Edit, 8/29/21: The Birdgirl episode has been deleted again. In its place is a title card.
Birdgirl, from the sound of it, was voiced by Virginia Eiler (Gravity Girl). 25 years later, [adult swim] brought her back on Harvey Birdman, Attorney-at-Law, recast as the daughter of Phil Ken Sebben (Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report). Here is Judy Ken Sebben, aka Birdgirl, making her debut at the office:
If that was an attempt at making Birdgirl seem remotely relevant, it didn't work.
The Birdman episode merits a B.
If that was an attempt at making Birdgirl seem remotely relevant, it didn't work.
The Birdman episode merits a B.
12 comments:
I remember Bird Girl and she wasn't bad - I rather liked how she was an aerialist who was conned into being "Bird Girl", although it's probably why she never made another appearance.
What did bug me in this ep was how quickly everyone was willing to buy Bird Girl's claims about Birdman. The public surely are a fickle lot!
I remember Space Ghost C2C had a funny line (perhaps the only funny line I ever heard on that show) in which Jan & Jace are arguing and we find the SG wasn't exactly the best guardian to them. Jan blames Jace because they had the chance to be "Bird Boy" & "Bird Girl" but, nooooo! He wanted the inviso power!
I missed that SGC2C ep, and it's just as well, because that illustrated the lack of respect the producers had for the source material.
As for the story itself, well, done-in-ones back then didn't require adherence to continuity, and today, if they redid this story, the truth would be out a lot quicker.
Always love me some Toth goodness.
What does everyone think of how [adult swim] rebooted Birdgirl?
The Birdgirl reboot was fine for what it was. Paget Brewster was a great choice for her voice. I loved the Harvey Birdman cartoon and glad to see them using old school characters again (even ones they didn't own...Speed Racer, anyone?" The finale may be one of my favorite series finales of all time.
I think they used Speed Racer because CN/Boomerang had the rights to the original series at the time, and that had been parodied (Dexter's Lab) some time prior.
Otherwise, some of the humor, as I've noted here before, was mean-spirited toward certain characters, as if they were playing to certain corners of the internet.
Well as with Birdgirl's appearance on Birdman & The Galaxy Trio, she could've carried out a show on her own with Virginia Eiler (Gravity Girl) reprising her role and Jerry Dexter (Shazzan, Aquaman) doing Peanut/Birdboy replacing Dick Beals. But the growing backlash against violence on television following the King and Kennedy assassinations is what got it scrapped. If it had otherwise made it to air (with the Fabulous Spies possibly as a middle segment), then the animators/production crew would've spent an entire frantic summer re-examining certain scenes (though a lot of animators don't like seeing their work suffer under that type of censorship) to strip out violence from the episodes (meaning that Birdgirl couldn't use her power bands to fight the villains and most of the violence would've been done off-screen).
Fabulous Spies?
Yes, with Len Weinrib, Janet Waldo and Don Messick (R.I.P.) voicing the characters. Plus, John Stephenson doing the commander/superior-in-charge of their missions.
Is there anything documented about the proposed project?
None, but the "American Animated Cartoons of the Vietnam Era" book stated that "most television studios subsequently ceased production on "superhero cartoons" in response to the events" (The Tet Offensive where a South Vietnamese official fired into the head of a Vietcong member, as well as the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy (which generally concerned what children watched)). A pilot of "Birdgirl" may have aired in April 1968 on NBC, several weeks following Martin Luther King's assassination.
We'll see if we can look that up.
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