As part of MasterCard's long running "Priceless" series of commercials, the producers of The Simpsons contributed this spot, which follows Homer (Dan Castellaneta) on a typical day. Actor Billy Crudup is the narrator.
From season 1 of Spider-Man:
The webhead (Paul Soles) is up against it when J. Jonah Jameson (Paul Kligman) accepts an offer from an eccentric scientist to have a robot capture Spider-Man.
We talked before about the casting changes in the new Rugrats, which began dropping episodes on Paramount+ on Thursday. The biggest change, however, is with one of the parents.
In the original series, Elizabeth "Betty" Deville was married with her twin toddlers, Phil & Lil. 30 years later, Howard (voiced by Phil Proctor) has been ret-conned out----some say he was killed off----and Betty, now voiced by Natalie Morales (ex-Parks & Recreation) is an openly gay single mom.
Online commentators have hinted that maybe the show's creators had meant for Betty to be gay all along, but the standards & practices of the time didn't allow it in an animated series, and thus she was presented as married. Some of those commentators are under the notion, perhaps misguided, that Howard Deville was killed off. We don't know that for sure. I'm leaning toward a creative decision to ret-con Howard off the show.
What do you think?
Due to the pandemic, the IRS extended the deadline for tax returns to last Monday, May 17. In 1964, though, it was still April 15, per tradition, and it's a key to the plot in this season 1 episode of The Bill Dana Show.
Steady, versatile John Fiedler, known to millions of kiddo's as the voice of Winnie The Pooh's pal, Piglet, for so many years, guest stars here as an IRS agent who has to deal with the innocent generosity of Jose Jiminez (Dana). Look also for Jerry Hausner, who voiced Mr. Magoo's cousin, Waldo, in a number of shorts.
Our good friend and fellow blogger Hal Horn now has a YouTube channel, which is where we found this item.
DC's Legends of Tomorrow has built its fan base upon its retro-campy charm, and now that has produced the series' 1st spin-off.
Beebo, meant to be a parody, if you will, of Sesame Street's Elmo, became a cult favorite character in the series a few years back. As part of their roll-out of their 2021-2 slate today, the CW announced that Beebo will star in his own Christmas special. And, thankfully, it will be animated.
Ben Diskin (ex-Codename: Kids Next Door, among other credits) voices the title character. Legends alumnus Victor Garber will narrate, since Beebo was, in the context of the series, a child's toy that belonged to Martin Stein (Garber) as a child. Voice cast also includes Chris Kattan (Bunnicula, ex-Saturday Night Live) and Yvette Nicole Brown. The plan, of course, is for Beebo to air around December.
You've been warned.
Meanwhile, Scooby-Doo returns to the CW for a stand-alone special, as the Mystery Inc. team returns to the WB studios, only to solve a mystery at the studio. Current regulars Frank Welker, Kate Micucci, Matthew Lillard, and Grey Griffin, we must assume, will comprise the core cast. Scooby & the gang were last seen on CW in an episode of Supernatural a couple of years back. Expect this to be repurposed on HBO Max, if not also Chumptoon Network.
And, in a case of bizarre irony, CW Chairman/CEO/Head Moron Mark Pedowicz is sending Powerpuff back to the shop for a more realistic pilot, claiming the pilot that was already done was "too campy".
HELLO, MCFLY!! THE ORIGINAL SERIES WAS CAMPY IN THE FIRST PLACE, YOU IDIOT!!
As a result, Powerpuff is not on the fall schedule, but could still turn up sometime in 2022 or 2023.
Finally, CW's adult-centric reboot of Nickelodeon's Legends of The Hidden Temple has made the fall lineup, and will air on Sundays, as the schedule shuffling sends Legends & Batwoman to Wednesdays this fall. Yeah, it's not for kids this time, except maybe the grown-up 90's kids that appeared on or watched the original. It'll get killed by Sunday Night Football. Just watch.
In 1993, McDonald's obtained a license to include Looney Tunes toys in their Happy Meals. In this spot, Bugs Bunny (Greg Burson), Porky Pig, Daffy Duck, & Taz each have their own cars, because that's part of the toy promotion. Taz, of course, was starring in Fox's Taz-Mania at the time. Watervliet native Joe Alaskey voices Daffy:
Nabisco has long since gotten out of the cereal business, but back in 1958, they introduced some mascots for their bite-size version of Shredded Wheat cereal.
The Spoonmen were only around for 2 years (1958-60). In this spot, they're plugging plastic replicas of themselves that can fit on your spoons. Don Morrow is the narrator.
One of Nickelodeon's original Nicktoons is back. Again.
Rugrats, marking 30 years of the original series this year, returns as a CGI series, officially dropping on Thursday on Paramount+.
Most of the original cast, particularly the voices of the children, are back, with Nancy Cartwright (The Simpsons) as Chuckie Finster, succeeding the late Christine Cavanaugh. Cartwright had initially taken over the part after Cavanaugh retired during the original series' run. Kath Soucie, who voices twins Phil & Lil, has given way to Natalie Morales as the twins' mom, Betty.
Other casting changes involve the adults, with Michael McKean (ex-Breaking Bad, Laverne & Shirley, et al) taking over as Lou.
Paramount+ has this sampler, "Tommy's Ball", on YouTube. Seems mean ol' Angelica (Cheryl Chase) doesn't like Tommy's new ball....
Edit, 3/28/24: Paramount+ has pulled Rugrats from YouTube and their own streaming service.
From season 2 of the animated Lone Ranger:
The Masked Man (Michael Rye) & Tonto face a familiar task, rescuing a village from a greedy tyrant (Marvin Miller). Here's "The Black Knight of Death":
There've been rumors of a revival of the seminal 1992 Batman: The Animated Series for quite a while now. This morning brings word that there will be a new Bat-toon coming to HBO Max & Cartoon Network, presumably in 2022.
As Batman: The Animated Series drew inspiration from Max & Dave Fleischer's Superman shorts of the 40's, the above card suggests a Golden Age inspiration as well, considering the style of cowl. No casting has been announced as yet.
Meanwhile, Superman isn't being left out of the mix.
On the heels of early success of CW's Superman & Lois, which returned from hiatus last night, HBO Max & Cartoon Network have given a 2 season commitment to My Adventures With Superman.
Giant, shape-changing robots were supposed to be hot in 1984.
ABC acquired Mighty Orbots, co-produced by Fred Silverman's Intermedia Productions and a Japanese studio, but that series lasted 1 season because of litigation filed by the folks at Tonka Toys, which had commissioned a series from Hanna-Barbera to air in syndication.
Challenge of The Go-Bots started as a 5-part weekday miniseries, arriving around the same time as Orbots and Marvel-Sunbow's adaptation of Hasbro's imported Transformers. As we all know, the Transformers outlasted the others, Hasbro acquired Tonka and the Go-Bots, and the Orbots were consigned to oblivion, practically.
Challenge would return as a daily series the next season, leading to a feature film the following summer, opposite "Transformers: The Movie". However, "Battle of The Rock Lords" would be the coda to the series.
The voice cast had some of the same talent as on Transformers, including Peter Cullen and Frank Welker. Kelly Ward ("Grease") not only made his animation debut as a voice actor, but was also a writer-producer as well.
I think you know the open. The final portion looks like it was lifted from 1978's Challenge of The Super Friends:
By 1984, Hanna-Barbera's adaptation of The Little Rascals, aka Our Gang, was either in eternal rerun or cancelled at ABC. General Foods, then the makers of Jell-O products, obtained a license to revive the characters anew, this time in live action form, for a series of spots for their new Jell-O Gelatin Pops.
Yes, eventually, the kids gave way to Bill Cosby, as he would end up doing spots for the product and the similarly themed Jell-O Pudding Pops. The only actor identified in these ads through various sources is Seth Green, currently on Family Guy and Robot Chicken.
Here, the kids open a stand to sell boxes of the Gelatin Pops.
It's been a while since we looked in on the 1966 Lone Ranger series. This episode is from the next-to-last program from season 2.
It's an old trope that's been used time and again since. An outlaw believed dead pretends to be his own ghost to gain revenge on those that put him in prison. Here's "Spectre of Death":
Fred Silverman and MGM imported what would become Mighty Orbots from Japan in 1984. However, there was a prototype that was pitched to network executives before the final product hit the air.
At the time, the nascent project went under the working title of Broots, which, of course, is an anagram for Orbots. Pretty clever, don't ya think?
The characters are the same, but not the final designs. The narrator, as was the case in the series, is Gary Owens (ex-Space Ghost, Perils of Penelope Pitstop, et al):
After The Flintstones ended its primetime run in 1966, Hanna-Barbera was commissioned to produce a PSA for the American Cancer Society. Unfortunately, Jean VanderPyl was unavailable, so Gerry Johnson (Betty) stands in for her, while Betty doesn't have any lines of her own. Mel Blanc voices not only Barney, but the doctor.
Edit, 2/7/23: Had to change to a shorter video, so the doctor has been edited out.
In 1971, Hasbro introduced the Wacky Wheel, which they hoped would be a big hit with kids. Unfortunately, it wasn't, and was gone in almost no time at all.
Sounds like Arnold Stang (ex-Top Cat) doing the voice-over narration.
One of Nickelodeon's most beloved game shows of the 90's is set to make a comeback, this time on broadcast television, and in primetime.
The CW has acquired the rights to a remake of Legends of The Hidden Temple, which will be, apparently, outdoors this time.
Even though the market is saturated with game show reboots these days---Fox begins season 2 of their Australian-produced Name That Tune later this week---the CW hasn't dived into the waters until now.
All I can say for now is, stay tuned.
Chun King was a line of Chinese food that was originally introduced by the brains behind Jeno's pizza rolls in the 60's. By the 80's, the brand was changing hands, from RJ Reynolds (later RJ Nabisco) to a Chinese company, then to Hunt-Wesson (now ConAgra Brands).
However, as the copyright indicia at the start of this ad shows, somewhere along the way, Del Monte got their hands on Chun King.
Actor Keye Luke (ex-The Amazing Chan & The Chan Clan, Anna & The King, Kung Fu) was hired to shill for the Chun King egg rolls in 1983, which I think is his first commercial endorsement. A few years later, he would do a PSA as part of the promotion for the first "Gremlins" movie.
British singer-songwriter Graham Nash wrote Crosby, Stills, & Nash's "Teach Your Children" in 1968. Fifty years later, Nash worked with independent animator Jeff Scher to develop the following retrospective video for the song, which also appears on a career retrospective collection of Nash's work, covering not only CSN, but the Hollies as well.
From the ABC Weekend Special:
The late Beverly Cleary wrote a trilogy of books introducing Ralph S. Mouse, who debuted in 1965's The Mouse & The Motorcycle. Ralph made his television debut in a 1986 adaptation of this novel for the Weekend Special.
Captain O. G. Readmore, now voiced by Neil Ross (who also voiced Readmore in his animated adventures), is joined by guest co-host Richard Dean Anderson (MacGyver, ex-General Hospital) for this two-parter.
For what it's worth, Frank Welker, who had voiced the puppet Readmore in previous seasons, gave up the gig as his cartoon voiceover workload began to increase, including freshman series The Real Ghostbusters.
The Isley Brothers originally released "Who's That Lady" in 1964, with future icon Jimi Hendrix on guitar. Nine years later, the Isleys re-recorded it as "That Lady", and it landed them on Soul Train early in national season 3, in September 1973.
From the ABC Saturday Superstar Movie:
King Features' 1st television project since the short-lived live-action Blondie (1968) marked the official Saturday morning debut of Popeye, bringing along many of his King Features stablemates for "Popeye Meets The Man Who Hated Laughter". Heroes like Mandrake the Magician and The Phantom would return 14 years later (Defenders of The Earth), and Blondie & Dagwood would appear in a couple of primetime specials for CBS in the 80s. As for others like Tiger and Henry, they'd not be seen on television again.
Mind the slight hiccup toward the end. You'll see what I mean.
It's been a while since we celebrated Cinco de Mayo, and so, we present Speedy Gonzales in "Chili Corn Corny".
Speedy tries to help a starving crow (Gonzales Gonzales), but has to deal with Daffy Duck.
To cartoon devotees, Granville Van Dusen was the 2nd actor to essay the role of Roger "Race" Bannon on Jonny Quest, taking over the role from Mike Road for the mid-80's revival of the series as part of The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera.
What you might not be aware of is Van Dusen's extensive live-action resume. A couple of guest appearances on Barnaby Jones put him on producer Quinn Martin's radar, and Van Dusen was thus signed to co-star in a pilot for a proposed American version of The New Avengers.
Escapade paired Van Dusen with an up and coming star in Morgan Fairchild, later of Flamingo Road. As we documented over at The Land of Whatever, Escapade did not go to series, leaving Martin with Barnaby Jones for 2 more seasons at CBS.
Van Dusen's resume also includes The Young & The Restless, Soap, The West Wing, Space: Above & Beyond, and another unsold pilot, The World Beyond, also in 1978.
Here's Escapade:
Japan's entree into the superhero sweepstakes wasn't limited to anime.
In 1966, Tsuburaya Productions introduced the Ultra Series, the collective name for a family of adventure series, which began with Ultra Q, and would continue with Ultraman.
United Artists acquired the rights to both series, but Ultra Q has never aired here due to it being produced in black & white, and by then, Americans were getting used to seeing everything in full color. Today, Shout! Factory has the American rights to DVD releases of each available Ultraman series, including 1996's Ultraman Tiga, which landed here in 2002 on Fox.
With Marvel Comics having acquired a license last year to adapt the franchise, now would be a good time to scope the series opener. The English subtitles certainly help.
Milton Bradley's Twister had long been established as a game for the whole family by the time a similar, but slightly different game, Limbo Legs, was introduced in 1969.
Limbo Legs was an elimination game, like doing the limbo itself, but this was a wee bit different.
As the 80's began, Christopher Cross was one of the hottest artists on the planet, as disco was doing a sudden fade-out, and soft rock reclaimed AM radio.
"Ride Like The Wind", when it was recorded a year earlier, featured then-Doobie Brothers frontman-keyboard player Michael McDonald on backing vocals (McDonald would also lend his assistance to Kenny Loggins on "This Is It" later in 1980). Unfortunately, McDonald was a no-show, due likely to a scheduling conflict, when Cross and his band popped up on The Midnight Special in early '80.
Some sources are claiming that Allen Swift (ex-Underdog, Tennessee Tuxedo) did most of the heroic voices for Hostess' mascots, such as Twinkie The Kid (other sources credit Mort Marshall). Others have identified Howard Morris as the voice of Happy Ho-Ho, a Robin Hood-style archer.
In this undated entry, they're rescuing a stagecoach out of control:
In 1958, entertainer Danny Kaye recorded a children's album, "Mommy Gimme a Drinka Water" (yep, that's how it's spelled), which, admittedly, had flown under the radar until I started doing research on another album of the same name.
Nearly 40 years later, actress Didi Conn (ex-Shining Time Station, Benson, Fonz & The Happy Days Gang) recorded almost the entire album, with the tracks in a different order. Kaye recorded 20 songs, all written by Milton Schafer. Didi put 12 of them on a video compilation, in which she reaches for her inner child, as Kaye did on his album, but I don't think Kaye was able to visually interpret any of the tracks. We'll have to see about that another day.
Because each song is so short, the video flies by in a shade over 20 minutes. Have fun.
