We had reviewed this series before, but the previous poster on YouTube had lost his account, and the video went bye-bye. So, let's try again.
Filmation decided to reboot 1971's Archie's TV Funnies, but this time without Archie and his friends, with 1978's The Fabulous Funnies. Only four segments were retained from the earlier series: Broom-Hilda, Nancy, Emmy Lou, and The Captain & The Kids. The voice cast was different this time around, too, with co-producer Lou Scheimer being more involved, working with Bob Holt (The New Pink Panther Show), June Foray, and Alan Oppenheimer.
Foozy, Alley Oop's sidekick, served as series host, essentially taking Archie's place, as the Archies had bombed out at NBC during the 1977-8 season. What hurt Fabulous Funnies was that it was slotted in the lunch hour death slot, when it could've benefited more from having either Godzilla Power Hour or Fantastic Four as a lead-in.
Broom-Hilda (Foray) has the spotlight all to herself in a cautionary tale about "Drinking". The home video release retitled the episode, "Flying High":
Considering that Filmation's socially aware Fat Albert aired at the same hour on CBS, that would also explain why this show was one and done. Tom K. Ryan's Tumbleweeds appeared in the series opener, but Ryan didn't previously grant permission when the producers thought he did, and thus Tumbleweeds was quickly bounced, a dire sign of things to come.
Rating: B.
2 comments:
Ironically, this was/is the only episode of "Fabulous Funnies" that I saw. When FF originally aired, my local NBC affiliate (WBAL channel 11 in Baltimore) didn't air the show, so I had to watch it on an out of area affiliate (WRC channel 4 in Washington) with an antenna.
Also noteworthy: Filmation's broadcasting rights to the Archie characters expired while "The Kid's Super Power Hour with Shazam!" was in pre-production, so the studio had to quickly re-design the cast of Hero High (which was originally an alternate universe with Archie and the gang as capes in training) into original characters.
I thought the rights had expired when the last Archie series ended three years earlier, and then Filmation had attempted to obtain a new license.
There's not much Fabulous Funnies content available right now on YouTube, and I don't think Dailymotion has any. NBC, ironically, now owns the show.
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