It was hailed as a critics' darling, but all it took was one moral zealot to shoot down Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures.
Maverick animator Ralph Bakshi's triumphant return to television was cut short when Rev. Don Wildmon, head of the American Family Association, raised a stink over a scene in which Mighty Mouse was sniffing flowers, and Wildmon and his clueless acolytes thought this was promoting drug use.
SAY WHAT?
This was one of the first instances of the AFA, one of the moral watchdog groups based in the South that want to force television networks and Hollywood in general back to the innocent times of long ago, kicking & screaming if at all possible, raising a ruckus and making a mountain out of the proverbial molehill. They have a problem with how society has changed, often for the worse, admittedly, over the last several decades. They then get chastised for being clueless and being behind the times.
But I digress. Mighty Mouse was now under Bakshi's care for the first time in 20 years (Bakshi helmed the Mouse of Tomorrow's final Terrytoons season for CBS in 1966-7), and if the animation has a familiar look to it, well, one of the artists working on the show was John Kricfalusi, who'd later develop Ren & Stimpy and would have his own Saturday failure with The Ripping Friends 14 years later. Mighty Mouse sounded nothing like he did in previous incarnations, and fell closer to Dudley Do-Right in vocal tone. Not good.
TheUnCoolBean uploaded the series opener, which offers evidence of what I was talking about in terms of Mighty's voice....
I wasn't feeling the theme song, either. Rating: C.
2 comments:
Having never seen the episode(I was 2 and a half when it probably originally aired), I still have to agree with you hobbyfan.
That series was aired in 1987, and it's 2013 today. All that said, do these groups really think that with enough conplaining they'll change TV enough that any shows they find offensive or evil will be canceled?
This is one thing that I'm just annoyed with, and have been for a number of years now. If you have nothing better to do with your life then call a tv or radio station or network and complain about the programming or one particular show, you really need a life, or a job, or a hobby.
Southern churches are too concerned with old school values. However, they're going about reinforcing those values the wrong way. They're too worried that their kids will succumb to temptation too easily (not really likely), and yet they're cast as bullies when they are cast in the media for pushing their agenda.
The AFA, PTC, and groups like them all want to extend their 15 minutes at our expense. They just don't understand that as long as Hollywood sees profits in what they're doing, they're not going to change their business models.
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