MONSTER MASHUPS #137

 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.

MONSTER MASHUPS #136

 

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.     

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 

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.

     In 1972, when ABC was still seeking to publicize both PUFNSTUF and LIDSVILLE, the station aired THE BRADY BUNCH MEETS ABC'S SATURDAY SUPERSTARS. I've no idea if I saw the hour-long special in The Day, but at present only a brief clip appears on YouTube. This hype-special seems to have more of a narrative than most such specials, in which actors would most frequently just introduce clips from the TV shows being hyped. Apparently for the whole hour of SUPERSTARS, all six of the Brady Kids get zapped into a television set, meet both Witchiepoo and Hoodoo, and presumably watch clips of shows that needed hyping before getting returned to what passed for "Brady reality."     

MONSTER MASHUPS #135

 Samson faces THE FIRE-BREATHING DRAGON. (Some humans claim it belongs to a group called "Smoke Monsters," but only one is seen.)

 And then there's THE WIDE-MOUTH MONSTER.

MONSTER MASHUPS #134

 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. 

 A few non-monster guest-stars with occult associations, such as Brother Voodoo and the Son of Satan, make appearances, but most of the other subordinate characters are literal monsters: Lilith the Daughter of Dracula, Goom, Grogg, Groot (not yet confined to one word), and Dragoom. Wiki claims that the Werewolf By Night and the Manphibian are in there but I didn't see them. An old Giant-Man foe, the Living Eraser, is name-checked only, and some old Hulk villains, the Lords of the Living Lightning, appear briefly. The Mole Man shows up for two panels toward the end. Some guy named Merlin is the villain but he seems unlikely to be continuous with any previous version. The series is pretty much a mess, and the art's ugly.  

MONSTER MASHUPS #133

 THE DART-TONGUED BEAST.

This one's called both THE CHOKE-FOAM MONSTER and THE SOAP-BUBBLE MONSTER.

THE CAVE-CENTIPEDE.

 

MONSTER MASHUPS #132

 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."

 Then in #10 both Gorgo and his mom fight a race of colossal Venusians.

MONSTER MASHUPS #131

 THE CLAWED SQUID.

THE THREE-HEADED LIZARD.

 For the first time, Samson's co-feature "Tom Morrow" gets in on the mashup action with THE LARIAT BEAST and THE GIANT FLOATING JELLYFISH, as well as a few garden-variety revived dinosaurs. Oddly, though I don't think the two future-worlds have anything in common (except possibly their writer), a big Jellyfish also appeared one issue previous in SAMSON.  

THE WEIRDIE FILES

 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.

     One issue during this run had the heroes encounter both DC's private eye character Jonny Double and their high-wire haunter Deadman.   

MONSTER MASHUPS #130

 Samson strikes again, against THE THROWER-BEAST and his spiked-mace tail...

...and THE GIANT FLOATING JELLY-FISH...

 

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 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.

 

RAR #93: MADOGA

 

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.   

MONSTER MASHUPS #129

 More Samson-monsters, starting with THE GIANT STING-RAY.   

And the poorly-named SEA MONSTER.

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 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...                              

  RED RIDING HOOD and her WOLF        

KING MIDAS and THE OLD WOMAN WHO LIVED IN A SHOE.    

 
THE THREE BEARS and the GIANT from "Jack and the Beanstalk"                                                             

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. 

MONSTER MASHUPS #128

 

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.      

MONSTER MASHUPS #127

 THE METAL-EATING MONSTER.                                                         

THE TREE TERROR.                                                                          

THE GIGANTO-BULL.                                                                          

              

CROSSOVER MADNESS

 Yet another encounter of Casper with fairy-tale characters, from "Grumpy Characters," SPOOKY SPOOKTOWN #15 (1965).                       

                                                                                                                                                                                                    

MONSTER MASHUPS #126

 The Ghostly Trio learn that they just don't rate as true monsters in "For Monsters Only" in TUFF GHOSTS #19 (1965).                              

ADDENDUM: I did give some thought to the consideration as to whether any of the "Harvey haunts" might be considered monsters in my lit-crit system, but decided that even the mischief-makers fell into my category "demiheroes." 

MONSTER MASHUPS #125

 Here's a scene from SANTA VS. DRACULA, though the entire work is not yet offered online.                                                                              

                                                                                                                   

RAR #92: THE MOHAWK POLTERGEIST

 

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.      

CROSSOVER MADNESS

The WB toon Sylvester is even more involved than the Herman and Katnip team discussed here.                                                                         

                                                          

                             

Famous Studios' Herman the Mouse already had starring status by the time he was teamed with Katnip, and though it's been argued that Katnip was preceded by various "proto-Katnips," the first Herman/Katnip cartoon is really Katnip's first appearance, and a crossover thanks to Herman's established status. Sylvester, in contrast, is not given his familiar name in his first appearance in 1945's "Life with Feathers," but it would be tough to label this a "Sylvester cartoon." In it the cat functions to simply react to the foolishness of the main character, a suicidal lovebird. Sylvester's also a subordinate character in the 1946 Porky Pig short "Kitty Cornered" and in the 1947 Foghorn Leghorn short, "Crowing Pains."                                           

    Sylvester's ascension to stardom (albeit under the name "Thomas") really comes about in the 1947 "Tweetie Pie." Tweety had been the main character of a handful of shorts starting with 1942's "A Tale of Two Kitties," though he only got the name Tweety in a 1944 cartoon. Thus "Tweetie Pie" counts as a crossover in which Sylvester "guest stars" in a Tweety cartoon, though together they become so strongly associated that they form a semi-bonded ensemble. However, only their first interaction counts as a crossover, since the two became so strongly associated that it erased their previous associations. Thereafter, Tweety hardly ever appears thereafter without Sylvester, while the cat makes other starring appearances as a solo act.                                                                                                   

   The most prominent "Sylvester solos" usually involved him attempting to capture the baby kangaroo Hippety Hopper, whom Sylvester mistook for a giant mouse. The kangaroo started out as an opponent to the cat in 1948, and all of these shorts focus on Sylvester's comic takes rather than Hippety's responses to him (even though some of the cartoons give Hippety shared top billing alongside Sylvester). In one 1952 take, after Sylvester did various cartoons with his son Sylvester Jr as another subordinate, here Sylvester has a one-shot teamup with a new character, Benny, whose name resembled his namesake, Steinbeck's "Lenny" from OF MICE AND MEN. In this cartoon dimbulb Benny keeps calling Sylvester "George" (another Steinbeck reference), but Sylvester is still the only star.                                                                                                           

   Benny gets one more shot at stardom in 1953's "Cat-Tails for Two," where he's teamed with a diminutive cat who really is named George (or who has accepted that Benny calls him that). However, though Benny builds a little crossover-charisma here due to his previous appearance, the star of the short was the first version of Speedy Gonzalez-- who I regard as identical with the later version despite differences in design.                                                                       

   Speedy would also be paired with Sylvester for a few shorts starting with 1955's "Speedy Gonzalez." These were not as iconic as the Tweety-Sylvester pairings, but all of these cartoons are crossovers, as are the much later (and not iconic at all) pairings of Speedy and Daffy Duck.                                                                                                                                                                                           

                                 

MONSTER MASHUPS #124

 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.