Let's Watch This: An Episode of "AAAHH! Real Monsters"

Seeing as it's the Halloween season, I figure it'd be a good time to watch a cartoon that I recall scaring me when I was younger. Perhaps Nickelodeon's first foray into doing a cartoon on the creepy side.

AAAHH! Real Monsters was Klasky-Csupo's second cartoon for Nickelodeon (the first, of course, being Rugrats). It premiered on October 29th, 1994 and ran for four seasons. Inspirations for the show included Yellow Submarine and a Soviet film called Investigation Held By Kolobki.

As you can probably guess, the series focused on monsters. Specifically, three young monsters who attended a school where monsters learn how to scare people (it's kind of a proto-Monsters University, in other words). There's Ickis, a long-eared Charlie Adler-voiced monster whose use of arrogance as a cover up for his insecurities, combined with his bumbling nature, often got the monsters into WHACKY SHENANIGANS. There's Krumm (voiced by David Eccles), a flesh-colored monster that carries his eyeballs in his hands and really needs to trim his armpit hairs. And there's Oblina (Christine Cavanaugh), a candy cane-shaped monster with gigantic red lips and is the smart one of the bunch. Their teacher is the Gromble (Gregg Berger), a hot-tempered fellow who appears to have a fingernail for a nose.

As I've said before, when I first saw this show it kind of spooked me. The creepy music, grotesque character designs (combined with the grimy color scheme) and eerie theme music added up to something that rubbed me the wrong way. Of course, when I was younger I was also afraid of Rizzo the Rat. As in, the Muppet. Make of that what you will.

As a result, I've never rewatched it up until now, unlike with most of Nickelodeon's other 1990s cartoons. But I'd say that it's juuuuuuuuuuuuuuust obscure enough to qualify for a review on this blog (I don't think it's THAT lesser-known, but it never became as popular as, say, Rugrats), so today we'll be watching the fourth episode - "Monstrous Makeover" and "A Wing and and a Scare" (this is one of those "each episode is two segments" shows) - to see if my fears were justified, if the show is actually really good, or if the only scary thing about this show is how bad it is. This is AAAHH! Real Monsters.

"Monstrous Makeover" begins with Ickis attempting to scare a nurse at a hospital... and failing miserably at it. Instead of being scared, the nurse coos over how cute Ickis is. I'm a little iffy on this... if I were in a dark room and something that looked like Ickis jumped out and snarled at me, I'd probably be pretty freaked-out. He's hardly the scariest monster that I've ever seen, but he's about on par with somebody like Randall Boggs.

Those lips alone make him pretty freaky-looking.

While sneaking around in the air vents, Ickis discovers a doctor (John Astin) who works at the hospital and is apparently insane because he does things like giving somebody an extra nostril. But he isn't interested in that - he's interested in the nurse's mentioning "a waiting room full of frightened people". Frightened people that he can make even MORE frightened! "This is my lucky day!" he exclaims as he scampers off.

But when he gets to the waiting room, he discovers that those "frightened people" are in fact the doctor's previous patients. And, to be honest, they're far scarier than Ickis is.

Far, far scarier.

Seriously, Ickis, you want to scare people? Don't bother with the red eyes and the bearing of your fangs - just find a camera, take a photo of these folks and show it to anyone you want to freak out. Problem solved.

So Ickis has failed in scaring anybody, and the Gromble isn't happy with him. He laments to Krumm and Oblina that he's about as scary as a sack of flour, but all they have to do is give him a pep talk and he immediately becomes convinced that he IS scary.

Oblina suggests that they go aboveground so Ickis can make a few people wet their pants. First stop - a supermarket.

Krumm's pits are scarier than any of the monsters I've seen so far. I mean, not as scary
as those patients Ickis saw back in the hospital, but scary...

Unfortunately, the store is having a sale on little pink bunny dolls, and Ickis is mistaken for one of them and shoved onto a shelf. Then Ickis attempts to scare a baby, which shouldn't be too hard seeing as he does it no problem in the intro, right?

Even that baby is scarier than any of the monsters I've seen so far.

So, he could do it in the intro, but he couldn't do it here? I demand an explanation.

After that, Ickis attempts to scare some crazy person in a padded room. But despite the fact that this guy is apparently afraid of RICE (not an exaggeration, he's seriously afraid of rice), Ickis fails at scaring HIM too. Krumm and Oblina laugh at Ickis' epic failure because they're nice like that.

Ickis storms off, announcing that they won't be laughing when they see "the NEW Ickis", and Krumm and Oblina go scare a mechanic. While they're there, they see a report on the TV about everybody protesting the doctor from before's turning them into mutants. And guess who else is there? Ickis! He tells the doctor that he's seen his handiwork and he needs his help.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it a plot point in this series that the monsters try to prevent human beings from finding out about their existence? Ickis has basically blown that cover off, hasn't he? Then again, the doctor doesn't seem too startled over the existence of a little magenta rabbit-like monster right in front of him.

Maybe he just thought Ickis was a really short person cosplaying as the Noid?

Fortunately, Krumm and Oblina show up just as the doctor is getting ready to perform a little plastic surgery on Ickis.

You ever notice that all of the monsters in this show have gigantic lips?

I think the doctor needs a new pair of glasses, because his reaction to seeing... however one would describe Krumm and Oblina is to assume they're reporters. Krumm knocks him out by forcing him to smell his stinky armpits, and then he and Oblina attempt to drag Ickis out of the room. Ickis is all "NO, LET ME GET THE PLASTIC SURGERY SO I CAN BE SCARY!", and then Oblina gets an idea - how about a little reverse psychology? She and Krumm start bad-mouthing Ickis and telling him that even if he DOES make himself look scarier, he'll never be a scary monster because he just doesn't have what it takes. Ickis gets mad, and when he gets mad, THIS happens:

Hey, wait a second! Why didn't he just do this before? Did he just not know until this episode that he could do that or something?

Well, anyhow, Ickis succeeds in scaring people and he's learned that he is, indeed, a scary monster. Huzzah. Next episode!

Ickis, Krumm, and Oblina are in... New York, I think (that's apparently where the show takes place) to scare a family making plans to go to Wisconsin. The only really noteworthy thing about this family is that the dad is voiced by Bill Faggerbake and the daughter is voiced by Kath Souice, so as a result I was picturing Patrick Star and Lil Deville whenever they opened their mouths. I do love it when a Nicktoon reminds me of another Nicktoon.

Oh, and the daughter might just be scarier than any of the monsters I've seen so far.
I'd say she's about on par with those creepy mutant patients from the prior episode.

Oblina gives some exposition: the Gromble has assigned them to scare the daughter because she's apparently really hard to scare - which isn't too surprising, seeing as she's pretty scary-looking herself - and they need the extra credit. They decide to hide in her suitcase, but the dad shuts it and carries it out of her room. Apparently they weren't listening when the mom and dad were talking about going on vacation a few minutes ago, otherwise they would've seen this coming. You'd think Ickis would've heard it at least, seeing how he has such big ears.

In fact, Oblina believes that they've been caught in some sort of monster trap that the humans set up for them. Isn't she supposed to be the smart one of the trio?

Also, that's one surprisingly pretty roomy suitcase.

It isn't long before the monsters are in the luggage compartment of an airplane, which apparently has some sort of dumbwaiter or something that lifts the suitcase they're in up to the part of the plane where the seats are. Also, this airline is really, really obsessed with cheese. A sign at the airport promises cheese on every flight, an employee wears a cheese hat, the in-flight movie has product placement for cheese... I'm guessing it's because it's a flight to Wisconsin. You know how much Wisconsin supposedly loves cheese. And what's the deal with airline food?

Eventually, Krumm finds an air sickness bag and gobbles it up, resulting in this:

Apparently, eating an air sickness bag causes monsters to turn yellow.

They spot the girl, and Ickis tries to scare her by... hiding in her dad's food. I'm not quite sure what your plan there was, Ickis...

Next, as the plane is flying through a lightning storm, the monsters disguise themselves as a flight attendant. Dunno where they got the outfit, but I like to think that they knocked out one of the plane's actual flight attendants and stole their clothes. They don't scare the girl, but they do scare her brother, so there's that, at least. Krumm's eyeballs fly out of his hands, and Ickis goes to get them.

"I've heard of rolling your eyes, but THIS is ridiculous!"
Also, Ickis at all concerned that somebody might see him?

The monsters, by the way, still don't get that they're on a plane. Ickis just assumes that the house they're in is moving. Oblina tries to scare the girl herself, only for the girl to mistake her for a seatbelt.

I like the girl's dopey expression here.

After that, the monsters say "To heck with it" and decide to get out of there. "We can come back when they don't have so much company," Ickis suggests. They find the bathroom and decide to leave via the toilet. The result: they're ejected onto one of the airplane's wings. Is that really where your waste winds up on airplanes?

Calling it, somebody on the plane is going to mistake Ickis for a gremlin.

Y'know, in hindsight, maybe I shouldn't have chosen an episode that takes place mainly on an airplane to review for this show. I already used all of my best airplane jokes in my Eek! The Cat review... which I haven't actually posted yet. I'll probably post it at some point in November.

"Sis! There's a gremlin on the wing of the plane!"
(Hey, if the show's not going to make that joke, then I see no reason why I shouldn't)

Anyhow, as Ickis is scaring the girl's brother (again) through the window, Krumm gets sucked into one of the turbines and somehow ISN'T chopped up like a salad. Instead, it causes the plane to lose altitude. Fortunately, Ickis and Oblina manage to get Krumm out of there before the plane can crash - and as an added bonus, they've scared all the passengers. Mission accomplished!

On the downside, the Gromble isn't happy because the passengers technically weren't scared by a monster but rather by the plane nearly falling out of the sky. "They're supposed to be afraid of MONSTERS, not AIRPLANES!" he shouts. "MONSTERS!" He's so enraged, he decides to punish Ickis, Krumm, and Oblina by forcing them to go through the "stuck in a suitcase being put on an airplane" experience all over again. "There must be a better way to travel..." Ickis groans.

FIN.

What's the Verdict?

I didn't know what to expect from AAAHH! Real Monsters when I decided to rewatch it, but you know what? It was honestly pretty good! I liked the characters, and the voice actors all did a good job. Of course, the show does still have Klasky-Csupo's trademark grotesque animation style, which works well for the monsters but results in some really ugly-looking humans. I think that's the one complaint I have, though.

Looking back on it, I can see why I was so freaked out by the show when I was younger, but it's hardly the scariest thing that Klasky-Csupo has ever given us. No, no. That honor goes to THIS terrifying thing:

If Ickis wants to be scarier, he should ask that logo for some pointers...