In this psychodelic sixties monster puppet extravaganza, Doctor Frankenstein is retiring and must name his successor. He chooses his nephew, who is a normal man with no wish to be anywhere near monsters. In order to announce his decision, he gathers all of the famous monsters together, but when they catch wind of what's happening they decide they must take matters into their own hands, embarking on a monstrous power struggle.

Apparently the team of Arthur Rankin Jr and Jules Bass are quite famous over in the US for producing many of these animated puppet holiday specials. I'd never heard of them before I watched this, but I can see why they're so well liked. I suppose the nearest British equivalent would be Nick Park and Bob Baker, the "Wallace and Gromit" producers. It's worth noting that the Rankin/Bass features certainly were a large inspiration for Tim Burton's animated masterpiece "The Nightmare Before Christmas" (which also featured a wolf man). If you took this special, and crossed it with 1974's "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" and "Year Without Santa Clause", and made Tim Burton the producer, then it's pretty clear what you would get.

While the musical numbers aren't great and the story isn't always the strongest, "Mad Monster Party" is still a lot of fun. It features the voice of Boris Karloff, and pretty much every movie monster you can think of -- Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the Invisible Man, the Hunchback, the Creature .... the voice-over artists do a good job of impersonating well-known voices such as Peter Lorre and James Stewart. The script does have some very clever moments, as well as pure slapstick comedy, which means it will appeal to both kids and adults looking for some light-hearted Halloween entertainment.

The Wolf The creature here is referred to throughout as "Werewolf" rather than as "The Wolf Man". Since it's in wolf form the whole time we don't get to see the supposed man behind the wolf, so I guess that makes sense. How do you do a puppet transformation anyway? Well, I suppose they do a decent job with the "Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" character's changes ... anyway, the werewolf behaves something like a mischevious hound dog, and for most of the time acts as Dracula's pet or companion. He's not really a major character, and obviously has no dialogue apart from the occassional howl or growl. As you can see, he's pretty much what you'd expect for a children's werewolf puppet (see photos), quadruped and wearing what appear to be the tattered remainders of clothes. Most of the time he moves around on all fours, occassionally getting up on two legs like a dog might, although he does exhibit human behaviour now and then. There's a confused mention of the fact that wolfsbane is used to ward off werewolves, and that silver bullets might be used.

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