Danse Macabre Filmstrip (1963)

A re-post from 2017, and 2013 before that:

For Halloween, here's something haunting that I remember watching in music class in late elementary school, around the same time I discovered D&D (1982). It's a 1963 educational filmstrip with fantastic watercolors by Harold Dexter Hoopes, set to the eerie music of Danse Macabre by Saint-Saens. It was unavailable on the web until a few years ago but now there are multiple versions on YouTube, one of which has better colors but includes a loud "filmstrip advance" beep throughout. There isn't much info available on the internet about the artist Hoopes. There was even a blog dedicated to restoring the individual frames of this filmstrip but it seems to have stalled out at frame 20.

There's also a later second edition of the filmstrip done in the mid-80s with art by David Prebenna, later an illustrator of Sesame Street/Muppet toddler books. It's cartoony and less haunting, but also worth watching.

Memories of this filmstrip led me to include "Danse Macabre" in my One Hit Point Monsters.

Happy All Hallow's Evening!

2020 Update:

Re-posted with an improved video now available on YT.

DCC RPG vs the Motorhead War Pig

     The cover of the limited edition of the new DCC RPG reminds me of the War Pig from the cover of Motorhead's first released album, the eponymous Motorhead. It came out in 1977, the same year that saw Holmes Basic, the Monster Manual, The Silmarillion, the Rankin-Bass Hobbit cartoon, The Sword of Shannara and Lord Foul's Bane. Another '70s visual cue from Goodman Games? See also Hugh's bellbottoms on the DCC RPG promo poster, which specifically refers to "1970s Appendix N Fantasy".

    War Pig was created by artist Joe Petagno and graced the cover of most Motorhead albums in different variations. Lately I've been listening to Motorhead's No Remorse (an early '80s best of) after acquiring a copy on CD (my old cassette having bit the dust a while back). I listen to more punk than metal, but I do like Motorhead (and Lemmy's prior band, Hawkwind, even more so). The recent documentary Lemmy is also a memorable watch.