‘The Banana Splits’: Trippy 1960s Kids Show Returns As Horror Project?

Bingo, Fleegle, Drooper and Snorky, the zany collective better known as The Banana Splits, are coming back with a vengeance — and with a body count?

As revivals go, this one may be as audacious as it is unexpected: Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and Syfy are bringing back the Banana Splits, the trippy-dippy characters introduced back in 1968 as the anthropomorphic hosts of The Banana Splits Adventure Hour variety program. This time around, however, the Banana Splits are being served up in a horror thriller.

The original movie will premiere this year from Blue Ribbon Content, Warner Bros Television Group’s digital studio, via a Warner Bros. Home Entertainment release that will be followed by the television debut on Syfy. The official synopsis: “In the upcoming horror thriller, a boy named Harley and his family (brother Austin, mother Beth, and father Mitch) attend a taping of The Banana Splits TV show, which is supposed to be a fun-filled birthday for young Harley and business as usual for Rebecca, the producer of the series. But things take an unexpected turn — and the body count quickly rises. Can Harley, his mom and their new pals safely escape?”

The Banana Splits revival stars Dani Kind (Wyonna Earp) as Beth, Finlay Wojtak-Hissong (The Kindness of Strangers), Romeo Carere as Austin, Steve Lund (Schitt’s Creek) as Mitch and Sara Canning (The Vampire Diaries) as Rebecca. Danishka Esterhazy (Level 16) is directing the horror project from a script by Jed Elinoff & Scott Thomas (Raven’s Home). The Banana Splits is produced by Blue Ribbon Content in association with Warner Bros. Home Entertainment and SYFY.

The Banana Splits membership features a lion, a beagle, an elephant and an orange gorilla. On the old television series, their signature theme song was Tra La La (One Banana, Two Banana), which might qualify as motive for murder after repeat listenings. The characters were created by the Krofft Brothers for Hanna-Barbera, which produced 31 episodes of the NBC show (which was a mix of live-action and cartoons) that originally aired from 1968-70.

The show gave the Kroffts a foothold success in television, which they followed with a raft of daft fantasy shows, among them H.R. Pufnstuf, Lidsville, The Lost Saucer, and The Bugaloos.  The last major revival of a Krofft-related brand: Will Ferrell’s numbing Land of the Lost expedition in 2008 , which ranks among the biggest flops in recent Hollywood history.

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