Growing up as a tall kid, I was always forced to be Frankenstein whenever my friends played monsters. I’m sure other tall kids had to put up with this.
This continued as an adult, when my old sketch group was developing a TV show called MONSTERS ON THE RUN, I was to play the fugitive Frankenstein Monster (framed for a crime he didn’t commit. He was framed by a rich Kennedy-esque Playboy Mummy and lost his trial when a William Kunstler-esque lawyer used the case as an opportunity to blame society, saying, “You’re the monsters! YOU are the monsters.” I wish we’d made that.)
One Halloween I was the monster, my wife was the bride, my kids were the Doctor and Igor. (You can make a cute baby look spooky by adding a unibrow and hunchback.)
One of the first KEVIN GEEKS OUT shows was dedicated to FRANKENSTEIN. Mary Shelly’s novel is the most adapted work of literature (in your face, Madame Bovary!) So there are so many odd interpretations to look at.
We screened clips from Frankenstein Vs. Baragaon, Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, TV’s The Monster Squad (at 1970’s TV series in which Frankenstein, Dracula and the Werewolf team up to fight crime, aided by The Love Boat’s Gofer and a super-computer.) and more.
We listened to an excellent radio adaptation by the Quicksilver Radio Theatre.
We also watched Thomas Edison’s Frankenstein film (from 1910), which I’d first seen at a Frankenstein film festival in New Jersey. It was introduced by a religious old kook, who owned the film print and because he was letting the theater screen his movie, he insisted on speaking before the film and speaking out against evolution. (Which, he believes is at the heart of Edison’s adaptation, because the monster is not a re-animated corpse, but a man made from the earth.)
Throughout the night we saw some radical interpretations of the classic character, and the audience really got excited seeing Boris Karloff, it’s like he’s THE ONE. This PSA parody was a big hit at the show, and it still holds up.
Here’s an old AMC video I made looking at some of my favorite adaptations:
And in this new video Rusty Ward and I look at FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND, featuring several great clips from the movie.
