"Everybody shout! C'mon now, sing out! It's time for the Goolies get together..." - "Groovie Goolies" theme song
Groovie Goolies: The Saturday "Mourning" Collection DVD Review
By Jude Clement
Like a turkey basted in butter and its own juices, my brain is absolutely soaked in TV arcana. Friends often ask me for information about long gone shows that I somehow remember. Back when there were only a handful of channels and TV Guide was still a digest, I'd read the TV listings from cover to cover each week. Somehow, Groovie Goolies escaped my attention until the DVD set of The Saturday "Mourning" Collection was announced. After watching the series (which premiered on CBS Saturday mornings during the 1971-72 season), I finally caught up on what I had been missing - a funny (monster) mash-up of Laugh-In, American International Pictures' tongue-in-cheek spook flicks, Scooby-Doo, The Addams Family, and the classic Universal horror films.
The residents of Horrible Hall boarding house, located at the end of Horrible Drive, are real monsters. They're not scary, though. As a matter of fact, they're downright silly. Count Drac, a dandy vampire who prances around in mod high-heeled boots, runs the place. Frankie is the simple Frankenstein-esque creature. Wolfie is a howling hairball of a werewolf. Bella La Ghostly, a sultry siren who could give Morticia Addams a run for her money, is Horrible Hall's phone operator. Witch Hagatha serves as cook. She makes a killer pound cake, so watch out! Other tenants include Orville Mummy, vampire twins Fatso and Batso, two-headed physician Dr. Jekyll-Hyde, Napoleon-inspired skeleton Boneapart, and Ghoulihand, a flying disembodied appendage. These animated beasties are voiced by several old pros, including Larry Storch (F-Troop), Larry Mann (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer), Jane Webb (Sabrina), and Howard Morris (The Andy Griffith Show).
The lightning-fast humor is a pleasant mix of smart and dumb - just the way we like it. There are no plotlines per say. Instead, the emphasis is on blackout sketches, bad puns, and sublimely silly monster jokes. The series practically wears its influences on its sleeve...or its cape, as the case may be. Its greatest debt is probably to Laugh-In, the swingin', dare we say groovie, NBC hit. A new joke pops up every few seconds or so. Laugh-In's gag-filled joke wall morphs into the "Weird Windows" segment here. Like Laugh-In, Groovie Goolies features a repertoire of running skits, including Bella's Horror-Scope, cooking tips from Hagatha, and news briefs from Orville Mummy. The Addams Family's Thing served as an antecedent for both Ghoulihand and the Ask It Casket.
On paper, it might sound derivative, but thanks to clever writing, the series is quite entertaining. Take, for example, the following exchange in a parody of "Hansel and Gretel:"
Gretel (played by Frankie in a dress and wig): Mmm...These are the yummiest walls I ever tasted.
Hansel (played by Wolfie): Try a little window.
Gretel: No thank you. They give me a pane in the stomach.
Witch (played by Hagatha): You must be lost and hungry!
Gretel: No. We're Hansel and Gretel.
Witch: Oh, you're eating me out of house and home! No matter! I love to see children eating well...
Hansel: We'll eat the well as soon as we finish up the fireplace...
Witty, silly, and funny.
Like many kids' shows of the late 1960s and early 1970s, Groovie Goolies includes frequent pop music interludes. The tunes are pretty catchy. One of them, "Chick-a-Boom," even made it to the top ten on the Billboard charts.
Given kids' continuing fascination with monsters and dumb humor, Groovie Goolies is just as fresh today as it was thirty-six years ago. Give it a whirl with your favorite youngster...even if your favorite youngster happens to be yourself!
The sixteen episodes that make up Groovie Goolies: The Saturday "Mourning" Collection are divided onto three discs. Each disc is decorated with images of the Goolies: Frankie and Hagatha on disc one, Wolfie and Bella La Ghostly on disc two, and Count Drac and Sabrina on disc three. The discs are housed in three slim, clear keepcases. The front covers are decorated with drawings of the Goolies: Frankie on the cover of disc one, Wolfie on disc two, and Count Drac on disc three. The back covers include episode title, and a listing of songs featured in each episode. The interiors of the cases are decorated with original character renderings. The keepcases slide into a cardboard sleeve which showcases the series' main characters. The overall design is uncomplicated yet vivid.
The full-motion menus are easy to navigate. Viewers can play all of the disc's episodes or pick them individually. Transitions between the menus cleverly use footage from the series.
