Happy Halloween

I've always enjoyed stories of the supernatural so most of the shows I've produced have at least one episode that deals with magic or the paranormal.  In CHIP N' DALE'S RESCUE RANGERS we introduced the furry favorite, Foxglove, a bat who was the familiar of a witch.  The episode, "Ghost of a Chance" was loosely based on The Canterville Ghost or at least the movie version with Robert Young.

Morgana McCawber and her Addam's Family styled world became a running element in DARKWING DUCK.  And of course we dealt with sci-fi horror with mind controlling hats and vampire potatoes.  But we never played it straight.  It wasn't the nature of the show.

Of course, Disney's ALADDIN TV series is full of the supernatural.  It's built into the premise.  One of my favorite episodes was one of the darkest, "The Lost Ones," which told the story of how children were spirited away every seven years to be turned into monsters.  

I pitched HELLBOY at Disney but got no interest.  Luckily.  I'm sure the project would've been cleaned up to the point of disaster.  In fact, although the principals changed, that story was played out in TEAM ATLANTIS.  We sold it as an action adventure series based on the feature but the decision was made to put it on 1Saturday Morning.

  

But all the shows on at the time, DOUG, PEPPER ANN, RECESS, and the like were very "educational friendly."  The shows were great and often inventive but not the perfect match for a show featuring monsters, mysterious ancient artifacts and jeopardy with a capital "J."  We were pretty much doomed from day one.

But we dove in and tried to make the stories actually suspenseful and scary or at least eerie.  You can get a taste of what we wanted to do in the Disney DVD, ATLANTIS II: MILO'S RETURN.  Even then I had to remove the original, creepy ending to one of the stories and include it only as a DVD extra.  Definitely worth checking out.   When the feature came out to disappointing returns we were crossed off the schedule.  I had to lay off the entire crew, about 85 people, on Friday the 13th.

The story I was saddest to lose was an original take on the Loch Ness monster.  It would've been the next show to ship and Mike Mignola had designed a fantastic creature.  I hope Mike finds a story to use it in.  Sadder still, I don't have a copy of the script, nor does the writer, Henry Gilroy.  

Of course, years later I finally got to do HELLBOY in animation with no compromises other than the schedule.  HELLBOY: SWORD OF STORMS has some great sequences in it.  It's almost a collection of short stories.  HELLBOY: BLOOD AND IRON had a stronger overall story, I just wish we had more time to work on the art direction.   A third movie was written but unproduced when the studio switched hands.  Film Roman Studios has been purchased again.  Maybe there's a chance to resurrect the series.

These random thoughts about animating the supernatural have been brought to you by an overdose of candy corn and the approaching holiday.   Enjoy your tricks and treats.  -- Tad

   

 

 

Comments

[Angeline Shea]

I have a bunch of friends from school who loooove the Hellboy Animated series and keep bugging me to ask you about more movies. "You talk to Tad Stones online don't you? Ask him about Hellboy!" Haha. We've had quite a few late night Hellboy Animated marathons. I really do hope the series gets resurrected, it was awesome (and certainly more true to the series compared to the live action movies).

Also, your Halloween pic totally reminds me of the episode "Monsters 'R Us" when Gos was the Frankenstein, DW was the werewolf, and LP was the vampire bat. I'm a huge supernatural fan too, so that was a favourite episode of mine, along with the now-banned "Hot Spells".

[Anachronism Comic]

I love your DW zombie sketch! Braaaaaiiiiiins. I'm sure Gos is secretly loving it. I enjoy supernatural and paranormal to some extent, but I have to confess that I'm a bit of a baby when it comes to scary things, lol. I was always partial to vampire potatoes, though. ;)

[JerRocks2day]

Awesome sketch. Launchpad as frankenstein: priceless XD

One of my favorite monster/supernatural episodes of Darkwing Duck was 'Ghoul of my dreams' which featured Nodoff. What inspired his character?

[Tad]

The general idea of Nodoff came from Nightmare, an early adversary of Dr. Strange created by Steve Ditko and Stan Lee. I guess he returned as a much more serious villain and was recently killed in the comics.

Another adversary I've used in several shows is a kind of shadow villain who's 2 dimensional and can pick up things by picking up their shadows. I think that came from another Lee/Ditko story but from before the time of Marvel superheroes. Most recently I saw a version of the shadow man in THE FROG AND THE PRINCESS.