Celebrity Toons: Clerow Wilson & The Miracle of PS 14 (1972)

 Clerow "Flip" Wilson, given an opportunity by NBC to develop a story based on his childhood, produced two specials for the network during the course of his variety series' run.

"Clerow Wilson & The Miracle of PS 14" is the first of these, with DePatie-Freleng regular Bob Holt as our announcer. The animation, under the direction of Corny Cole, a veteran who'd been with WB & DFE for years, isn't the usual DFE product by any stretch.

The reason only two specials were produced might've been that after "Clerow Wilson's Great Escape" was produced 2 years later, Wilson's variety show was on its last legs, and when it ended, so did the specials.

Rating: B.

Summertainment: Ant & The Aardvark in The Ant From Uncle (1968)

 The Man From UNCLE had ended its run by the time DePatie-Freleng served up "The Ant From Uncle", not so much a parody of the spy series, but, a standard The Ant & The Aardvark short.

If Charlie Ant wasn't a bachelor, it wouldn't be so bad.....

Rating: B.

Toon Rock: The Beatles in Help! (1965)

 From season 1 of The Beatles:

The band is in Paris, and it's left to Paul (Lance Percival) to retrieve some blueprints of a fashion designer from a thief.

To think they initially thought Ringo did it, until the witness gave a description of the thief.

Rating: C.

Saturday Morning's Forgotten Heroes: Space Ghost vs. The Sorcerer (1966)

 Space Ghost (Gary Owens, The Green Hornet) has to overcome the black magic of "The Sorcerer" (Alan Reed, fresh from The Flintstones), who has cast a spell turning Jan & Jace (Ginny Tyler & Tim Matheson) into surrogate siblings of Blip (Don Messick). 

Reed would make one more guest appearance near the end of the season.

Rating: B.

Summertainment: Two Weeks Vacation (1952)

 Goofy (Pinto Colvig) is eager to start "Two Weeks Vacation" the second he clocks out of work. Unfortunately, a series of mishaps follows.

Alan Reed narrates, and voices the supporting characters in one of his first cartoon jobs.

"Vacation" had its network premiere on Walt Disney Presents a few years later.

Rating: B.

Saturday Morning's Greatest Hits: American Girl (1978)

 "American Girl" was one of the first hits for Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers, which landed them on The Midnight Special in June 1978.

You can tell even here that Petty's sound was influenced by future bandmate Bob Dylan, with whom Petty played with in the Traveling Wilburys 10 years later.

Summertainment: Camp Runamuck (1965)

 NBC & Screen Gems took a chance on a sitcom set at a summer camp. Like another Screen Gems series from the same period, Gidget, Camp Runamuck lasted just one season, partially due to its opposition, including another Screen Gems entry, Hanna-Barbera's The Flintstones, and the 1st year Western, The Wild, Wild West.

25 years after the series ended, MTV Networks (now part of Paramount Global) acquired rerun rights to the series, and ran it in the daytime on Nickelodeon. Runamuck then moved to Comedy Central the following year, and hasn't been seen since, save maybe for Sony-owned Get TV (no longer available in the 518).

Following is the pilot, "Who Stole My Bathtub?":

We previously reviewed this series many moons ago over at The Land of Whatever, but we're bringing this out today in memory of star Dave Ketchum, who has passed away at 97. Ketchum followed up Runamuck by joining the cast of Get Smart. Co-stars Leonard Stone & Dave Madden also would turn up elsewhere (Dragnet, Partridge Family) after the series ended. Look quick for a cameo by Maureen McCormick, four years before The Brady Bunch.

No rating.

Saturday Morning Ringside: The Iron Sheik-----car salesman? (1985?)

 The late WWE Hall of Famer Iron Sheik was never a babyface in WWE. But, like fellow heel King Kong Bundy, advertisers saw value in the Sheik in doing commercials.

So, when Toyota introduced the Bundera LandCruiser in 1985, they eventually got in contact with Vince McMahon, who not only loaned out the Sheik, but announcer Gene Okerlund, who handles the voice over for this super short (15 second) spot.

How I never saw this ad until today, I don't know.

Rare Treats: Behind The Scene (1979)

 Behind The Scene takes a look at comics and comics conventions in this 1979 documentary that appears to have been produced for use in schools. Actor-comedian Jonathan Winters is the narrator.

Though the copyright date is 1979, it appears the producers took at least two years to put this together, what with a discussion between Marvel's Archie Goodwin & Stan Lee regarding the development of the Human Fly series, based on a real-life stunt performer, circa 1977.

Rating: A.

Tooniversary: Color me Dredful (Drak Pack, 1980)

 "Color me Dredful" is the series premiere of Drak Pack, and establishes almost immediately that this should've taken longer to develop before hitting the air.

Dr. Dred (Hans Conreid) decides to remove all color from everything & everyone but himself & his team.

Seems as though that's a familiar plot......

Don Messick (Scooby & Scrappy-Doo) & Bill Calloway (Super Friends) each have dual roles. Messick tries out his own Peter Lorre mimic as Toad (should've asked Casey Kasem to take that gig), and is also Fly. Calloway is Howler & Frankie, the latter a reprise of Square Bear (Help! It's The Hair Bear Bunch!). John Stephenson is the show's announcer.

Rating: C.

Toonfomercial: Lucky meets the Three Bears (1981)

 In a twist on a classic tale, Lucky the leprechaun, mascot for Lucky Charms cereal, encounters the Three Bears, sans Goldilocks.

Oh, what fun.

Tooniversary: Fraidy Cat in Meaner Than a Junkyard Cat (1975)

 Fraidy Cat (Alan Oppenheimer) finds himself in a junkyard, and befriends the watchdog in hopes of landing a job and a safe place to stay.

With apologies to the estate of Jim Croce, here's "Meaner Than a Junkyard Cat":

Fraidy Cat represented Alan Oppenheimer's first gig with Filmation (and we have to assume he also worked on M*U*S*H). Len Weinrib voices the ghosts.

Rating: B-.

Toonfomercial: Remember Kellogg's Triple Snack cereal? (1964)

 Now, here's an obscurity that came & went during my formative years.

Kellogg's introduced Triple Snack in 1964, but the product, marketed as a cereal, but, as the name suggests, could also be used as a post-meal snack, lasted just 2 years before being pulled from the shelves.

This commercial appears to have been produced by an independent animation house, and not Hanna-Barbera, which had an arrangement with Kellogg's for a few years.

Saturday Morning's Forgotten Heroes: Search & Rescue: The Alpha Team (1977)

 NBC's 1977-8 Saturday morning slate started off well with CB Bears, Space/Young Sentinels, & The New Archie-Sabrina Hour, but went downhill around 10:30 am (ET), with Fred Calvert's fictional adventures of boxer Muhammad Ali, followed by Thunder (co-produced by Charles Fries), and the Canadian import, Search & Rescue: The Alpha Team.

Search & Rescue aired in primetime in its native Canada, and was the first series NBC imported for Saturday mornings from the Great White North since Untamed World 8 years earlier. NBC cut bait on Search & Rescue after 13 episodes, or, half the actual total produced.

All we have available to us, since the videos appear to have been wiped, per practices of the day, is this still shot, provided by 70skidvid.com:

NBC shuffled the deck after cancelling Search & Rescue by reformatting CB Bears as part of a block also including reruns of Hong Kong Phooey, whose star, Scatman Crothers, was the announcer for the block. Baggy Pants & The Nitwits, stuck in lunch time purgatory, was the last series DePatie-Freleng sold to NBC until it was sold to Marvel a few years later.

Search & Rescue gets no rating. Never saw the show.

A clever way to sell notebooks (1987)

 Yeah, it's back to school season for parents.

In 1987, Mead touted its 5-Star line of notebooks & binders, using clever commercials like this one. James Harder narrates.

Animated World of DC Comics: Krypto Saves The Day (2025)

If you've seen "Superman", you know this ain't the same Krypto who had his own show 20 years ago on Cartoon Network & Kids' WB!.

No, the Dog of Steel is furrier, and prone to fits of temper when something or someone offends him. In "School Bus Scuffle", it starts with an innocent pigeon......

"Scuffle" will be released as an added feature to the digital release of "Superman" later this year, and three more shorts are due over the next few months. If slapstick comedy with gratuitous destruction is your thing, well, here you are.

Rating: B-.

ABC's Saturday morning preview (1994)

 ABC's 1994 Saturday morning preview featured cast members of Boy Meets World, including Ben Savage, Rider Strong, Will Friedle, and Danielle Fishel, as if this was a special edition of World.

The freshman class of 1994 at ABC:

Free Willy, based on the movie of the same name.

Bump in The Night, claymation silliness.

Reboot, the first CGI series to crack the network's Saturday block.

Fudge, based on a series of children's books, was a winter replacement, and thus not included in this show, which also includes clips from returning shows like Tales From The Cryptkeeper (2nd season) and The Bugs Bunny-Tweety Show.

Didn't see this the first time, so no rating.

Saturday School: NYUK (2000)

 There was a time when AMC (or, to you laymen, American Movie Classics, as it was once known) was home to reruns of The Three Stooges. The network dressed it up with an anthology block under the heading, NYUK, positing TV & movie vet Leslie Nielsen as a college professor. 

Unfortunately, like Nielsen's other TV ventures back in the day (i.e. Police Squad!, The New Breed), NYUK lasted at least a year on the air, before AMC pulled the plug, and "closed the campus".

Nielsen had some help, with recurring regulars Dan Lauria (ex-The Wonder Years), Anna Nicole Smith, & Carrot Top, who was shilling for AT&T on the side.

Here's a compilation of skits.

Not too fond of the green screen open with Nielsen on a bicycle when it was obvious he was not on a college campus after all.

Rating: B---.

Coming Attractions: My Adventures With Superman spins off a series with Green Lantern

 After 2 seasons, My Adventures With Superman is giving [adult swim], HBO Max, & Cartoon Network a spin-off series, to debut, likely, early in 2026, if not sooner.

My Adventures With Green Lantern will de-age one of the more recent GL's, Jessica Cruz, into a teenager, which has been done before (Super Best Friends Forever, IIRC). WB is doing casting not only for Jessica, but for a de-aged Kyle Rayner, a GL introduced in the 90's. In the canon of My Adventures, the Green Lanterns are peacekeeping.........monks.

Somehow, I'm starting to get a picture of the Guardians as alien Shaolin monks (think Kung Fu). Just kidding.

While it is unclear if Hal Jordan will appear, his mentor, Kiliwog, will be a part of this show. No start date has been announced, as they're in the casting stage at present, with production to begin later this year.

Stay tooned.

Rein-Toon-Ation: Sherlock Hound (1984)

 Literature's greatest detective went to the dogs in the 80's.

Sherlock Hound, of course, is a canine adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, who'd later merit a series on Fox. Studios in Japan & Italy combined for this series, which hadn't seen the light of day in the US until Filmrise acquired the rights earlier this year, making the series available on YouTube.

Now, to American audiences, Sherlock Hound would be an alter-ego of Snoopy from the Peanuts cartoons, in an ad for MetLife. Here, though, you have a pipe-smoking sleuth (Larry Moss) matched against arch-nemesis Professor Moriarty (Hamilton Camp, Smurfs) in almost every episode.

Right now, check out "A Sacred Image Disappears":

How Nickelodeon, which was home to a number of anime back in the 80's (i.e. Mysterious Cities of Gold) missed the boat on this one, I don't know.

Rating: A.

Saturtainment: Uncle Croc welcomes Sherlock Domes (1975)

 As Uncle Croc's Block turns 50 next month, we're looking back at the 2nd appearance in the series by Sherlock Domes (Carl Ballantine, ex-McHale's Navy), and his assistant, Dr. Watkins (Stanley Adams, best known as Cyrano Jones from Star Trek).

In memory of Alfie Wise (Rabbit Ears), who passed away last month at 82. The wire service report appearing in the papers today incorrectly stated that Lou Ferrigno had appeared on Croc, but that was an editing error. Ferrigno & Wise would co-star a few years later on Trauma Center, a spin-off from The Fall Guy.

Getting Schooled: Maya & Miguel (2004)

 In recent times, PBS has experimented with children's programs featuring ethnic protagonists, like, for example, Sagwa, The Chinese Siamese Cat, and our next subject, Maya & Miguel.

The title siblings are pre-teen twins (voices of Candi Milo & Mika Futterman) who go on some interesting adventures, and learn important lessons along the way.

5 seasons were produced, over a 3-year period (2004-7), the first three actually running close together. As the first season ended, the next began the very next day. It wasn't until after season 3 that they finally took a break.

Regrettably, I never saw the show because of work, so there's no rating. Check the intro. Isn't Maya just SO cute?

South Park skewers the Trump administration. Meltdown coming soon

 South Park returned with new episodes two weeks ago, and promptly gained some major attention by going after the Trump administration. Not just the president himself, but also, as you'll see in an excerpt shortly, certain disreputable members of his administration.

Two weeks ago, Trey Parker & Matt Stone revisited an old gag, subbing Trump for Saddam Hussein in getting in bed with the Devil. That plotline continued this week. Knowing that Parker & Stone are equal opportunity offenders, it won't surprise anyone if/when the most immature president of our lifetime gets around to whining & crying about how he's being portrayed here.

Now, let's check this sampler from last night's show.

I think as long as Trump continues to behave the way he is while in office, Parker & Stone won't let up the pressure any time soon, and they'll soon have some company, with Mike Judge's Beavis & Butt-Head returning later this month, likely airing in back of South Park.

Looney TV: Hamateur Night (1939)

 Major Bowes' radio amateur show was, I believe, already running when Tex Avery and writer Jack Miller came up with 1939's "Hamateur Night". The central figure is reportedly a prototype for Elmer Fudd, though he'd previously been billed as Egghead.

Anyway, this farce is worth the time.

Rating: B.

Sunday Funnies: Back to The Woods (1937)

 The Three Stooges are in colonial times, and the early colonies will never be the same again. Here's "Back to The Woods":

Silly fare.

Rating: B.

Daytime Heroes: The Lone Ranger Clowns Around (1954)

 We've seen the Lone Ranger go undercover, but Tonto, too? Yep. 

In order to get the goods on an outlaw gang whose boss runs an entire town, the Ranger (Clayton Moore) & Tonto (Jay Silverheels) pose as circus clowns. Jesse White and Sheb Wooley guest star.

The 1980-2 animated series would send the Ranger & Tonto to the circus, but we've already covered that.

No rating. Just a public service.

Saturday Morning's Greatest Hits: Deep Inside My Heart (1980)

 After scoring a massive country hit with Kenny Rogers ("Don't Fall in Love With a Dreamer") on his album, "Gideon", Kim Carnes struck again, this time teaming with the Eagles' Randy Meisner for "Deep Inside My Heart", off Meisner's solo album. This duet landed them on The Midnight Special.

Carnes would follow up with the "Mistaken Identity" album, and her #1 smash, "Bette Davis' Eyes".