eighties horror film that demonstrates rich characterization and complex feelings with a villain who isn’t completely black and white when all is said and done. Even the worst afflictions can rot anyone who means well enough, and “Silver Bullet” shines a light on two characters with afflictions they can not battle who have potential to rot from the inside out. One individual has embraced the darkness, and the other insists on seeing the bright side of everything, even in the face of pain, misery, and pure evil staring him right in the face.
“Creature Crypt” is a four part weekly column that spotlights two creatures from our childhood that made us in to rabid horror fans. These are the creatures that scared us, wowed us, made us cry, and made us hope they weren’t under our bed.
Though it’s often thought of as the film that helped revive the animated film boom from Disney in the nineties, predating a string of hit films from the studio, “The Little Mermaid” is much like “Bambi.” It has amazing animation, and a wonderful soundtrack, but in the narrative frame, it’s unspectacular. While the former film garnered a nearly non-existent storyline with a simple resolution stretched in to ninety minutes, “The Little Mermaid” has almost nothing in the way of reasoning or logic for its heroine’s motives toward happiness.
When I was a wee lad, local television stations often played classic television programming that was more than two year old. Often times they ranged from being well in to the mid-seventies. Often times as a child whenever I found myself awake in the middle of the night, I’d often sneak in a few minutes or so of “Mama’s Family.” It was a long running and very well loved syndicated program for years, before networks phased out classic TV.
It was usually sandwiched between “Hee Haw” and “MASH,” and it was usually a fun half hour. Nowadays it’s a nice kitschy series that spun off from the popular skit from “The Carol Burnett Show.” Cast member Vicki Lawrence took her character of Mama once the series ended and gave audiences the Southern fried family sitcom that served as a relative precursor to the Madea movies.
Much like Madea, Mama was tough, rough around the edges, but had a really good heart, that often benefitted her odd family in the end. The series thankfully hasn’t aged much at all, if you watch it in the context of the Southern-centric seventies. Though Lawrence often played the matriarch and straight woman to the characters, she was often hilarious in her own ways, displaying her own form of Christian discipline that involved love and caring.
Among the cast members were Rue McClanahan, and her son Vint and eventual daughter in law, Naomi. “Mama’s Family” has genuine heart and old fashioned sitcom tropes for folks who love the staged open room environment of the bygone shows. Lawrence is hilarious as Mama, and is a woman much in the vein of Archie Bunker who is set in he ways, but learns to change with the times as her family grows over the course of the series. It may not appeal to everyone, but for my money “Mama’s Family” is a gem of a seventies sitcom worthy of an audience.
For folks expecting the royal treatments for “Mama’s Family,” you’ll find yourself very much out of luck. Though Time Life is often very generous about their releases, both season sets feature nothing but the edited syndicated cuts of the episodes. Fans who want the uncut and bold humor from the original series will likely have to wait longer until another studio offers up their edition of “Mama’s Family,” as fans had to do with “Roseanne” after Anchor Bay royally fouled up their release of the series.
To make things even worse, the DVD sets offer no special features or uncut scenes for the fans, not even as extras. The original theme song is missing in favor of a truncated version, while the Harvey Korman introductions have been edited out in favor of time. There are also no bloopers, no acknowledgement of the Carol Burnett Show, and none of the usual bells and whistles that should come with a spin off from a Grade A comedy series like “The Carol Burnett Show.”
The Season Two DVD atones for the mistakes made by the first release, with some interesting extras. There’s the original TV movie entitled “Eunice” focusing on Mama’s daughter as played by Carol Burnett. There’s the featurette “Mama’s Family Tree: The Roots” about Mama and her daughter Fran, as well as interviews with Mama conducted by Vicki Lawrence, along with Lawrence interviewing Carol Burnett, and Betty White.
For folks who want to spend some time with Mama and her eccentric Southern family, Season One and Season Two are now available for purchase.
I often get the “Really? You like this?!” response whenever I speak about my enjoyment for Disney shows. You know what? Some people watch reality shows to pass the time, I watch Disney sitcoms and cartoons to escape from reality, and it offers some genuinely good laughs and entertainment. You’re only as old as you feel, and I am very experimental when it comes to kids’ shows. They’re not always winners, but when I hit one that entertains me, I tune in regularly. These are five we love without shame.