I've touched on this show almost every year since I've been writing for the Interrobang because I want to keep the memory of the show alive. I've always promoted www.frightenstein.com and now there is some great news for fans of the show. The master tapes that were thought to be destroyed actually weren't, and someone has bought the rights to the show! That means, according to the message boards on the official site, these cult classic episodes will begin airing on certain stations next year. If that isn't enough, you can get four episodes (although they aren't the full one hour that fans are used to) on DVD! With that all said, let's look back at the great TV show that's now on DVD, The Hilarious House of Frightenstein.

This show starred Vincent Price who would introduce the show and every segment. Every week, the audience would get to enter the house of Frightenstein and see what the residents were up to.

In each episode, we would watch Count Frightenstein (played by Billy Van) and his sidekick, Igor, test out new inventions and try to get the Frankenstein monster-like creature, Brucie, to live again. I will never forget some of the Count's inventions like Dracola, which had two teaspoons of gasoline in each serving, and the machine that tried to turn toast into bread.

We also got to see the Count interact with other members in the castle. He'd read the fan mail with Harvey Wallbanger, who's name he'd purposely mispronounce, and the Count would also learn about different topics by reading books with resident sea serpent, Gronk. Gronk would always interrupt the Count and put in his own “facts” about the topic they were learning about and drive the Count crazy. Pure fun!

Igor would interact with Dr. Pet Vet who would visit with different animals. Igor would always want to keep the animal that Dr. Pet Vet brought to visit, but Mr. Sloth would never allow another animal in the building. Igor would also get put under the microscope for his bad grammar by the Grammar Slammer and his monster, the Bammer. Poor Igor would sweat his way through each encounter, narrowly escaping a pounding from the Bammer. In the end, he'd always show up with the Wolfman and dance in some kind of psychedelic background. With the shows appearing on TV again, the music that is used in these spots has to be licensed again or the segment will have to be pulled. Please, bands, license your songs so we can have Igor and the Wolfman dance again!

There are other residents that had their own spot in the show as well. We'd get to see Grizelda the witch create some kind of recipe that would be so terrible, it would knock her off her feet. The Librarian would tell us a haunting tale that would be nothing more than a children's story, like Jack and Jill that wouldn't frighten anyone. The Professor would confuse everyone with physics and other scientific wonders, and the Oracle would try and predict our horoscopes, but would break his crystal ball in every episode.

In between the Vincent Price intros and the main segments, we'd also see little vignettes starring the singing Doorman, who'd be hit with a pie, the mosquito who would offer some wise words, and the poor Gorilla who comes out of the forest only to be hit every single time with a golf ball.

There are even more crazy antics and characters in the house of Frightenstien, but I'll let you all go to www.frightenstein.com to check it out. You can download great pictures, audio clips and even two full episodes from the site — a new one just went up a few weeks ago. If you've never seen this show before, check it out for some laughs. And for those who remember it and love it, being able to download one of the episodes is a blessing. RIP, Billy Van, and thank you for all the laughter!

Send Peter a frighteningly funny email to popeyepopsolive@hotmail.com