My last Billy & Mandy episode airs tonight. It's called "Dracula Must Die." I wanted to go out with a bang, and of course, being the generous fellow that he is, Maxwell Atoms let me run wild with the story. It's one of the few episodes that has a direct change on what we know about the characters in the B&M universe. And it even connects to UNDERFIST, Atoms' B&M spinoff special. (A big thanks to Shaun Cashman for his deft directing and Phil Lamarr for his excellent acting)In my time on Billy & Mandy, I got to create a lot of fun characters: Fred Fredburger, Principal Goodvibes, Grandmama, and of course, Dracula. He first showed up in an episode called "The Home of the Ancients" that involved a bunch of retired monsters. In the original outline, written by Nina Bargiel, Dracula was written as an older version of the monster we all know and love.
But I wanted to put a different spin on him. So I thought about Blacula and what he might be like as an old man. I basically crossed Redd Foxx and James Brown, made him speak in the third person, and viola - Dracula was born. To Grim he was like a sports hero, but really he was just a crotchety old man who wanted to get with the ladies. I think their realtionship really blossomed in "Fear and Loathing in Endsville." We got to see how much Dracula could take advantage of Grim's adoration.
Tonight's episode teaches us something new about Dracula. It teaches us about love. About betrayal. And about revenge. And most of all, that Dracula don't suck. He do the scrape and lick.
Goodbye old man.
