Thursday, June 27, 2013

Soul Train presents: Little Anthony & the Imperials (1970's)

I cannot be entirely certain when this episode of Soul Train was first broadcast, but what we do know is that Little Anthony & the Imperials originally released "Goin' Out of My Head" in 1964, and were on a comeback tour when they appeared on the show. Nearly 10 years later, "Head" still had people groovin' on the floor.

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Saturday School: Timer teaches dentistry (1970's)

SatAMBrainfood offers up a Time For Timer piece in which Timer (Len Weinrib) teaches kids how to brush their teeth.



Rating: A.

Monday, June 24, 2013

On DVD: Droopy: The Complete Theatrical Cartoons (2007)

Fred "Tex" Avery left Warner Bros. for MGM, and cemented his status as a cartoon icon with the introduction of Droopy in 1943. A sad-eyed, slow talking basset hound (often referred to mistakenly as a poodle in a couple of films), Droopy was also blessed with a brilliant mind and the uncanny ability to appear wherever his adversary was in the blink of an eye.

However, that gimmick, Avery knew, would wear out rather quickly, so he had Droopy move on to other things and situations. There are some all-time classics included in WB's 2007 2-disc DVD release that covers all 24 shorts, with the last few produced by William Hanna & Joseph Barbera, which would explain why they acquired Droopy in 1990 to use as a backup feature on Tom & Jerry Kids.

Radio actor Bill Thompson voiced Droopy in most stories, and was otherwise subbed by Avery himself or another legend, Don Messick, which would represent Don's earliest work.

I've seen these shorts many times over the years, and now, I'm very happy to have the complete set in my DVD collection.

In "Three Little Pups", Droopy is given two brothers in a send-up of the "Three Little Pigs":



Watch for more classic shorts.

Rating: A.

Sunday, June 23, 2013

Saturday School: The Dough Nuts (1980)

ABC commissioned a series of PSA's in 1980 that taught kids how to avoid making life mistakes, such as rushing into making purchases without testing the merchandise first.

The Dough Nuts, unfortunately, didn't hang around for very long, and didn't have the charm of, say, Schoolhouse Rock. The sad tale of Gordon Graham Gantz, following below, plays out like a modern day Fractured Fairy Tale, if you get the drift.



Greengrass Productions, which produced these shorts, would later branch out to full-length series, such as Bump In The Night, before closing up shop at the end of the 20th century.

Rating: A.

Toonfomercial: Remember Quisp & Quake? (1965)

In 1965, Quaker Oats commissioned producer Jay Ward to create new characters for their cereal line, since he had previously produced ads for Cap'n Crunch.

The end result was a pair of cereals, Quisp & Quake. Now, to be perfectly honest, I've never had either of these cereals in my lifetime, though I have had Cap'n Crunch. I digress. Anyway, the dual ad campaign lasted a few years before Quake was pulled off the shelves (and he would return with Simon the kangaroo to promote Quangaroos, another short-lived Quaker cereal).

As for the characters themselves, Quisp, voiced by Daws Butler, is a goofy alien who would've fit in right at home with Rocky & His Friends. Quake (William Conrad, narrator of Rocky & The Fugitive) is a miner who looked a little too normal by comparison. As it turned out, kids preferred goofy over gallant, especially impressionable pre-schoolers who could roll their eyes the way Quisp does.

In the following introductory ad, the spokesman for the company, I believe, was voiced by either Daws Butler or Paul Frees. I'm just not sure.



Quisp is only available in limited markets these days, while Quake & Quangaroos have gone the way of a lot of failed products, shuffled off to limbo.

Friday, June 21, 2013

Toonfomercial: Remember the Frito Bandito? (1960's)

Ay caramba! Does anyone remember the infamous Frito Bandito?

Frito-Lay, now a subsidiary of Pepsi, introduced the animated Bandito in the 60's. Fred "Tex" Avery directed most, if not all, of the commercials, and it was the incomparable Mel Blanc, using his Speedy Gonzales voice, that spoke for the Bandito, who left the scene in 1971, thanks in large part to protests over the use of ethnic stereotypes.

The truth is, the Bandito appealed to people of all ages and nationalities as a means of selling Fritos corn chips. After the Bandito was forced off the air, the advertising agency tried other characters, such as WC Fritos, modeled after, of course, WC Fields, and the Muncha Bunch. In recent years, there hasn't been that much advertising for Fritos since a brief commercial starring country singer-actress Reba McIntire. The chips pretty much sell themselves these days.

Anyway, let's take a trip back in time and learn a song from the Bandito........

Daytime Heroes: The Bloodhound Gang (3-2-1 Contact, 1980)

I will freely admit right now that I never watched PBS' 3-2-1 Contact during its run, and so I missed out on the adventures of The Bloodhound Gang, a team of amateur detectives who appeared during the show's first season. Hence, there will not be a rating, and this is just as a public service.

The inspiration comes from an interview Marc Nobleman did over at Noblemania with some of the cast, including Glenn Scarpelli, whom most of you will know better from One Day at a Time, which he joined after leaving Contact after just 1 season. Scarpelli is also the son of long time comics artist Henry Scarpelli, which would explain Glenn's foray into comics---as a character, yet---in one of the Archie books.

Anyway, here's "The Case of the Human Whale":

Thursday, June 20, 2013

Saturday Morning's Greatest Hits (?): King of the Cars (1979)

American Bandstand did have cross-overs from other shows during the 70's. For example, Kaptain Kool & The Kongs (Michael Lembeck, Mickey McMeel, Louise DuArt, Debra Clinger, and, perhaps, depending on when they appeared on Bandstand, Bert Sommer) popped in during their 2 year Krofft Supershow run. John Travolta (Welcome Back, Kotter) had released an album well before "Grease". And, then, you have Lenny & The Squigtones.

Michael McKean & David Lander (Laverne & Shirley) turned up on Bandstand in 1979 to perform two songs---"King of the Cars" & "Love is a Terrible Thing". Yes, they're sending up the late 50's-early 60's period from which their characters sprang, but it's so much fun. Lander was no stranger to Saturday mornings---he was the voice for Jerry Lewis' animated self in the 1970 series, Will The Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down---but if memory serves, McKean would later return with his more famous combo, Spinal Tap, during the 80's.



Lenny & The Squigtones made only one appearance in my home area, and that was for a Cerebral Palsy telethon, where they did "Night After Night". No concert bookings, though, that I know of.

Toon Legends: The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries (1984)

After welcoming back their sexy teammate, Daphne Blake, Scooby-Doo and nephew Scrappy had their series retitled, The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries. All that was needed was to bring back Fred & Velma to get the gang back together, but for some reason, ABC felt it wasn't time yet. Unfortunately, that would ultimately prove costly.

Part of the reason a lot of people began hating Scrappy might be that ABC & Hanna-Barbera decided to phase Daphne, Fred, & Velma out of the picture and put more of the emphasis on Scooby, Scrappy, & Shaggy as a comedy team. That lasted for three years before Daphne returned. You'd think that the producers would consider the notion of having leggy Daphne cozy up to Shaggy, since Fred wasn't around. However, Fred & Velma would return from time to time, just not often enough to satisfy viewers. One last format change, to The 13 Ghosts of Scooby-Doo in 1985, was actually one change too many, as that series didn't go the full season, gone by the spring of '86.

Here's the intro, complete with cheesy lyrics.



If you've seen one Scooby cartoon, you've pretty much seen them all. Rating: B.

Toon Rock: Do The Bartman (1990)

Any fan of The Simpsons worth their salt probably still has the 1990 album, "The Simpsons Sing The Blues". The first single was the rap, "Do The Bartman", performed by Bart Simpson himself (Nancy Cartwright), and would you believe that it was written by someone who knows a thing or two about hit records-----Michael Jackson.

The self-styled King of Pop didn't get any credit for penning "Bartman" due to the simple fact that the album was released on Geffen Records, while Michael himself recorded for Epic. Small wonder then that Jackson, a fan of the show, would eventually guest star a few years later.

Now, take a trip back to 1990 for "Do The Bartman".

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Toon Rock: Me Musical Nephews (1942)

Popeye got a well deserved break from beating up Bluto. Unfortunately for him, what he gets instead is an all-night jam session put on by "Me Musical Nephews" in this 1942 Famous Studios/Paramount short, which was remade 8 years later as "Riot in Rhythm".



Major bonus here is the original opening, which ye scribe has never seen, since all the syndicated prints were from AAP. It's too bad that even after "Riot", they never did a sequel.

Rating: A.

Rein-Toon-Ation: Donkey Kong Country (1996)

Nintendo, after seeing NBC dismiss their animated series in 1991, decided to get back into the cartoon game five years later, partnering with Canada's Nelvana and a French studio to create Donkey Kong Country, in effect bringing back a video game icon who had been a villain in a previous incarnation, but now was a hero. Well, they did the same thing with King Kong, didn't they?

When Donkey Kong made his television debut in 1983 on Saturday Supercade, he was true to his video game self, an evil ape voiced by, of all people, Soupy Sales. For Country, Kong is the protector of something called the Crystal Coconut, and, so, of course, now you have a villain for Kong to fight. No Donkey Kong, Jr. here, but there is a sidekick named Diddy (someone check and see if Sean Combs found this to be the inspiration for his current nickname). The series lasted 40 episodes, stretched across 2 seasons, and made its US debut on Fox in the summer of 1997, but didn't get very far due to the congressional hearings in an attempt to impeach then-President Clinton. From that point, Country was, eh, farmed out to Fox Family (now ABC Family) for the rest of its US run.

Following is a sample episode:



No fair rating, as I never saw the show.

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Toons After Dark: Aqua Teen Hunger Force (2001)

Amazingly, this is the longest running original series in the nearly 12 year existence of [adult swim]. The only way Aqua Teen Hunger Force (which now goes by another title) has managed to hang on this long is largely because their target audience (college students, mostly) are so zonked by the time the show comes on, they don't realize they're watching a real dog of a show.

Like, sentient food as superheroes? The creators of this series had to be on something. How else to explain a pack of French fries, a ball of meat, and a milkshake cup at least attempting to fight crime? And, yet, in spite of all this, the breakout star on this show is their next door neighbor, Carl, a generic human.

The flash animation doesn't make the animated colorforms format of this series any more obvious than it already is. Aqua Teen was popular enough to warrant a feature film, but the promotion of the movie involved some lame stunt in Boston that went awry and cost Cartoon Network executive Jim Samples his job, leading to the current misdirected administration of Stuart Snyder & Rob Sorcher and their bad ideas.

Edit, 1/3/22: Had to change the video. Here's a sample intro:



The movie was a bomb, so there are some sophisticated people among us after all.

Rating: D.

Sunday, June 16, 2013

Saturday Morning's Forgotten Heroes: Space Ghost finds a City in Space (1981)

From Space Stars:

Space Ghost (Gary Owens) and his crew find a floating space city on a collision course with the sun, but the citizens have been so dependent on technology for so long, they don't know how to stop the city from its death course. Teen Force member Elektra lends a helping hand in "City in Space".

Unfortunately, there are no Teen Force episodes on YouTube, at least not now.......


Rating: B-.

Thursday, June 13, 2013

Saturday Morning's Forgotten Heroes: Steve Zodiac (Fireball XL-5, 1962)

Space exploration was in its early years when Gerry Anderson's Fireball XL-5 premiered in England in 1962.

The third series to employ Anderson's Supermarionation process, Fireball was headlined, if you will, by Captain Steve Zodiac. Unfortunately, the series would only last one year, 39 episodes, before being cancelled. Despite this, NBC acquired Fireball to fill a space on their Saturday morning schedule from 1963-5, and even with the low episode order, I think it spent some time in syndication after leaving NBC. I barely remember the show myself, so there won't be a rating.

Just the same, here's a sample clip, with the open of an episode, followed by the closing credits. Don Spencer sings the theme song.

Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Tooniversary: ABC's 1973 Saturday Sneak Peek

It was a common practice back in the day for the networks to preview their Saturday morning fall lineups in primetime. ABC traditionally did this on the eve of the new season, and there were a few clunkers along the way.

The 1973 model may just fit under "clunker", for that matter. I barely remember seeing this the first time around, and, sad to say, the following clip is all I can find. The comedy team of Jack Burns & Avery Schreiber served as hosts for this edition. Schreiber would move to CBS the next year to co-star on The Harlem Globetrotters Popcorn Machine, but as memory serves, he & Burns (ex-The Andy Griffith Show) had their own series on ABC around this time, hence landing this gig. Anyway, Avery entertains his nephew, and gets help not only from Burns, but from a few guests, including Bugs Bunny (voiced, of course, by Mel Blanc, but otherwise an anonymous guy in a suit, probably hired away from a theme park). And, yeah, that is Chuck Woolery, a couple of years away from Wheel of Fortune, as Superman. Chuck would also be involved in a revival of Your Hit Parade a year or two later. Not sure who was cast as Batman.

Josh Schrieber uploaded this clip:



I had seen better before and after this. Rating: C-.

Saturday Morning's Forgotten Heroes: Arabian Knights vs. The Great Brass Beast (1968)

Time for another adventure of the Arabian Knights, from The Banana Splits Adventure Hour.

Van-Gore (Paul Frees) creates a "Great Brass Beast" (read: giant robot) to help Bakaar (John Stephenson) conquer a neighboring kingdom. Of course, you know the Knights will have something to say about that.



Rating: A-.

Game Time: Juvenile Jury (1947)

Before he was forced into exile from television due to the quiz show scandals of the late 50's, Jack Barry had one of his first successes with Juvenile Jury.

Jury began on radio in 1946, airing on WOR in New York, and then transitioned to television a year later, beginning a nearly decade long run. Alpha Video included the following episode in a compilation package, "Lost Quiz Shows of the 50's", although technically this wasn't a quiz show per se.

One wonders if Art Linkletter got the idea for Kids Say The Darndest Things, a component of House Party, after seeing this show. TVDays provides us with a sample episode:



Several years later, the then-fledgling BET revived the series, with actor-poet-comic Nipsey Russell as host. Unfortunately, I don't have anything available from that period at this time.

Rating: B+.

Sunday, June 9, 2013

On The Air: Sofia The First (2012-3)

It's time to meet the newest----and youngest----of Disney's Princesses.

Sofia The First launched with a pilot movie in November, with the series following in January. Not surprisingly, its quick rise in popularity has resulted in a renewal for a 2nd season just 2 months after the series started.

Sofia (Ariel Winter, Modern Family) has been thrust into royalty after her mother married a King. As she quickly finds out, her rise in status lends itself to the predictable jealousy & resentment, as we'll see in this sample clip:



To better welcome Sofia into the family, the producers have seen to it that every other Disney Princess from Cinderella all the way to Jasmine (from Aladdin) takes a turn in mentoring. A clever bit of stunt casting sees Tim Gunn (Project Runway, "The Smurfs") as the voice of the butler, Baileywicke. The series airs on Disney Junior as well as the Disney Channel proper as part of a DJ sampler block.

Rating: A.

Friday, June 7, 2013

Saturday School: Villa Alegre (1973)

There have been attempts over the years to present programs aimed at both English & Spanish-speaking young people. In the 80's, ABC had the short-lived cartoon, Rubik, the Amazing Cube, which featured Latino protagonists, and short interstitals featuring the Puerto Rican pop group, Menudo. In recent times, PBS had a daily series, Maya & Miguel, which sought to educate as well as entertain.

But before all that, there was Villa Alegre, which bowed in 1973, and spent 7 seasons on PBS, with reruns airing in syndication. I recall seeing the series airing on WPIX in New York in the early 80's, long after production had ended on the show, which was rotated with another bilingual children's series, Carrascolendas, which we'll review another time.

What you might not know is the talent involved, including veteran actress Carmen Zapata and actor-turned-director Alejandro Rey (ex-The Flying Nun), who was behind the camera for much of the series.

FuzzyMemoriesTV uploaded a short sample, taken from a broadcast airing in Chicago, circa 1981.



Yeah, I know. I should've had this out in time for Cinco de Mayo last month, but hey, what can you do?

Rating: A.

Saturday Morning's Forgotten Heroes: Donkey Kong, Jr. (1983)

Saturday Supercade may have been headlined by the villainous Donkey Kong, but his heroic son, Donkey Kong, Jr., takes the spotlight this time.

DKJ (Frank Welker) and his human best bud, a retro-greaser named Bones (Bart Braverman, ex-Vega$), travel the country in search of the elder Kong, whose own continuity more closely resembles his namesake video game. What results is that Junior & Bones end up running into one mystery after another (Welker's well acquainted with that, of course).

Here's the open:



Rating: None. Never saw the show.

Thursday, June 6, 2013

Celebrity Toons: Scooby-Doo meets Jerry Reed (1972)

From season 1 of The New Scooby-Doo Movies comes "The Phantom of the Country Music Hall", with actor-singer Jerry Reed as the guest of the week. Without so much as saying so, the Mystery Inc. team might as well be at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville for this adventure. Reed sings "Pretty Mary Sunshine", which was originally recorded, I think, by Austin Roberts for season 2 of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?, since the original version had a similar vocal as Roberts' faux-British accented cover of the theme song. Reed's version of "Pretty Mary" would later appear on the "Scooby's Snack Tracks" CD several years later.

Edit, 2/6/24: Had to change the video to a stand-alone clip of "Pretty Mary Sunshine":



Reed fit the intra-network crossover pattern in that he had his own variety show some months prior, also on CBS.

Rating: B.

Saturday Morning's Greatest Hits: Sunny Sun Day (1972)

From the original Flintstone Comedy Show comes a Bedrock Rockers (Pebbles & Bamm-Bamm's band, don'tcha know) track, "Sunny Sun Day". Hanna-Barbera had tried to turn Pebbles & Bamm-Bamm into a prehistoric version of Archie Andrews and his girl-next-door honey, Betty Cooper, only in this case, it's Peb who's the redhead, and Bamm-Bamm the blond. Oh, well.......



Wednesday, June 5, 2013

Toons After Dark: Beavis & Butt-Head (1993)

In this writer's opinion, nothing defined the gradual change in MTV in the 90's more than the development of its animation department, starting with Beavis & Butt-Head.

Texas animator Mike Judge introduced his dim duo in the short, "Frog Baseball", which premiered on Liquid Television. MTV viewers loved it, and so the teen twits were given their own series. It initially launched in March 1993, but because not enough episodes were produced to justify a daily berth, the series was pulled after a couple of weeks, allowing Judge time to develop enough of a backlog to keep the show going. Beavis returned a few months later, and MTV was never the same again.

Beavis & Butt-Head lasted 4 1/2 years overall, ending in December 1997, during which time Judge expanded, sending the boys into a feature film (1996's "Beavis & Butt-Head Do America"), and finding the time to have Beavis & Butt-Head record a novelty remake of Sonny & Cher's "I Got You Babe" with Cher herself. Their Christmas special, parodying "A Christmas Carol" & "It's A Wonderful Life", remains a favorite.

Following, however, is "Citizen Butt-Head", in which the boys meet President Clinton (voiced by an impersonator). Then-MTV News anchor Tabitha Soren guest-stars.

Edit, 12/10/16: Unfortunately, the complete episode is no longer available. We'll settle for this short little excerpt:




The series was revived in 2011, but it doesn't appear as though it took so well, marking the characters' 20th anniversary as it did. Of course, MTV isn't exactly a good landing spot for toons these days.

Rating: B.

Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Saturday Morning's Forgotten Heroes: Herculoids vs. The Firebird (1981)

From Space Stars:

The Herculoids learn a lesson about not judging a book by its cover, shall we say, when they encounter "The Firebird". Keene Curtis narrates.



Now, would the Herculoids be brought back today? As we've previously seen, the dullards at [adult swim] disrespected the series by babyfying one episode, and trimming it down by about 2/3 of its original length. That, however, was at least 10 years ago, so if someone came along with a proposal that was an out-of-the-park hit with Warner Bros. suits, well.......!

Rating: B.

Monday, June 3, 2013

Saturday Morning's Greatest Hits: Fool, Fool, Fool (1964)

Ladies & gentlemen, submitted for your approval tonight, Mr. Roosevelt Grier.

Mr. Grier is better known for his exploits in the NFL, mostly with the then-Los Angeles Rams, and his acting (Daniel Boone), as well as a well-publicized interest in needlepoint. Little did most of us know, however, that during his NFL days, Mr. Grier moonlighted as an R & B singer.

In June, 1964, Roosevelt Grier appeared on American Bandstand, and looked like he stepped off the Motown Records assembly line instead of the gridiron, he was so immaculately attired. Now, before I found this clip, the only time I'd heard him sing was in the Marlo Thomas special, Free To Be...You & Me, in the mid-70's. How was I supposed to know he'd been on the charts a decade before? Sheeesh!!!

Anyway, NRRA Archives2 uploaded "Fool, Fool, Fool", introduced, of course, by Dick Clark:

Saturday, June 1, 2013

Looney TV: Bugsy & Mugsy (1957)

Near the end of the 50's, Bugs Bunny needed some new adversaries.

Enter a gangster wannabe named Rocky and his dumb-as-a-doorknob sidekick, Mugsy. Friz Freleng introduced them in a 1957 short that had the crooks taking refuge in a condemned house that Bugs himself had just moved into.



Rating: A-.