Jeff Bergman has been a mainstay at Hanna-Barbera & WB for 30+ years, and recently, landed one of the biggest roles of his career, as he inherits the voice role of Mr. Potato Head in "Toy Story 5", taking over for the late Don Rickles.
This weekend, Jeff was interviewed on CBS Saturday Morning, so many of us finally got a face to go with all those voices, plus some archived footage of Mel Blanc with David Letterman.
Porky Pig stars in Friz Freleng's loose adaptation of Aesop's The Grasshopper & The Ant, "Porky's Bear Facts", as he contends with a lazy neighbor...
Many moons ago, we discussed WSBK's Mystery Theatre, which was a lead-in to The Three Stooges on Saturday mornings back in the 80's. The only two components were Charlie Chan, which we discussed back then, and Mr. Moto, our next subject.
Peter Lorre was cast as Moto, John Marquand's secret agent, now rebooted as a detective, and, in 1938's "Mr. Moto's Gamble", as a criminology professor in San Francisco. "Gamble" was originally meant to be a Chan movie, but Warner Oland had taken ill, and subsequently passed away, so the script was rewritten with Moto taking over. Lee Chan (Keye Luke) is one of Moto's students. Our supporting cast is loaded with some familiar names, including Lon Chaney, Jr., "Slapsie" Maxie Rosenbloom, Ward Bond, Douglas Fowley, and John Hamilton, who'd also appear with Boris Karloff in a Mr. Wong film, well before Adventures of Superman.
With Independence Day, celebrating America's 250th birthday, next week, let's return to The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo, as Magoo (Jim Backus, Gilligan's Island) portrays "Paul Revere":
Philbert was a hybrid live-action/animated produced by WB for ABC, which passed on it. Rather than shop it around, the studio did some editing, and reissued Philbert as a 26 minute short subject in theatres.
Had it worked, William Schallert (ex-Dobie Gillis) might not have landed a role on The Patty Duke Show in the fall of 1963. Friz Freleng not only directed the animation, but wrote the story, too, a rare case of Freleng writing for live-action.
From season 2 of The Secrets of Isis:
Buffalo native Laurette Spang, later of Battlestar Galactica, guest stars as a cheerleader who frames a teammate for cheating on a test, fearful that she won't be the leader of the team. You know how this goes.
Genndy Tartatovsky has used influences like Maurice Sendak in the past (see Samurai Jack), and some say his Emmy winning hit, Primal, draws influences from the works of Robert E. Howard.
That said, it shouldn't come as a surprise, then, that Tartatovsky is adapting Howard's most famous character, Conan The Barbarian.
Conan hasn't been adapted for animation in several years, so it'll be a fresh take, especially putting emphasis on Conan's relationship with the pirate queen Belit, which hasn't really been explored in television in the past.
Stay tooned.
With her movies airing in syndication in much of the country, actress-singer Shirley Temple signed on to host an anthology series for NBC.
Shirley Temple's Storybook only produced two seasons (1958 and 1960-1), with a lengthy gap in between. Reruns of season 1 found their way to ABC in 1959, but the series resumed first run production---in color---on NBC the next year. Henry Jaffe, who was Dinah Shore's producer, was the showrunner the first year, but in season 2, with the title change to The Shirley Temple Show, it became a network production.
With only 38 episodes produced, you can understand why it wasn't in syndication, even with the hour-long format, and the show merited an Emmy nomination after season 1.
Following is an adaptation of "Ali Baba & The Forty Thieves", with Nehemiah Persoff & a pre-Untouchables Bruce Gordon.
You all know that DePatie-Freleng was commissioned to produce the animated opens for 2 freshman series in 1965, I Dream of Jeannie (NBC) and The Wild, Wild West (CBS). Well, it turns out that CBS also asked for the studio to produce this next gem.
Rawhide had entered its final season, and was cut before the holidays. Artist Ken Mundie, who later was involved in the first Fat Albert pilot a few years later, is the man behind the sketches. Have to assume it was also Mundie who did the artwork for Wild, Wild West.
Anyway, here it is, complete with the iconic theme song, performed by Frankie Laine. They subbed in an instrumental for the closing theme.
Episodes of Baggy Pants & The Nitwits are now available on a DePatie-Freleng fan channel on YouTube.
In this example, we see Baggy Pants in "Painter's Helper", which pretty much speaks for itself, even if it is a pantomime cartoon. Then, Tyrone & Gladys (Arte Johnson & Ruth Buzzi), the Nitwits, are after "Splish Splash" (an uncredited Frank Welker). In fact, none of the other actors in the episode (i.e. John Stephenson) were credited. The series clarified that Johnson created Tyrone, at least, for Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In nearly a decade earlier.
NBC had lined up a string of Flintstones primetime specials in October 1980, leading to The Flintstone Comedy Show joining the Saturday lineup weeks later.
In "Fred's Final Fling", Fred (Henry Corden) has a health scare when his x-rays are mixed up with those of Frank Frankenstone (John Stephenson; Charles Nelson Reilly would take over when they started the Saturday series). The usual chaos follows.
Edit, 6/22/26: Had to change the video. The opening & closing credits are deleted from this copy.
These days, Sesame Street is now a half-hour show, so things move even quicker than in the old days.
Since today is Father's Day, let's go back to 2017, and see how Elmo, Rosita, Abby, & Prairie Dawn prepare for the day.
"The Pinballs" is based on a novel by Betsy Byars, the latest one to be adapted for the ABC Afterschool Special. Kristy McNichol (Family) top-lines with Sparky Marcus (2 years before Bad News Bears) and Walter Brooke (ex-The Green Hornet) co-starring.
Colleges had their commencements last month, and so did some high schools in various parts of the country. Here in the Northeast, high school commencements will be in full swing next week.
With that in mind, we present the 2-part season 4 finale of The Facts of Life, as Blair (Lisa Whelchel) & Jo (Nancy McKeon, also heard on The Puppy's New Adventures) graduate from Eastland. TV vets Alex Rocco (ex-Three For The Road) and Marj Dusay guest star.
Ah, the good old days of wrestling, when your weekend programming consisted of jobber matches filling out an hour of action, mostly as an infomercial for pending shows in the broadcast area.
Pete Doherty, aka "The Duke of Dorchester", in reference to his Massachusetts hometown, was one of the more famous jobbers, working for the 3WF, and getting a bone tossed his way with a win in front of the partisans every so often. Doherty retired from the ring in 1997, and was inducted into the New England Wrestling Hall of Fame in 2010.
From 1980, Pete has his work cut out for him against Andre The Giant. Joe McHugh's intro is already in progress as the video begins.
From season 5 of The Flintstones:
Fred & Wilma (Alan Reed & Jean VanderPyl) and Barney & Betty (Mel Blanc & Gerry Johnson) are sent to the future, specifically, the 1964 New York World's Fair, then backwards to other periods in this compilation from the episode, "Time Machine". Comes with closing credits of the period.
The Facts of Life, spun off from Diff'rent Strokes, got a head start on the rest of the NBC lineup by launching in August 1979, although after the first four weeks, the series was placed on hiatus until the following spring, during which time, the producers began to overhaul the cast.
In the opener, "Rough Housing", Blair (Lisa Whelchel) thinks she has it in the bag as the Harvest Queen, but is jealous when Cindy (Julie Ann Haddock) is nominated instead. The Strokes cast (Conrad Bain, Todd Bridges, Gary Coleman, & Dana Plato) guest star.
From season 1 of The Munsters:
Love starved Grandpa (Al Lewis) meets a "widow" who is really a con artist.
The real surprise is that of Neil Hamilton, later of Batman, as the other half of this team of scammers........
It's just too bad that NBC-Universal is enforcing its copyrights, so that only excerpts can be shown, like this one.
Inspired by the success of their Chatty Cathy figures, Mattel took things a step further, creating a learning tool for kids with See 'n' Say. A child could pick something with a pointer on the face of the toy, pull the string, and hear what he/she wants to hear.
For example, let's check this ad for The Farmer Says:
The title says it all, as Superman (Bud Collyer) discovers a race of Hawk-Men in "The Underground World":
Another day, another Spectra attempt at conquering Earth, this time with "Super Space Spies". Not if G-Force has anything to say about it in this Battle of The Planets entry, which includes a pre-episode teaser narrated by Bill Woodson (Challenge of The Super Friends), who is also heard as one of Zoltar's soldiers.
From season 1 of The Flintstones:
Barney (Mel Blanc) buys Betty (Bea Benaderet) an engagement ring (??), and has Fred (Alan Reed) hold it for safekeeping. Wilma (Jean VanderPyl) finds the ring, and assumes Fred bought it for her. Uh-oh!! Now, Fred, who doesn't have the money to buy a 2nd ring, talks Barney into an exhibition boxing match with the champ. The girls ask the champ's manager to let Barney win the fight, but Barney's clowning proves costly. Believing they've been double-crossed, welllllllll......
After we've previously screened two celebrity-centric episodes of Junior Partner Pyramid, let's serve up one with kids and their parents. This aired on a Friday, as at the end of the show (closing credits were partially edited), they plugged the Saturday night lineup.
We all know Rory Raccoon was a supporting character who had one of the rotating features on Linus The Lionhearted. While Bob McFadden voiced Rory on the show, the commercials Rory did for Post Toasties have Mel Blanc subbing for McFadden.
Here, Rory thwarts Claudius Crow......
Casting has been completed for Netflix's forthcoming Scooby-Doo: Origins, with Nick Robinson & McKenna Grace among the stars.
The final casting was for Scooby himself, and, well, here he is.....
Stay tuned.
We had this up before, then it was deleted.
Now, the estate of Fred Rogers has started their own YouTube channel, and so, we represent the series premiere of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood.
From season 5 of The Flintstones:
Fred (Alan Reed) is up to his neck in trouble with both wife Wilma (Jean VanderPyl) and the Water Buffalo Lodge when Bedrock's only caterer mixes up two parties scheduled for the same night. A clown, meant for Pebbles' party, ends up at the lodge, and a jazz band and the Boulderettes show up at the Flintstone house, as you'll see in this excerpt:
60 years ago, the Kinks released "Sunny Afternoon", which didn't quite reach the top of the charts here in the US, although it did in England & Ireland. This anniversary video has a mix of styles, including those of Peter Max & Terry Gilliam. Max, of course, did the character designs for the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine" 2 years later.
I think we had this one up before, but it was taken down. It's back, but for how long, who can say?
Wonder Wheels is at "The County Fair" to foil a larcenous duo of thieves, one of whom is also competing in a motocross race.
In Disney's adaptation of "Aladdin", Broadway star Lea Salonga teamed with Brad Kane to perform "A Whole New World", which the two would perform live at the Oscars in 1993. Disney, instead of having Kane & Salonga's version released as a single, turned to Peabo Bryson & Regina Belle to cover "World", which hit #1 on the Hot 100.
Filmation wasn't interested in a modern, though loose, adaptation of Jules Verne's 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, but felt that a "Commander Nemo" (promoted from Captain) would make a good villain for the Space Sentinels.
The plot: Nemo (an uncredited Lou Scheimer) is trying to solve the earth's pollution problem. Unfortunately, the means to accomplish this goal are wrong, and attracts the attention of the Sentinels.
From season 1 of The All-New Popeye Hour:
Popeye (Jack Mercer) and Bluto (Allan Melvin) are in a steeplechase race after Olive (Marilyn Schreffler) inherits a horse. Well, you know how this goes.
