MONSTER MASHUPS #33

I've just done a scathing review of the first HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA here, and I don't think much better of the second in the series. However, I will admit that Disney's HOTEL TRANSYLVANIA TV-cartoon is a little funnier than these two turkeys. While the cartoon is nothing special, at least it finds an excuse to shunt the tedious Count offscreen, and in addition, focuses on a younger version of his daughter Mavis, before she becomes romantically entangled with a human boy. Thus every episode is about Mavis trying to do a good job taking care of problems at Hotel Transylvania, sometimes helped (or hindered) by her teenaged monster-peers. The best addition is a mean old vampire aunt, Lydia, who continually tries to catch Mavis misbehaving in some way.

I will mention Disney's other recent monster-mash, VAMPIRINA, only in passing. I can't yet force myself to watch an episode; it just skews too damn young for me. But it too has other monsters besides its vampiric star.

Almost as hard to watch, and possibly more witless, is MONSTER HIGH, a series in which famous monster-personas are reconfigured through the lens of "Barbie glamor dolls," or something like that. It's the sort of thing that makes 2000's MONSTER MASH seem sophisticated by comparison.

And all of them make SCOOBY DOO AND THE GHOUL SCHOOL look better and better.