It is said that the legendary Fred "Tex" Avery directed this next spot for Kool-Aid. Here, we have a talking pitcher (Thurl Ravenscroft) telling the story of an Army soldier fending off a Native American attack with a certain drink.......
The Three Stooges are in the old west, as a trio of wandering prospectors who end up as "The Three Troubledoers" in trying to help a young woman (Christine McIntyre) find her missing father.
Donald Duck ventures out for a day at a very crowded beach. Unfortunately, a bee wants the same space. Chaos follows.
Here's "Bee at The Beach":
Terrytoons tried out something new in 1945, hoping to add it to their line of stars.
Smoky Joe is an aged horse who is being forced to retire when a local fire company gets a brand new engine for their truck. Of course, being an underdog story of a sort, you know how this will end.
Most of the Recess kids are excited about "Parents Night". All except Spinelli, who first hires an unrelated couple to pose as her mom & dad before the real parents show up. Katey Sagal (ex-Married...With Children, and a year away from Futurama) guest stars.
William Dozier's adaptation of The Green Hornet was just starting on ABC when producer Hal Seeger (Milton The Monster) signed a syndication deal with Screen Gems to put Batfink on the air. Also a Batman spoof for obvious reasons, the hero (Frank Buxton, Discovery) faced his share of odd villains.
In the opener, Batfink and his aide, Karate (Len Maxwell, also the narrator) are to guard the "Pink Pearl of Persia":
Fans of 60's superhero cartoons will remember radio & film star Gerald Mohr as the original voice of Reed Richards (Fantastic Four) and Green Lantern, using the same inflection in his voice in both roles. Baby boomers will recall Mohr was also the narrator in early episodes of The Lone Ranger during its live-action run.
In the 60's, before turning to toons, Mohr made the rounds as a character actor in television, with guest appearances on shows like Maverick and, in this case, the short-lived Pistols 'n' Petticoats, in which he plays a card sharp who gets schooled by the Hanks family (Douglas Fowley, Ann Sheridan, & Ruth McDevitt).
Mohr appears around the 20 minute mark in this episode, which also features brief appearances by Lon Chaney, Jr. (ex-Hawkeye & The Last of The Mohicans) and Burt Mustin, himself a legendary character actor who made his fame in the 60's and 70's. You might recall Mustin showing up on tons of other shows, including Dragnet.
As with People Are Funny, Art Linkletter transitioned his House Party to television, where it was at the center of CBS' afternoon block for 15 years before moving to mornings----and a name change to The Linkletter Show----to finish its run, which ended in September 1969.
Linkletter was working with producer John Guedel (You Bet Your Life) on both radio & television, and struck a gold mine with talk show segments with kids. This would spin off Kids Say The Darndest Things years later.
This 1958 offering was recorded in San Diego at a military base.
Dean Witter was a big name in stocks & investments back in the day. In 1977, the company commissioned this animated spot, narrated by ABC house announcer Ernie Anderson.
By the time the next Scooby-Doo series announced by Warner Bros Discovery hits the air, the canine detective will have turned 55.
That's right. Viewers will have to wait until 2024 for Scooby-Doo & The Mystery Pups, a series aimed for pre-schoolers to air as part of Cartoon Network's Cartoonito block----assuming it's still around by 2024----and streaming on HBO Max.
Conceptually, this would be the first series aimed at younger audiences since the 1988-91 A Pup Named Scooby-Doo aired on ABC. The fact that Scooby (Frank Welker) and Shaggy (Matthew Lillard, fresh from Good Girls) are working as camp counselors recalls an episode of the 2002-5 What's New, Scooby-Doo on WB. Reportedly, the rest of the crew, including Kate Micucci and Grey Griffin, are already on board.
CN is committed to building Cartoonito around established brands, as witnessed with the development of Bugs Bunny Builders and a Batman series built around the Batmobile. Mystery Pups is a CGI series, which is why they're announcing this 2 years before it hits the air. The only problem facing Cartoonito that ye scribe can see is a certain established series that eats up copious amounts of program space by getting spammed into the ground when it is about as funny as a rainstorm. I refer, of course, to Teen Titans Go!. If the Cartoonito block doesn't generate Titans-level ratings or revenues from merchandise, I'd not be surprised if WBD CEO David Zaslav decides to kill the block before Mystery Pups gets a premiere date.
Just sayin'.
The last time we checked in on Disney's Fillmore!, the studio began enforcing copyrights and episodes we had here were pulled from YouTube.
Since then, Fillmore! is back on the YouTube beat, for however long it lasts.
Anyway, in the opener, "To Mar a Stall", an ambitious student's pride & joy, the renovation of the restrooms at X Middle School, is ruined. Or so it'd appear. Wendie Malick (Just Shoot Me) is heard as Principal Folsom. Fillmore (Orlando Brown, ex-Family Matters) is just getting started.
Disney XD's YouTube channel has uploaded the series premiere of Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers, coinciding with the premiere of a CGI/live-action feature film which bowed on Disney+ on Friday.
"Piratsy Under The Seas" originally premiered on the Disney Channel in early 1989. They consider the episodes produced before syndication as the 1st season, with the fall 1989-90 season as season 2, and a 5 episode season 3 in September 1990 to complete the 65 episode order.
Anyway, Dale (Corey Burton) accidentally falls into a garbage truck, and that prompts Chip and the gang to follow.
Well, after years of just the series intro, we finally have an episode of My Favorite Martians available.
Okie is a pink furred Martian dog, the pet of Martin (Jonathan Harris) and his nephew, Andromeda, or, Andy (Lane Scheimer, also heard on Lassie's Rescue Rangers & The Brady Kids). As Martin explains in the open, Okie is in need of a friend, if not also true companionship.
Here's a case of a scientist, wise & bold, who didn't seek to cure the common cold (apologies to Mr. Terrific for cribbing some of the lyrics to their opening poem). Instead, he created what he hoped was the perfect little girl.
Small Wonder lasted four seasons, and, locally, bounced around the schedule, including a stint on Saturday mornings ahead of a network schedule. The series lasted four seasons, during which time Vicki (Tiffany Bressette) evolved into more of a human youth.
Predictably, as you'd expect with fantasy-coms, you have nosy neighbors. Edie McClurg (ex-The David Letterman Show, Harper Valley) played the next door neighbor, but was gone halfway through the series after signing on to NBC's The Hogan Family, where she played a neighbor again (and whose husband was played by Today Show weatherman Willard Scott), but more of the friendly type.
Following is a season 1 sample episode.
Lynn Ahrens wrote & sings "A Noun is a Person, Place, or Thing", from season 2 of Schoolhouse Rock's Grammar Rock. The kindly grandmother who appears in the beginning of the video was also used to introduce each Grammar Rock video, when they'd announce Nabisco as the sponsor.
For some odd reason, people seem to like comics stories, or stories in general for that matter, set in a dystopian future, where everything is dark & dreary.
At Dark Horse Comics, one such dystopian future is being brought to print in a miniseries set to debut in August.
Welcome to Survival Street.
Let's see how long it takes before a certain cable network's on-air staff starts whining and crying about this project.
While Burger Chef restaurants used an animated namesake for advertising, they also had a live-action mascot in the form of Mr. Magic, a bumbling wizard. Until today, I hadn't seen this ad. At the time, Burger Chef was a unit of General Foods.
In the mid-80's, Burger Chef was sold to a Canadian company, but later was discontinued.
Back in the 70's, when cable first came to the 518, WNEW (now WNYW) would mix in some older Merrie Melodies or Looney Tunes from the 30's, well before the likes of Bugs Bunny made the scene.
1931's "You Don't Know What You're Doin'" fits into this category.
From season 1:
Lurch (Ted Cassidy) gets a visit from his mom (guest star Ellen Corby), who has been led to believe Lurch owns the Addams' mansion. Uh-oh.
E-Trade was one of the NFL's most promient sponsors for a few years. Back in February, they brought back their mascot, the famous "E-Trade baby", at the Super Bowl.
In 2011, Fox had the main baby (voiced by comic Pete Holmes), joined by infant analogues of Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, Jimmy Johnson, & Michael Strahan, appear on Fox NFL Sunday, with an interview by anchor Curt Menefee.
From season 3 of Tennessee Tuxedo & His Tales:
Tennessee (Don Adams, Get Smart) and pals have to deal with a military style troop of termites who've cut down the trees in the forest near the Megalopolis Zoo. "Catch a Falling Hammock" gets its title as a riff on Perry Como's "Catch a Falling Star":
Daffy Duck is hired by a cat, who resembles a distant cousin of Pete Puma, if ya ask me, to try to steal a secret formula from Speedy Gonzales, a formula for a special cheese that would give mice the strength of 10 cats. As silly as it sounds. Format Films had a lot to do with "The Spy Swatter":
I was but a wee lad when Gerry Anderson's Thunderbirds hit the airwaves in the mid-60's. We've previously reviewed the movie spin-off, "Thunderbirds Are Go!", released in 1966, but now it's time to take a look at the show itself. As it turns out, American audiences would have to wait a few years before the series reached our shores. I seem to recall reruns airing sometimes in the 90's on cable.
Set some 100 years into the future, the Thunderbirds are 5 brothers whose father is a retired astronaut. In a way, the show was the British equivalent of Hanna-Barbera's Jonny Quest, in that the protagonists have a remote base of operations, and a persistent enemy coveting their valuable equipment.
Let's take a look at the series opener, courtesy of Shout! Factory.
Comic Book Resources is reporting that Warner Bros. Discovery has shelved plans for a Wonder Twins movie, first announced back in February.
Ye scribe's feeling is that the project could still get done, but as an animated movie, not live-action, as had been intended. It's going to have to wait 'til the dust settles.
Barbie: Life in The Dreamhouse marked the return of the Mattel icon to television after the short-lived Barbie & The Rockers several years earlier. This time, Barbie stars in a series of 4 minute shorts that aired on YouTube & Nickelodeon.
The cast tried to make the characters sound like they were teenagers, or, in the case of Barbie's sister, Skipper, tweens. The producers stopped short of speeding up the sound to Chipmunk levels. Skipper did sound as if they wanted her to be a Chipette.
In this sampler from 2015, the girls decide to get tickets to see a pop star who's a parody of Justin Bieber.
