Tooniversary: Scooby-Doo meets Mama Cass Elliott (1973)
Season 2 of The New Scooby-Doo Movies reached its pentultimate episode with a guest appearance by singer Mama Cass Elliott, formerly of the Mamas & the Papas. Like other celebrities, Mama Cass was placed as a business owner on this show. In this case, she could've been forgiven for being like a kid in a candy store, since she owned "The Haunted Candy Factory".
Edit, 1/25/24: The video's long been deleted. In its place is an excerpt:
Sadly, this was one of Ms. Elliott's last performances, and she didn't sing on this show. Mama Cass passed away not long after this show first aired, if memory serves me correctly.
When I first saw this cartoon as a child, I didn't quite know who Mama Cass was - until my parents informed me of her singing career with the Mamas & The Papas.
It's cool she was part of this show, but like Davy Jones and Jerry Reed, we should have heard her sing.
At least she was willing to poke fun at her own plus-size image. Apparently, there wasn't anything she could cover from previous material, as Davy & Jerry did.
From what I've seen in various clips on other TV shows (she'd been in various comedy skits like the Red Skelton Show), her weight was about all they focused on. I thought it was the writers taking the easy way out.
I had heard that after yet another "fat girl" skit, she went to her dressing room and cried her eyes out.
Ok, so she wanted to be taken seriously doing comedy. Yeah, writers look for the easiest topic to use for humor sometimes, but often in such insensitive ways.
It's just that things have changed a bit for "larger" women. Performers like Camryn Manheim and Kathy Kinney (among many others) have had roles that went beyond their physical appearances (Kinney's character on the Drew Carey Show was always made fun of by Drew, but she still had more to do than be his punching bag). If Mama Cass were here today, she would be taken more seriously - she wouldn't necessarily have been "the fat girl" no one wants to touch.
Boy, I remember having this on as a kid (sometime in the late seventies/early eighties). My mother came in and did a double-take: "This must really be old. That's Cass Elliott from the Mamas and the Papas, and she's DEAD!"
9 comments:
When I first saw this cartoon as a child, I didn't quite know who Mama Cass was - until my parents informed me of her singing career with the Mamas & The Papas.
It's cool she was part of this show, but like Davy Jones and Jerry Reed, we should have heard her sing.
She was taken from us all too soon.
At least she was willing to poke fun at her own plus-size image. Apparently, there wasn't anything she could cover from previous material, as Davy & Jerry did.
From what I've seen in various clips on other TV shows (she'd been in various comedy skits like the Red Skelton Show), her weight was about all they focused on. I thought it was the writers taking the easy way out.
I had heard that after yet another "fat girl" skit, she went to her dressing room and cried her eyes out.
Ok, so she wanted to be taken seriously doing comedy. Yeah, writers look for the easiest topic to use for humor sometimes, but often in such insensitive ways.
It's just that things have changed a bit for "larger" women. Performers like Camryn Manheim and Kathy Kinney (among many others) have had roles that went beyond their physical appearances (Kinney's character on the Drew Carey Show was always made fun of by Drew, but she still had more to do than be his punching bag). If Mama Cass were here today, she would be taken more seriously - she wouldn't necessarily have been "the fat girl" no one wants to touch.
So true. Kathy Kinney was forever trading insults with Drew on his show, but there were cases were they were more frenemies than anything else.
So we can then dismiss this ep as a product of its time that wouldn't hold up well for the PC police.
Boy, I remember having this on as a kid (sometime in the late seventies/early eighties). My mother came in and did a double-take: "This must really be old. That's Cass Elliott from the Mamas and the Papas, and she's DEAD!"
Was my favorite as a child .. yes taken too soon
Mama Cass Elliott was taken from us too soon. So were Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Bobby Darin.......
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