SUPER RARE 45 RPM SHRIMPENSTEIN RECORD 1960'S CULT TV SHOW

$

75

THIS IS A SUPER RARE

SHRIMPENSTEIN 

45 RPM RECORD

CIRCA 1967

IN GOOD/VERY GOOD CONDITION

The original 1967 SHRIMPENSTEIN 45 rpm record with the opening theme song on the Monstrous "A" side and on the Crazy "B" side the incredibly "not" PC KARATE MAN, both sung by Dr. Von Schtick ( Gene Moss ) and the Tijuana Bats. The music is 60's garage band heaven. It was given to kids for free as part of their SHRIMPENSTEAN FAN CLUB kit 

SHRIMPENSTEIN was kids Saturday morning "B" monster movie TV show like ELVIRA that played on KHJ channel 9 in Los Angeles from 1967 to 1968. It featured Shrimpenstein, a miniature Frankenstein monster puppet. The hosts were Gene Moss (Dr. Von Schtick) and Jim Thurman. Check Youtube for the few surviving episodes - its crazy cool.

 Premiering in the monster crazed 60's on KHJ Channel 9 in LA comes one of the wackiest kids shows in history. Starring the very funny Gene Moss as Dr. Von Shtick and the diminutive Shrimpenstein ( the result of jelly beans falling into the Monster Machine) and a cast of weird and way out monsters the show became a counter culture hit. The show was created by Michael Dormer and Lee Teacher at the stylish plastic kitchen table of Dormer’s Ocean Beach home. Their pal at Capitol Records, producer Fred Rice, had suggested that they cook up some cute monster characters for merchandising, but when he saw the first Shrimpenstein storyboard, the fuse was lit. Rice, Teacher, and Dormer pitched the idea of a Shrimpenstein to the suits at KHJ. Shrimpy himself was created by the great Wah Chang, special effects master whose works includes Star Trek, The Land of the Lost, collaborations with Willis O'Brien, the Time Machine and others.

 FROM TV PARTY:

 It was on KHJ channel 9 in LA from January 1967 to sometime in 1968.

The hosts were Gene Moss (Dr. Von Schtick) and Jim Thurman (voices). Shrimpenstein was a miniature Frankenstein monster (a ventriloquist dummy who was "created" when jellybeans were thrown into the Monster Machine - no, I did not make this up).

The show was in color, and I still have my Shrimpenstein Value stamps and a 45 rpm record of the opening theme sung by Gene Moss in a bad Boris Karloff imitation.

Moss and Thurman wrote the Roger Ramjet cartoons and did advertising campaigns, mostly for radio. Moss later did voice-overs for LA's channel 2 news and Disney/Touchstone pictures previews. 

Thurman also wrote and did voices for Sesame Street. Shrimpenstein was funny and irreverent which probably led to its downfall, as they made fun of the sponsors (McDonalds) and the cartoons on the show (the very limited animation Marvel superheroes).

FROM A 2002 PROFILE ON GENE MOSS:

"Shrimpenstein," a half-hour afternoon show on KHJ-TV (Channel 9) in the late '60s.Thurman provided the voice of Shrimpenstein and manipulated and supplied the voices of the other ghoulish puppet cast members. They included Claus (only the arm and hand of a big purple monster appeared on camera), It (just a roaring and chomping sound effect of a monster who would eat any visitors to the castle), Wilfred the Wolf (just a gnarly hand poking out of a box) and the swinging Tijuana Bats (hand puppets that did record parodies). Moss and Thurman co-wrote the show.

"Co-ad-libbed is probably more to the point," Thurman said from his home in Sheffield, Mass. "We had a script the first two or three shows. They were kind of dopey little kid things, and we kind of ad-libbed around it, and [because of that] the show became hip and wasn't for little kids anymore."

Indeed, the show began attracting nearly as many adults as children. Rod Serling was a big fan of the show's irreverent humor, Thurman said, as was actress Elizabeth Montgomery. And, he said, "the Disney people loved the show."

Although "Shrimpenstein" started out with Moss and Thurman bantering between the two cartoons that aired during the half hour, the in-studio comedy became so popular that the cartoons were dropped.

FROM AFTER SCHOOL EXORCISM OF SHRIMPENSTEIN  

by Ernest Hogan

 Children's television was different when I was a kid back in the days of LSD and napalm. It was rough, primitive -- no one knew what it was supposed to be, except to grab young brains and download the lust for sugar, and plastic in bright colors and funky shapes. It was the sort of sleep of reason that Goya said produces monsters, and in this case, created Shrimpenstein, the weirdest kid's show to violate the air waves.

It seemed harmless at first, another after school program with a costumed host on a cheap set with a crew of puppets that provided filler between the cartoons and commercials. Doctor Von Schtick, Shrimpenstein (or Shrimpy), and some friendly creatures frolicked in a laboratory. Nothing for child psychologists and parents' groups to worry about.

Only this was the Sixties. The world was in turmoil: war in Vietnam, riots on the streets and campuses, drugs, rock and roll, even sex, were all swirling around in the air with the signal from KHJ-TV channel 9 in Los Angeles. No matter how the adults tried to protect us from it all, we kids were aware. And our official role models didn't seem to know how to explain things.

Something happened when the electronic media voodoo brought Shrimpenstein to life, and it wasn't the age-appropriate tale of jelly beans dropped into a Frankenstein machine that the theme song claimed (I guess telling of the Doctor stitching together the stolen body parts of dead children would have been too much). Like a ghede, Shrimpy had the ability to tell truths that needed to be told, but weren't socially acceptable.

“Shrimpy, I have plenty of books around here that you can read.”

“So why do you keep them on a high shelf where I can't reach them?”

And we all knew about the books – and magazines – on the high shelf, or the hidden drawer.

I also wonder what the Hormel company thought of Wilfred the Wiener Wolf throwing clawfuls of their product across the set?

And then there was the Tijuana Bats – an East L.A. version of Alvin and the Chipmunks with a vato loco attitude.

I fondly remember the Doctor saying, “There you are, glued to your television sets when you could be out doing something constructive – like blowing up a building!” This was about a year before the Weather Underground, and decades before Al Qaeda.

Even the cartoons were different:

Not the slick corporate coolness of today's Marvel, back then comic books and superheroes were considered harmful for proper development of law-abiding citizens. Which was part of the fun.

When Shrimpenstein talked, the fact that the world was going crazy made sense. What a perverse relief – and a perverse release – it was!

But it wasn't to last. This sort of joyous anarchy never does. I remember overhearing parents and teachers dissing Shrimpy. One day, fake newspapers with headlines about someone being fired were plastered all over the laboratory. The Doctor went crazy, and at end of show he knocked over the walls of the set. As the credits rolled over him, he screamed, “They're the ones who are responsible! Blame them!” It was like all those movies about mad scientists – my real role models.

For a brief moment, reality and fantasy were one . . .

The next episode had Shrimpy finding a note from the doctor, explaining that he was on an expedition in Africa. Then a giant knife-switch was thrown. After a bright, smoky explosion, Shrimpenstein looked less demonic. His voice was also higher, and he talked like he was made of jelly beans.

I stopped watching. The show didn't last much longer.

THIS IS A WONDERFUL PIECE OF POP CULTURE & KIDS TV HISTORY

LAST ONE TO SELL AT AUCTION WENT FOR $$$

GIVE IT A GREAT HOME!