The Corner Penthouse

About 10 years ago, I typed up notes intended to be used to write reviews for a lot of different items. As I was cleaning up the digital clutter on my hard drive recently, I found all of these notes. Most of the products are out-of-print and no longer available for their original cheap prices, so there is no reason to use most of the notes. However, for a few items, the information contained in my notes doesn't seem to be available elsewhere online, so it still seems prudent to write the reviews as intended.

Read on as I tell you all about the differences between the Monster Mash (2000) VHS (alt url) and DVD releases...

Undoubtedly, you know of Bobby "Boris" Pickett's 1962 hit song "Monster Mash". In 2000, animation house DiC teamed up with Universal to produce a direct-to-video animated feature based on it, which also served as an homage to Universal's own classic monsters. The hour-long film was released that year on VHS by Universal Studios. As DVD was still a new format, Universal did not see fit to also release the movie on that format. It would take almost 10 years, in 2008, to finally get a DVD release. Unfortunately, by that time, DiC and Universal were no longer partners, and DiC's library of content was now in the hands of Ncircle. As such, the DVD release contains a heavily edited version of the movie. Below is a list of all of the differences I noticed.

-- Runtime comparison: VHS is 59:37, DVD is 57:00.
(counter started after Universal logo on VHS, and ended before music video on VHS, and Ncircle logo on DVD - so the exact same contents were counted)

-- DVD is not time-coded, but luckily my software DVD player displays a time-code anyway. So the time codes listed below will only be useful if you have a player that will display a time code whether a DVD has one or not.

-- ALTERNATE FOOTAGE: At 2:58 during the black and white footage there is different narration.
   VHS - "My masters once struck terror into any mortal heart, but somehow over the years things changed. People began to associate my masters with fun, rather than horror."
   DVD - "Terror filled the countryside, and my masters' fearsome reputation spread. They became an inspiration to monsters everywhere, and life at the top was just one big party."

-- DVD EDITS
13:08 - Two shots of Mom opening the windows to let a fly out.
13:33 - One shot and line, "Heeey" after the girl says, "I'm starving".
14:13 - Mom's line, "Hi honey", and Dad's line "Poodles, nothing but poodles" and about 30 seconds worth of other footage.
20:53 - One shot of the skeleton going back into the grave after the wheelbarrow lands on top of the buzzard.
21:09 - A brief bit of dialog ("we must go to the same manicurist") and a shot or two after "you look familiar".
33:37 - A shot of the wolfman in silhouette at the end of the hallway.
34:51 - One shot of the kids exiting a room.
44:40 - One shot of the wolfman with the snake basketball saying, "why'd it have to be snakes?"
46:40 - One shot of Frankenstein beating his chest.
46:50 - One shot of Dracula.
49:51 - The entire epilogue at home where the monsters come over to make the family an offer. Total of 1:27 removed here.

-- Besides the unedited version of the program, the VHS also includes a music video of Bobby "Boris" Pickett's "Monster Mash" set to clips from the show and classic Universal monster movies. This obviously can't be ported over to DVD unless Universal gets the home video rights again, which is very unlikely as this program is probably licensed in connection with the entire DiC library.

-- There is one area on the VHS where something does appear to be cut out, but it's not on the DVD either. At 52:26, when the shot of the castle fades in from black, you can glimpse the tail end of a dissolve from another shot that had a group of people in it (the villagers, perhaps).

That is all that I've noticed. I doubt there is anything more, but I think that's enough to give you reason to seek out the original Universal VHS, if you still have a VCR with which to play it.