Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Rein-Toon-Ation: The Thing Meets The Clunk (1979)

The Thing (Joe Baker) finds himself having to corral a runaway robot whose programming isn't quite as complete as his creator had intended. Professor Quimby (Paul Winchell) may be absent-minded, but good natured. His creation, though, is a work in progress. Here's "The Thing Meets The Clunk":



It was never really implied that Kelly (Noelle North) was Benjy Grimm's girlfriend in this series, although she and her scientist father (John Stephenson) were the only ones who were privy to Benjy's dual identity.

Rating: B--.

5 comments:

Goldstar said...

There weren't any hints of Benjy and Kelly having any sort of relationship beyond friendship. I've always just assumed that Kelly was little too young for Benjy, although I was never certain of her exact age on the show. Kelly appeared to be around 13 to 15 years of age, if I were take a guess. Kelly was probably my favorite thing about those cartoons. She was super cute.

Goldstar said...

Also, knowing that "Benjy" was actually an adult who's trapped in the body of a teenager and in reality is old enough to be Kelly's dad, that adds an uber creepy tone to the thought of the two of them being an item.

hobbyfan said...

Not sure where the idea came from that Benjy was trapped in a teenager's body. I've always assumed that this was just a quasi-reboot, with Thing only emerging when the ring was activated. As it was, it was a bad idea in the first place.

Goldstar said...

I thought that the show was simply a re-imagining of the comics story initially, but there was an episode made that explained this situation that I somehow missed on NBC, but saw for the first time years later on Cartoon Network. I believe the short was titled "To Thing Or Not To Thing". I'll need to research this.

hobbyfan said...

Hmm, so will I. I think that's available online.