Grampa's Silly Scaries

The most recent time that my wife and I traveled down to Champaign to stay for a weekend, we made it a point to hang out with Steven Cisna and go to our favorite flea market- Gordyville. There are always people selling dvd's, blu-ray's, VHS tapes, video games, HD dvd's, toys... anything you can possibly imagine really. There were a couple of guys this last time that had a bunch of tables full of random dvd's for a dollar. And boy, did Steven and I ever go through every damn dvd they had on that table. One of the one's that caught my eye was Grampa's Silly Scaries. I knew right away just from the box art alone it was going to be worth a dollar. And in more ways than one, I was correct. There's a few weird things contained within, but the one thing that sticks out to me is the fact that Betty Boop is on the cover and there is no Betty Boop cartoon. The best cartoon on here is the one featuring Popeye called "Fright to the Finish." That one is basically him and Bluto playing Halloween pranks on each other all while trying to get Olive Oyl to pay attention to them. There are some bizarre ones on here. Some very bizarre ones. I know that if I watched these as a kid, they would either go right over my head or they would mentally damage me for quite a while. I'll get to those later.

This is some atrocious, Microsoft Paint, green screen right here.

 "Below, the lowest below depths."

Yeah Grampa, keep decomposing.

That tortoise looks as tired as I feel right now.

How does a ghost get wet?

I'm sure Casper buys a lot of clothes, Grampa. 

The cobweb motel is certainly macabre.

Grampa's getting some sun. He sure as hell needs it.

Quoth the raven nevermore. He sells vacuums.

Now that's what I call home security.

This is the only time in my whole life that I will ever see a vacuum get drunk.

Hey Beans, it's time to get that car looked at.

Frankenbot?!

Two of these cartoons are pretty disturbing in that old 70's way where the animation is gritty, overly detailed and in your face. One of them is called "Cobweb Motel" where a spider has a bunch of empty matchboxes and little room-like areas set-up to catch un-suspecting customers and trap them for dinner. But it's much darker than that. The spider is a little too excited and it just ends up being downright creepy and wrong. The other cartoon is a fucking bizarre one where everyone in this town is a balloon and they never go in the forest because that's where The Pincushion Man lives. He has one purpose-to pop all of those helpless balloon people. The way it's animated and colored and everything about it just feels like a cartoon that your kids shouldn't watch. I get it-it's on here because it's scary. And left field. But, with Grampa from The Munsters heading this thing, I'm sure lots of children have been disturbed by these particular cartoons. And so have I. And that's why I dig this dvd. Even if only for a buck.