If you've ever spent more than ten minutes with me in person during the month of October, I've probably made you watch this. If so, I implore you to watch it again. This is a 1998 film based around a 1930 novelty record, and I'd love this song even if the accompanying visuals weren't so great.
Sidebar: Why didn't the Bonzo Dog (Doo Dah) band ever record this song? I love their Monster Mash, and even considering the low budget, their visual presentation of the song is ambitious and fun. I would love at least one more spooky, atmospheric song from them, and a cover of this would fit the bill and meet their early-years need for generations-old novelty songs.
I've always loved this film, since it uses puppetry and stop-motion animation and even some shadow animation to tell a weird, spooky, wacky story. There's a graveyard jamboree (you could almost call it a swingin' wake) and Mose has to round up (or dig up) all the musicians for the show.
Okay, so maybe it's light on plot, but each frame of this does something interesting, and it's obvious that each character and set was built by hand in the real world. In 1998, computer animation wasn't as advanced as it is now, but the love and hard work invested in this production clearly shine through as the textural opposite of that year's metallic, shiny CGI-fests Godzilla and Armageddon. In just a few years, CGI would've been an affordable method to remove all the visible rods from the puppets and special effects, but the directors don't care -- the handmade nature of this is an important part of the fun.
Appropriately, there are a few mysteries I don't get about this video: first off, do I know this guy from somewhere else? This weird green bird only has a few seconds of screen time, but he rang distant bells in my head I can't place. (Sure, he looks a LEEETLE like Jose Carioca, but not much.)
Secondly, the credits thank Don Sahlin. Everyone else in the thank you section (that a quick googly search will find, anyway) seems to have had something to do with the actual production, but Sahlin died twenty years before this film was made. He was, of course, enormously influential in the worlds of both stop-motion and puppetry, working with George Pal and Burr Tillstrom and designing/building most of your favorite Muppets in their first incarnations. At least one of the other credits appears to be a joke ("Costumes by Cesar Romero"), but this sticks with me.
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Looking back from the end of this month, I've certainly missed posting a few days, but I wrote more things than I did in December last year, and I consider that a win. I'm hoping to post more regularly (if less frequently) in the future, so watch this space! Thanks, all, for your kind attention. Have a great Halloween night!
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