R Pond wrote:
Selling the great monsters down the river to Abbott & Costello even further painted them into a corner. Once the monsters had become a laughing stock in a comedy, no one could ever be truly scared by them again.

I read this all the time and I have to respectfully disagree.

I never (as a kid or as an adult) thought the monsters were made a laughing stock out of in A&CMF. If anything, they were scarier than ever to me.

Like many here, I grew up reading comments like Lon Chaney, Jr.'s (probably in FM) about how Abbott & Costello "ruined the horror field," and I probably bought in to that a bit. As an adult, though, I've realized Chaney was just grousing about fewer opportunities. Universal had already dropped Chaney's contract and weren't planning on any more of the horror programmers he'd made his bread and butter. If anything, A&C MEET FRANKENSTEIN was a last chance for all of Universal's great horror characters to strut their stuff. (It's not like it or any of its follow-ups was knocking a straight horror thriller off the production block).