Saturday Morning's Greatest Hits: Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go (1984)

The short-lived series Wolf Rock TV aired this classic gem from Wham! (George Michael & Andrew Ridgely), which was my first exposure to "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go", the first single off the duo's 1984 album, "Make It Big", which opened the floodgates, as there would be more hits, including "Careless Whisper" & "Everything She Wants". Unfortunately, after another album, Wham! would call it a day while Michael went on to a solo career, pockmarked by legal troubles over some very bad decisions.

Uploaded by Wham!'s VEVO channel:

Looney TV: Bugs Bunny & friends shill for Post (1960-64)

Before Linus The Lionhearted roared onto the screen in 1964, General Foods (now part of Kraft) sponsored The Bugs Bunny Show on ABC. This enabled Warner Bros. to produce a series of commercials to promote Post Cereals and Tang, a popular instant breakfast drink better known for its association with NASA and the Apollo space program.

Edit. 6/22/17: I've had to replace the video with a new 2-ad block that clearly has Hal Smith as Elmer Fudd.

Saturday Morning's Greatest Hits: You Are The One (1972)

In the late 60's and early-to-mid 70's, Post & Kellogg's issued cardboard 45's on the backs of selected cereal boxes. Post (now part of Kraft) had licensing deals with Motown (Jackson 5ive), Archie Comics (The Archies, of course), and also with The Monkees, even though the act had drifted apart in the years after their sitcom had ended. Kellogg's also had a license with Archie (Josie & the Pussycats).

In 1972, however, Post decided to take it one step further, by having one of their own characters front a pre-fab pop group. Hence, the Sugar Bears. Basically, Sugar swapped his banjo for a guitar, as shown on the album cover you'll see shortly in the following video. However, the sound they wanted wasn't the middle of the road adult contemporary that you might've expected from Sugar's long time voice actor, Gerry Matthews, who made Sugar sound like a cross between Dean Martin & Bing Crosby. Instead, session musician Dave Ellingson was hired to be the lead singer of the Sugar Bears, who had one big hit, "You Are The One", which got a ton of radio airplay in the spring & summer of '72.

I was hoping to find a commercial promoting the single on YouTube, but no go. So, thanks to EyeoftheLioness, we've got a still shot of the album cover referenced earlier. It may interest you to know that Ellingson's wife, Kim, would go on to a more successful solo career. Better known as Kim Carnes, she hit #1 8 years later with "Bette Davis Eyes", and even crossed over to the country chart for a duet with Kenny Rogers, "Don't Fall in Love With a Dreamer".

Here's "You Are The One":

Saturtainment: SFM Holiday Network (1978)

You've probably heard of SFM Entertainment, a small little company that began distributing syndicated programming in the late 70's. The company was also responsible for a pair of syndicated "networks" that presented periodic specials and/or movies.

One of these was the SFM Holiday Network, which bowed in 1978, and ran for a few years. This series lived up to its name, with movies & specials airing on the weekend of specific holidays (i.e. Memorial Day, Christmas), airing in the afternoon in most places.

Unfortunately, all we have is a modest little bumper, provided by FuzzyMemories.TV. If the music sounds familiar, it should. It's also been used on Monday Night Football from its inception in 1970.



The selection of movies in the series was hit & miss, depending on the viewer's tastes. Sadly, with cable having expanded like it has in the 35 years since SFM began this series, it isn't about to return for a new generation.

Rating: B.

Literary Toons: Journey Back to Oz (1972)

Filmation's adaptation of the sequel to The Wizard of Oz took 10 years from development to theatrical release in the UK, and another 2 before it saw the light of day in the US. Journey Back To Oz sends Dorothy Gale back to the land of the yellow brick road to visit her friend, the Scarecrow, but a new wicked witch, who happens to be the sister of the two that Dorothy killed previously, sees an opportunity for revenge.

Journey made its television debut in 1976, airing on ABC, with live-action wraparound segments added and hosted by Bill Cosby (Fat Albert & The Cosby Kids), who landed the gig because he was fronting a Sunday night variety show for the network that year. It wasn't until about a year or two later when I finally saw the movie, after it was shown on the syndicated SFM Holiday Network, a periodic series of movies that aired on Saturday afternoons.

Only one cast member from the original movie adaptation of The Wizard of Oz returned for the sequel, but this time, Margaret Hamilton was playing Dorothy's Aunt Em. Dorothy herself is voiced by Liza Minnelli, whose equally famous mom, Judy Garland, played the role in Wizard more than 30 years earlier. The all-star cast also includes Ethel Merman, Milton Berle, Danny Thomas, Paul Ford, Paul Lynde (this came a year before Charlotte's Web), Mickey Rooney, & Herschel Bernardi.

Here's the trailer:



We'll do a review on the SFM Holiday Network another time.

Rating: B-.

Edit, 12/5/25: Now, we have the complete film:

Toons You Might've Missed: Bon Bon Parade (1935)

We're starting a new feature here in the Archives that we hope you really like.

Columbia tried to compete with Disney, WB, & MGM for the toon crowd in the 30's & 40's, under the direction of Charles Mintz. Subsequent releases would bear the familiar Screen Gems name in the indicia, so that tells us that brand came full circle when it was revived as a 3rd movie brand in the 90's.

Up today is "Bon Bon Parade", a Color Rhapsody that spins the tale of a street urchin who is magically transported to Candy Land. There are a trio of characters made to look like the Three Stooges, but don't have the voices. As such, "Bon Bon" was included on a Stooges DVD compilation from Sony.



Let me know what you think of this cartoon.

Rating: B.

Rein-Toon-Ation: Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures (1987)

It was hailed as a critics' darling, but all it took was one moral zealot to shoot down Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures.

Maverick animator Ralph Bakshi's triumphant return to television was cut short when Rev. Don Wildmon, head of the American Family Association, raised a stink over a scene in which Mighty Mouse was sniffing flowers, and Wildmon and his clueless acolytes thought this was promoting drug use.

SAY WHAT?

This was one of the first instances of the AFA, one of the moral watchdog groups based in the South that want to force television networks and Hollywood in general back to the innocent times of long ago, kicking & screaming if at all possible, raising a ruckus and making a mountain out of the proverbial molehill. They have a problem with how society has changed, often for the worse, admittedly, over the last several decades. They then get chastised for being clueless and being behind the times.

But I digress. Mighty Mouse was now under Bakshi's care for the first time in 20 years (Bakshi helmed the Mouse of Tomorrow's final Terrytoons season for CBS in 1966-7), and if the animation has a familiar look to it, well, one of the artists working on the show was John Kricfalusi, who'd later develop Ren & Stimpy and would have his own Saturday failure with The Ripping Friends 14 years later. Mighty Mouse sounded nothing like he did in previous incarnations, and fell closer to Dudley Do-Right in vocal tone. Not good.

TheUnCoolBean uploaded the series opener, which offers evidence of what I was talking about in terms of Mighty's voice....



I wasn't feeling the theme song, either. Rating: C.