tek's rating: ½

Mary Shelley's Frankenhole (stop-motion), on Cartoon Network
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This series was created by Dino Stamatopoulos, who previously created another Adult Swim show, Moral Orel. "Frankenhole" features the character Dr. Victor Frankenstein, from Mary Shelley's famous novel, but... well, it's a parody of that. It seems like it's set in the era of the novel, or in some kind of classic horror movie Transylvania. (Actually, it's "beyond space and time," somewhere in Eastern Europe, though I get the sense that the village is rather disconnected from the world, in a physical sense. Sort of.) Victor has made himself immortal, but more importantly, he's discovered (or created?) dimensional portals (which he calls "Frankenholes"), that give him access to every era in the past and future. Or actually, give anyone from any era who knows about the Frankenholes... access to the village (which itself seems to remain unchanged for thousands of years). Anyway, Victor can also bring any corpse back to life, as well as performing other insane scientific/surgical feats. I guess.

Victor is married to Elizabeth, whom he has also made immortal, though he's no longer really interested in her. So, she's having an affair with Dracula, which annoys him, though I wouldn't really say he was jealous. Victor and Elizabeth also have two sons, Heinrich and Gustav, who are not technically immortal, so they've now grown far older than their parents, in appearance, though they still act like little children. (But despite not being immortal, Death has decided not to take them, just to annoy Victor.) Victor has a supercilious assistant named Professor Sanguinaire Polidori, who he's also made immortal. The two of them seem to be friends, and they both obviously feel superior to (and bored by) pretty much everyone in time and space, except each other. We also occasionally see Frankenstein's "creation," the monster who is the subject of Shelley's book and the various movies adapted from it. Here, he's a servant of Victor's, and prone to sullen, Shakespearean-sounding soliloquizing about how tragic his existence is. Another of Victor's assistants is the hunchback, Ygor, who only ever speaks brief utterances such as "You got it" or "Here ya go" (and in spite of his appearance, he has the voice of a little girl). There's also a werewolf named Lawrence, who wishes to die, but can't.

Well, that's pretty much all the recurring characters so far. Anyway, Victor runs a business called "Frankenstein's Mad Operations, Ltd." People from any era in history can use Frankenholes to go to Victor in the hopes that he can help them with their bizarre problems. His clients include all sorts of celebrities and historical figures, who seem to be more messed up than we might imagine. It's all quite dark and twisted, satirical and offensive, but most importantly, really funny. And that's all I can say, for now. (There was a second season a couple years after the first one, but by then I didn't have access to Cartoon Network, so I didn't get to see it. I certainly hope to do so, someday.)


animation index
Adult Swim

Novel: Frankenstein
(The following is a list of things I've seen or want to see. There have been countless other things that have adapted or parodied the novel.)

Adaptations: Frankenstein (1931) * The Curse of Frankenstein * Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Loose adaptations: Young Frankenstein * I, Frankenstein * Victor Frankenstein
Parodies: The Rocky Horror Picture Show * Frankenweenie (1984) * Transylvania 6-5000 * Mary Shelley's Frankenhole * Frankenweenie (2012)
Ensembles: The Munsters * Drak Pack * The Monster Squad * Van Helsing * Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl * Hotel Transylvania * Once Upon a Time * Penny Dreadful