Toonsylvania

"Toonsylvania" is an animated television series, which ran from 1998 to 1999 on FOX's Saturday morning cartoon block (usually placed in a block called "The No Yell Motel" that contained scary kids shows such as "Goosebumps" and "Eerie, Indiana") in its first season, then was moved to Tuesday afternoons from 1999 until its cancellation in 2000. It was produced in part by Steven Spielberg, following in the footsteps of his previous animated series, "Tiny Toon Adventures" and "Animaniacs". Much like "Animaniacs", the show had recurring cartoon series that appeared in each episode. Unlike Animaniacs, Toonsylvania didn't have a wide range of characters and almost every episode had the same cartoon segments.

ynopsis

A typical episode of "Toonsylvania" starts with a cartoon featuring the adventures of Dr. Vic Frankenstein (voiced by David Warner), his assistant Igor (voiced by Wayne Knight) who always sets out to prove that he's the real genius instead of Dr. Vic, and their dim-witted Frankenstein monster known as Phil (voiced by Brad Garrett). Before the second cartoon, there is an animated vignette where Igor is on the couch with Phil and tries to fix the TV remote, but every episode, there's a new problem with it (a running gag akin to the couch gags seen on The Simpsons).

After that, there is a cartoon series called "Night of the Living Fred," about a family of zombies (sometimes, a parody of a B-horror movie would air instead of a "Night of the Living Fred" cartoon).

After that is a short segment called "Igor's Science Minute," where Igor gives a science lesson (be it a musical piece or a spoken piece) that always ends in disaster. The final segment is "Melissa Screetch's Morbid Morals," where Phil the Frankenstein monster does something bad and Igor punishes him by reading a tale involving a bratty girl named Melissa Screetch (voiced by Nancy Cartwright of "Simpsons" fame) who doesn't heed the warnings of adults (usually given by her mother) and gets punished one way or the other for it.

Availability

*In August 1999, a video of "Toonsylvania" was released, which contained such episodes as "Darla Doiley, Demon Doll," "Voodoo Vacation," and "WereGranny". The video is currently out of print and as of February 2008, there have been no plans to put the series on DVD.