In 1967, the Rankin-Bass studio brought forth an odd stop-motion animation movie called Mad Monster Party. It was allegedly co-written by the brilliant cartoonist who created Mad Magazine, Harvey Kurtzman. Kurtzman later claimed that he only worked a brief time on it and that little of what he did was used, but others involved in the project say he was underestimating. There is no doubt however that his associate, the equally-brilliant Jack Davis, did a lot of the character designs, and that the voices were provided by Boris Karloff, Phyllis Diller, Gale Garnett and — most of all — Allen Swift.
The resultant film has moments of wacky wonderment though, like all movies involving stop-motion animation, I find it hard to watch from start to finish. In increments, however, it's too weird not to like. So I'm ordering the brand-new, just-released DVD and if you'd like to do so, click here.
And if you'd like to learn more about the film, here's a banner ad to a website that seems to know all, except how to spell Allen Swift's first name…
