The theme of this episode of The Magic School Bus is recycling. Wanda has plans to attend a performance of "The Nutcracker", and intends to donate an action figure. Chaos ensues when said figure is accidentally tossed in the recycling bin.
Malcolm-Jamal Warner (ex-The Cosby Show) and country icon Dolly Parton guest star.
From Sesame Street, circa 2013:
Tony Sirico & Steve Schirripa (The Sopranos) are the special guests as a live action version of Bert & Ernie, while the Muppets are directing them in a Christmas special.
Roy Orbison took viewers on a trip back in time with 1964's "Oh, Pretty Woman" in a 1974 appearance on The Midnight Special:
From The Wonderful World of Disney:
"Disney on Parade" is a compilation of a 1970 Australian tour, with the voices of Hans Conreid, Thurl Ravenscroft, Michael Rye, Scatman Crothers, and more. Ravenscroft, for example, stands in for Phil Harris to perform "The Bare Necessities" from "The Jungle Book":
Well, if I had led with Shari Lewis' then-current voice-over gig as Princess Nida of The Arabian Knights, it may have been a little too obvious, and we will catch up with Honey Halfwitch another day. Anyway, Shari spent a week on What's My Line? in early 1969, seated between Soupy Sales and Bert Convy.
As you could probably guess from the subject line, our mystery guests are Janos Prohaska and James Earl Jones. Wally Bruner is the moderator.
CBS took viewers back to L. Frank Baum's magical world in 1980's Thanksgiving in The Land of Oz, which was re-edited and retitled a year later because someone at the network wanted the story to be more of a year-round entry.
Dorothy (Mischa Bond) heads back to Oz with the Wizard (Sid Caesar), who lures her in by stealing Aunt Em's pie. It gets silly after that. Our voice cast also includes Frank Welker, Joan Gerber, Frank Nelson, and Robert Ridgely.
The subject line says it all. This episode of New Zoo Revue focuses on "Tolerance".
I think most of us have played Mad Libs as a party game at some point. In 1998, Disney prevailed upon Dick Clark to develop a game show based on the game. JD Roth (ex-Fun House) was also attached as an executive producer.
The series was tested with pilot in 1997, but didn't go to series until a year later. In between, host David Sidoni had crashed with CBS' Wheel 2000, which got 13 weeks, and no more. Mad Libs, on the other hand, lasted about a year, and, as you'll see, was structured like a Nickelodeon game show.
Bugs Bunny gains a new adversary in the rampaging Tasmanian Devil. Here's "Devil May Hare":
Viewers were first introduced to CH Greenblatt's brand of absurdist humor with Chowder, which ran for 3 seasons on Cartoon Network (2007-10). Chowder is an apprentice to a caterer, and gets into all kinds of weird misadventures. Unfortunately, he's also young enough to be in the "girls are icky" phase of his life, as "Chowder's Girlfriend" demonstrates.......
63 shorts over 14 years (1942-56). The only time that Joe McDoakes has appeared on television in recent years has been when TCM dusts the shorts off.
McDoakes was your basic Everyman. Depending on the plot, he was either a bachelor or married. If Joe's voice sounds familiar, well, it's George O'Hanlon, who started working on McDoakes 20 years before The Jetsons. O'Hanlon wrote some of the shorts himself, and submitted the story for 1953's "So You Want a Television Set", with Phyllis Coates, fresh off a 1 year stint on The Adventures of Superman, as his wife. Coates' husband, Richard Bare, wrote the final script, and directed.
Edit, 11/29/24: Warner Bros. Discovery has put in a copyright claim, so this was removed from YouTube. In its place is a generic title card:
Rankin-Bass' adaptation of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer is returning to NBC next month, and he's not coming alone.
Rudolph, based on the song by Johnny Marks, made famous by Gene Autry, and narrated by Burl Ives, will air December 6 with an extended running time, commercials included, of 75 minutes.
Frosty, oh, by the way, turns 55 this year, while Rudolph marks 60 years on television, and his return to NBC after 53 years away.
The title says it all. Tom & Jerry are at the Hollywood Bowl, where Tom is conducting an all-feline orchestra, most of whom are replicas of him. Jerry gets in on the action. This was the 3rd musical short for the two, and, I believe, the last under Bill Hanna & Joe Barbera. We know, of course, that Chuck Jones would serve up the jazzy "Rock 'n' Rodent" several years later.
The music, under the real life direction of Scott Bradley, is Johann Strauss' overture to "Die Fiedermaus".
The Road Runner has to elude the Coyote, and this time it includes a race through a mine that might've been a prototype for some old school video games. Chuck Jones directs "Beep, Beep":
In the early days of children's television, it was common to have live-action hosts like, for example, Buffalo Bob Smith or Shari Lewis cross over into primetime for guest appearances.
In a case of intra-network synergy, Shari, with Lamb Chop & Charlie Horse in tow, visits The Ford Show with Tennessee Ernie Ford. Lamb Chop starts it off by doing the usual notation of the show airing in living color, or, as Lamb Chop says, from the sound of it, "loving color". Then, we get an animated intro with Charlie Brown & Schroder from Peanuts. Ford, remember, utilized Charlie and friends in advertising for a number of years.
Preeeeeeesenting......"The Flintstone Flyer":
That's not a misnomer, folks. Tom & Jerry take jobs at a logging camp when the lumberjacks all quit because of the hermit known as "Big Feet" (Don Messick). His story has a happy ending.
Let's take a trip to New Hampshire today, and check out candlepin bowling's version of the skins game.
Candlepin Skins launched in 1994 as another outlet for some of the top bowlers in New England. WNDS, which carried the series, has gone through a number of changes in format and call letters in the 30 years since, which included the premature cancellation of this series.
With candlepin bowling being tried out in upstate New York, let's offer a sample episode.
The Jetsons added the services of "Rosey The Robot" (Jean VanderPyl, The Flintstones) in this instant classic, reissued for the series' syndication revival in 1985. In addition to a title card, the opening theme was redone by a new generation of "H-B singers", and the original closing credits have been edited off.
Johnny Rivers climbed the charts in the summer of 1964 with a cover of Chuck Berry's "Memphis", which landed Rivers on American Bandstand.
From the ABC Saturday Superstar Movie:
The legendary World War 1 pilot, "The Red Baron", is the subject of a funny animal episode. As envisioned by Leonard Starr, the Baron is a dog pursuing a princess who has eloped with the prince of a rival kingdom.
Tears For Fears commissioned Jim Blashfield, who'd helmed Michael Jackson's video for "Leave Me Alone", to do the same for "Sowing The Seeds of Love", essentially the title song from 1989's "The Seeds of Love".
In 1957, Disney released "The Story of Anyburg, USA" to theatres. It has rarely been shown on television, but deserves to, even today.
A car put on trial? Absurd, but that's the point of this fable, with the voices of Hans Conried, Bill Thompson, Thurl Ravenscroft, and Dallas McKennon.
From Super Circus:
Co-host Mary Hartline does an in-show commercial to promote a replica cut-out doll that was available via a tie-in with Kellogg's. Check it.
