Monster High: New Ghoul at School (2010) (TV)

Directors:

Audu Paden
Eric Radomski

Writers:

Anne D. Bernstein
Audu Paden
(more)

Release Date:

31 October 2010 (USA)

Genre:

Animation

Awards:

2 nominations

Cast

Erin Fitzgerald	...	Abbey Bominable / Spectra Vondergeist
Audu Paden	...	Ghoulia Yelps
Salli Saffioti	...	Clawdeen Wolf / Cleo de Nile (voice)

Directed by
Audu Paden
Eric Radomski

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Anne D. Bernstein
Audu Paden
Lauren Rose
Ira Singerman

Produced by
Haven Alexander	....	associate producer
Margaret M. Dean	....	executive producer
Vincent Edwards	....	producer
Shannon Nettleton	....	producer
Audu Paden	....	supervising producer
Ira Singerman	....	producer
Barry Waldo	....	executive producer

Original Music by
Steven Argila

Film Editing by
Mike Mangan

Art Direction by
Eric Radomski

Production Management
Robert Romero	....	production manager

Sound Department
Roberto Domínguez	....	supervising foley editor
Gary Falcone	....	supervising sound editor
Rick Hinson	....	sound designer
Mark Mercado	....	supervising dialogue/adr editor
Cynthia Merrill	....	foley artist
Marc Schmidt	....	audio post coordinator
David Veneziano	....	assistant re-recording mixer
Curtis S.D. MacDonald	....	dialogue editor (uncredited)

Animation Department
Daisy Church	....	animator
Layron DeJarnette	....	character designer
Tim Eldred	....	storyboard artist
Anna Hollingsworth	....	animator
Bob Rutan	....	animator
Stephen Sawran	....	animation director
Shawn Toshikian	....	animation supervisor
Rachel Young	....	animator

Other crew
Missy Moore	....	production coordinator
Lauren Rose	....	production coordinator

Production Companies

• Mattel Entertainment
• WildBrain Animation Studios

Also Known As:

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Company:

Mattel Entertainment

The second special and webisodes are much better.

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Monster High is pretty cool, it's a franchise or a phenomenon rather that involves dolls based on many famous movie monsters, there are video games, novels, accessories and weekly webisodes, but this first special, which serves as a pilot episode of sorts, is not much good in my opinion. The second special "Fright On" which aired on Nickelodeon is much better. The problem with this is that it lacks the fun of the webisodes, it's actually rather sad, usually the webisodes uses characters physical defects and social awkwardness as comedy, there is some of it here briefly, but it mostly just ends up with characters having their feelings hurt and crying with awful, sappy music playing in the background, the Monster High theme song is decent enough, but the other ones are fairly lousy. I felt bad for Frankie Stein, and Cleo, surprisingly, seeing as she is in many ways the villain up until season 2 when Toralei takes that role. Many of my favorite characters aren't in it, since they were introduced later on, such as the aforementioned Toralei, Spectra Vondergeist, Abbey Bominable and Operetta, but I'm not going to fault it for that, but I wish Lagoona was in it more, she's a very positive character until near the end, when she turns her back on Frankie, which I hated, it wasn't really clear why she was upset either, she said "everybody's heard" or something, alluding to the Deuce and Cleo situation, well, how could she know? It happened seconds ago in the cafeteria, while she was swimming in the pool, weird.

The way Frankie redeems herself bothered me as well, she more or less buys herself popularity and forgiveness in the end, which I didn't feel was the right thing to do, the verbal apology should've been enough. Anyway, I didn't really like this special, it's not as fun as it ought to be, there are actually some clever gags in the webisodes, like two zombie guys fighting over a girl and it takes forever because they move so slowly, a fun super hero episode with some gentle jabs at comic book geeks and humorous culture clashes involving Abbey. Some of the best and funniest stuff in the webisodes play off each monster's unique features and mythology, yeah, we had some controversy and news stories regarding Clawdeen the werewolf shaving...and I'm not gonna go there either, but the point is they have fun with the conventions, we all know vampires can't see themselves in mirrors, which means we get some fun scenes with Draculaura trying hopelessly to apply make up, this is a running gag that is introduced in this special. I do like the characters a lot, and this special is an okay if unremarkable introduction to the series. It gets better from here.