One of the coolest things about growing up as a kid in Ontario, Canada during the late seventies and early eighties was being able to catch episodes of a now little known television show called The Hilarious House Of Frightenstein. Not widely known outside of its home and native land (though it was syndicated and broadcast in chopped up, shorter versions through a scant few American stations), the show was produced by CHCH in Hamilton and starred not only a Canadian actor by the name of Billy Van (who showed up on Bizarre from time to time – the show that made Super Dave Osborne a star), but also featured segments with the one and only Vincent Price.

It should be mentioned that when The Hilarious House Of Frightenstein was originally broadcast on Canadian television that the episodes were an hour long including commercials. The four episodes on this DVD are obviously meant for a half hour timeslot as they clock in at just over twenty one or twenty two minutes or so a piece, which is a sure indicator that they were taken from the US broadcast versions, not the original Canadian ones.

So what the heck is The Hilarious House Of Frightenstein? Well, basically, it was a kids show that presented a series of skits and quick gags with recurring characters based on easily identifiable pop culture icons. The show revolved around Count Frightenstein (Billy Van) a vampire who had to revive his monster, Brucie, a Frankenstein type creature, so that he could return home to Transylvania. He lived in Castle Frightenstein along with his friendly but dim witted assistant, Igor, and a few other strange inhabitants such as castle cook Grizzelda The Ghastly Gourmet, a disc jockey named The Wolfman (who was an obvious knock off of Wolfman Jack), a creepy old librarian who liked to try and scare the kids, and the Midget Count (who was kind of like Frightenstein's own personal Mini Me, kind of making me wonder if Mike Meyers, who grew up in Canada, was inspired by the show?). In between strange little skits where Frightenstein and Igor would try and revive Brucie (always without success), the show would cut away to other quick gags or skits involving the other characters but at the beginning and end of each show, and throughout each episode, Vincent Price would show up and read a goofy poem.

It was, in hindsight, a really weird show an to be honest, when I first saw it at roughly four years of age, it scared the living crap out of me. When the Wolfman danced in front of a tripped out screen full of strange video effects or when Price cackled like a maniac after one of his poems, it pretty much flipped my lid but for some reason, I tuned in every week anyway even if sometimes I'd watch it from under the covers. Revisiting it as an adult viewer should find a completely enjoyable, if more than a little hammy, show that works in a lot of jokes that were sure to go over kids' heads likely to reach out to the adults who happened to catch it.

This DVD presents four episodes of the show. Attempting a plot synopsis for each one would be futile as there really is no plot but let it suffice to say that most of the more recognizable characters show up here and there despite the fact that these are the shorter American broadcast versions and not the longer Canadian ones. Dr. Pet Vet shows up to school Igor on the finer parts of owning a pet turtle, Grizzelda shows us how to make the world's most foul apple pie, and the Super Hippie flies across the screen more than once. The Oracle shows up to make predictions towards the future of Frightenstein and The Gorilla appears at least once per episode to be quickly sent on his way when he's hit in the head with a tennis ball.

The late Billy Van played the majority of the characters on the show which makes it fun in that you can spend a lot of time trying to figure out which ones are him underneath all the low budget make up effects (most of which were somehow based around weird green grease paint). His sense of comedic timing is fantastic, his accents are hilariously bad and as stereotyped as can be, and the humor is completely groan-worthy but the sense of nostalgia that this show provides, for those of us who grew up on it at least, is completely unrivaled. It doesn't matter that the show sometimes made little to no sense at all. It doesn't matter that it was obviously low budget. It doesn't matter that the humor is as corny as it gets. What matters is that The Hilarious House Of Frightenstein is the very embodiment of good clean fun from start to finish. It's a throwback to a bygone era, a show that inspired thousands of young Canadian (and American) kids to seek out and learn about the Universal Monsters or Vincent Price's work (the show was my first introduction to him, long before I watched a copy of The Fly with my grandfather who had taped it off of TV). How well it'll go over with modern kids audiences, I really have no idea but I like to think its infectious fun and wacky humor would still translate well to the younger generation who never got the chance to see it on TV and even if it doesn't, at least it still makes me (and thousands of other fans now likely in their thirties and forties) grin like an idiot every time I hear the theme song.

The DVD

Video:

The series was shot fast and cheap in the early seventies at a small television studio in Hamilton, Ontario Canada. Unfortunately, after the series was revived in syndication in the 90s, the original Canadian masters were destroyed for good and all that seems to remain of the series are home made VHS tapes and bootlegs. Empire Pictures presents the four episodes on this DVD in their original fullframe aspect ratio and they are obviously taken from a rough tape source (supposedly the US ¾ master tapes – if that's the case they weren't stored very well as they're in rough shape) as there are drop outs and tracking lines popping up here and there. The colors are faded, there's not much fine detail at all, and the overall picture quality is quite soft – BUT, you've got to accept that given the fact that proper source material no longer exists, this is probably as good as we're going to get. The good news is that despite the fact that the quality is pretty poor, the shows are at least watchable. Reference quality? Hardly – but you'll be able to follow the show just fine and while it would have been great to get really nice copies of these episodes on DVD, the sad reality is that fans will more than likely be happy enough to take what they can get.