"House of Freakazoid" is a segment in Episode 12. It was written by Paul Dini and directed by Scott Jeralds.
Synopsis[]
On a stormy night, Lonnie Tallbutt arrives at the Douglas house and convinces Dexter to help him stop transforming into the Wolfman, since he is aware that Dexter transforms as well. When shaving the Wolfman does not turn him back into a human, Freakazoid decides to see if sending him into the Internet fixes him.
Characters[]
- Debbie Douglas (nonspeaking)
- Dexter Douglas
- Douglas Douglas
- Duncan Douglas (nonspeaking)
- Gypsy (voiced by Tress MacNeille)
- Mr. Chubbikins
- Emmitt Nervend (one of the stages in Dexter's transformation into Freakazoid)
- Freakazoid
- Lonnie Tallbutt / The Wolfman
Trivia[]
- The segment is a tribute to old Universal horror movies, most notably 1941's The Wolf Man. Lonnie is a caricature of Lon Chaney Jr. as Larry Talbot/the Wolf Man (a role he would play in several subsequent films). Lonnie's incongruous cries of "You don't understand!" and his insistence on grabbing Dexter come from that film, as does the Gypsy's dialogue (in the original film, she says, "Even a young man who says his prayers at night may become a wolf when the full moon is bright").
- The title of the segment references 1944's House of Frankenstein, a monster team-up movie featuring Chaney reprising the Talbot role.
- Dracula, the Mummy, and Frankenstein's Monster have cameos at the end.
- The shaving scene, and its use of Rossini's Barber of Seville score, reference the classic 1950 Chuck Jones Bugs Bunny cartoon "Rabbit of Seville."
- Mr. Chubbikins's position on the window references the then-ubiquitous Garfield dolls which would hang from car windows with suction cups.
- In one shot of Lonnie and Dexter in Dexter's room, several books are seen in the foreground. The titles are all references to the animation technique of placing painted foreground objects in front of the characters: Overlays for Fun and Profit, Book for Depth of Field, and Large Foreground Elements.
- This is the only Freakazoid! episode to have the writing and directing credits play during the beginning of the episode, as opposed to on a title card.
- This is the only Freakazoid! segment animated by the Japanese studio Tama Production, despite the entire show was co-produced by Toei Animation.
- In the Italian dub, Gypsy was voiced by Graziella Polesinanti.