Sunday, September 3, 2017

Tooniversary: Stevie & Zoya (1987)

After dipping into the waters of cartoons by acquiring the 1965 Beatles series, MTV began commissioning original animated programming, starting in 1987.

Joe Horne's Stevie & Zoya was a series of interstital shorts, usually about a minute or less, which ran for 2 years (1987-9), airing several times a day to lead into or out of commercial blocks. Russell Johnson (ex-Gilligan's Island) is the narrator.



Yes, the bloopers are included, reportedly to create a more improvisational feel. The series has been brought back online twice, in 2010 and 2014, but, I believe, with different narrators.

Horne would return and contribute the slightly longer series, The Specialists, to the Liquid Television anthology series in 1992. His last known work for television was for Andre Benjamin's Cartoon Network series, Class of 3000.

I get the simplicity of the animation and storytelling here, tailored for the reputed sound byte mentality of the day, but one wonders if there might be a television comeback for Stevie & Zoya......

Rating: B.

4 comments:

Chris Sobieniak said...

Only time will tell I suppose.

Or perhaps a graphic novel, at least they could flesh it out a whole lot!

Chris Sobieniak said...

Checking his IMDB, it looks like Joe's been on quite a lot of stuff in the 90's, most recent entry has him doing storyboards for "Pickle & Peanut", "Madea's Tough Love" and directed three episodes of "Pig Goat Banana Cricket", all in 2015. Not bad I think, even if most of it is typical Saturday morning fodder.
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0395031/

hobbyfan said...

Pig Goat Banana Cricket??? Odd name for a cartoon. Sounds like a TV version of the strip, "Pearls Before Swine".

Chris Sobieniak said...

Probably. It doesn't seem like something I would want to watch anyway but obviously Nick's trying to look for the next Spongebob if any.