From Primetime to Daytime: Bewitched (1964)

ABC apparently was a wee bit short on new programming for their Saturday morning lineup in 1971. Oh, sure, there were three new series: Lidsville, Curiosity Shop, & The Jackson 5ive (all previously reviewed), and the network reacquired Jonny Quest to help fill the lunch-hour bridge to American Bandstand. In what amounted to a noble experiment, the network decided to air repeats of one of their primetime shows, Bewitched, which was entering its 8th and final season, in the center of the schedule. The experiment lasted a year, and then, after the series was cancelled, if memory serves, Bewitched was shifted to weekday mornings.

Everyone knows the story about a good natured witch (Elizabeth Montgomery) and her mortal husband (Dick York, later succeeded by Dick Sargent). By the time Bewitched was slotted on Saturdays, Samantha & Darrin had added two children, Tabitha & Adam, who would later spin off into a 1-shot ABC Saturday Superstar Movie, "Tabitha & Adam & the Clown Family". Tabitha, of course, would get her own primetime show four years after Bewitched ended, but the magic, dare I say it, had worn off.

Attached is the open to season 3:



ABC would try a similar experiment a few years later, but it would only be a 1-shot to fill time when there was a delay with the 1979-80 season's start.

Rating: B-.

Tooniversary: Clue Club (1976)

After 8 seasons, Scooby-Doo & the kids of Mystery, Incorporated packed their Mystery Machine and left CBS for ABC in 1976. Scooby would last 10 years at ABC before finally getting a vacation. Meanwhile, Hanna-Barbera filled the void at CBS by tweaking the formula just a wee bit.

Unlike Mystery, Incorporated, the teens of the Clue Club remained in one unnamed city for the entire duration of their series. Further, the two boys & two girls (Larry, DD, Dottie, & Pepper) were all siblings, and had not one, but two dogs, Woofer & Wimper (voiced by Paul Winchell & Jim McGeorge, respectively), which provided the necessary comedy relief. Dottie, the youngest, was also a child prodigy and remained in the family garage, which the Club used as their HQ. Their parents were never seen, and the only parental figure that ever interacted with the kids was Sheriff Bagley (John Stephenson), who was to them what Commissioner Gordon has been to the Batman for eons, a trusted ally.

Unlike Scooby-Doo, Clue Club, which launched in August of 1976 for reasons we'll get to later, put more emphasis on procedural detective work, as Larry, Pepper, & DD not only hunted for clues, but interviewed potential suspects in the same manner the sheriff would. Larry (David Jolliffe) did most of the interviewing, as the eldest of the 4 sibs, but it was Dottie that put all the pieces together. Unfortunately, only 1 season of 16 episodes was produced. As we've documented before, the episodes were edited down the next year to emphasize Woofer & Wimper, Dog Detectives as part of the Skatebirds anthology series. The series was restored and returned to the schedule in 1978 for another run of repeats. It currently is in rotation on Boomerang as part of the Those Meddling Kids anthology block.

Clue Club's early bird launch in 1976 was because, in this writer's view, CBS felt they had a huge hit, and wanted to showcase it before the US Open tennis tournament, which would tie up the network's Saturday morning block for 2 weekends every year (and still does).

Here's the open:



This is what a detective cartoon is supposed to look like. Unfortunately, the formula's been lost at WB.....

Rating: A.

Looney TV: Would you buy insurance from this guy? (2010)

In 2010, GEICO launched its current "Isn't it obvious?" ad campaign, but got into a wee bit of hot water by co-opting the use of Elmer Fudd without obtaining permission from Warner Bros.. Now, you'd think a major insurance company would have done due diligence, or at the very least had their advertising reps do that, to secure a license.

Here's Elmer (voiced by Billy West), dealing with a director who has no tolerance for Fudd's speech issues. Uploaded by JosephMaggio to YouTube:

Toon Sports: Tom Slick (1967)

Tom Slick was one of two backup features to the original George of the Jungle (1967). In a sense a parody of Japan's Speed Racer, which arrived in America around the same time, Tom (Bill Scott, using a variation of his Dudley Do-Right voice) raced around the world, accompanied by his sweetheart, Marigold (June Foray) and her mother, Gertie (Scott doing a rare female role). BSlater65 uploaded the theme:



Sad to say, more people remember Super Chicken than they do Tom Slick today. You don't really see t-shirts with Slick's picture, do you?

Rating: B-.

Family Toons: Dinky Dog (1978)

If there was a deterrent to Hanna-Barbera's All-New Popeye Hour during its 4 year run on CBS (before the series was shrunk to a half-hour and reformatted), it was the studio's seeming insistence on an original feature added to the show that had zero connection to Popeye himself.

Dinky Dog is about an adorable puppy that grows to mammoth proportions, much to the dismay of its owners, Sandy (Jackie Joseph, ex-Josie & the Pussycats, making her return to H-B) and Monica (Julie Bennett), and their uncle, Dudley (Frank Nelson, ex-Oddball Couple). The theme song, sung by the two actresses, is derivative of the classic theme to The Brady Bunch, while Dinky himself (Frank Welker) may have been loosely derived from Brad Anderson's comic strip, Marmaduke (which would transition to TV 3 years later), even though the breed is different. Dinky, though, could also be construed as the forerunner to the "Beethoven" movie series, and, yep, Beethoven would also transition to cartoons in due course.

The Wikipedia entry on Dinky Dog claimed it was the first H-B series created & produced in Australia, but that is incorrect. That distinction belongs to Funky Phantom, which aired 7 years earlier on ABC. Oh, Dinky might have gotten Down Under in a series of episodes where he, Dudley, Sandy, & Monica were on a world tour, but he was developed in the good ol' USA.

BeAStarEnt uploaded the theme to YouTube. I'm sure you'll get the Brady Bunch connection by listening to the lyrics.



Rating: B-.

Saturtainment: The Weird Al Show (1997)

Song satirist par excellence "Weird" Al Yankovic gave Saturday mornings a try with The Weird Al Show for CBS in 1997. There were a few problems.

1. Yankovic hadn't had a hit on the pop charts in about 5 years.

2. The show aired during the blackout zone in CBS' lineup, where network affiliates would sub syndicated or local programming in order to earn some additional ad revenues for themselves. In my area, Weird Al aired on Sundays for this reason.

3. Saturday icon Dick Clark (ex-American Bandstand)'s production company produced the show, which actually was the kiss of death, because Clark had previously failed with the live-action/animated hybrid Wolf Rock TV with Wolfman Jack more than a decade earlier. If it wasn't connected to Bandstand, you see, it wasn't going anywhere.

And, so, The Weird Al Show was cancelled after just 1 season (the complete series is out on DVD). What CBS was hoping to do, I think, was recapture lightning in a bottle. Asking "Weird" Al Yankovic to do a sketch comedy show in the same vein as the classic Pee-Wee's Playhouse (1986-91) was one thing. Making it work was another thing altogether.

Kevn8907 uploaded the following clip, which includes a cameo appearance by former MTV VJ "Downtown" Julie Brown:



Nice idea, and it seemed like Al was picking up where he'd left off with the comedy bits from his late 80's feature film, "UHF". Too bad the network showed him no respect by giving him a bad time slot......

Rating: B-.

Literary Toons: Smurfs (1981)

Originally introduced in a series of books by the Belgian author, Peyo, Smurfs made their American debut in 1981, as NBC totally overhauled their Saturday morning lineup, something they really wouldn't have to do for the next decade or so. Smurfs was one of three series that Hanna-Barbera had on the NBC schedule, all of them 1 hour in length (the revived Flintstone Comedy Hour and Space Stars being the others), and also the most successful, lasting 9 seasons. With a CGI/live-action feature film in the vein of "Scooby-Doo" & "Yogi Bear" due for the holidays, we thought we'd mark the 30th anniversary of the little blue people's introduction to US audiences.

Following is the intro from the 1st season:



Paul Winchell used his Dick Dastardly voice for Gargamel, who turned out to be just as much a bumbling, bungling villain as Dastardly.....

Rating: A.