The Hilarious House of Frightenstein
Season 1 TV/Streaming Premiere, Television/Streaming Premiere | Sep 11, 1971
Canadian children’s television series The Hilarious House of Frightenstein was produced by Ontario, Canada independent station CHCH-TV. The hosted spooky show targeted a children’s audience included some educational content amid its zany humor and was syndicated in Canada and internationally. As of 2024, the series occasionally still airs in limited television markets. In Canada, the series has not aired on broadcast television for several years, however was available for some time on the streaming TV service Crave. A group of 100 episodes have also been made available on the free streaming services Tubi and Pluto TV in the past.
The original cast of the quirky sketch comedy series included Billy Van as Bwanna Clyde Batty, Fishka Rais as Igor, Guy Big as Mini-Count, Mitch Markowitz as Super Hippy, Vincent Price as The Narrator, Joe Torbay as Harvey C. Wallbanger, and Julius Sumner Miller as The Professor, along with Brucie J. Monster, who played himself. Van played most of the characters on the show.
In 2018, a company called Headspinner Productions announced that it had acquired licensing and merchandising rights to The Hilarious House of Frightenstein, and was exploring the possibility of developing a reboot of the series. Then in 2021, Headspinner announced an animated version for preschoolers, titled Happy House of Frightenstein.
One year after the Headspinner announcement, spoken word audio label Bleak December completed a brand new full-cast audio production called Return to Frightenstein. The licensed production features Malcolm McDowell standing in for Vincent Price as The Narrator, Canadian actor Anthony D.P. Mann voicing several of the characters, including The Count, The Librarian, The Oracle and Dr. Pet Vet, and Steven Spencer as Igor, along with original series regular and producer Mitch Markowitz returning as Super Hippy. Other voice in the audio adaptation include Nikolas Yuen as The Wolf Man, Terry Wade as Bwanna Clyde Batty, comedian Dave Hudson as Harvey C. Wallbanger, and Anne-Marie Bergman as Grizelda.