1980 11:30 on CBS: DRAK PACK

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

Drak Pack was an action/comedy cartoon that aired on CBS Saturday Morning between September 6, 1980 and September 12, 1982. It was produced by Hanna-Barbera for a total of 16 episodes before it was mercilessly cancelled.

The series centers around three young men: Drak, Frankie and Howler, descendants of Dracula, the Frankenstein monster, and a werewolf. To atone for their ancestors' wrongdoings, the three are recruited by the REAL DRACULA (who they call "Big D") to be a kind of under-cover super hero team that saves the world from Doctor Dred and his assorted henchmen who go under the collective name of "OGRE" which may have stood for something but I forget. The Drak Pack look like regular young folks (college age maybe?) until they do a three-person high-five ("High Fifteen?") known as the "Drak Whack", which allows them to transform in to their monstrous forms.

This, more than any other show, is the one I am afraid to revisit because I loved it so much as a child. Part of my love for it was because I only ever got to see ONE EPISODE, and then never saw it again because of stupid College Football (aka "Saturday Morning's Arch Enemy"). But this show stayed with me all my life as the motivation for getting in to animation history and whatnot.

Do you hav any memories of this show? Was it really as epic as my memories seem to think it was? Leave a comment below!

Comments

[the-gneech.livejournal.com]

Wow, now there's some cheese I'd forgotten! :D

It was about on par with the rest of Hanna Barbera's output of the time, as I recall... if you enjoyed Blue Falcon and Dyno-Mutt, you'd enjoy this show. But yeah... don't have real high expectations!

-TG

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

This is the stuff that was coming out of the HB Australia division - most of the definitive 1970's story-driven HB cartoons of the era were being produced Down Under (as opposed to the classic HB comedy shows of the 60's). I'm getting a pretty good eye/ear for those "Hanna-Barbera Pty. Ltd" shows... they usually end up being among my favorites :)

Easiest rule-of-thumb for telling if it's Australian - more Humans than Talking Critters. Exception to that rule - More humans than talking critters, but they solve mysteries :)

[mspette.livejournal.com]

Ooooo I don't know this one! Must investigate.

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

It's probably all on YouTube by now :)

[janusfiles.livejournal.com]

I just did a search on YouTube, and complete episodes are available for your viewing pleasure.

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

I'm so frightened... not sure if I can do this!

[janusfiles.livejournal.com]

OGRE -- Organization of Generally Rotten Enterprises, as mentioned in the intro.

And does anyone else think that Vincent Price might have been the model for Dr. Dread?

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

Most assuredly, it's Vincent Price. HB spent a lot of time and effort making cartoons and characters specifically aimed at getting "Golden Age" actors to either do the roll, or at the very least get the Voice Over Guy to do an impression of that actor. I seem to remember tales of a law suit (and I've never bothered to follow-up or Google the facts) where HB got in trouble over this practice in the 80's...

[janusfiles.livejournal.com]

Of course, Vincent Price was also the model (as well as the the voice) for Vincent Van Ghoul in The 13 Ghosts Of Scooby-Doo a few years later.

And whoever voiced Toad was definitely doing a riff on Peter Lorre.

[demonicgerbil.livejournal.com]

I think I saw an episode of this, but it would've been years later before I was old enough to remember it. Not enough episodes for it to go into syndication. Did it get packaged up with some other HB cartoon and put into syndication that way?

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

Yes it did, in the USA Cartoon Express (aka "USA Cartoon Kids Club"), along with stuff like "Clue Club", "Dyno-Mutt", "Trollkins", "Laff-A-Lympics", "Yogi's Space Race" and others that make most people go "Oh yeah... I think I kind of remember that!" :)

[demonicgerbil.livejournal.com]

Is that the cartoon block that would air sundays on USA? I loved that, it rescued my sunday mornings from boredom so often. (Wikipedia is a bit ambivalent on what timeslot it aired in during which year)

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

Yes, that's the one! Thing about the Cartoon Express is that in the early days of the USA Network, they didn't really have a schedule of any kind. "Cartoon Express" seemed to be on ALL THE TIME except for from about 4pm (PST) till 4am (PST) - THOSE hours they filled with movies and a show called "Night Flight" which was an extremely random late-night television conglomeration. The Cartoon Express is responsible for my extreme familiarity with just about every cartoon that was made from 1970 till my pop-culture awareness kicked in at around 1982 :)

[man-of-snows.livejournal.com]

I loved the Cartoon Express. It started my obsession with the Herculoids.

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

The early days of the USA Network in general are some of my fondest memories. I was always envious of the kids on the East coast who always seemed to be winning awesome prizes from the USA Kids Club :)

[aurora77]

It's also one I haven't seen since it originally aired. I'm also tentative about revisiting it.

I propose that a three-way high five be henceforth known as a "tri-five".

College football was an unholy abomination! I was so grumpy whenever anything cut into cartoons, because that was MY time. It was like they singled me out and took away my favorite thing. And when I found out that kids on the East Coast got to watch their cartoons that morning...oh the injustice of it all!!!

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

College Football, Golf and Basketball - THE AXIS OF SATURDAY MORNING EVIL!

I think that my inability to fall in love with Disney World can be traced back to my jealousy towards those kids getting the whole Saturday morning line-up.

[man-of-snows.livejournal.com]

I vaguely remember this one.

[aurora77]

I obtained a few eps and I'm listening to them at work. It makes for good background sounds and is keeping me in a good mood during a week where before it started, I already had more than a week's worth of work on my plate, one coworker is on vacation, we're losing our contractors and I'm taking on their work too, and one of my other coworkers just had a car issue and couldn't make it in today, AND some random work stuff went wrong, and everybody wants something from me. So yeah, I should be in a bad mood, but this is keeping me SMILING! :D

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

That's great :)

[yerseester.livejournal.com]

Just my two cents.
I totally remember Drack Pack. I also remember loving it.
Though I don't remember it being on for long.

[cooperwench.livejournal.com]

I remember spending WAY TOO MUCH money on a vhs tape online with like, four episodes of this and thinking how cheesy it was but you will pry that tape out of my cold dead hands....I LOVE IT.
This was my favorite show growing up.

[captain-slinky.livejournal.com]

I HEART MY BOOTLEG VIDEO TAPE COLLECTION SO MUCH!!! I still have a box of those bulky plastic clamshell boxes with photo-copied cover inserts and carefully noted details like if it was recorded in SP, SLP or EP.... *siiiiigh*... I used to make so much money in the early days of Ebay with those things!