‘The Banana Splits’ Then and Now: How it Went From Saturday Morning Kids’ TV Show to Horror Movie

‘Banana’ Twist

When the production unit Blue Ribbon Content (in association with Warner Bros Home Entertainment and Syfy) decided to pursue this new take on The Banana Splits, the writing team of Jed Elinoff and Scott Thomas, with an extensive background in children’s television, were approached and immediately joined.

“Today there’s this sort of hunger to find stuff that was meaningful or that people used to love, and for us to find an interesting way to do something new with it as opposed to just rebooting it was really exciting,” says Scott. “To be honest, growing up the Sid and Marty Krofft show that we knew and loved was probably Land of the Lost. That was kind of our touchstone. We obviously knew about The Banana Splits and seen it, but we didn’t grow up watching it. There was some time looking back on YouTube and finding clips and sort of diving into that world. The funny thing is, when you think of a show like The Banana Splits or Barney or Yo Gabba Gabba, it’s a really fine line. If you were to take a scary horror movie score and just put it over them, it’s not a giant leap — most of your work is already done for you. There are kind of freaky costumes in the context of the original show, they’re fun and light and they’re for kids and they’re funny, but it’s not a big stretch to see how you can twist this and make it kind of demented.”

Elaborates Jed, “In this movie, The Banana Splits sort of serve as a catalyst for the main character Beth to sort of take agency over her own life. Following a traumatic experience from her past, she’s married the wrong guy and in an attempt to find safety, The Banana Splits kind of really serve as a catalyst for her to seize power in her life and move on. That’s what the movie’s really about. They’re just these great agents of chaos, which is a lot of what they always were.

“When you watch the old show,” he continues, “there’s this goofy, chaotic quartet that always makes something funny and kind of crazy happen when they get involved. So in a way, it’s a little bit of harkening back to the show, while the horror part was the fun reason for us to dive into it. We set it in a world where The Banana Splits show is still on. We made it into a live show that is performed in front of an audience, so when the movie starts you get a taste of the old show with the fun, goofy Banana Splits. But there is a moment that triggers things and gives them a reason to turn bad. What we’ve done is turn them into robots and their whole reason for being is to put on this show. When they find out that their show is going to be canceled … well, they have to keep putting on the show. Which is everyone in entertainment, right? They’ve got to keep making the show and don’t want it to end. If we were being super-duper heady and not quite honest about it, you could say it represents the culture we live in right now where the show has got to go on no matter what the show is.”

Pointing to their background in children’s TV, Scott emphasizes, “We’ve created and run shows for the Disney Channel and Netflix and you definitely see both sides of it. There’s the really fun side and, at the end of the day, it’s a business. I think we really looked forward to lampooning that a little bit and diving into what can sometimes be the cutthroat business of children’s TV. And we’ve had shows canceled, so we know that feeling, too.”

“When The Banana Splits was done originally,” Jed explains, “it was done in the same vein as The Monkees, which was kind of a commentary on Beatlemania. Being able to use that same property and make a commentary on the state of children’s television as a packaged product is amazing; there’s something really interesting in that so many years ago it was commenting on pre-packaged entertainment that’s served up to kids, so in a way its legacy remains true.”

The ‘Westworld’ Influence

Although the idea behind the film could have been people in costumes who lose their minds, instead the writers looked back to the 1973 movie version of Westworld (now an HBO series). “We just thought of all those great moments of Yul Brynner as the Gunslinger,” Scott notes, “just walking through those hallways and at the end of the movie just being this robot that was created for fun and enjoyment that becomes homicidal. So our thought was, ‘What if this movie is Westworld meets Yo Gabba Gabba or Barney?’ What if Barney was a robot and started pursuing everyone through the hallways of these sound stages? That was really what we were drawing from.”

Directing ‘Splits’

The next person to enter the project was director Daniskha Esterhazy. “I had recently finished a dystopian thriller called Level 16,” she reflects. “The film was a hit in the horror community and played at many genre film festivals. Level 16 brought me to the attention of Warner Bros’ Blue Ribbon Content and Syfy. They had a project in development with a strong female lead: The Banana Splits Movie. I’m known for creating elevated genre with strong female leads, and so it seemed like a good fit. They sent me the outline for the script and I loved it. The story was dark and scary and funny with great characters. I also loved the themes of self-discovery and acceptance. The writers are really great, so I very much wanted to make this film. On top of that, I love horror movies, so I’m always interested in a great scary film. On top of that, I think that a lot of children’s television is unintentionally creepy. There is something about the design of the Banana Splits characters that is unsetting, so it did not seem like a stretch to take those characters and create a horror story world.

“There is also something deliciously subversive about turning a children’s show into a horror movie,” she continues. “One of the things that I love about horror fans is their willingness — their delight — at exploring the darker side of everyday life. The way a horror story can look at family or suburbia or children’s television and shine a light on the fears and insecurities that lurk beneath the surface makes for very intriguing storytelling.”

A suspicion one could get based on the trailer is that this could simply be a slasher film with guys dressed as The Banana Splits. “I grew up watching horror movies in the ‘80s and loved every sub-genre of horror, especially those over-the-top gory slasher movies,” Scott says. “It definitely has a feel like that, but with everything we do, we really try to create a story we care about. That seems really silly to say, but we didn’t write it first and foremost as a slasher movie. It’s somewhere between slasher horror and survival horror, but, at the heart of it, we made it about this broken family and this woman from a terrible past who is trying to keep the world safe for her kids. She brings them to The Banana Splits, because she thinks that’s going to be safe.”

Jed details, “And what she thinks is going to be safe and enjoyable, turns out to be incredibly dangerous. It just reminds her that you never know when something bad is going to happen or who is gong to do something terrible. She really stands up and takes control again and in that way, ‘mama bear’ sort of comes out. It really did become about this woman who is kind of depressed and has to seize her power from within.”

“I wouldn’t want to make a film that is simply a slasher film,” states Daniskha. “I love genre films that are thrilling and entertaining, but that also have a deeper layer of storytelling. A layer that explores the human condition. In The Banana Splits Movie, there is definitely blood and gore, but there is also the story of Beth and Harley; a mother and son who go through a harrowing adventure and emerge stronger. It is also a story about self-acceptance and non-conformity. A story that explores the theme of ‘to thine own self be true.’”

“Here’s Fleegle!”

Scott and Jed recognized that there would be an inevitable inherent campiness to this film and the notion of The Banana Splits being murderers, so, as Scott reflects, “We tried to write it straight. We really tried to write it as a traumatic horror movie without winking at the camera. And Danishka did the same thing. She really approached it drawing inspiration from Kubrick’s The Shining and things like that, because we knew at the end of the day that it was going to be silly.”

As the director explains, “Horror movies are changing. Perhaps because the film industry itself is changing. Women directors are finally getting the chance to make bigger movies, and we bring a different sensibility. I don’t want to portray women as victims, fantasies or cardboard characters. I want to make stories about women who show the full range of human complexity. The Banana Splits Movie has a great protagonist in Beth. She is a fascinating woman who goes on a terrifying journey to protect her family. And who discovers her inner strength in the process. And I was very happy with our lead Dani Kind, who can be vulnerable and misguided, but also very kick-ass.”

The Final Ingredients

A lot of the creative success of the film was to somehow bring The Banana Splits to life vocally and physically. Providing dead-on impersonations of the original Banana Splits voice cast is Eric Bauza, who has an extensive background in animation and will be bringing the Looney Toons characters to vocal life in a series of new animated shorts. “The Banana Splits, like most everything that I watched as a child, I caught in reruns,” Eric points out. “I love the Splits, Sigmund and the Sea Monster, H.R. Pufnstuf — anything that starred costumed characters. Paul Winchell, Daws Butler — who seems to live in my vocal chords — and the rest of the voice actors were very inspirational to me, and it was a thrill to bring them back in this way.”

For her part, Danishka adds, “When I think about the most challenging part of this film, I have to mention that the Splits costumes were very heavy, very hot and very itchy. I hired dancers to play the parts of Fleegle, Bingo, Drooper and Snorky, because I knew that they would be able to embody both the comic movements and the animatronic movements of their characters. Those dancers endured long hours on the set, but they never lost their enthusiasm or their commitment. So I applaud Terry Sauls, Brandon Vraagom, Kori Clarke and Bunto Plam for all their hard work.”

The Banana Splits Movie will be released digitally on August 13, followed by a DVD/Blu-ray combo pack on August 27. It will air later in the year on Syfy.