Here we have the SWORD-GRASS...
THE SKELETON BEAST...
THE VENUS MAN TRAPS (unleashed by a female villain, of course)
THE STRANGLER VINE.
THE KNOCKOUT POD-PLANTS.
Here we have the SWORD-GRASS...
THE SKELETON BEAST...
THE VENUS MAN TRAPS (unleashed by a female villain, of course)
THE KNOCKOUT POD-PLANTS.
I was working on some notations and just wanted something uninvolving on the TV screen to supply background, so I put on the 1978-79 THE BAY CITY ROLLERS. I expected it to be a skit-show with musical numbers by the Rollers, which it was. I didn't know that it started as THE KROFFT SUPERSTAR HOUR, which was a retooled version of the 1976-78 KROFFT SUPERSHOW. I'd watched some segments of the first show but must have overlooked/avoided SUPERSTAR HOUR for whatever reasons. The original one-hour SUPERSTARS show had the Rollers introduce three separare comedy-segments, "Horror Hotel," "The Lost Island," and "Magic Mondo." The first eight episodes must not have scored well, for the show was cut back to half an hour, and all of the shows under the ROLLERS rubric featured only the musicians doing skits and songs and the "Horror Hotel" segment. Those segments are the only ones on streaming, which is a shame because now I'm vaguely curious about the "Lost Island" with its wacky crossover of several Krofft characters.
I didn't watch PUFNSTUF, except for the movie version, but I'd still would tend to label that version of Witchiepoo more "villain" than "monster." In "Horror Hotel," an altered version of Witchiepoo runs the hotel of the title and doesn't do anything villainous. I can see labeling this version of the character sort of a "mischief-monster." However, all her suitmation assistants are IMO just anthropomorphized animal goofballs with no monster-aspects. If one does deem Witchiepoo a funny monster-- and one can certainly make a case for some witches being monsters, despite Samantha and Sabrina-- then "Horror Hotel" would be a monster-mashup only whenever a "guest monster" appeared. This short list included a mummy, a weird creature from a painting, a black-robed ghost, a Dracula (played by Jay Robinson), and a flat-out copy of the Universal Frankenstein Monster, though the name "Frankenstein" is never used.
In youth I watched some of the Sid and Marty Krofft live-action shows but avoided most of the producers' "suitmation" episodes of the decade. So I was unaware as to how often those shows-- H.R. PUFNSTUF, SIGMUND AND THE SEA MONSTERS, and LIDSVILLE-- played host to crossovers between those franchises. Probably the most notable one took place on LIDSVILLE. Though actress Billie Hayes had a regular role on that show, she also guested as her PUFNSTUF character Witchiepoo, wherein she had a romantic relationship with LIDSVILLE's comic villain Hoodoo. The two characters later showed up in "Horror Hotel," a segment of the 1978-79, but in a non-romantic context. "Hotel" also played host to comical versions of Dracula and an unnamed Frankenstein Monster.
Samson faces THE FIRE-BREATHING DRAGON. (Some humans claim it belongs to a group called "Smoke Monsters," but only one is seen.)
In this post I linked to my short review of the short-lived monster-mash title HOWLING COMMANDOS OF SHIELD, but I can't even muster a short review of its predecessor, the mostly incoherent six-issue series NICK FURY'S HOWLING COMMANDOS, written by Keith Giffen and penciled by three different artists.
The main members of the "Creature Corral" (yes, they're called that once) are mostly new variations on standard monster-types: vampire Nina Price, werewolf "Warwolf," a clone of the Frankenstein Monster, and a zombie with no ID, "John Doe." The other three members may or may not be continuous with earlier Marvel monsters known respectively as "The Glob," "The Living Mummy," and "The Gorilla-Man." Despite the title, Nick Fury makes only a token appearance, and his subordinate Clay Quartermain is actually in charge of ramrodding the mutinous monsters.
THE DART-TONGUED BEAST.
This one's called both THE CHOKE-FOAM MONSTER and THE SOAP-BUBBLE MONSTER.
THE CAVE-CENTIPEDE.
In GORGO #5, Gorgo's Mother-- who I'll bet never gets a name of her own-- finally contends with another monster of the deep, billed on the cover as "The Sea Beast."
THE CLAWED SQUID.
THE THREE-HEADED LIZARD.
Here's a "DC Gothic" that, like DEADMAN, preceded my previous candidate for the company's second non-anthology "weird feature," which I had previously pegged as the SHOWCASE debut of the Phantom Stranger: the CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN, a failing book that the company strove to shore up with spooky content.
Samson strikes again, against THE THROWER-BEAST and his spiked-mace tail...
I'm not about to try chronicling all of the multitudinous crossovers in DC's war comics, even though I've just finished laying out the one in SGT. ROCK ANNUAL #2. Still, though the story "Heap the Corpses High" in DC SUPERSTARS #15 (1977) isn't worth explicating, this is a really nice cover juxtaposing Sergeant Rock, Mademoiselle Marie, and the disguise-master Unknown Soldier masquerading as Rock for some damn reason. More Kanigher craziness as usual.
Madoga, seen above in the first three panels fighting a big mummy, was a member of a society of sorcerous villains, The Legion of the Weird, who were defeated in their one outing by the Challengers of the Unknown.
In this post I noted how one issue of Timely's KRAZY KOMICS took a subordinate character, The Creeper, from a strip called "The Vagabond" and made him a co-star of a strip about a rabbit-detective named Homer. Only this first "teamup" counts as a crossover of these two characters. A little later The Creeper was joined in his nutty nefarious activities by his lookalike son "Crawler," while Homer and his allies kept chasing the two of them down. In KK #9-10 the antagonists visited "Fairy Land" (which might as well be the story's title) and met...
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SIMPLE SIMON, WILLIAM TELL, and three characters from the "Hey Diddle Diddle" rhyme.
KRAZY KOMICS #7-9 also played host to a three-part story teaming up a new character, a beneficent fairy named "Inky the Imp," with a "Fractured Fairy Tales" version of the Pied Piper of Hamelin and his mice (who are the Piper's allies this time).
In KK #11, though the "heroes" and their "villains" aren't in Fairy Land anymore, they still meet a "King Arthur" who looks more like Old King Cole.
KK 12 then asserts that all of the Krazy Komics characters inhabit their own world, and The Creeper magicks some of them into the "real world." They try to protest their treatment in the comics to the creators of Timely Comics (all of whom are caricatures of the real raconteurs). I recognize only Ziggy Pig, Silly Seal and Super Baby, but the main characters are still Creeper, his son Crawler, and the rabbit Homer.
This MARVEL FAMILY story, "The Trio of Terror," is not only a crossover for the Marvels but also a "mashup" of three monsters from Greek mythology.
True, the story acts as all three are "monster-types," when that distinction applies only to the Satyr. In mythology there's only one Argus and one Hydra, and as almost anyone knows, the Hydra is not some two-headed troll but a seven-headed dragon. Since none of the three are particularized icons, the monsters comprise a mashup but not a crossover.
Yet another encounter of Casper with fairy-tale characters, from "Grumpy Characters," SPOOKY SPOOKTOWN #15 (1965).
The Ghostly Trio learn that they just don't rate as true monsters in "For Monsters Only" in TUFF GHOSTS #19 (1965).
The 1983 SUPER FRIENDS episode "Once Upon a Poltergeist" brings Batman, Robin, and Apache Chief into conflict with the unnamed ghost of a deceased Mohawk chief, who creates havoc in Gotham City because he has mistaken the terrain for his ancestral lands. The scenes in which the Mohawk shakes the towering buildings of Gotham in order to hurl them from "his" land is an inspired menace, since in general Real Americans have a grudge against WASPS for usurping the land, even if the menace in this story is mistaken in his particular object. Apache Chief, whose knowledge of Real American culture proves important to solving the problem, calls the chief a name once, but it's simply a word that signifies the general term for Iroquois people.
The WB toon Sylvester is even more involved than the Herman and Katnip team discussed here.
Somehow I think the HEAVY-MATTER EAGLE is pretty much the same as the earlier STONE-CRUSHING EAGLE.
THE GORILLA-SAUR. THE GIANT VAMPIRE BAT.