By Ken
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!! OCTOBER 31st!! We made it! Hello to all you guys and ghouls out there! I hope you’ve all had a wonderful and fun filled spooky season up until now. On this final installment of my retro Halloween articles for 2026, I’ll talk about a franchise near and dear to me not only growing up, but that still remains a favorite of mine today. That franchise is the Universal Monsters! Dating back as early as the 1930’s, these creatures and monsters are still as relevant today as they were over 90 years ago and going forward. Like every franchise does, there are ups and downs in fandom, but it’s the true staying power of these franchises that keeps them going. Are all of these movies the greatest ever?? Of course, not. Some of these movies just abruptly end, without having a true conclusion, and some of the plot and stories don’t seem to make a lot of sense. But today we’re going to talk about when the Universal Monsters had a true resurgence in popularity and that was in the 1990s!
By the time the 1990s rolled around, the Universal Monsters had already been around for decades, but somehow, they found a whole new life with a younger generation. Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wolf Man, the Mummy, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon started showing up everywhere again, and not just in old black-and-white movies on late-night TV. Universal leaned into the nostalgia and began packaging the monsters together as one recognizable group, especially through VHS releases, Halloween merchandise, T-shirts, trading cards, toys, and collectibles. For kids growing up in the ’90s, these characters didn’t feel like forgotten movie monsters from the 1930s and ’40s. They felt like part of the pop-culture landscape right alongside and had no problem blending in with Batman, Jurassic Park, Power Rangers, and all of the other huge franchises of the era. Being in my late teens and early 20s in the 90s, I was already aware of the Universal Monsters and was excited to see them make a comeback!
One of the coolest signs that the Universal Monsters were back in a big way during the 1990s was their crossover with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. In 1993, Playmates Toys mashed together two completely different generations of pop culture, turning Leonardo into the Wolfman, Donatello into Dracula, Michelangelo into Frankenstein’s Monster, and Raphael into the Mummy. The following year brought even more, including Leonardo as the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Michelangelo as the Invisible Man, and April O’Neil as the Bride of Frankenstein. It was exactly the kind of strange toy idea the early ’90s were known for, but it also introduced Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolfman, and the Creature to kids who may have known far more about TMNT than old Universal horror movies. Looking back, the Monster Turtles are a perfect example of how the Universal Monsters became cool again—not by replacing what made them classic, but by dropping them right into the middle of ’90s kid culture. As a toy collector, I would love to add these figures to my collection, but they go for way more than I can afford on the secondary market! Just as of a few years ago NECA re-booted these figures with a more updated and realistic look.
And you really couldn’t talk about the Universal Monsters making a comeback in the ’90s without mentioning Universal Studios itself. When Universal Studios Florida was still a relatively new park, the classic monsters became part of the experience in a big way. In 1992, Beetlejuice’s Rock and Roll Graveyard Revue opened, bringing Beetlejuice together with characters like Frankenstein’s Monster, the Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, the Wolf Man, and the Phantom of the Opera for this great over-the-top rock-and-roll stage show. It was such a perfect piece of entertainment for ’90s pop culture—taking monsters from black-and-white horror movies and turning them into rock stars performing in front of thousands of theme-park guests. Then in 1998, Universal opened the Classic Monsters Cafe, a heavily themed restaurant celebrating the movies and characters that helped build Universal’s horror legacy. Between the live shows, themed environments, merchandise, and seeing these familiar monster faces around the parks, Universal Studios gave younger fans another way to discover the characters. You didn’t necessarily have to sit down and watch Frankenstein from 1931 to know who Frankenstein’s Monster was—you could see him rocking out with Beetlejuice while you were on vacation. That kind of exposure played a huge part in keeping the Universal Monsters visible, recognizable, and genuinely cool throughout the 1990s. When my wife and I visited Universal Studios in 2000, we attended a show similar, not sure if it still included Beetlejuice, but it definitely had the Monsters and was truly entertaining and one of my favorite attractions of the park!
Another example of that resurgence came in the form of fast food in 1997, when Burger King released a Universal Monsters toy line with its Kids Club meals. The promotion featured Dracula, Frankenstein’s Monster, the Wolf Man, and the Creature from the Black Lagoon, and the toys were surprisingly detailed and fun for a fast-food giveaway. Dracula could rise out of his coffin, Frankenstein came with his laboratory table, the Wolf Man popped out of a cellar-style display, and the Creature could squirt water. They even came with glow-in-the-dark elements, (a staple for any spooky or creepy toy) which made them feel perfect for Halloween season. For a lot of kids, these Burger King toys may have been their first real introduction to the Universal Monsters. You didn’t necessarily have to know who Bela Lugosi or Boris Karloff were—you just knew that Dracula, Frankenstein, and the Wolf Man were cool. My co-host Chad of The Retro Resurgence Podcast mailed me 3 out of the 4 figures a while back knowing that I was looking to add these to my collection! Thanks Chad!! I’m still in search of that Frankenstein though!
As we begin to wrap up here, to me what made the Universal Monsters’ comeback in the 1990s so special was that a new generation of kids could discover and experience these characters were never completely gone. The decade helped turn them into true pop-culture icons that could survive far beyond the movies that created them. They became collectible, nostalgic, and kid-friendly, without losing that classic horror look that made them famous in the first place. By the end of the ’90s, the Universal Monsters had become something that both older fans and younger audiences could enjoy together. In a decade that loved looking back at the past while constantly creating something new, Dracula, Frankenstein, the Wolf Man, and the rest of the creepy crew proved that sometimes the classics really do come back from the dead. – KEN
Chad