CFP The Mouse’s Monsters: Monsters and the Monstrous in the Worlds of Disney (8/1/21; NEPCA virtual 10/21-23/21)

The first of two special calls for NEPCA 2021:

The Mouse’s Monsters: Monsters and the Monstrous in the Worlds of Disney

Joint Session Proposed for the 2021 Conference of the Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association

Sponsored by the Monsters & the Monstrous Area and the Disney Studies Area.

Virtual event, Thursday, 21 October, through Saturday, 23 October 2021.

Proposals due by 1 August 2021.



The Northeast Popular Culture/American Culture Association (a.k.a. NEPCA) prides itself on holding conferences that emphasize sharing ideas in a non-competitive and supportive environment. We welcome proposals for presentations of 15-20 minutes in length, from researchers at all levels, including undergraduate and graduate students, junior faculty, and senior scholars, as well as independent scholars. NEPCA conferences offer intimate and nurturing sessions in which new ideas and works-in-progress can be aired, as well as completed projects.

For this session, at present, we’re most interested in proposals related to representations of monsters and the monstrous in the traditional Disney brand and to Pixar. Submissions related to more recent properties and acquisitions (for example the Muppets, ABC, ABC Family/Freeform, Saban Entertainment, Marvel, Lucasfilm, Twentieth Century Fox, and Hulu) might be set on an alternate panel. All submissions will also be considered for inclusion in a collection of essays based on the topic.



Potential topics might include the following:

• Adaptations of classic monster stories.
• Aliens.
• Animals as monsters.
• Attractions.
• Bad dreams.
• Communities of monsters.
• Constructs.
• Cryptids.
• Curses.
• Dinosaurs.
• Disguises.
• Disney as monstrous.
• Disney Villains.
• Gargoyles.
• Ghosts.
• Halloween.
• Halloween-themed productions.
• Horror-themed productions.
• Human “monsters”.
• Imaginary creatures.
• Legendary creatures.
• Magical creatures.
• Magic-users.
• Othered individuals.
• Reanimated dead.
• Shape-shifters.
• Technology and monsters.
• Undead/zombies.
• Underworld and other realms of the dead.
• Vampires.
• Weather-related monsters.

If you are interested in joining this session, please submit the following information into NEPCA’s online form at http://bit.ly/PopCFP2021.

• Proposal Type (Single Presentation or Panel)
• Subject Area (select the “Monsters/Disney (Joint Session)” at the bottom of the list)
• Working Title
• Abstract (250 words)
• Short bio (50-200 words)

Address any inquiries to the area chairs: Michael A. Torregrossa (Monsters & the Monstrous) at popular.preternaturaliana@gmail.com and Priscilla Hobbs (Disney Studies) at p.hobbs-penn@snhu.edu.

Presenters are also required to become members of NEPCA for the year.

CFP X-Files Companion (Essay Collection) (1/22/2021)

 This might be a repeated post.

The X-Files Companion - Reminder Call for Contributions

https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2020/12/23/the-x-files-companion-reminder-call-for-contributions

 

deadline for submissions: 

January 22, 2021

 

full name / name of organization: 

James Fenwick and Diane Rodgers, Sheffield Hallam University

 

contact email: 

j.fenwick@shu.ac.uk

 

The X-Files Companion - Call for Contributions

Chapter proposals are invited for a proposed edited companion on the seminal television series The X-Files (1993-2018, Fox), its movies, spin offs (The Lone Gunmen, Millennium), and surrounding paratextual material (books, comics, fan fiction etc).

The X-Files became a cultural touchstone of the 1990s, transforming from a cult TV show into a pop cultural phenomenon by the end of the decade. The series’ themes and stories of mistrust of the government, conspiracy, folklore, UFOlogy, faith and spirituality resonated with post-Cold War Western society: X-Files ‘mythology’ became a defining narrative arc that has influenced many television shows since.  The relationship between principle protagonists, Agents Mulder and Scully, became a source of fascination for fans (so-called ‘shippers’ that longed to see a sexual relationship develop between the characters) and the press alike (poring over offscreen rumours about lead actors David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson). The show’s prominence converged with early widespread use of the Internet, inspiring a proliferation of fan sites, while the show itself featured telecommunication enthusiasts, not least the underground hackers, The Lone Gunmen. Many of the shows slogans have entered the contemporary lexicon, from ‘trust no one’ to ‘I want to believe’.

To celebrate the 30th anniversary of The X-Files in 2023, this companion seeks to examine the content and production of the show, its reception, its use of legend and folklore, its contemporary resonance in politics and society of the twenty-first century, and its impact and legacy on film, television, the Internet and beyond. We want the companion to examine the show from as many theoretical perspectives as possible: critical; historical; political and social, as well as examining themes of folklore and legend; identity and representation; fandom; audiences; science and technology.

Proposals are sought for 6,000-word chapters. Topics may include, but are by no means limited to:

• Paranoia and conspiracy theories
• Political histories: Watergate, JFK, The Cold War, the Bush/Clinton eras
• Law and order: The X-Files in the Trump era, US politics, representation of the FBI
• Race, gender and sexuality
• Faith, religion, and spirituality
• Postcolonialism
• The X-Files and the Internet: hackers, digital spying and surveillance
• Science and Technology of The X-Files
• X-Files mythology, lore and legend
• Folklore and contemporary legend in The X-Files
• UFOlogy, aliens, flying saucers
• Beliefand scepticism
• ‘Monster of the week’
• Genre (sci-fi, horror, romance) and Intertextuality
• Production aspects: screenwriting, music, cinematography, direction, behind-the-scenes
• Location: use of space, place and landscape
• The X-Files: a series ahead of its time?
• Impact and perspectives on contemporary television
• X-Files movies (Fight the Future and I Want to Believe)
• The reboot series (season 10 and 11) and spinoffs (including The Lone Gunmen and Millennium)
• Iconographic characters: Mulder and Scully, The Cigarette Smoking Man, Deep Throat
• Comics, books, merchandise, pop culture
• Fandom, cult audiences, fan fiction and ‘shippers’

The expansive companion seeks a unifying vision and so the editors will be working closely with authors to theme and craft chapters to ensure a consistency across the collection. We want to ensure a diversity of disciplinary voices as well as the full coverage of The X-Files as a cultural phenomenon and of its production contexts.

Abstracts of 250 to 300 words should be sent to James Fenwick (j.fenwick@shu.ac.uk) and Diane Rodgers (d.rodgers@shu.ac.uk) email in the first instance, along with a short biography and details of institutional affiliation, by 22 January 2021.

Last updated December 23, 2020 

 

CFP Twin Peaks Season 3 Conference (12/1/2020; virtual event)

 See https://www.supernaturalstudies.com/calls-for-papers for more details. PDF version at https://www.academia.edu/40619859/CFP_2021_Online_Conference_on_Twin_Peaks_The_Return_Deadline_1_Dec_2020_.

 

Call for Papers: Twin Peaks Season 3 Conference

“It is in Our House Now”

Organized in partnership with Lynchland (https://www.facebook.com/Lynchland), Cork University (Ireland), Université Bordeaux Montaigne (France) & Université de Liège (Belgium), the Supernatural Studies Association, and the film magazine La Septième Obsession (France).

This international online conference will focus on the third season of Mark Frost and David Lynch’s acclaimed television series Twin Peaks, an eighteen-part event that premiered on Showtime in May 2017. While the original two seasons of Twin Peaks (1990-91) and Lynch’s feature-length film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) have been the subject of numerous academic and critical studies, season 3 returned to television over 25 years later. The season has yet to benefit from an international conference that is interdisciplinary in scope. We are excited about the conference’s accessible online format and its potential to engage with international colleagues in diverse fields of research.

Suggested topics of exploration include, but are not limited to:

• the role of time in season 3

• expanded space and geography in season 3

• aesthetics of season 3

• the use of special effects in season 3

• the relationship between season 3 and earlier seasons of Twin Peaks (1990-91), as well as the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992)

• the relationship between the 3rd season and Mark Frost’s The Secret History of Twin Peaks (2016) and Twin Peaks: The Final Dossier (2017)

• Homer’s Odyssey

• electromagnetism

• the American West and/or Western films

• the 2008 economic crisis

• parallel universes

• doppelgangers and avatars

• the atomic bomb

• the supernatural

• mythology & spirituality

• representations of gender and race in season 3

We welcome papers from the fields of television and film studies, art history, literature, sociology, psychology, gender studies, religious studies and fields in the arts, humanities, and sciences. Panels in both English and French will be organized during the conference weekend, June 19-20, 2021.

While it is expected that papers will reference earlier seasons of Twin Peaks and/or David Lynch’s filmography, please keep in mind that the focus of this conference is the third season of Twin Peaks. Therefore, papers dedicated exclusively to the first two seasons of the series or the film Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me will not be accepted.

Abstracts (in English or French) of 300-500 words, accompanied by a C.V. will be accepted until December 1, 2020 at: TwinPeaksConference@gmail.com

Notification of the conference program will be sent by January 15, 2021.

Conferences will be limited to 20-minute presentations.

Conference organizers: Franck Boulègue (Associated Scholar – University of Liège & author of Twin Peaks: Unwrapping the Plastic), Marisa C. Hayes (Sorbonne Nouvelle – Université Paris 3, film & co-editor, Fan Phenomena: Twin Peaks), and Roland Kermarec (founder & curator of Lynchland (https://www.facebook.com/Lynchland), with additional assistance from Matt Zoller Seitz.

 

CFP The Gothic Age of Television: Edited Collection (11/1/2020)

The Gothic Age of Television: Edited Collection, Call for Papers
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2020/08/17/the-gothic-age-of-television-edited-collection-call-for-papers

deadline for submissions:
November 1, 2020


full name / name of organization:
Aoise Stratford and Joel Hawkes

contact email:
gothicagetv@gmail.com




The Gothic Age of Television

Edited Collection, Call for Papers



The last three decades have witnessed a proliferation of Gothic television programs. Some provide a platform for the Gothic’s most fantastic mode of expression, with vampires, werewolves, and zombies invading our screens. Closer to home but decidedly unheimlich, domestic spaces are haunted by uncanny secrets in programs from Twin Peaks to Top of The Lake. Still other programs, like Game of Thrones and Black Mirror, capture the Gothic’s obsession with barbaric pasts and threatening futures. Subtle elements of Gothic emerge in a wide range of non-Gothic programming, such as Mad Men and Breaking Bad, revealing the true extent of the genre’s influence.

Perhaps, just as Black Mirror’s techno-mediated future reflects – and reflects upon – the present moment, this Gothic resurgence responds to the transformations and uncertainties of our time. In other words, we might read the Gothic, as it repeatedly has been, as a genre that re-emerges at times of cultural anxiety.

The screens, and the streaming services that play this Gothic programming might, then, themselves be read as “Gothic devices,” even more transformative than the technologies that that have inspired and shaped the Gothic narratives of past centuries.

This call for papers requests proposals that explore this resurgence in the Gothic as it is mediated through television programming, and the proliferation of screens and streaming services, at the beginning of the 21st century.

The collection looks to theorise this Gothic revival. Papers might offer close readings of particular shows, ponder themes and tropes, trace trends in programming, consider the importance of the television medium in this revival, or examine the Gothic technologies of streaming screens and other devices.

The collection looks to be, like Frankenstein’s monster, hybridic, a composite, and larger than the sum of its parts, deploying a range of critical methodologies and lenses--including Queer theory, postmodernism, and post-human studies--and seeking to embrace some of the many different ways in which we can have conversations about Gothic Television.

Essays might examine shows such as (but not limited to),

Stranger Things, Penny Dreadful, Carnival Row, Outlander, Buffy, Angel, Vampire Diaries, True Blood, Sherlock, Twin Peaks: The Return, Sharp Objects, Mad Men, Black Mirror, Top of the Lake, Game of Thornes, Frankenstein Chronicles, The Walking Dead, American Horror Story, Supernatural, The X-Files, Bates Motel, Hannibal.

Essays might explore a number of topics, and ask and answer a variety of questions of Gothic television, such as (but not limited to),

Streaming, binging, booting, seriality, and the structure of Gothic television

• How do screen mediums and consumption habits speak to a sense of the Gothic?
• 21st century spaces / 21st century Gothic
• How is space/place/setting important to Gothic television? What Gothic implications are there for the “space” of the streaming screen?
• Twin Peaks: The Return
• Why is Twin Peaks: The Return important? How does it make use of the Gothic?
• Vampires and their slayers
• How does the vampire inhabit the new century, this gothic revival, and an age of streaming screens?
• Dissecting 21st century monsters
• What and who are the important monsters of this Gothic television revolution?
• Gothic nostalgias
• How do Gothic shows (re)imagine the past? What is the relationship of the Gothic to the plethora of reboots, returns, and sequels on our screens?
• Gothic futures
• How do Gothic television shows imagine the future? What kind of future is Gothic programming creating?
• Gothic fantasy
• How do Gothic and fantasy interact on our screens? What has led to the rise of this important sub-genre?
  
•  Gothic marginalities
• How are those on the margins important to the Gothic? How are questions of race, gender, class, or sexuality important in terms of marginality and isolation, but also community, inclusivity, and diversity? What is the role of the so-called “normative”?

Abstracts of 300 words and a brief bio should be sent to the editors, Aoise Stratford (Cornell University) and Joel Hawkes (University of Victoria) at gothicagetv@gmail.com

Deadline for abstracts is 1 November 2020. (Final papers will be of about 5000 words, due end of April.)



Last updated August 19, 2020

CFP Critical Approaches to Horror in Doctor Who (abstracts by 1/4/2021)

Critical Approaches to Horror in Doctor Who - Chapters Sought
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2020/08/03/critical-approaches-to-horror-in-doctor-who-chapters-sought

deadline for submissions:
January 4, 2021


full name / name of organization:
Robert F. Kilker / Kutztown University


contact email:
kilker@kutztown.edu




Although Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman wanted his show to be educational and avoid so-called “bug-eyed monsters,” the popularity of the Daleks in the second serial ensured that it would be better known for scaring kids into hiding behind the sofa. Adaptable as the science-fiction program is to fit a variety of other genres (e.g. the Western, screwball comedy, romance, period drama), horror dominates its cultural memory and ongoing practice. While there have been some critical essays over the years examining this aspect of the show, no book has been devoted to a more sustained examination of the generic work of horror in Doctor Who. This edited collection will remedy that absence.



More specifically, this book will serve as a thoughtful examination of the ways Doctor Who operates in the horror genre, in its complication of generic definitions, its ideological work, and its relation to fandom. Emerging and advanced scholars are invited to submit chapters exploring broadly an aspect of horror in classic and/or modern Doctor Who,as well as in-depth examinations of particular episodes. I am especially interested in having the following subtopics and/or episodes represented within the collection but welcome submissions on other matters as well:

• Body horror
• Fear of technology
• Fan experience (hiding behind the sofa, etc.)
• Folk horror
• Possession stories
• Gothic horror
• Ecohorror
• The monstrous feminine
• Vampires, werewolves, mummies
• Zombies
• Recurring monsters (Daleks, Cybermen, Weeping Angels, etc.)
• Pastiches of classic horror films
• Influence on the horror film tradition
• Alien invasion narratives
• The Terrible Child
• “Terror of the Autons”
• “The Daemons”
• “The Green Death”
• “The Ark in Space”
• “Pyramids of Mars”
• “The Seeds of Doom”
• “The Robots of Death”
• “The Talons of Weng-Chiang”
• “Horror of Fang Rock”
• “Kinda”/“Snakedance”
• “Ghost Light”
• “Blink”
• “Midnight”
• “Night Terrors”
• “The God Complex”
• “Listen”
• “Mummy on the Orient Express”
• “Heaven Sent”
• “Oxygen”
• “The Haunting of Villa Diodati”

Please submit abstracts of approximately 500 words along with a brief bio to Robert F. Kilker at kilker@kutztown.edu by January 4, 2021. Articles will be limited to 6,000 words (this includes notes and bibliography).



Abstracts due: January 4, 2021

Articles due: May 28, 2021

Edited articles due: October 15, 2021

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me (kilker@kutztown.edu).

 

Last updated August 6, 2020 

 

CFP Critically Reading "The Vampire Diaries" (8/14/20)

Sorry this is a bit late being posted. 

Updated: Call for Abstracts: Critically Reading "The Vampire Diaries"
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2019/10/27/updated-call-for-abstracts-critically-reading-the-vampire-diaries

deadline for submissions:
August 14, 2020


full name / name of organization:
Book Publication


contact email:
thevampirediariescollection@gmail.com




Vampires are a phenomenon that have captivated humans since ancient times, and continue to globally fascinate different target audiences. From vampires in early Chinese traditions to their depiction in early poems such as “The Vampire” by Heinrich August Ossenfelder, to Lord Byron’s “The Vampyre”, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, to vampires in more recent TV series and movies, this creature has not only evoked fear and horror but has also embodied both anxieties as well as desires of the culture and time in which it was created. Consequently, as vampire narratives today have started to go beyond the realms of horror, sometimes even turning the vampire into romantic heroes, they bring new insights to current issues across various fields.

This call for papers reaches out to scholars interested in working on interpretations of the CBS series The Vampire Diaries. This American supernatural teen drama features a diverse set of characters, both dead and undead, while touching on topics such as friendship, romance, adulthood, as well as depression, and aging. So far, no book length work has dealt with this complex series, and it is our aim to publish an in-depth analysis consisting of 10-11 chapters that offer critical and creative readings of this series.



We welcome contributions that investigate but are by no means limited to the following topics as they relate to The Vampire Diaries:

- Television studies

- Intertextuality/intermediality

- Importance of Social Media

- Gothic

- Gender

- Adolescence

- Aging

- Postmodern Approaches Anxieties/fears and desires

- Humor

- Transgression

- Mind Control

- History

- Fandom

- Canon—the relationships between the TV series, novels, and spin-offs (The Originals, Legacies, and Stefan’s Diaries novels).



Submissions already accepted for this volume have largely focused on gender and genre, so we would welcome submissions that broaden the focus of the collection. We are identifying the series, its antecedents and its spin-offs as examples of postmodernist storytelling, so this should be acknowledged in submissions.

What to send: 400-500 words abstracts (or complete papers, if available) and a brief author bio of 150 words should be submitted by August 14, 2020. If an abstract is accepted for the book, a full draft of the paper (6000-8000 words) will be required by October 31, 2020.

Proposed writing and publication schedule:

Writing schedule – Draft completed October 31, 2020

Revisions, editing – Completed November/December, 2020

Submission to publisher –January, 2021



Contact Info: Kimberley McMahon-Coleman, Nina Vanessa Weber & Iris-Aya Laemmerhirt Contact Email: thevampirediariescollection@gmail.com

Last updated July 15, 2020 

 

Playing Dress-Up: Scooby-Doo 2017

More items from Hallmark's Halloween 2017 product line. These feature characters from Scooby-Doo as dressed as monsters, Scooby as a witch and Shaggy as a vampire.


itty bittys® Scooby-Doo Stuffed Animal (https://www.hallmark.com/gifts/stuffed-animals/itty-bittys/itty-bittys-scooby-doo-stuffed-animal-1KID3376.html)

itty bittys® Shaggy Stuffed Animal (https://www.hallmark.com/gifts/stuffed-animals/itty-bittys/itty-bittys-shaggy-stuffed-animal-1KID3375.html)

 

Horrors at Hallmark

Hallmark always has great stuff for Halloween, including the following items for this year.


itty bittys® The Walking Dead Plush, Collectors Set of 4 (https://www.hallmark.com/gifts/stuffed-animals/itty-bittys/itty-bittys-the-walking-dead-plush-collectors-set-of-4-1KDD1306.html)

and

itty bittys® Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas Jack Skellington and Sally Stuffed Animals, Set of 2 (https://www.hallmark.com/gifts/stuffed-animals/itty-bittys/itty-bittys-tim-burtons-the-nightmare-before-christmas-jack-skellington-and-sally-stuffed-animals-set-of-2-1KDD1366.html)

CFP Breaking out of the Box: Critical Essays on the Cult TV Show Supernatural (10/2/2017)

Sorry to hvave missed this earlier. I wish them well.
 
UPDATE: CFP Breaking out of the Box: Critical Essays on the Cult TV Show Supernatural
Discussion published by Dominick Grace on Saturday, September 2, 2017
https://networks.h-net.org/node/13784/discussions/193064/update-cfp-breaking-out-box-critical-essays-cult-tv-show

Type: Call for Papers
Date: October 2, 2017
Subject Fields: Cultural History / Studies, Popular Culture Studies, Theatre & Performance History / Studies, Humanities, Film and Film History


Lisa Macklem and Dominick Grace seek proposals for a refereed collection of essays on the CW cult horror show Supernatural, to be published by McFarland.

“What’s in the box?” Dean Winchester asks in “The Magnificent Seven,” episode one of the third season of Supernatural, to the befuddlement of his brother Sam and their avuncular mentor Bobby Singer, but to the delight of fans who revel in the show’s wry meta elements. Dean is of course quoting Detective Mills, Brad Pitt’s character in the thriller Se7en (1995), directed by David Fincher. Throughout its twelve-year run (to date), Supernatural has revelled in breaking out of the limitations usually implied by a television show, breaking out of the box in numerous ways. Acknowledging the popularity of the meta-play in the show, current showrunner Andrew Dabb promised the most meta-finale ever for the season twelve finale. One of the most noteworthy examples of this predilection is the extensively meta elements of the season five apocalypse plotline, which featured the character Carver Edlund (his name derived from series writers Jeremy Carver and Ben Edlund) in several episodes. Edlund is a novelist who has written supposed works of fiction that in fact document Sam and Dean Winchester’s lives, thoroughly breaking the fourth wall. Edlund is the pseudonym of Chuck Shurley—who turns out to be God, making one of his rare mainstream television appearances. However, this meta plot element represents only one of the myriad ways Supernatural has broken out of the box. Season five, episode eight (“Changing Channels”), transports Sam and Dean into the worlds of several television shows, while season six, episode fifteen, “The French Mistake,” carried the conceit further, having Sam and Dean visit the “real” world, in which they are characters in the TV show Supernatural. Season eight and nine feature as main villain the appropriately-named Metatron, the scribe of God trying to write himself into the position of God—in effect plotting in both senses of the word. Season eight also featured, in episode 8 (“Hunteri Heroici”), Warner Brothers style cartoon gimmickry, and the upcoming season thirteen promises an animated crossover episode with Scooby Doo. Season ten’s 200th episode is yet another recursive metanarrative, featuring a highschool student trying to mount a musical adaptation of the Carver Edlund novels. In short, despite its horror trappings, Supernatural has been decidedly postmodern in its liberal use of pastiche, meta, intertextuality, and generic slippage. This collection is interested in exploring the ways Supernatural breaks boundaries. Topics of potential interest include but are not limited to

• Explicitly meta elements in Supernatural
• Supernatural and fandom: interpenetrations
• God, Metatron, and other Supernatural authors
• Role and role-playing
• Generic slippage (comedy; found footage; the musical episode)
• Allusion and intertext in Supernatural
• Canonicity
• Non-Supernatural (e.g. the episodes with no fantasy elements)
• Supernatural and genre TV
• reality and retcon: how the show has shifted and redefined its own rules
• casting and self-consciousness (e.g. the use of celebrity guest stars such as Linda Blair, Rick Springfield, etc.)
• Importance of music throughout the show

Proposals of 300-500 words should be submitted to Lisa Macklem (lmacklem1@gmail.com) or Dominick Grace (dgrace2@uwo.ca) by October 1 2017. Completed papers are also welcome. Final papers should be between 5,000 and 7,000 words long and written in conformity with MLA style and will be due by May 1 2018.

Contact Info:

Dominick Grace

1285 Western Rd

London On

N6G 1H2

Contact Email:
dgrace2@uwo.ca

CFP English Gothic Literature on Screen Collection (7/1/14)

English Gothic Literature on Screen Chapter Proposal Call
full name / name of organization:
Lorna Fitzsimmons
contact email:
lfitzsimmons@csudh.edu

This is a chapter proposal call for an edited book GOTHIC LITERATURE IN ENGLISH ON SCREEN. Chapters will address film, television, and other screen adaptations and should demonstrate currency in contemporary adaptation theory. For initial consideration, email a statement of interest. Proposals of 600 words plus bibliography will be due by July 1 2014. Chapters will be 6000 words, due by January 5, 2015.

Lorna Fitzsimmons is Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Humanities Program at California State University Dominguez Hills in Los Angeles.


By web submission at 04/01/2014 - 18:55

Trailer for NBC's Dracula

A final post for the weekend. NBC is apparently airing an adaptation and/or series based on Bram Stoker's Dracula this fall. The official trailer was just released:

Cryptid Heroes from the Kroffts

Here's the last set for tonight, two cryptid heroes from Sid and Marty Krofft:

Monster (Super)Heroes and (Super)Villains

Here's a mixed group of shows featuring monsters as superhero-like heroes and villains. Details on all five shows can be found on their respective Wikipedia pages.

Frankenstein's Cat!

Here's a fun one I came across last summer. Its very much in the vein of Beetlejuice with Nine, the eponymous Frankenstein's Cat, providing adventure for his human playmate, Lottie. The series, now out on DVD,  is based on a picture book by Curtis Jobling.

Relative of Kong?

Grape Ape, also from Hanna-Barbera, is a humorous take on the figure of King Kong. Grape is a hero and, instead of a boy, has a canine companion.

The First Family of Fright

First airing in the mid 1960s, The Munsters, a series inspired by the Universal horror films of the 1930s and '40s and depicting friendlier versions of their monstrous cast, remains a popular series with a number of reboots (the latest, Mockingbird Lane, airing last October) and continuations.

Frankenstein Jr.

Another classic Hanna-Barbara series. Again, like Frankenstein, Milton, and Speed Buggy, the robot known as Frankenstein Jr. (voiced by Ted Cassidy) is a created being and, like Godzilla and The King Kong Show, has a boy companion.




Frankenstein Jr. seems also a bit inspired by another series from the 1960s, Gigantor, as revealed below:

Speed Buggy?

Here's another example of a created being, perhaps (?) inspired also by Frankenstein.

Milton the Monster?

Here's a good version of Frankenstein's Monster. I'm not familiar with this series at all, so I will try to post further on it in the future. The first clip is apparently an early opening for the series and includes Milton's origin. The second one must be later in the series' run and focuses on other characters of the show.

Godzilla Animated

Two Godzilla cartoons up next based on the world's best known kaiju. The first from the 1970s features Godzilla and his diminutive cousin Godzooky (a pale imitation of Godzilla's filmic offspring Minya) as heroes aiding a small group of humans. 



A more recent series (based on the American feature film) puts Godzilla in a more ambivalent light, but he (she?) proves to be a hero when confronted with other monstrous creations.