31 Days of Horror 2014 Halloween Day Extra Movie 01

Svengoolie's airing of Abbot and Costello meet Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde
Source-DVD-r of the original airing with all the original commercials

When I was a kid WPMI Channel 15 outta Mobile Alabama was the best channel around. Saturdays it showed all kinds of great cartoons from the Golden Age of animation. Then around 11am the movies would start.I noticed quickly that they showed movies in blocks. Like for a month or so the movie would be martial art movies or those old b/w movies based on the Blondie comic strip. Well one Saturday I looked in the newspaper and the movie was going to be Abbot and Costello meet Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde. My dad seemed really excited for this. All that morning he kept telling me how funny Abbot and Costello are and explaining who Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde were to me.

Now I have no idea if this was the first episode of the Sgt Graves horror host show or not. But it was the first I saw,and the only time I remember him airing during the day. Normally he started at 10:30pm Saturday night and lasted 4 hours. He would show 2 films. At 11am I hear this weird music coming out of the TV. Then I see a zombie dressed up in a Confederate Army uniform. He said his name was Sgt Graves then spent about 5 minutes explaining a bit of history of the Abbot and Costello meet the Universal monster series of films.

Since I can not find anyone with any Sgt Graves shows,when I found a torrent of Svengoolie's showing of the movie on MEtv I grabbed it. I had seen 2 or 3 episodes of Sven before this. About a week ago my back was hurting me pretty badly. I need to buy a new mattress. When ever my back is hurting real bad I end up sleeping on the spare bed in the spare bedroom. I had brought a table and my laptop back there. So I could fall asleep while watching/listening to something I had on my HD. I saw I had this episode. Turned it on expecting to fall asleep fast. But I got wrapped up in the film and ended up watching all of it.

Abbot and Costello are in the UK. Part of a police exchange program.After some wacky stuff they run into Boris Karloff. Thinking back on it this film was only the second time I had seen Karloff. About 2 years before I saw this movie for the first time I got to see Frankenstein with Karloff. Karloff is of course Dr Jekyl. And through the rest of the film our bumbling duo are trying to capture the evil Mr Hyde.

I know some fans of the classic Universal horrors hate the Abbot and Costello Meets series of films. I can see their point of view,about how the films reduced these once terrifying creatures into jokes,but I don't totally agree with it. I have noticed that with people of my generation lots of the time we first got into the Universal Monsters because of the various Abbot and Costello films.I enjoy most of the A&C meets films,

I guess I should talk a bit about Svengoolie. I mentioned him in passing kind of in my piece on Horror Hosts. And currently he is one of the few that has a nationwide tv show. He has a cheeseball sense of humor that works with these older films. And I love how each show ends with him telling horrible jokes while people off the camera chuck rubber chickens at him. If I got MEtv,and I am working on a way to get it, I would record his show each week. Even if it is a film I don't like or have seen too many times.

Just the film Abbot and Costello Meet Dr Jekyl and Mr Hyde gets a B. It isn't the best of the series but is far from the worse. The blend of comedy and horror in this one works most of the time. Svengoolie's airing of the movie gets a A-. The host bits are all well done and make me laugh.

Keep checking back here on the blog all day until midnight central time. I got some surprises coming up today. Have a safe and happy Halloween.