I recently overheard an intriguing conversation. Two guys about my age (mid or late forties) were talking about old horror movies. One guy mentioned that his teenage niece did not “get a visual” from the word “Frankenstein”. The other guy was dumbfounded, as was I.
I suppose that just about everyone in my generation (I am 48) and older, upon hearing the word “Frankenstein”, immediately conjures up Boris Karloff as the classic “flat-topped” monster, whether or not you have actually seen the 1931 film, or happen to be a horror-movie fan. Younger people (or at least this paticular one), evidently, not so much!
Does this surprise anyone here on the Dope who interacts with teenagers on a regular basis? Are they aware of the classic Frankenstein image, or not?
Also – there have been so many subsequent Dracula movies that I doubt that Bela Lugosi’s Dracula is nearly as emblazoned upon the collective unconscious as it once was. Same goes for Lon Chaney as the Wolf Man, I suppose! Lots of werewolves in the movies, that actually look like wolves, instead of a man with a bad case of hypertrichosis! But, I don’t know for sure…
It would be an interesting experiment, to see if young people nowadays are aware of the classic movie monster images from the 1930s and 1940s!
I was born in 84 and get those old images. Frankenstein lurching around, Bela Lugosi, mummies with their arms outstretched making groaning noises. A lot of them I just know from other mediums (stuff like watching Eerie, Indiana as a kid and seeing them watch/interact with a monster mummy) or other TV shows that spoofed them but I’m definitely aware, even though I myself didn’t see any of these movies.
Universal has been keeping up its influence – it still licenses those images (they were on US postage stamps mnot that long ago!) They have them at the Universal Studios in Florida. They put out that wonderfully horrible Van Helsing movie a couple of years ago (with accompanying release of DVDs of the “Classic” films). I think the “classic” Universal monsters have plenty of publicly-aware life in them yet.
I don’t know how common it is, but it’s not completely gone. The Venture Brothers had an episode with the character of Venturestein. Aside from the name, he was clearly physically based on the iconic Frankenstein image as well.
I’m not sure how old most of the viewers of adult swim are, but I’m sure it includes teenagers.
Not to mention the Munsters. It was filmed by Universal studios, so they were able to base Herman’s appearance on Karloff’s monster and Grandpa’s on Bela Lugosi’s Dracula. Episodes have run quite recently in syndication, so younger viewers are probably familiar with those images.
This is interesting. These images are IMMEDIATELY iconic to me (born in '83) and to everybody “my age,” but this makes me wonder about my girlfriend’s littlest brother, who is only 9. The vast majority of his media input is from Disney Channel and Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network, and I don’t know how much mileage those images get there.
His mother thankfully exposes him to enough older material that I’d wager he’d know the iconic characters, but I can’t help but wonder about his friends who have been raised even more on terrible commercial kids’ TV.
An 18 year old I know just recently made a very nice stencil of Frankie’s head (complete with neck bolts). I see it every day, because he spray painted it up on the wall beside my parking lot, but such is youth. So there’s one who’'s keeping the image alive.
Well, I am very glad to know that perhaps this fellow’s niece is just an anomaly.
I am not sure that I want to live in a world where the youth have forgotten the classic movie monsters! Ha!
I think most kids still get those visuals. They may not KNOW the origins though.
In any cartoon, if they are going to do anything involving Dracula or Frankenstein they use the visual cues from Universal. It’s short hand. They know WHAT it is, they don’t know WHY it is.
It reminds me of a report NPR did on the record scratch sound effect. No one under 20 knew what the sound was but they knew what it meant.
I was born in '87 and those images are ingrained in my mind. I own all three classic films (Frankenstein, Wolfman, Dracula) on dvd and some of the various ‘sequels’. I may not be the best example because I love older films and have a decent size collection of them. I can so though that the original movies were not my introduction to them but the shows and movies from my childhood like Eerie Indiana, Muppet Babies, Scooby Doo, Beetleborgs (sigh), Hocus Pocus, Nick at Night reruns of The Munsters, and pretty much any sitcom or animated series Halloween episodes.
My 7-year-old son and 9-year-old daughter (with no indoctrination from my wife or me) both identify the Karloff Frankenstein, Lugosi Dracula, etc. as the iconic representations of the “classic” monsters, so much so that they were confused by the monsters in Van Helsing because they didn’t conform to their “monster stereotypes.”
They even know that the Grinch is narrated by the Frankenstein monster (though I will take credit for that one).
Did you also know that the producers pitched Arsenic and Old Lace to Boris Karloff based on the line 'I killed him because he said I looked like Boris Karloff" ? And he played pap Darling/Nana the dog/Captain Hook in Peter Pan on Broadway?
Anyone who has seen “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” has seen a puppet that was clearly inspired by the Lugosi version of Dracula (with a little bit of Sesame Street’s “The Count” thrown in). Whether they know what the inspiration was is another question.
I’m an '89er and I’d probably give the biggest “wtf!?” look ever to someone who said they didn’t know those images. I’m sure I’m not typical in that I know the names of the actors and the history of a lot of the monsters, but the images are rampant. Sure, even if they couldn’t point to Bela Lugosi as the iconic image of the modern Dracula (sorry, Schreck, nobody recognizes your portrayal :(). Hell, I’m not sure everything ever broadcast in October isn’t required by law to contain at least one completely obvious portrayal of either a Mummy, the Wolfman/generic Werewolf, Frankenstein’s Monster, or Dracula/Generic Vampire. Cartoon Network still frequently airs those Scooby Doo movies that only have Shaggy, Scrappy, Scooby and <Insert Character of the Movie here> doing something that involves obvious expies of these characters (and I’m sure of that, I was watching the kart-race one last week).
I could keep yammering on about all the places I see it, but it would be highly boring and redundant so I’ll just conclude with: your friend’s niece is incredibly odd.
