Wednesday, July 30, 2014

Saturday Morning's Forgotten Heroes: Klondike Kat (1963)

Klondike Kat, which started off as a backup feature for Tennessee Tuxedo, then was repackaged in syndication with Underdog, was a parody of Sergeant Preston of the Yukon. Klondike (Mort Marshall) was always tracking down Savoir Faire (Sandy Becker), a Quebecois mouse (hey, it was set in Canada, don'tcha know), who was stealing whatever wasn't nailed down. Problem was, it was a 1-trick pony that got ridden into the ground.

It seemed as though Total Television was content with just having Klondike arrest Savoir in every episode, rather than find other miscreants for him to track down. As I said, this was meant to be a parody, but the joke got old real quick.

Worse, each short, including intro, lasted barely 5 minutes. Today, cable networks waste as much as 5:00 on repetitive commercials while editing classic toons to death. A revival now would require Klondike needing to find other, more dangerous crooks, and using his wits.

Here's a sample, courtesy of Toon O Rama:



Rating: B-.

2 comments:

magicdog said...

Yeah I remember this. It was ok, but as you mentioned, it was a one trick pony and the entire affair being boring. The best part though was it encouraged me to take French in JR High.

hobbyfan said...

I was going to take French myself, since I'm 1/4 French on my late father's side of the family, but then I transferred to a private academy before my freshman year, and that went out the door.

It's exhibit A on how not to do a parody.