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Released by: VCI Entertainment
Released on: October 16, 2012.
Director: James Sheldon
Cast: Fred Grandy, Henry Polic II, Herman Hoffman, Buck Kartalian, Mike Lane
Year: 1976
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The Series:
Not to be confused with the movie of the same name, The Monster Squad debuted on NBC in 1976 where it aired for thirteen episodes before being cancelled in 1977. While the series has been reasonably hard to see since then, it's held on to a cult following, members of which will likely be grateful to see the series resurrected on DVD in North America for the first time courtesy of VCI Entertainment.
The series revolves around a young man named Walt (Fred Grandy of The Love Boat!) who is studying to be a criminologist while paying his bills working nights as a watchman at a wax museum. Because his job apparently involves doing a whole lot of nothing, Fred kills his evenings working on a supercomputer that he somehow manages to house inside a sarcophagus near the monster's display in the museum. Why Fred would want to leave something as important as a crime fighting super computer in such a stupid location is anybody's guess, but when he powers it up it sends enough electricity through the air that it somehow brings wax statues of Dracula (Henry Polic II), the Wolfman (Buck Kartalian), and the Frankenstein Monster (Michael Lane) to living, breathing life!
Now you'd think Walt would realize, hey, these wax monsters have come to life, I should get the Hell out of here, right? Nope. The monsters quickly prove that they have feelings too and decide to make up for their past transgressions by using their monster powers to fight crime. And wouldn't you know it, there's nothing they could use more than a crime fighting supercomputer to help them do just that… except for maybe a pretty fly van.
With that set up out of the way, each episode basically has night watchman Walt using his computer in the sarcophagus to find out what he can about a particular crime, and then sending out the monsters to deal with it. At this point, they'll head out in their not even remotely inconspicuous monster van, don their monster utility belts, and head out of the museum to save the day. This happens in pretty much every one of the thirteen episodes that makes up the complete series, and while the premise and the visuals are fun in and of themselves, the storytelling gets very repetitive very quickly. It is interesting, from a political standpoint at least, to see that more often than not the monsters are sent out to deal with such horrible scourges as hippies and Native Americans who want their land back - but maybe that's reading too much into it? Or are the monsters just neo-cons in bad makeup?
The thirteen episodes that make up the entirety of the series are:
Disc One: Queen Bee / Mr. Mephisto / The Tickler / The Ringmaster / Music Man / No Face / The Astrologer
Disc Two: Ultra Witch / The Wizard / The Skull / The Weatherman / Lawrence of Moravia / Albert/Alberta
The series was created by Stanley Ralph Ross, a pretty prolific TV writer who worked on the original Batman TV series, The Monkees and Wonder Woman and who did voiceover work throughout his career as well on shows like Challenge Of The Super Friends and a few other DC Comics related cartoons. The same sense of wacky and intentional camp that made the Batman series so much fun spills over into this series as well, it's never short on colorful characters and screwball comedy, slapstick humor and groaningly awful puns. There show defies pretty much anything even remotely resembling logic but does so with a wink and a smile, concerned obviously more with entertaining the kid's audience it was intended for than appeasing anyone with a serious interest in monsters. A few fun guest stars, most notably Julie Newmar and Jonathan Harris, pop up in the show.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Each and every episode of this insane show is presented fullframe, as you would expect it to be. Some minor motion blurring indicates that maybe these transfers were sourced from some sort of PAL master but it's all watchable enough. It doesn't look like much restorative work has been done here so sometimes the colors are slightly faded and the image is almost always soft. Don't go in expecting miracles or anything, but yeah, it looks okay for something that appears to have been taken from tape masters, which comparatively speaking isn't really that great by most standards.
The English language Dolby Digital Mono track is on par with the video quality. Levels are okay but clarity sometimes suffers, there's a bit of muffle in the mix and some fairly consistent hiss. Overall though you probably won't have any issues following the dialogue or understanding the characters. There are no alternate language options or subtitles provided here.
Aside from episode synopsis and a series synopsis included on the discs as text screens, we also get a still gallery and some menus and chapter selection submenus.
The Final Word:
As colorful, quirky and zany as The Monster Squad is, it's also quite repetitive, and that does dull its otherwise considerable charm. For those who want it, however, VCI has brought the series to DVD domestically in an edition that may not blow anyone's mind but which does at least collect the entire series and at a reasonable price.
