Monster Force (1994)

Monster Force (1994) is a short-lived animated series from Universal. It sets the studio's famous monsters into the near future year of 2020, where a team of heroes, aided by Frankenstein's Monster, face off against a band of evil monsters lead by Dracula. Of note, the 2020 of Monster Force is a highly advanced era compared to our time, and the show is very much a science fiction series full of advanced technology.

The first seven episodes of the series were released on DVD back in 2009. Here's hoping for a full release next year (when we catch up to the show).

Young Frankenstein (1974)

Young Frankenstein (1974), from Gene Wilder and Mel Brooks, is simultaneously a brilliant homage to and send-up of the Universal Frankenstein films. It presents a continuation and recasting of the Frankenstein story that brings a descendant of Victor Frankenstein back to his ancestral home, where (as the musical adaption so matter-of-factly puts it) he joins the family business.

Frankenweenie (1984 and 2012)

Tim Burton's Frankenweenie begin as a short film (1984) and was later remade into a full-length feature (2012). It offers an interesting recasting of the Frankenstein story in its account of the love between a young boy and his pet.

Frankenstein Unbound (1990)

Frankenstein Unbound (1990), a rare science-fictional take on the story, is based on the acclaimed novel of the same name by Brian W. Aldiss. The film (and the novel before it) casts a time traveler from the future back to the year 1817. There he encounters both characters from Frankenstein as well as a young Mary Shelley.

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994)

Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) offers an interesting adaptation of the novel. It is not a totally faithful retelling but does offer some insight into how such a production might be envisioned.

CFP Diagnosing History: Medicine in Television Costume Dramas (9/15/2018)

Here's an interesting idea:

Diagnosing History: Medicine in Television Costume Dramas
https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2018/06/20/diagnosing-history-medicine-in-television-costume-dramas

deadline for submissions: September 15, 2018

full name / name of organization: Dr. Julie Anne Taddeo

contact email: taddeo@umd.edu


There has been a long relationship between television and medicine: some of the small screen’s most popular shows, on both sides of the Atlantic, have been medical in focus, from hospital-set dramas like ER to reality TV shows and docudramas like One Born Every Minute. This fascination with doctors, hospitals and bodies is also shared by period drama television, but scholarship has paid little attention to this intersection/relationship. Recent period dramas including The Knick, Mercy Street, and Charite, for example, use the hospital setting familiar from older shows like Bramwell, to address larger themes about the professionalization of medicine, medical innovations and failures, and the gender politics that surround the profession. Dramas like Call the Midwife document the progress of the NHS and female reproductive health while also engaging in contemporary debates about contraception, abortion, and disability. In addition, medical-driven narratives abound in almost every period drama on our screens today: war-induced mental and physical trauma in Peaky Blinders; Spanish ‘flu in The Village; gay conversion plotlines in A Place to Call Home; bodily and facial disfigurement in Home Fires; medical experimentation and monstrosity in Penny Dreadful and Frankenstein Chronicles; nursing as a vehicle of female emancipation in The Crimson Field and Morocco: Love in Times of War; and all of the above and many more in Downton Abbey, whose most famous plotlines are medical in nature.

This edited collection seeks to address this important area of period drama studies, and we are looking for proposals for essays on any of the above issues, or which may be interdisciplinary in approach and engage with the medical humanities, interrogating relationships between medicine and history, class, gender or race. Our collection aims to be international in scope, so submissions about period dramas from/situated in any country are welcome.


Please send a 500 word abstract and brief biography by Sept 15, 2018 to:

Julie Anne Taddeo: taddeo@umd.edu

James Leggott: james.leggott@northumbria.ac.uk

Katherine Byrne: kbyrne@ulster.ac.uk

Han Cholo's Frankenstein

A quick update, all of the items from ThinkGeek licensed by Universal Studios are part of a larger product line from designer Han Cholo.

You can view all of the items and more at https://www.hancholo.com/collections/monster-lovers.

More from ThinkGeek

In my continued browsing of the ThinkGeek site, I also came across a set of ID bracelets (another licensed product from Universal Studios) with the following description:

You're my favorite monster 

It's important to remember that Mary Shelley never gave her monster a name. It is we who named him Frankenstein after his creator. Frankenstein may be about many things, but one of the topics the story broaches is loneliness - that feeling the monster has that he is the only one of his kind in the world. He needs his own monster to feel kinship in this world.

We know that feeling of not fitting in, and maybe you do, too. Perhaps you also have a special monster in your life, or you are that special monster for someone else. This set of bracelets, reading "His Monster" and "Her Monster," lets you declare both your relationship and your otherworldliness all in one.

More details and ordering instructions at: https://www.thinkgeek.com/product/jpkl/.

Puttin' on the Glitz?

Online retailer ThinkGeek is selling a set of Frankenstein-themed cufflinks this season. The items are officially licensed products from Universal Studios.

The set includes one Frankenstein's Monster and one Bride of Frankenstein.

Ordering instructions at https://www.thinkgeek.com/product/jpkm/.