Saturtainment: The Banana Splits Adventure Hour (1968)

CBS & Filmation kickstarted the Saturday morning bubblegum pop sweepstakes with the launch of The Archie Show in 1968, but NBC & Hanna-Barbera answered back with a 1 hour anthology series, The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, which boasted cereal giant Kellogg's as a sponsor. Trying to find the original opening, uncut, has been very hard, but we now have one, coupled with the original closing:



While there were three animated features per show, Micro Ventures, about a scientist and his two teenagers shrinking down, a la Fantastic Voyage, to do some research at home and on the road, only had 4 episodes. Here's "The Tiny Sea":




We've already talked about the other cartoon components, Three Musketeers & Arabian Knights. Of course, one big lure was the music. Here's another Splits song, "You're The Lovin' End", which incorporates footage of other H-B cartoons, including The Herculoids and Precious Pupp, the latter of which would be part of the syndicated Splits package.

Uploaded by Cicero:



 Last, but certainly not least, was the serial Danger Island, which starred Frank Aletter (ex-It's About Time), Ronne Troup, daughter of actor-musician Bobby Troup (Ronne would later join the cast of My Three Sons), Rockne Tarkington (ex-Tarzan), and (Jan) Michael Vincent, who'd later gain greater fame in films like "Baby Blue Marine" and the 80's series Airwolf. If you're only familiar with the syndicated version of Splits, you may be stunned to learn that the theme to Danger Island is actually twice as long. Here's the long version.



Banana Splits ran for 2 seasons, but by integrating other series into the syndicated package, it's been able to sustain itself for 40 years and change. Boomerang airs the syndicated version twice daily, but they're only looping the 1st season material, as they've aired Atom Ant, Secret Squirrel, and the Adventures of Gulliver separately. Boomerang also has the Sunday prime time series, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but that's sitting in the network vaults. Their loss, as usual.

Rating: A-.