You'll see this next item over at The Land of Whatever when you check out The Bob Hope Special from April 1969, just posted.
Anyway, Wile E. Coyote, in his never ending quest to catch the Road Runner, ends up in orbit when one of his Acme rockets misfires.
Michael Rye, who'd finished a 3 season run as the voice of The Lone Ranger, narrates.
The O'Jays' 1973 hit, "For The Love of Money", has been licensed for use in commercials over the years, and, as I'm finding out today, also served as the theme to The Apprentice. We can at least trust that producer Mark Burnett worked out the necessary details, since the show's "star", one Donald J. Trump, likely wouldn't, given what we know about him today.
From season 2 of Problem Child:
Junior Healy (Ben Diskin) and friends take part in a school Olympics, but principal Peabody (Gilbert Gottfried, Aladdin) and Big Ben (Jonathan Harris, ex-Space Academy, Lost in Space, Three Musketeers, Uncle Croc's Block) are being pressured by some mob wise guys to throw the competition. Will they never learn?
When reruns of Magilla Gorilla aired on WPIX in the 70's, they often used an extended closing credit block, strung together with balloons, and modeled after the closing credits of the game show, Video Village. What you'll see will be the same open & close you remember, albeit with Magilla (Allan Melvin) plugging the sponsor, Ideal Toys.
Plus, Magilla, along with Mushmouse, Punkin' Puss, Ricochet Rabbit, & Droop-a-Long, have a curtain call, before the credits roll, with Magilla singing along with the Hanna-Barbera Singers. The back-up stars lip-synched the opening theme.
The Three Stooges are mistaken for incoming college professors at Mildew College. Moe, Larry, & Curly in caps & gowns is one thing. Teaching a class and performing "The Alphabet Song"? Priceless.
Here's "Violent is The Word For Curly":
Sugar Bear (Gerry Matthews) sees that the Blob has chosen pickles & soda for breakfast, in contrast to Post Super Sugar Crisp with toast, milk, & orange juice.
The Blob sounded like someone was trying to mimic Vaughn Meader's mimic of John F. Kennedy, or at least, the Bostonian accent.
"I've Got Ants in my Plans" marks the debut of a 2nd Aardvark, albeit a green one, whom we'd see again in "Odd Ant Out" a year later. This was one of the better Ant & The Aardvark entries.
The Three Stooges are headed to Africa on a film shoot after nearly being fired as janitors. Clips of "Three Missing Links" were later used in the video for Jump 'N' The Saddle's "Curly Shuffle" 45 years later.
Lassie's Rescue Rangers head to Alaska to locate a missing plane and clean up a disaster in "Alaskan Adventure":
The Lone Ranger (William Conrad, ex-Cannon) goes undercover to nail a vengeful ex-employee of the Pullman Company, who's looking to sabotage the company's trains. Andy Heyward, 2 years before launching DIC, wrote "The Great Train Treachery":
Regina had a 1-hit wonder in the mid-80's with "Baby Love". Around the same time, the singer teamed with McGruff The Crime Dog to do an anti-drug PSA, which, in turn, led to a full length single used largely for television, not radio.
Regina & McDuff (not animated, but a guy in a costume) are joined by Nickelodeon personality Fred Newman, Marshall Efron (who was doing voice work at the time on Smurfs), archived footage of Bullwinkle and Fred Flintstone (Barney Rubble appears briefly), and actresses Allison Smith (Kate & Allie) & Tempestt Bledsoe (The Cosby Show), Child actor Frederick Koehler rounds out the cast.
Most of you have seen the minute long "Users Are Losers" PSA, but this is the complete song.
Breezly & Sneezly turn 60 this year. Seeing as how most of the country is in a deep freeze today, let's take a trip to Camp Frostbite, and see Breezly crash a party in "Mass Masquerade":
Avast, ye swabs! Mr. Magoo (Jim Backus, Gilligan's Island) takes on the role of Long John Silver in an adaptation of Treasure Island, which was done in 2 parts for The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo. Check it.
Mr. Magoo made his debut as part of Columbia's Jolly Frolics series of theatrical shorts in 1949 with "Ragtime Bear". Magoo (Jim Backus) and his nephew, Waldo (Jerry Hausner), are off on vacation in the mountains, but Waldo's banjo playing attracts the attention of a bear, and the chaos really kicks in.
Keep in mind that in this initial outing, Waldo & Magoo don't have the familiar appearances we came to know. That would come later.
The Disney Movie Viewer, released in the early 70's, was Fisher-Price's answer to GAF's View Master and Kenner's Give-a-Show Projector. Until today, though, I didn't know about this. I had a couple of View Masters and a Give-a-Show, but not one of these, which predated VHS tapes by a few years.
With Cartoon Network's World Premiere Toons, nee What a Cartoon!, for every Powerpuff Girls or Johnny Bravo, there were clunkers like Sledgehammer Opossum, whose creator, Patrick Ventura, managed to get 2 shorts on the air.
Actor T. K. Carter (ex-Good Morning, Miss Bliss) voices Sledgehammer, who's looking for a warm place to spend the night, but.....he picks a mailbox?
Nickelodeon wanted to tweak the hand that fed, if you will.
The network's Nick at Nite division was home to many classic sitcoms in its early years, and in 1991, Nick, with a little help from ABC, came up with Hi, Honey, I'm Home, a short season series that aired first on ABC as part of its TGIF block on Fridays, then airing on Nick at Nite on Sundays. However, after the first summer of 6 episodes, ABC gave up on the project. Nick brought back Honey the following summer for 7 more.
Future Backstreet Boy AJ McLean was originally cast as the oldest son, Skunk, in the pilot, but the role was recast. As we all know now, McLean, most recently reuniting with his bandmates for a new CD, tour, and an ad campaign for Downy Rinse & Refresh, got the last laugh.
We previously reviewed this series over at The Land of Whatever a ways back, but here, we'll use a different episode, this one reuniting Audrey Meadows & Joyce Randolph as Alice Kramden & Trixie Norton from The Honeymooners:
The Three Stooges are Army scouts in the Old West, assigned to capture cattle rustlers. Check out how they turn a meat grinder into a makeshift Gatling gun. Here's "Goofs & Saddles":
Gage & DeSoto (Randolph Mantooth & Kevin Tighe) are on a movie set in this season 2 episode of Emergency! Plus 4. What happens, though, when Gage is trapped? Is it left up to "The Stuntmen"? Casey Kasem guest stars as the director.
Oh, man, this is a treat.
You've seen the individual opens for Scooby-Doo & Dynomutt dating back to 1976, but those were actually meant for syndication, it seems.
Following is a video that plays the audio of the original Hoyt Curtin composition, with Don Messick, Frank Welker, & Casey Kasem aiding the "Hanna-Barbera Singers" of the period. Gary Owens (Blue Falcon) is only heard introducing the show, leading to the theme.
Moxy was Cartoon Network's 1st attempt as a company, ah, mascot, if you will.
Originally starring as a solo act in The Moxy Pirate Show, developing a pirate studio and using the network's signal, Moxy was repackaged with The Moxy Show sometime in 1995. Now, the whole idea of a pirate signal isn't original. In fact Bobcat Goldthwait, who was the voice of Moxy and one of the writers, might've gotten the idea from his friend, "Weird" Al Yankovic, who did a series of Al TV specials for MTV in the 80's & 90's. While Al would be a guest VJ on MTV, Moxy was a guest toon jockey, if ya will.
However, after a pilot under the title, The Moxy & Flea Show, it went to series as The Moxy Show, and Chris Rock (ex-Saturday Night Live), who'd voiced Flea, was replaced by Penn Jillette, who otherwise was a studio announcer for Comedy Central when not touring as 1/2 of Penn & Teller.
Unfortunately, Moxy's last show aired in December 1995, and he hasn't been seen since.
Let's take a look at a sample clip.
These Are The Days, inspired by The Waltons, turns 50 this year. Television Obscurities brings us an ABC promo for the show as part of its 1974-5 Funshine Saturday block:
How can you confuse a mouse with a kangaroo?
That was the basic plot in all of Hippety Hopper's appearances, usually with Sylvester. Exhibit A is "Hop, Look, & Listen":
"Weird" Al Yankovic teamed with the folks at Ghostbot to serve up an animated video for "Party in The CIA", a parody of Miley Cyrus' "Party in The USA".
The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo turns 60 this year. To mark the occasion, we serve up the series' adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers, originally presented as a 2-part episode.
Frank Stallone might not have had the same kind of success in his career as his brother, Sylvester ("Rocky", "Rambo", "The Expendables", etc.), but he made the most of his 15 minutes on the pop charts.
"Far From Over", the 1st single from the movie "Staying Alive", the sequel to "Saturday Night Fever", brought Frank to American Bandstand:
Celebrity Bowling was a weekly primer on how not to bowl in many cases. Some stars actually bowled in leagues. Others, such as Scatman Crothers (Chico & The Man, ex-Hong Kong Phooey) and Dick Gautier (fresh from When Things Were Rotten), were pure amateurs. Alex Trebek, IIRC, was working on Goodson-Todman's Double Dare at the time of this episode, while actor-emcee Jim McKrell was wrapping up Celebrity Sweepstakes......
You've heard by now that Walt Disney's 1928 Mickey Mouse entry, "Steamboat Willie", entered into the public domain on Monday, just after its 95th anniversary.
What we're seeing amounts to a prototype, if you will, of Mickey, Minnie, and Pete, who is Mickey's boss in this one. Disney did the vocal effects himself, though none of the main characters have any actually audible dialogue.
To start 2024, we are going back to 1967 for this New Year's episode of Davey & Goliath.
Davey and his sister, Sally, have a spat, and that causes problems, meaning Davey has to bring Sally back. Norma McMillan (ex-Underdog) voices Davey in this one.
