Ghoulash for the Ghouls (1991)

Happy Halloween!

Well, it's finally here. It didn't exactly sneak up on me, but when you have small kids and family priorities, plus work to think about, festivities sometimes take a back seat. We put up some fall decorations indoors, but didn't get out all the ones specifically for Halloween. I'll assemble our harvest figure this afternoon. With other stuff going on earlier in the week, we haven't even carved our pumpkin yet—though we plan to do so after lunch.

However, I dug out a circa 1991 cassette tape recording that my sister and I made—a radio show we wrote and performed, titled "Ghoulash for the Ghouls."

In Scene 1, Dr. Gazinta and Igor try to figure out who (or what) left a large scratch on a piece of glass in the laboratory. Igor tells the doctor that perhaps The Brain did it. This turns out to be a red herring, though, because later—after the pair search the entire house—Igor finally admits to seeing the doctor himself accidentally scratch the glass.

Scene 2 is a sound-effect-heavy description of a woman's terrifying experiences inside a haunted house—though with an unexpectedly happy ending.

Scene 3 is an episode of "Freaky Family Game Show," a Double Dare-type game hosted by a character who sounds like Dracula, and with The Bride and The Mummy as featured contestants.

In Scene 4, The Wolfman observes Dr. Jekyll drinking a potion and transforming into Mr. Hyde. But somehow, this is less of a plot point than the fact that The Brain (the same one from Scene 1?) is growing larger and larger. In a slapped-on ending, the narrator announces: "It did get bigger. And soon it was big enough to conquer the whole world!" A cover version of "Monster Mash" serves as the lengthy outro.

After the recording cuts off, there is a second, though unfinished, episode of "Ghoulash for the Ghouls," written and recorded by my sister and her friend. The short skit describes the experiences of a boy alone in a haunted house. 

The first episode makes a little use of a Halloween tape titled "Horror Sounds of the Night," which I mention in this post, but most of the music and sound effects are from a later cassette, "Monster Mash Party," released by Parade Records in 1988. Here are sides 1 and 2 showing the track listings:

Most of "Monster Mash Party" was later re-released, with a few different tracks, as the 1996 cassette "Shivers! Monster Mash Party," which can be heard here:

Bugs Bunny: Hyde and Hare (1955)

Bugs comes out of his rabbit hole in a city park every morning because a kind gentleman keeps coming to feed him a carrot. At first feigning a usual rabbit posture, Bugs eventually stands up and confides that he'd rather simply go home with the gentleman as a "pet", since it would be easier on both of them. As the gentleman brings Bugs home, the camera pans up to see that the name above the apartment is none other than Dr. Jekyll.

Abbott and Costello Meet Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1987)

This is a script I wrote on 3 October 1987.

ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET: DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE!

CAST

ABBOTT: MARTIN
COSTELLO: PAUL
DR. JEKYLL: FIDEL
MR. HYDE: GLEN

Dr. Jekyll is in his laboratory. His good friends are Abbott and Costello. He calls them and asks them if they want to see his new experiment. They decide to come over. Dr. Jekyll drinks the potion before Abbott and Costello get there. Dr. Jekyll falls to the floor. When he gets up, he is Mr. Hyde! Abbott and Costello come in. They see Mr. Hyde.

COSTELLO: Gosh, Doc, you ought to see a doctor!

MR. HYDE: This is my experiment. What do you think of this great discovery?

COSTELLO: If that is a great discovery, I'd hate to see what a not-so-great discovery looks like!

ABBOTT: Well, come along Costello. The doctor has work to do.

MR. HYDE: Wait, you can't leave! You cannot escape Mr. Hyde!

ABBOTT: Mr. Hyde? You mean you're not Dr. Jekyll?

MR. HYDE: No!

Abbott and Costello run out of the house.

THE END

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1987)

As the notebook paper title card suggests, there were times when my anticipation of Halloween led me to more ambitious projects than simply carving up a pumpkin. In 1982, my dad purchased a video camera for the family. Now, mind you, this wasn't a camcorder. This was a full-size video camera that had a separate, external recording deck. Basically, it was a camera connected to a VCR. By 1987, we were a pretty video-literate family, and there were many projects I had rolling around in my head. This particular video idea probably came about as a result of reading Thomas Aylesworth's Monsters from the Movies. In one of his chapters, he tells about the various filmed versions of Robert Louis Stevenson's story Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Inspired by reading about John Barrymore's famous performance, I decided to film my own version.

This was a pretty bare-bones production. I used some test tubes from a chemistry set I had received a Christmas or two prior. The transformation into Hyde was accomplished with some makeup from a kit I'd bought (the kit is visible on the couch as the camera pans to the floor). The special effect, where the camera is stopped and then restarted after the change is made, did not come out as well as I had planned (I supposed my dad jarred the tripod slightly between shots). And my sister appears briefly as Dr. Jekyll's girlfriend.

The highlight of the video is probably my choice of music (which I dubbed myself): the first movement of Beethoven's 5th for the Dr. Jekyll scene, and some organ music (from a Halloween sound effects tape) for Mr. Hyde's scene.

I made this video on 27 September 1987.

[Update 10/25/2023: The makeup kit mentioned above was called the Create-A-Face Complete Makeup Kit, manufactured by Imagineering Inc. in 1985. And thanks to an anonymous commenter from 2012, I learned that my long-lost sound effects tape was titled "Horror Sounds of the Night" and manufactured in 1986.]