The Animated Universal Classic Monsters

Hahn (The Animated Peter Lorre) conducts a comprehensive survey of Uni-Toons, the animated appearances of Universal’s classic movie monsters in cartoons, movies, video games, internet shorts, and more. His book begins with Walt Disney’s 1933 short Mickey’s Gala Premiere, featuring Mickey Mouse and a handful of Universal horror icons. Although the premise is hyper-focused, the book includes background on Disney’s animation career, context for animated celebrity caricatures, and BBC trivia. Hahn adds value by providing crucial frames of reference to nearly every entry. He also displays a sense of humor and a love of wordplay. Note that the entries for non-U.S. works tend to merely present episode titles without much analysis. Hahn is idiosyncratic in his selections, avoiding titles where Frankenstein’s Monster is a robot or Dracula is a duck. Instead, he includes some of the original live-action monster movies because they used animation for visual effects. With only nine pages of illustrations, this book’s value for animation fans is limited.