If you're of a certain age, you probably recall "The Groovie Goolies," a cartoon series that originally aired in 1970-71 and was rerun for years thereafter. It featured Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, the Werewolf, the Mummy, and other no-longer-scary characters, all living in a castle together and cracking jokes, "Laugh-In"-style. They played in a band, too, and each episode featured a couple of musical numbers.

Maybe you're smiling and nodding your head now, fondly remembering this classic cartoon from your youth. Those were certainly my impressions as I embarked on watching it again now. So it is with heavy heart that I must break the news to you: THIS SHOW IS SO BAD AS TO BE UNBEARABLE.

Seriously, I defy you to watch an entire 22-minute episode, let alone all 16 included on the "Saturday 'Mourning' Collection" just released on DVD. It's a pun-based series, in case you forgot. No stories or plots, just a series of set-ups and punchlines, every one groan-worthy, awful and unfunny now that you're no longer 7 years old. Some examples:

"Dracula, what do you grow in your gardens in Transylvania?"
"Trans-plants, what else?"

"Do you get fur from the Abominable Snowman?"
"Why yes, as fur as possible!"

"If this is bad, I'm going to ask for my MUMMY back!"

"You call that singing? He can barely carry a TOMB!"

"What does the Loch Ness Monster like for breakfast?"
"A heaping bowl of moat meal!"

Every episode has about 14 minutes of that. Some of it is broken up into little skits (monster sporting events, a tour through the castle, the monsters put on a play, etc.), and some of it is truly just the characters standing around making jokes.

The other eight minutes are the opening and closing credits and the musical numbers (two per episode). The songs usually have monster themes and are mildly catchy bubblegum-pop throwaways. One of them, "Chick-A-Boom," from episode 12, actually became a top 10 Billboard hit, though that says more about the state of pop music in 1970 than it does about the song's quality....

Some episodes make themselves even more grating by including a laugh track. As far as I can tell, the inclusion of the laugh track is random: It's on episodes 8, 10-12 and 14-16, but not on the others.

I don't like to destroy childhood memories. Like I said, these are my memories, too. But trust me, "Groovie Goolies" is much better in the vaults of your memory than it is in real life. You might be able to enjoy a few minutes of it ironically, in an "it's so bad, it's good" kind of way, but there's no way you'll enjoy the whole set. It's not for adults. It's for little kids.


THE DVD

All 16 episodes of the series are included on three discs. The distribution of episodes per disc is 6-6-4, with the third disc also containing the bonus materials.

Each disc is in its own thin Digipak case, and all three are housed in a standard cardboard case.

Annoyingly, there are no chapter breaks in the episodes. You can skip past the opening theme song, but if you skip again, it jumps 20 minutes ahead to the CLOSING theme song.

There are no subtitles or alternate language tracks.

VIDEO: It's been remastered (or re-"monstered," as the DVD case insists, quotation marks and all) and it probably looks better than it ever did on broadcast television. The colors are bright and vivid. There is some dust and grain, but not much.

AUDIO: Standard Dolby Digital mix, repeating the imperfections of the 1970 recording techniques. It's good enough, though.

EXTRAS: Episodes 1 and 2 have audio commentaries by producer Lou Scheimer and writer Jack Mendelsohn. Darrell McNeil, a former Filmation employee who has written a book about Filmation products, joins in for episode 1; Bob Burns, another old Filmation employee and Hollywood-monster expert, is there for episode 2. Wally Wingert hosts both commentaries.

They're very informative discussions, covering the creation of the series, the philosophies behind it, and the day-to-day operations of the show. There's good trivia about merchandising ("We didn't do enough of it," says Scheimer ruefully) and other details that will surely delight fans of the series. Scheimer tells a story like an old Hollywood mogul, and he and Mendelsohn are genuinely funny guys.

"Goolians; A Docu-Comedy" (46:29) is a featurette whose intention is to mix actual retrospective interviews with zany shenanigans, as two "Groovie Goolies" fans drive around town looking for info about their favorite show. Unfortunately, the two fans in question -- voice-over actor Wally Wingert and film character actor Daniel Roebuck -- are impossibly unfunny. The sitcom-style hijinks they get into are badly written and poorly produced. I recall several instances where I sat agape in horror at how embarrassing the whole thing was. Then I thought: Well, if these guys still think "Groovie Goolies" is funny, they probably think THIS is funny, too.

Which is a shame, because there's maybe 10 minutes of it, total, that's actually nice interview footage for the show's fans. "Goolies" writer Jack Mendelsohn and producer Lou Scheimer are there, California punk band The Groovie Ghoulies (different spelling to avoid lawsuits) makes an appearance, and "monster of rock" Alice Cooper makes some surprisingly insightful comments about the relationship between rock music, comedy, and horror.

(Oh, yeah: "Goolians" has a laugh track, too, to make it more like the cartoon. Heaven help us.)

Among extras that won't make you want to kill yourself, there's the "'Groovie Get-Together' Sing-a-Long" (2:50), which is simply the full version of the show's theme song, subtitled so you can sing along with it.

"Creation of Filmation" (8:10) is an audio recording of producer Lou Scheimer telling about how his animation studio was started. It's a pretty entertaining story, which Scheimer related the day the audio commentaries were recorded -- which is why it's audio-only, with no visuals. Pretend it's radio. It's a funny story.

The image galleries feature original sketches and some animation cels from the series, as well as pages from an anti-drug PSA script. ("Why do they call marijuana 'grass'?" "Because it's best to Keep Off It!")

Finally, disc 3 has DVD-ROM content: The scripts for all 16 episodes, as well as the official character descriptions used by the writers, all in .PDF format. I'm alarmed by the poor spelling. Poor spelling only makes bad jokes worse.


IN SUMMARY

The DVD treatment is serviceable. The extras are decent, the audio and video are good. It's just such a lousy show! If you remember it fondly from your youth, before buying the DVD set, rent one disc and give it a spin. I suspect you'll decide buying it probably isn't such a good idea after all.