Today, I welcome Leila Anani to TMtV. Leila was one of the first internet vampire friends I met, through the vampire forum she used to run. We’ve been friends since and have attended many a film festival together – both the now defunct Bram Stoker Film Festival at Whitby and more recently Grimmfest. Leila has guest blogged here before and has selected a TV series to discuss that I have watched the first episode of but has been sat languishing in my “to watch” pile and therefore you won’t find a previous review of Van-Pires on the blog. She has also come at it from a very soundtrack angle.
Van-Pires was a “ground-breaking” live-action/CGI animation hybrid show of 13 episodes airing between 1997 and 1998. It was so bad it has been pretty much mind-bleached by everyone who tuned in at the time, however being vampiric, it came to my attention and I decided to track it down and watch it, so you don’t have to.
As well as its mix of live action footage and animation it’s a hybrid of so many tropes and shows that you’d think it would be cliché central but somehow, despite all that’s familiar, it manages to be so deranged, that it is one of the most unique and bonkers entries in my vampire archive. I don’t think there’s anything quite like this out there. If its oddity wasn’t fascinating enough, there are so many mysteries and unanswered questions surrounding this bizarre show that I ended up doing a deep dive and burrowing down several rabbit holes, the result of which is this article.
The show opens with a Saved By The Bell intro of kids in school, counting down the clock till home time. Our 4 heroes – Axel (the hot one) Rev (the feisty girl), Nuke (the strong comedy relief) and Snap (the token jive talking black guy) race to junk-yard Sunrise Salvage where they spend their nights helping out the hippie owner Van He’ll Sing (more on him later). Plot questions abound: When do these teens find time to sleep? (they are there from school out until sunrise) – Why do their parents let them hang out with this creepy hippie? Why are they in school when they are clearly in their 20’s? Anyway, moving swiftly on….
One particular night, a meteor hits the yard and turns four vehicles in its immediate vicinity (don’t question this too closely) into Decepticons *cough* I mean Van-Pires – Evil anthropomorphic vehicles bent on sucking the fuel from innocent cars to feed their need for speed. – Why only these particular ones? – no clue, maybe because they were the only fully functional vehicles, or maybe they were at the epicentre – just roll with it)
We have the leader Tracula (a purple truck) and his henchmen: Cardaver (a hearse), Ambula (a female ambulance with six arms inspired by The Bride of Frankenstein) and Automaniac (An insane ice cream truck, based on The Joker). In one later episode Tracula creates a son: Alucart – based on The Frankenstein Monster. Our villains can’t go out in sunlight, react to the cross (Van He’ll Sing makes a cross with two wheel braces at one point), fly, have fangs and turn victims (sometimes) – this is another one of those don’t question this too closely moments. While they don’t drink blood, they do drink fuel, sucking it out with their fangs – it’s enough of an analogy to count – they are clearly coded as evil vampires.
When the meteor stuck, our four teens jumped into the nearest available vehicle (a hot rod, a fire-truck, a construction truck and a camper van). They also became Van-pires… of a sort. They fused with the vehicles they were in – becoming able to transform into CGI superhero cyborg hybrids – with the power of flight and their specific vehicle’s weapons. They take up the name Motor-Vaters – yes, they are basically Autobot Power Rangers with the cringe-worthy motto “Mission Ignition” to transform and their fingers morphing into terrible CGI car keys. One innovation I did like, however, was the dual role of the vehicle – as well as the source of the Motor-Vator’s powers, it also acts as their coffin. The teens have to return to their “carfins” before sunrise to transform back into human form. Why Van, who also dived into his car didn’t transform, we’ll never know – Perhaps because his car bonnet leads into a secret bunker? Who knows.
The series uses so many familiar tropes (all handled poorly), and wince-worthy puns galore. From a genre POV we see the hybrid/half vampire fighting full vampires trope. The Motor-Vaters don’t have fangs, but do drink fuel. However it’s a special kind (Premium)…. Unleaded? I think this was a weird attempt to getting young people excited about renewable energies and environmentalism. In the final episode ‘Uncool Fuel’ Van turns the salvage yard into a kind of allotment, teaching the teens about the joys of flower power, re-cycling and growing things – it’s just one of the truly bizarre WTF moments.
Another is ‘The Bride of Tracula’ – Rev decides she’s sick of being a tomboy and wants to be treated like a girl - there’s a hint she fancies Axel in this episode but like everything else…. It’s never mentioned again. Anyhow Tracula falls into lust with her, kidnaps her and the guys have to mount a rescue. This one made me incredibly uncomfortable and not only for the freaky interspecies wrongness – Tracula is a truck and Rev’s a human girl. But the age – Rev’s still at school and ok, the actress Melissa Marsala was 22 but making her the fantasy of an old man coded vampire – so wrong. It’s not helped either by the cheesy soft rock ballad on the credits “When the sun goes down.”
The music is the most fascinating aspect of Van-Pires and where most of the mysteries abound. On the surface, Van-Pires quite clearly a cash grab on the success of shows like Saban’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers and Beast Wars. However, I’d also like to add that it is a musical vanity project for the Who’s bassist John Entwistle.
Entwistle died in 2002 and his final album (and only studio album for the John Entwistle Band) was ‘The Music from Van-Pires’ – He collected together a bunch of demos from The Who’s career and released them for the end credits of each episode of Van-Pires – Some of them are excellent. I particularly love Bogeyman (used in the credit of episode 8 – Nukenstein) The demo of this was created by Entwistle & Moon back in 1978 for the Who album Who are You – Van-Pires despite being terrible has secured its place in posterity being a must have for Entwistle and Who fans if nothing else. But was Entwistle’s contribution limited to the soundtrack?
Earlier I mentioned the character of Van He’ll Sing – The hippie Splinter of the show, who oversees the teen Motor-Vaters. He’s credited as playing “Himself” – There are so many rumours about who he really is – it’s hard to tell, he wears glasses, a bad wig and a bandana for most of the show – The most popular notion is it being an uncredited appearance of Gary Oldman (personally I find it highly unlikely that Oldman would come off filming The Fifth Element, Air Force One and Lost in Space to cameo on Van-Pires). I think the answer’s far more obvious than that – I think its Entwistle parodying himself. In the opening episode: ‘Those Who Have The Fuel Shall Rule!’ Van tells the kids how he got his name: - He was a roadie for the Rolling Stones, Jagger came down with laryngitis and was going to have to cancel the show. However, the band pointed at Van and said “He’ll sing” and he performed instead bringing the house down. Was this a personal anecdote? We know that Entwistle and Jagger were friends – The Who recorded at least twice at Jagger’s home Stargroves. Entwistle’s track Boris the Spider 1966 was inspired by a drinking session with Stone’s Bill Wyman. Incidentally, the song was the inspiration for calling the 70’s children’s robot spider game ‘Stop Boris’ – a firm favourite of my childhood. While I digress, Boris the spider shows Entwistle’s love of the macabre and use of silly voices – both of which resurface in music video Bogeyman – which prominently featuring a spider image and of course, let’s not forget the silly horror basis for Van-Pires itself.
As well as its mix of live action footage and animation it’s a hybrid of so many tropes and shows that you’d think it would be cliché central but somehow, despite all that’s familiar, it manages to be so deranged, that it is one of the most unique and bonkers entries in my vampire archive. I don’t think there’s anything quite like this out there. If its oddity wasn’t fascinating enough, there are so many mysteries and unanswered questions surrounding this bizarre show that I ended up doing a deep dive and burrowing down several rabbit holes, the result of which is this article.
The show opens with a Saved By The Bell intro of kids in school, counting down the clock till home time. Our 4 heroes – Axel (the hot one) Rev (the feisty girl), Nuke (the strong comedy relief) and Snap (the token jive talking black guy) race to junk-yard Sunrise Salvage where they spend their nights helping out the hippie owner Van He’ll Sing (more on him later). Plot questions abound: When do these teens find time to sleep? (they are there from school out until sunrise) – Why do their parents let them hang out with this creepy hippie? Why are they in school when they are clearly in their 20’s? Anyway, moving swiftly on….
One particular night, a meteor hits the yard and turns four vehicles in its immediate vicinity (don’t question this too closely) into Decepticons *cough* I mean Van-Pires – Evil anthropomorphic vehicles bent on sucking the fuel from innocent cars to feed their need for speed. – Why only these particular ones? – no clue, maybe because they were the only fully functional vehicles, or maybe they were at the epicentre – just roll with it)
We have the leader Tracula (a purple truck) and his henchmen: Cardaver (a hearse), Ambula (a female ambulance with six arms inspired by The Bride of Frankenstein) and Automaniac (An insane ice cream truck, based on The Joker). In one later episode Tracula creates a son: Alucart – based on The Frankenstein Monster. Our villains can’t go out in sunlight, react to the cross (Van He’ll Sing makes a cross with two wheel braces at one point), fly, have fangs and turn victims (sometimes) – this is another one of those don’t question this too closely moments. While they don’t drink blood, they do drink fuel, sucking it out with their fangs – it’s enough of an analogy to count – they are clearly coded as evil vampires.
When the meteor stuck, our four teens jumped into the nearest available vehicle (a hot rod, a fire-truck, a construction truck and a camper van). They also became Van-pires… of a sort. They fused with the vehicles they were in – becoming able to transform into CGI superhero cyborg hybrids – with the power of flight and their specific vehicle’s weapons. They take up the name Motor-Vaters – yes, they are basically Autobot Power Rangers with the cringe-worthy motto “Mission Ignition” to transform and their fingers morphing into terrible CGI car keys. One innovation I did like, however, was the dual role of the vehicle – as well as the source of the Motor-Vator’s powers, it also acts as their coffin. The teens have to return to their “carfins” before sunrise to transform back into human form. Why Van, who also dived into his car didn’t transform, we’ll never know – Perhaps because his car bonnet leads into a secret bunker? Who knows.
The series uses so many familiar tropes (all handled poorly), and wince-worthy puns galore. From a genre POV we see the hybrid/half vampire fighting full vampires trope. The Motor-Vaters don’t have fangs, but do drink fuel. However it’s a special kind (Premium)…. Unleaded? I think this was a weird attempt to getting young people excited about renewable energies and environmentalism. In the final episode ‘Uncool Fuel’ Van turns the salvage yard into a kind of allotment, teaching the teens about the joys of flower power, re-cycling and growing things – it’s just one of the truly bizarre WTF moments.
Another is ‘The Bride of Tracula’ – Rev decides she’s sick of being a tomboy and wants to be treated like a girl - there’s a hint she fancies Axel in this episode but like everything else…. It’s never mentioned again. Anyhow Tracula falls into lust with her, kidnaps her and the guys have to mount a rescue. This one made me incredibly uncomfortable and not only for the freaky interspecies wrongness – Tracula is a truck and Rev’s a human girl. But the age – Rev’s still at school and ok, the actress Melissa Marsala was 22 but making her the fantasy of an old man coded vampire – so wrong. It’s not helped either by the cheesy soft rock ballad on the credits “When the sun goes down.”
The music is the most fascinating aspect of Van-Pires and where most of the mysteries abound. On the surface, Van-Pires quite clearly a cash grab on the success of shows like Saban’s Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Transformers and Beast Wars. However, I’d also like to add that it is a musical vanity project for the Who’s bassist John Entwistle.
Entwistle died in 2002 and his final album (and only studio album for the John Entwistle Band) was ‘The Music from Van-Pires’ – He collected together a bunch of demos from The Who’s career and released them for the end credits of each episode of Van-Pires – Some of them are excellent. I particularly love Bogeyman (used in the credit of episode 8 – Nukenstein) The demo of this was created by Entwistle & Moon back in 1978 for the Who album Who are You – Van-Pires despite being terrible has secured its place in posterity being a must have for Entwistle and Who fans if nothing else. But was Entwistle’s contribution limited to the soundtrack?
Earlier I mentioned the character of Van He’ll Sing – The hippie Splinter of the show, who oversees the teen Motor-Vaters. He’s credited as playing “Himself” – There are so many rumours about who he really is – it’s hard to tell, he wears glasses, a bad wig and a bandana for most of the show – The most popular notion is it being an uncredited appearance of Gary Oldman (personally I find it highly unlikely that Oldman would come off filming The Fifth Element, Air Force One and Lost in Space to cameo on Van-Pires). I think the answer’s far more obvious than that – I think its Entwistle parodying himself. In the opening episode: ‘Those Who Have The Fuel Shall Rule!’ Van tells the kids how he got his name: - He was a roadie for the Rolling Stones, Jagger came down with laryngitis and was going to have to cancel the show. However, the band pointed at Van and said “He’ll sing” and he performed instead bringing the house down. Was this a personal anecdote? We know that Entwistle and Jagger were friends – The Who recorded at least twice at Jagger’s home Stargroves. Entwistle’s track Boris the Spider 1966 was inspired by a drinking session with Stone’s Bill Wyman. Incidentally, the song was the inspiration for calling the 70’s children’s robot spider game ‘Stop Boris’ – a firm favourite of my childhood. While I digress, Boris the spider shows Entwistle’s love of the macabre and use of silly voices – both of which resurface in music video Bogeyman – which prominently featuring a spider image and of course, let’s not forget the silly horror basis for Van-Pires itself.
Was Entwistle really Van He’ll Sing? Officially we’ll never know. However, I think there are probably clues and easter eggs littered within the show. Van’s constantly waxing on the importance of vinyl over CDs and referencing musicians – he lives for his music and his cars (two shared loves of Entwistle). One name-drop that’s been bugging me – In episode 10 ‘swarm storm’ – the little kid Kirby gets kidnapped by Tracula (don’t get me started on who Kirby is – this little kid that randomly appears for one episode never to be seen or heard from again….) Van goes to the cemetery to look for him and stops by a headstone reading: “Schulman” – he has an aside about being too old for this stuff a bit like Schulman who should be grateful now (he’s dead) – now this could be just a passing reference to The Grateful Dead but somehow it seems more personal than that. I’m sure in the future Entwistle fans more knowledgeable than me might sift through and find something concrete.
The Who themselves are no strangers to the vampire genre – Keith Moon appeared in Son of Dracula (1974) and performed on the soundtrack track ‘Jump into the Fire.’ Roger Daltry, a year previous to Van-Pires played Jamie/Vlad in Vampirella (1996) and of course performed the cover version of ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me’ on the Lost Boys' soundtrack before going on to star as King Janos in Dark Prince: The Legend of Dracula (2000). In 96’ Daltry and Entwistle were together working on the Quadrophenia reunion. I can just imagine Daltry telling Entwistle about Vampirella and Entwistle wanting to do something vampire related himself. But of course, it’s all speculation. {Ed – Daltry also took on a vampire as the musician Liszt in Ken Russell’s Lisztomania.}
While the Who/Entwistle connection is the most interesting, there are lots of other musical mysteries attached to Van-Pires. Not least, how they didn’t get sued by Van Halen for the Van-pires logo which looks strangely familiar…. Although this is probably another in joke, Halen being long time fans of the Who.
Episode 12 “One Million Miles B.C.” features a blues musician friend of Van’s: McKinley Morganfield (Muddy Waters) That’s an incredibly weird choice – Morganfield died in 1983 – so it’s obviously an actor playing him (the only guest credit is Jomo Ray about whom I can find nothing) – I get that the episode is about resurrecting relics from the past, but in a kids show? It’s really odd – Musically why blues when the rest of the soundtrack is rock? And why someone kids won’t have heard of? It’s got to be an in joke of some sort. He’s described as a friend of Van’s – If Van is indeed Entwistle is this another clue? Was the actor a friend? Or was Entwistle a friend of Morganfield? I can’t find any connection between Entwistle and Muddy Waters – other than being prominent 60’s/70’s musicians – they were from different genres.
The more I delve into Van-Pires, the more fascinating it becomes. It seems nuts that AGE – the kings of toy related franchises (Bucky O’Hare, Visionaries, The Nintendo Powerglove to name just a few) created an IP so ripe for a toy line – come on, superheroes AND vampire cars – what’s not to love? And yet no toys materialised. For anyone investigating this particular mystery, the SEC filing is available to look at and you can see 13 action figures were produced for ‘tooling turnover’ – I’m guessing the ideas and designs were there but the money wasn’t, because the show performed so badly. So why did Van-Pires fail?
While the core concept is awesome the show failed for being too ambitious and its separate parts too incongruous to engage with audiences. The characters aren’t just underdeveloped, they are ludicrous and there’s no camaraderie as there is between the Power Rangers or the Turtles – It’s so bad we don’t even learn the characters’ real names. The toilet humour and gags while they might appeal to young kids, instantly alienate the adults. There’s literal toilet humour – I haven’t mentioned so far, because I’m trying to forget, the three mascot annoyances. Tracula has a dumb duo of a flying toilet and toaster (who talks with a French accent like Lumiere from Beauty and the Beast) for no reason. And the Motor-Vaters have Greaspot, a tricycle that thinks it’s a dog. The Motor-Vaters also fart when they transform back to humans because they have… gas. Luckily, I think they only use that joke once before realising just how bad it is.
While it was ground-breaking at the time – the CGI looks terrible by today’s standards and the contrast with the live action is terrible. However, Van-Pires gets points for being the first show to fuse the two and pave the way for hybrids shows in the future. If you can overlook it’s failings, Van-Pire’s musical pedigree is amazing and gave the world a chance to hear all these previously unheard Who tracks. I hope there are music scholars in the future who can tease more from Van and the obscure references and see this as almost a piece of memorabilia, because if Entwistle was Van then this show was his… Pyre.
