Quackula
This character first appeared in 1979 as one of many characters on the The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle. You all know the show, right?
Basically, he was a vampire duck who wanted to kill the bear who lived in the house above him, while the bear wanted to do the same thing. Great idea for a kid's show, huh? Two people joined by their love of hating each other. Of course, this is a kid's show, so they have all sorts of wacky adventures.*
This show ran until they got sued by a comic strip artist named Scott Shaw. This makes the show very hard to find in any form. Scott sold his character to the Danger Mouse show, who spun him off into his own show in 1988 and called it...
Count Duckula
This show ran for three seasons and, interestingly enough, made note of how the character on Danger Mouse was obsessed with being on television. Only in Britain, you know.
The premise is that, after his demise, he was resurrected incorrectly. As a result, he is now a vegetarian. Oy vey! As the last of a line of vampires, this really upset his dead-pan butler, but does not affect his dim-witted maid all that much. As a side note, she has a permanently-broken arm in a sling. Why is that?*
The show is quite a quirky bit of animation, with bizarre puns and stories. A cartoon duck who wants to be a race car driver? Why not? If you like bizarre humor, check out Season 1 DVD. Good luck with getting the rest of it though. Stupid DVD importing!
Ha! Duckula... COOOOUUUNNNT Duckula, as the theme-song intoned. I used to watch this shit on Saturday afternoons on Nickelodeon at my Gramma's house when I was much smaller. Fond memories.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I love "Count Duckula" myself. I mostly did this to highlight the show.
ReplyDeleteWhat inspired me, however, was the discovery of a SECOND vampire duck cartoon. What are the odds?!?
I love Quackula the most... he was evil that what I like about that show... Duckula in the other hand it was fun but not 100% my thing...I would love to have Quackula's episodes in my hands... and regarding the killing thing I mean Elmer and Sam wanted to kill bugs bunny.. and they kissed each other in their mouth remember that! lol... so killing, sexual orientations type-of-thing I think wasn't a big deal before now parents get all freaked out when their kids watch something, and they forget about what they used to watch right?
ReplyDeleteOh i just absolutely love Count Duckula, and Quackula as well.
ReplyDeleteIt's good to see that a little thing I wrote just over a year ago is able to bring in new people.
ReplyDeleteI honestly would not have called that.
hey! I stumbled across this in a search to find Quackula - which I always assumed came first (I saw this on TV in the early 80's). glad to know I was wrong, Scott Shaw is a great comic artist!
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty certain Scott Show had nothing to do with the COsgrove-Hall character.
ReplyDeleteExcuse me, where did the information about selling Duckula to Danger Mouse people?
ReplyDeleteI'm a really big fan of "Count Duckula". I can't find this information anywhere.
It's funny, so it was Duckula's first. Haha
Sorry for my bad english.