This week when Earl Kress and I were on Stu's Show (as discussed here), one of the many animation-related subjects that was touched upon was Hal Seeger. Mr. Seeger was a producer of TV cartoons from the late sixties through the early seventies, though he didn't produce a lot. On Stu's Show, we said that one of Seeger's shows, Batfink, was on NBC. This was probably wrong. It may have aired on some NBC stations but it was actually a syndicated show.
Hal Seeger Productions had but one network series. It was called Milton the Monster and it debuted on ABC in October of 1965. At the time, The Addams Family and The Munsters were hot shows in prime time and so was Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. So someone, perhaps Mr. Seeger himself, got the idea to do a show about a big, lovable Frankenstein-type monster who talked a lot like Gomer. Bob McFadden supplied the voice and the cast also included Dayton Allen and Larry Best. It was a fairly clever show, with scripts by Jack Mercer, Kin Platt and Woody Kling.
Each half hour of Milton the Monster featured adventures of Milton and his monstrous supporting players, plus various other series that appeared in rotation. The two main ones were Fearless Fly, an insect super-hero, and a character named Stuffy Derma, who was a hobo who'd inherited millions of dollars. As a kid, I could never quite make much sense of Stuffy Derma, starting with his name. (A Stuffed Derma is a rare delicatessen specialty — roasted chicken intestines stuffed with matzo meal and something like chicken fat. But I didn't know that then and I'd be surprised if most of you ever knew that. Or would ever eat one.)
We have two clips here. One is the opening of The Milton the Monster Show. Watch it and then I'll meet you on the other side to introduce the second clip…
Hello on the other side. This next clip is apparently a home movie from Hal Seeger's collection. This is Hal (I think that's him) taking two people to the New York Toy Fair…two people dressed in walkaround costumes as Milton the Monster and Fearless Fly. This was presumably something he invested in to try and drum up some licensing interest in his characters; to perhaps get toy manufacturers to buy the rights to put out Milton the Monster dolls and Fearless Fly action figures…or something. I don't know of enough Milton merchandise to think that this campaign was too successful. There was a Milton board game from (appropriately) Milton-Bradley, a plastic frame-tray puzzle, one issue of a Gold Key comic book…and not a whole lot more.
The title card on this clip, which runs two and a half minutes, says it's from 1968 but I doubt that. Milton the Monster was out of production and off ABC by then, and pretty much dead as a viable property. All the merchandise I mentioned above came out in 1966 and this footage is probably from early that year. Here it is…