Traumafessions :: Reader Toni on ACRI Creature Feature
I suppose this was a good program, but I wasn't old enough to watch it. But the ACRI CREATURE FEATURE commercials scared the living sh&t out of me! I was all of 8 or so, I think. When the commercial came on the screen would go black, and then a small dot in the middle would start to grow. This disembodied, creepy looking head would smile and laugh his evil cackle (HA HA HA). Watch the ACRI CREATURE FEATURE! Eventually when the commercial started I'd run to my mom, close my eyes, and cover my ears.
I have to admit that now this is a funny memory of growing up in the Mid-West. But I would like the shows creators, producers, and sponsor (who is still in business) to know that they certainly did their job well!
UNK SEZ: Toni, I wish I could have located the television spot you are speaking of, but no luck! Here's a sample of the opening of the show though, which will hopefully bring back some memories for those who were old enough to check it out. Y'all can learn more about the ACRI CREATURE FREATURE HERE
The Hardy Boys And Nancy Drew Meet Dracula
AUNTIE SEZ: Kids, your Unkle Lancifer and I are off today (we're still trying to track down discount Halloween candy), so please clang your juice boxes together and give a warm Kindertrauma welcome to frequent commenter Professor Von Whiskerson who is going to take us back to a gentler time when that plucky PAMELA SUE MARTIN solved mysteries and stubby singer-songwriters dominated popular culture!
This episode of HARDY BOYS/NANCY DREW MYSTERIES is a two-parter and despite the title, it is NOT a Halloween episode. It is perfect for Halloween, though, complete with a Count, creepy castles, dungeons, costume parties and musical little people.
In this episode, Frank (the good looking Hardy boy), Joe (the Hardy Boy everyone pretends is a good singer), and Nancy Drew (who is better looking than even Frank and non-singing) journey to Vlad Dracula's castle in Transylvania to find the boy's missing father. There is a convenient "rock festival" being held at the castle by PAUL WILLIAMS which gives both he and Joe and excuse to sing (separately and in a duet). Yes, THAT PAUL WILLIAMS. He was all over the place back in the '70s, so I'm surprised it took him until the second season to show up. More on that later. Also guest starring in this episode are LORNE GREENE and BERNIE TAUPIN.
The story starts out with the boys dad, Fenton Hardy, arriving at Castle Dracula to investigate a string of art thefts occurring throughout Europe. Wait. Let's rewind a second. The story ACTUALLY starts out with a long shot of the castle, silhouetted against the night sky and the howl of a distant wolf. Remember the sound of that wolf. You will hear it about 10 million times during the next 90 minutes. I expect you to down a shot of your favorite hard liquor every time you hear it.
Not long after Mr. Hardy starts creeping around the castle, you (the viewer, in case you forgot) see that he is not alone. There is also a pair of jackboots that follow and capture him. Remember these boots. If you are brave, or have an especially high tolerance to booze, you will want to incorporate them into the drinking game as well.
Frank and Joe arrive in Eastern Europe to search for their father, who they haven't heard from in several weeks. The first person they meet is Inspector Hans Stavlin, of the Romanian police. Inspector Stavlin is played by none other than Canadian Battlestar Commander LORNE GREENE. Stavlin was working with Mr. Hardy on the art theft ring investigation. Since this is the boy's show and they can't be shown up by some commie thug, they discover evidence overlooked by Stavlin.
This evidence takes them first to Munich in a bus driven by Elton John's songwriter, BERNIE TAUPIN. The cover of being a member of TAUPIN 's band is just what the Boys need to trace their father without raising any suspicions. Unfortunately this bus trip is complete with a sing-along of the BEATLE's "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da," a song I truly despise. It's not any better when sung by SHAUN CASSIDY and BERNIE TAUPIN. I really hate that song. I think it's the "oh blah dees" and "oh blah dahs" that I really hate. That and the association with the eponymous T.V. series…but I digress…again…
In Munich there is some mistaken identity involving a hotel bellman, who is probably a Nazi wanted for war crimes, by the Boys and Nancy Drew. Upon their first meeting, Nancy puts some fancy judo on Frank and flips him flat on his butt. The fear on Joe's face after seeing that is priceless, as is the fear on Nancy's when she realizes Frank has had it. I expected him to raise a pimp hand to her, but this was a family T.V. show in the '70s.
It turns out that Nancy had been working with Mr. Hardy on the investigation (No one ever said Fenton couldn't pick 'em). Everyone compares notes then it's off to Transylvania, and the "Dracula Festival" at the castle. The festival is being televised nightly to television audiences in the U.S. and is the brainchild of "rock star" Allison Troy. I put "rock star" in "quotes" because Troy is being "played" by singer, songwriter, and "actor" PAUL WILLIAMS.
Now a bit about PAUL WILLIAMS. I haven't done the math, and CASEY KASEM is no longer on American Top 40 for me to write in and ask, but I think PAUL WILLIAMS may have written 40-60% of the songs that came out between 1974 and 1980. He is a very 70's phenomenon, the likes of which we shall never witness again. He had a major role in DePALMA's PHANTOM OF PARADISE, and a song from that movie is featured in this episode. He also wrote "Rainbow Connection" from THE MUPPET MOVIE, one of my favorite songs of all time, and slightly kinder-traumatic with its melancholy undertones.
The rock festival itself is a pretty cool piece of T.V. production. The castle set is convincing, the bands are in continuous rotation, and all the guests wear the kind of really cool costumes that I dreamed I'd be able to wear at a Halloween party one day, but couldn't because I wore glasses. Those masks at Spencer's Gifts were almost worth being blind for, but alas, 'twas not to be. Oh yeah, Joe (CASSIDY) sings several songs like "That's Rock n' Roll" (no its not, SHAUN!). CASSIDY makes the strangest faces while singing and Frank is ALWAYS quick to come up with an excuse to leave the room before it gets this far.
There's lots of other cool stuff that I won't spoil, but some really great scenes are still in store, like:
- The Burgermeister Meisterburger gets attacked in the catacombs!
- Nancy's battle with a vampire bat, while wearing a nightgown! (Nancy, not the bat)
- Frankenstein's slow dance with his girlfriend!
- Opening Dracula's coffin!
- Angry villagers!
- The final showdown with the vampire!
I was just a couple of years too young to get to enjoy this show when it first aired, but with the magic of DVDs and the prompting of Mickster, I've become hooked on it. There were several episodes that would be fitting during the Halloween season besides this one. I like the Hardy Boys episodes and the Nancy Drew ones equally, and I just wish that the split between them was equal. The show became more Hardy-centric during the second season and PAMELA SUE MARTIN left halfway through it. Even more changes were in store for Season 3 which is not yet released on DVD. Seasons 1 & 2 are available though. At the risk of sounding like a stereotypical old person, they don't make shows like this or KOLCHAK: THE NIGHT STALKER anymore. Seeing them for the first time as a grown up just reinforces how great they were.
Kinder-News :: Don't Miss the Parade!
Hey kids, in one week, that's just seven days from now, Kindertrauma will be throwing its first ever Halloween Parade. If you haven't already, please stop whatever it is you are doing and send us a snapshot of you in your bestest Halloween duds when you were a kid.
And if you don't have one handy, now is the perfect time to get your Mom or Pop or Nanna or applicable shutterbug relative on the horn and get him or her to send it to you. If they refuse to cooperate, your Aunt John strongly suggests blackmail, intimidation, threats of bodily harm, and all other forms of coercion.
Just do what you got to do, and please send your pictures to us at kindertrauma@gmail.com by Thursday, October 30th.
Traumafessions :: Reader Alicia on Giant Nose-Face Ad
I must admit, the thing that traumatized me most as a child was not in fact a scary movie at all, but a television commercial that would never be considered scary now. You must look at this from the eyes of a sensitive five-year-old child. The commercial was for a nasal-spray type of decongestant. I do not remember the brand, as I never watched the commercial for that long.
Anyway, the congested person featured on the commercial had a giant nose in place of a head. (I found out years later that once they used said decongestant, they had a regular head again.) I have no idea why this scarred my fragile psyche so much at the time, but every time the commercial came on, I ran from our family room screaming "IT'S THE BIG NOSE!"
I was frightened by this commercial for years. Even now, 14 years later, the thought of someone with an abnormally large nose in place of a head scares me. This is a humiliating traumafession, but I had to get it off of my chest somehow.
Traumafessions :: Kinderpal Amanda By Night on The Prisoner's "Rover"
UNK SEZ: Halloween came early to Kindertrauma Castle when we recently opened our gates to the ultimate treat! The wisest of the wise, AMANDA BY NIGHT dropped by for some spiked cider and ginger snaps. Being the ultimate source for all things television related, we also got her to fix our reception by climbing up top the west tower and nudging our makeshift, clothes hanger bunny ears! Always the charmer, before she took off into the night she was kind enough to leave us with something we had been dreaming about all evening, an AMANDA traumafession! Aunt John whipped out a peacock quill and diligently took down her every word. Here is what she told us…
I have thought long and hard about my Kindertraumas after finding this great site. I have so many of them! And a lot are mentioned here already, so to be all unique and stuff, I really went into the recesses of those blocked traumas… you know the ones you purposely forget because they are so absolutely terrifying that you still get chills to this day? Well, I dug pretty deep and came up with a doozy.
I was under 7 years of age. I know this because I was still living in our house in Ventura, CA. But how much younger is in question. All I remember is going into my parents' bedroom and they were watching television.
* A note about my parents who both passed away in 2005 – First of all, they were terrific and they also loved the creepy stuff, although they would never admit it. My dad read true crime and my mom secretly indulged in horror films every so often with me, and was a devout fan of all mysteries in all forms of media. They also worked at Camarillo State Hospital which was one of the largest mental hospitals in the ‘70s. I remember that for a time my dad worked on the violent ward (talk about traumas!). They were really involved with the darker aspects of life, so it's kind of funny to think that they were so perplexed as to why I ended up loving horror movies so much. They pretty much gave me carte blanche on what I saw too, just as long as they had some idea of what I was putting into my head. However, they never warned me about what they might be watching!
So, back to my story… I came into their bedroom and they were watching their usual hoity toity PBS stuff – I had no idea what it was at the time – and this guy is somewhere… I dunno… maybe he's running, I can't remember. And this giant balloon comes down upon him… and I think he's screaming! The guy, not the balloon… but that would have been even creepier!
Uh, aren't balloons a childhood symbol of joy? This balloon was, like, killing this guy or something. It was absolutely horrifying. Still is when I think about it.
I'm not even sure when it was that I discovered it was a scene from the popular British series THE PRISONER, but I did and I have avoided that show ever since. I just looked it up to see if I could find any images or information about the balloon. The most shocking thing I read was a definition of Rover (i.e. the murderous balloon) on Wikipedia:
Rover was depicted as a large white inflatable balloon, not quite fully inflated, with a flexible skin. Rover would often produce a muffled roar sound when attacking. It would also sometimes emit a strange light display / luminescence from its interior. Once released, Rover could bounce and glide across the land and sea for a long range and at high speed, faster than say a vehicle or boat.
Rover is pure evil. Like, totally. But at the same time, remembering him reminds me of my parents and that makes Rover's deadly blow not so bad.
NOTE: The amazing AMANDA BY NIGHT knows no bounds! Besides her endlessly useful hideout/tribute to all things tube-related MADE FOR TV MAYHEM, she's also got a killer column over at PRETTY SCARY called LIFETIME KILLS, a drop-in-anytime stint at the ever praiseworthy HORROR YEARBOOK (Check out this spot-on post LITTLE KNOWN HORROR TREASURES) AND she's known to keep the blood flowing freely over at the inimitable RETRO SLASHERS BLOG! How does she do it? We'll never know. All we know is that if she rocked any harder, she'd be Stonehenge!
Satan's Little Helper
During the tenth month of the year, just about any horror movie is welcome around these parts. Horror movies that are centered around the Halloween holiday itself are treated like V.I.P.s. It's a pointless endeavor to ever expect any of these movies to compete with JOHN CARPENTER's 1978 masterstroke but who cares? The search is its own reward. Sometimes you get a pleasant surprise like SATAN'S LITTLE HELPER, a movie that may not inspire you to lock your doors and bolt your windows, but delivers a general atmosphere of unfettered mischief that perfectly reflects the holiday itself.
Little Dougie Whooly's (ALEXANDER BRICKEL) video game inspired idolization of Satan is taken to the test when he imagines he meets his hero on Halloween night. In actuality, he has stumbled across a genuine masked killer on the rampage but Dougie's desire to live out his fantasy life blinds him to reality again and again. Jumping head first into the role of protégé, Dougie keeps a look out while the masked killer "Satan Man" massacres his neighbors, delighting in the bloodshed that he believes they are racking up "points" for. It's only when he discovers that he has endangered his family (mom is played by the always entertaining AMANDA PLUMMER) that that he begins to see his "master" in a new light.
"Satan man" and his apprentice's ability to blur the line between video game and reality hits a high score in a grocery store parking lot where they gleefully crash their shopping cart into a pregnant woman, a baby carriage and a cane-carrying blind man. It's this type of cartoony, slapstick black-humor that keeps things from getting too scary, but trust me it's worth the trade off. As much as this is a larky good time SATAN'S LITTLE HELPER does deliver its fair share of tense creepy little moments. If you have ever laughed at a Halloween costume only to find yourself with a moment of discomfort where you question its wearer's intentions, you'll recognize much of that feeling of dread here.
Writer/Director JEFF LIEBERMAN is the real deal. Not only did he grace us with the cult classics SQUIRM and BLUE SUNSHINE, but he's also the man behind slasher favorite JUST BEFORE DAWN. There are many interesting ideas bouncing around inside this particular treat bag. He explores the effects of domestic abuse, religion and media violence, and there is a constant preoccupation with the consistency in which people allow their preconceived notions to cloud their minds. All of these ideas come into play at regular intervals without ever dragging the action down. It's not a perfect film and many might be turned off by it's obviously meager budget but it's definitely the product of a lot of thought and imagination. If you are searching for a fresh modern take on the holiday look no further, SATAN'S LITTLE HELPER aims to please.
