 | QuackulaOriginal Medium: Television animation Produced by: Filmation First Appeared: 1979 image: ©Filmation. |
In the grand tradition of Count Chocula, Sesame Street's Count and (a few years later) Count Duckula, comes Quackula, a guy with all the trappings of a traditional vampire, but better at getting laughs than screams of terror. In fact, that was a major schtick with Quackula — he wanted to terrify people, but couldn't seem to manage it.
Quackula came to be when Filmation Associates (Sport Billy, He-Man) licensed a couple of old Terrytoons characters for use in a new hour-long Saturday morning TV series, and needed something new to help fill it up. The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle debuted on CBS, on September 8, 1979, with Quackula as one of its segments.
Quackula was a duck by species. He looked a little like Daffy, except for his pale blue skin, fangs, and the fact that he wore the kind of cloak nobody but a vampire would be caught dead in. True to his vampiric nature, he slept by day in a coffin, but his coffin was shaped like a duck's egg. His voice was provided by Frank Welker, who also did Dynomutt, Gogo Dodo in Tiny Toon Adventures, and many other roles in animation. Quackula's steadiest would-be scare victim, Theodore H. Bear, was voiced by Norm Prescott, better known as one of the show's producers than for his voice work.
But Filmation came to view the vampire duck as a liability, when cartoonist Scott Shaw! (Captain Carrot, Simpsons comic books), whose Quackula character had been published a couple of years earlier by Star*Reach Productions, filed suit. The matter was settled out of court, but the show went down to a half-hour format in its second season, and Quackula's segment was among the items dropped.
Sixteen episodes were made in all.
