Classic creatures reunite for MONSTER TV

Modern vampire Angel became a puppet on a recent episode, so why not
the screen's vintage ghouls? That's the inspiration behind MONSTER
TV, a new project being launched by Bill Diamond Productions.
Diamond, who produced the Fox series DR. ROCK'S DINOSAUR ADVENTURES,
worked with the Jim Henson team on THE DARK CRYSTAL and LABYRINTH and
built Audrey II for the original national tour of LITTLE SHOP OF
HORRORS, tells Fango, "It's a half-hour program in which the famous
monsters develop their own television show. Their fan base has
disappeared over the years, and they realize that there are a lot of
TV reality shows out there, so they decide to create their own
channel.

"The lead character is Boris Von Frankenstein," Diamond
continues, "who sends these two bats who work for him out to gather
all the creatures and get them involved with the Monster TV station.
They turn the castle and the old lab into a TV studio and create
their own shows. There's Frankenstein's monster, the Bride, Dracula,
the werewolf, the Phantom of the Opera, the Creature, Jekyll and Hyde
and the Hunchback of Notre Dame; their makeup artist is Lon Chaney
Sr., and many, many more also appear."

Diamond reveals that he was able to model the Boris Von Frankenstein
design (pictured) and those for both the Lon Chaney Sr. and Jr.
puppets on the actual stars, thanks to the involvement of their
descendants. "My goal was to get the family members of the original
actors involved," he says. "Sara Karloff was the first, and she just
loved the idea. She has helped me connect with the others, including
Ron Chaney; we haven't gotten Bela Lugosi Jr. yet, but we're working
on him. That was important to me, because there's a lot of history
and trivia that comes up throughout the series; that's what the fans
want to see. One example is that Boris holds a costume party and
dresses up as Captain Hook; Karloff actually played Hook on Broadway,
so that's a piece of trivia not everyone might know that we could put
in. That's one of the things that interested the families—that we're
getting into the actors, not just the characters they played."
Diamond offers another homage he'd like to see happen involving a
current makeup star: "At some point, we'd like to approach Rick Baker
and see if he'd want to be Chaney's assistant."

Chaney Jr.'s visage will be used for his actor character in MONSTER
TV, while the werewolf he becomes (like Frankenstein's creation) will
be more generic. Diamond designed all the characters and is currently
working on storyboards for the show, with fabrication to begin soon
and filming planned for the end of the summer. Diamond will direct
the first installment from a script he wrote with Gina Gencarelli;
his sons Mark (FX creator and editor) and Richard (set designer) are
also involved. "We'd like to debut it on DVD by October," Diamond
says, "but we're also going to see what kind of interest there is in
the TV world. We're thinking about debuting at on of the conventions,
with Sara involved."

~ HalloweenMovie