Monster Café

It's Halloween so time to remember something aptly spooky.

"Monsters!
we're heavy and we're hungry,
monsters!
we're coming your way,
monsters,
we're stamping and a stomping,
and a moving and a grooving,
and a moaning and a groaning,
and you'll find us at the Monster Cafè!"

I bloody love that theme tune.

Monster Café children's comedy series that aired on CBBC in the mid 1990's. About the adventures of a group of spooky misfits who run a cafe especially for monsters, ghosts and ghouls. Serving the likes of slug sandwiches and spider milkshakes.

The three employees of said café were as follows...

Frankie (played by Isobel Middleton) a female robot/frankensteins monster. Complete with 80's hair and wardrobe.

Igor (played by David Shimwell) a hunchbacked Transylvanian bloke with a bad hygiene problem who was often making bizarre concoctions in the kitchen.

and finally Mummy (played by Toby Sedgwick) a 6,000 year old mummy with a bad case of rhotacism. "rummy, rummy rummy!"

The café was situated in the basement of a castle. Owned by the evil Baroness (played by Peta Lily) who was horrible to her employees. But often she got her comeuppance.

There were a few minor characters as well. There was Skull who sat in his little alcove in the wall and cracked bad jokes.

Vinny the Bin. Who was Igor's pet bin. Who loved eating rubbish and Igor's old socks.

And Chas, the cafe's regular customer. A sea monster with a brummy accent. Marvelous!

The opening titles pretty much tell you what you're in for. 15 minutes of sillyness. Episodes were humourous and slapstick in style. You could always expect some kind of explosion or custard pie to be chucked in an episode. I loved slapstick, so anything like that was appealing and anything involving monsters, spooks and ghouls was a definite winner for me. After all, Halloween has always been a favourite of mine!. Oh and after watching a few episodes, you too will start saying phrases like "monster me!" and "back in a monster mo!".

You have to love the monsters who visit the cafe and the costumes. There's a definitely a classic Doctor Who feel to them. I imagine bubble wrap, plastic sheeting and paper mache had a part in them.

Did I enjoy Monster Cafe? Oh yeah, definitely. The show only had two series of thirty episodes but the beeb got their mileage with them. They were repeated on BBC Choice a lot in the early 2000's and during early mornings on BBC 2 in 2005 before Cbeebies attempted to air them in 2007. Sadly they only got four episodes in to the run before having to pull it due to a torrent of complaints from angry mothers whose children were apparently terrified of the show. Which baffled me as from as early as I can remember I grew up watching the likes of The Trap Door, Count Duckula and of course Monster Cafe and I've turned out OK....I think.

Go on...watch an episode!