I’m very fond of most of Ranken & Bass’s animated features mostly due to nostalgia but also that they’re pretty wacky fun that holds up fairly well watching it as an adult. Besides this one has Boris Karloff as the voice of Frankenstein.
I have a confession to make. Today’s song scared the crap out of me when I was ten. The first time I ever heard it was at summer camp. While it was being sung, two counselors were walking around the group dressed as a makeshift headless ghost. They were standing right behind me when they “Gave the mighty whoop.” It was traumatic enough that I was reluctant to go to camp ever again. Even now I’m not sure if I can appreciate the songs dark humor quite as much as, given my tastes, I should.
It’s kind of interesting that it was through this song that I ever even heard of Anne Boleyn and it is interesting how she grew from Ghost to tragic innocent victim, to the actual historical figure as my knowledge grew.
What’s Halloween without Alice Cooper? So today’s song is “Welcome to My Nightmare” I was going to go with the version he did on the Muppet Show but then I stumbled over this 1975 version that guest starred Vincent Price.
I can’t say Ruddigore is my favorite Gilbert and Sullivan operetta for the most part it’s silly even by their standards but this is still one of my favorite songs from them and definitely one of the best bits of Halloween music I know.
This clip is from the version they used to play on PBS which is especially fun since it has Vincent Price as the “villain”, Sir Despard Murgatroyd of Ruddigore