The Banana Splats!

There always seems to be a backlog of movies around here waiting for me to get the time or to get into the proper mood to completely enjoy them. One such is The Banana Splits Movie, a Halloween offering I'm just now clearing off the DVR. I was actually too old to thoroughly grok the Banana Splits who showed up on TV in 1968 following on the offbeat popularity of rock group / TV shows like The Monkees and The Archies.

The Banana Splits are a pop-rock band made up of Snorky an elephant, Fleagle a dog, Drooper a lion and Bingo an ape. Now none of these anthropromorphic critters is going to found in the wild, but such a conglomeration does suggest something about the weirdness of the time. Both Hanna-Barbera and Sid and Marty Krofft are responsible for this oddball band, with the latter designing them and the former using their antics as the frames for other shows, some live-action cliffhangers and others animated. The Banana Splits Adventure Hour was more than the faux critters seen above, and an interesting attempt to showcase some slightly different storytelling.

But that's not what's going on here. This is a horror movie and the setting is "Taft Studios" where the last episode of The Banana Splits Show is being recorded for broadcast in the dingiest and most forlorn looking studio you can imagine. Our doughty protagonist, a youngster who loves the Splits goes to the taping with his family and all too soon the deadly mayhem gets underway. The Splits are actually highly refined robots and something in their programming or perhaps the news that the show is being cancelled causes them to go "Westworld" on the unfortunates who came to see the show.

This is tagged as a horror-comedy and I see that, but for my money there's too much gore and a little too much blood, and not enough pure terror and it really could use a bit more humor. There are some neat twists, but the body count is too high for the giggles to linger erupt much or linger long, and the fact that really young kids are threatened and not the usual cadre of annoying teens makes this outing a little hard to watch in places.

But it was nice to see the old gang again, though I am very glad it was not in person.

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