Rein-Toon-Ation: Police Academy (1988)

The success of the Police Academy movie series gave rise to an animated daily series that lasted 2 years (1988-90). Perhaps the reason it failed to catch on might be that Ruby-Spears & Warner Bros. couldn't convince the movie cast (i.e. Steve Guttenberg, Bubba Smith, Michael Winslow, et al) to contribute to the cartoon, which was set between the 4th & 5th films in the series. Aside from veterans Howard Morris & Frank Welker, the cast for the cartoon was made up largely of unknowns. Ironically, Winslow got his start in cartoons (Space Stars) 7 years earlier, and would've had the easiest job reprising as Larvell Jones.

Today, the series sits in WB's vaults after having been released on DVD, and at no time do I recall it airing on either Cartoon Network or Boomerang. 

Edit, 6/29/24: Had to change the video. Here's the intro:

Rating: C.

Countdown to Christmas: A Charlie Brown Christmas (1965)

This year, Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer marks its 50th annual broadcast. Next year, that honor goes to the very first Peanuts special, A Charlie Brown Christmas.

The plot is really very simple. Charlie Brown and friends improvise a Christmas tree in time for a school pageant. Predictably, the tree isn't up to standards, but it's the spirit of the season that counts more.

The highlights include the debut of Vince Guaraldi's "Linus & Lucy", an instrumental composition that has been used in many a Peanuts special since, and Linus reading from the Gospel of Luke, chapter 2, explaining the birth of Jesus.

Edit, 12/4/2020: The video is no longer available in complete form. In its place, we will use a title card.

Many of us got our first Bible lesson courtesy of Linus. Who knew?

Rating: A+.

Edit, 12/18/24: Internet Archive has the complete episode.

Countdown to Christmas: Cricket on the Hearth (1967)

The following was originally published on my other blog, The Land of Whatever, back in 2010:
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Here's a Rankin-Bass production that somehow has been lost to the mists of time, having not gotten as much airplay as the rest of the R-B line. Cricket on the Hearth is based on a story by Charles Dickens (A Christmas Carol), and, as with virtually every other R-B special, is star-packed, with an all-star cast headlined by Danny & Marlo Thomas. Marlo was starring in That Girl around this time, so this might've aired on ABC, I'm not sure. The cast also features actor-singer Ed Ames (Daniel Boone), Abbe Lane, and Roddy McDowell as the titular cricket. Also, Hans Conreid reunited with Danny Thomas, as he'd been a regular on Make Room For Daddy before turning to animation.

Right now, let's take a look. Turns out this was a collaborative effort between Rankin-Bass and Danny Thomas' production company he had with Aaron Spelling.

Edit, 12/4/2020: Had to change the video, and this version has a live-action intro with Danny Thomas at the piano.



Seeing as how I've never seen this show, I cannot rightly give it a rating. It is, however, available on DVD in a compilation package.
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I'm just begging someone to air this now, with Christmas 2 weeks away.

From out of the Recycling Bin: Toon Heads (1992)

One of the reasons older viewers have tuned out Cartoon Network in recent years might be the cancellation of the anthology series, Toon Heads, which usually aired on Sunday nights. Even though only three seasons worth of episodes were produced, the network kept the show running for 11 years (1992-2003), bringing it back for a 1 shot special in 2005.

Toon Heads was informative as well as entertaining. An off-screen narrator explained the history of certain characters (i.e. Tom & Jerry, Elmer Fudd) and offered trivial facts about creators such as Chuck Jones, Tex Avery, and Bob Clampett, or actors like Daws Butler and Mel Blanc. In fact, CN's subsequent anthology packages devoted to the works of Jones, Avery, & Clampett could be considered spin-offs from Toon Heads as they mined the same ground.

Unfortunately, no complete episodes are available. What is, however, is a network promo and the intro:



It's just too bad CN can't be bothered to bring this show back again.

Rating: A.

It Should've Been on a Saturday (Morning): The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo (1996)

Nickelodeon never believed in putting all their eggs in one basket. Their philosophy has been, and will remain until someone convinces them otherwise, is to take a hit series and drive it into the ground. Somehow, some of their live-action shows have avoided this dubious fate.

One of those shows was The Mystery Files of Shelby Woo, about an Asian-American teen (Irene Ng, who was actually out of her teens when the series began) who solves crimes that baffle the police. Oddly enough, she works as an intern at the police department, and that's how she gets her cases.

Helping Shelby is her sage grandfather (Pat Morita, ex-Happy Days, in his final TV series role), an innkeeper, who keeps advising against solving crimes, but still ends up coming to his granddaughter's aid. The first three seasons were set in Florida, but after the Canadian studio, Cinar, joined the production of the series, the Woos were relocated to Boston. Go figure.

Here's a sample intro:



I think Shelby was meant to be an Asian Nancy Drew, but, aside from a rerun airing in 2011 during TeenNick's The 90's Are All That block, Shelby's been locked in the Viacom vaults. How's that for respect?

Rating: B.

Countdown to Christmas: Christmas Comes But Once A Year (1936)

I think the last time Max Fleischer's "Christmas Comes But Once a Year" aired on TV was on Cartoon Network's now-defunct Toon Heads anthology series, and eventually, we'll get to that. For right now, though, let's take a look at this Golden Age Yuletide treat.

Update, 12/20/23: Fleischer Cartoons placed a copyright claim on the last copy. This time, we pulled one from Fleischer Cartoons' own YouTube channel.



A break from the usual for the Fleischer studio. As we saw with Popeye's holiday shorts, the Fleischers know how to do Christmas right.

Rating: A-.

Countdown to Christmas: The Christmas Phantom (Archie's Weird Mysteries, 2000)

Let's start our annual Countdown to Christmas with a Yuletide offering from Archie's Weird Mysteries. To my knowledge, the episode, "The Christmas Phantom", may in fact be the only time Archie Andrews and his friends had a Christmas episode in any of their incarnations (I can't speak for the New Archies just yet). I didn't see this episode, so there's no rating. Rather, it's here for your perusal.