Cavalcade of Awesome

Today I’m going to look at a cartoon special that has an adaptation of The Devil and Daniel Webster.  It was a Tiny Toons special called Night Ghoulery.

It was originally supposed to air in October 1994, but it was pushed to May 1995. The overall premise of the special is a parody of the Rod Serling anthology show, Night Gallery, which ran on NBC from 1970-1973.  There are several segments each parodying a different story, like Tell-Tale Heart, Hound of the Baskervilles, Night of the Living Dead, and there’s even an adaptation of that classic Twilight Zone episode Terror at 20,000 Feet.  And they also do a version of The Devil and Daniel Webster.  But before we get to that I want to point out the awesomely spookified opening.

We see Buster and Babs as zombies.

We see them using flashlights to create spooky lighting.

Still in the intro, we get to see the gang trick or treating.  We can see Plucky in the back on the right dressed as Freddy Krueger.  In front of him is Fifi La Fume and she’s dressed as what looks like Dot from the Animaniacs.  Moving left I see Shirley the Loon and I think she’s dressed as Jeannie from I Dream of Jeannie.  And finally Hampton is dressed as Barney Rubble.

Now let’s get on to the show.  The wraparound segments, like I said, are based on Rod Serling’s Night Gallery.

Babs is the host of this special and she’s standing in a spooky old art gallery which is what Rod Serling did for Night Gallery.

We actually get an appearance of an animated Siskel & Ebert about half way through and they give their review of the special so far.

But let’s take a look at the segment, Daniel Webfoot and the Devil.

Daniel Webfoot and his driver arrive at the mansion answering a distress call.  Webfoot can already see there are spooky shenanigans going on.

We see Montana Max quivering in front of a large figure.  He clearly looks in trouble.

The camera pans to see the Devil.  In a purple suit, spats and matching top hat.  This Devil is actually voiced by Ron Perlman and he’s a very likable chap.  Perlman being the Devil here feels like an homage to him being Hellboy.  I mean the Devil even looks like an interpretation of Hellboy.  But that movie wouldn’t happen for another 9 years.  So maybe Ron Perlman in Hellboy is an homage to *this* cartoon.  (I know, I just blew your f**king mind).

Webfoot arrives and immediately tries to wheel and deal with him.  And the Devil is totally open to negotiation.  Webfoot tries to claim that Montana Max was unduly forced into his contract…

…and we hear from Montana himself that, no, he entered into the contract of his own free will.  He’s sitting amongst a bunch of money to prove it.

Like the original story, the Devil pulls in a group of damned souls to mediate the negotiation.

Ultimately, Webfoot can’t get around the signed contract…

…and both he and Montana wind up in Hell by the end.

I love Tiny Toons, so of course I love this very loose adaptation of The Devil and Daniel Webster.  And I love Ron Perlman’s strong voice behind this very likeable Devil.  Apparently people liked it because Perlman would return to voice the devil in another episode.  But not Tiny Toons!

Stay tuned to see Ron Perlman’s second appearance as a cartoon Devil on Friday!

Also, check out the blog Countdown to Halloween for more Halloween-y, bloggy AWESOMEness.

This entry was posted on October 28, 2020 at 7:00 am and is filed under AWESOME-tober-fest, Blog Series, Halloween, holiday, monsters, pop culture, The Devil, TV shows with tags AWESOME-tober-fest, AWESOME-tober-fest 2020, Fantasy Island, Halloween, pop culture, The Devil, TV shows. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.