From Comics to Toons: Beetle Bailey in For Officers Only (1963)

 2025 marks Beetle Bailey's 75th anniversary, as the strip debuted in 1950, and the Walker brothers, Neal, Greg, & Brian, sons of creator Mort Walker, are keeping the series going to this day.

In 1963, Beetle (Howard Morris) and friends scheme to get into a dance that is meant "For Officers Only", although Sgt. Snorkel (Allan Melvin) is saddened to deliver the bad news, because he knows his men deserve a good time as much as he does.

Co-author Bruce Howard also worked on a number of primetime shows in the 70's.

Predictable.

Rating: B.

Parkinson's Disease costs a Teen Titans GO! actor his job. Like, seriously?

 If you're a fan of Teen Titans, or the insipid, still-on-the-air, still unfunny Teen Titans GO!, this hurts.

Greg Cipes, who voiced Beast Boy ever since the 1st Titans series launched on Chumptoon Network in 2003, revealed that he was fired earlier this year due to his having Parkinson's Disease. In Instagram posts shared earlier this year, Cipes proved that he could still do the job, and executive producer Sam Register was being blamed for the firing. Cipes had essayed the role for 22 years, including some DTV's.

Two "generations" of Teen Titans. Photo courtesy WB/CN.

Problem is, Cipes is blaming the wrong guy.

In this writer's opinion, Register is just the messenger/scapegoat. The true blame lies with WBD CEO and professional dweeb David Zaslav. On orders from Zaslav, who has all the compassion of a dead tree, Register told Cipes in February that he was being let go.

How Rich Johnston at Bleeding Cool News, which broke the story, missed that part of the equation, I don't know. Cipes says Register told him they were looking at finding an impressionist to take over the role of Beast Boy. And this was despite the fact that the rest of the show's regular cast (Scott Menville, Khary Payton, Tara Strong, Hynden Walch) "had his back" and were supportive.

I wouldn't be at all surprised if this starts the end of the line for Teen Titans Go!, which has been on the air for over 10 years, outlasting the previous iteration. Five actors, working together for 22 years, like a family unto itself. Take one away, and the domino effect could be in the offing. Just sayin'.

Parkinson's claimed Muhammad Ali. Michael J. Fox has it, and is still with us. Prayers to Greg as he recovers.

Tooniversary: The Outfoxed Fox (Tom & Jerry, 1975)

 This Tom & Jerry offering, "The Outfoxed Fox", has nothing to do with a children's book of the same name, but is, rather, a clever tale of a fox (Len Weinrib, impersonating Paul Lynde) and a hound (John Stephenson) running a scam on our boys, but make a fatal mistake.........

Weinrib's on-again, off-again association with Hanna-Barbera cost him the opportunity to use his Lynde mimic again two years later, which resulted in Stephenson taking over the role of Mildew Wolf (Scooby's All-Star Laff-a-Lympics) and doing his best Lynde mimic.

Rating: A-.

Rare Treats: A CBS promo reel from Terrytoons (1957)

In 1957, CBS had asked Terrytoons to produce a promo reel for network affiliates. No, you wouldn't see classic Terrytoons characters like Mighty Mouse (who had made his CBS debut 2 years earlier) or Heckle & Jeckle, but an experimental new style of animation under the direction of Gene Deitch.

Depth Study, I don't think, was ever shown over the air. All the voices, apparently, are performed by Allen Swift. There's also vintage footage of I Love Lucy, The Ed Sullivan Show, Person to Person, & The Jack Benny Program, among the CBS shows.

Deitch, then, would be credited with the development of someone like, say, Tom Terrific, maybe?

Rating: B--.

Daytime Heroes: Courageous Cat (1960)

 I had done a piece before on our next subject, but it was deleted at a time when YouTube had removed every last video available on Courageous Cat.

Courageous was, along with his sidekick, Minute Mouse, a parody of Bob Kane's most famous creation, Batman, and produced by independent producer Sam Singer for Tele-Features. 130 shorts were produced over 2 seasons (1960-2). The music was credited to Johnny Holliday, and, per Wikipedia (take it with a grain of salt), Roy Halee (Heckle & Jeckle) & Dayton Allen (ex-Howdy Doody) worked on the series along with primary voice actor Dallas McKennon.

Have to guess it might be either McKennon or Allen impersonating Edward G. Robinson as Chauncey Frog, Courageous' arch-nemesis, in "The Case of The Prison Break":

Reruns played on WPIX during the 70's & early 80's, before 1st run syndication took hold. That's how I was introduced to Courageous.

Rating: A.

Toon Rock: Crambone (1955)

 From Tom & Jerry's 1955 entry, "Pecos Pest", comes this little novelty.

Jerry's Uncle Pecos (Shug Fisher) sings & stutters his way through "Crambone". To think this was 70 years ago.

Silly stuff.

It Should've Been on a Saturday: OK KO: Let's be Heroes! (2017)

 OK KO: Let's be Heroes! ran on Cartoon Network for 3 seasons over 22 months (2017-9), but the network made the mistake of running the series on weekdays instead of Saturdays. Had they made the show weekly, it might still be on the air, but for the network's obsession with Teen Titans Go!, which had one crossover episode with OK KO that also involved other CN series such as Steven Universe & Uncle Grandpa.

Full episodes are not available on YouTube, just excerpts, like this one, in which Captain Planet (David Coburn, essaying the role for the first time in 21 years) appears, as does Kwame (LeVar Burton).

Not every show that uses the Cal Arts animation style has been successful for CN, as we all know. Hated the design for Captain Planet, as the producers just couldn't be bothered to use older models. I didn't see the show the first time around, but I felt that the show had promise, and could've stood to have a better time slot.

Rating: B--.