Teenage Toons: The Archies go skiing (1968)

From The Archie Show:

Veronica Lodge (Jane Webb, employing a Southern accent) talks her father into letting the rest of the gang work at a ski resort for a weekend. Of course, you know this won't end well.........



For the life of me, I could never figure out why Veronica was given a Southern accent, when she's as much a Yankee as the rest of the gang. Jane Webb voiced all the female characters and, for example, created a Marilyn Monroe-like voice for Sabrina. To my knowledge, the Lodges weren't from the South.

Rating: B.

Edit, 2/22/18: Had to change the video. "Hot Dog Drag" airs first, followed by the Dance of the Week and "You Make Me Wanna Dance".

Toonfomercial: Chevron reveals their secrets (1979)

This is one of Chevron's animated commercials from 1979. I have another one over at The Land of Whatever that I'll bring over here another time. In this ad, we see how Chevron gets its fuel. The inestimable Casey Kasem narrates.

Saturday Morning's Forgotten Heroes: The Robonic Stooges (1977)

After The Three Stooges made a couple of guest appearances on The New Scooby-Doo Movies, Hanna-Barbera welcomed back writers Norman Maurer (son-in-law of Moe Howard) & Jeffrey Scott (Moe's grandson) to the fold. Scott would remain on staff at H-B at least into the 80's. Not so sure about Maurer, who had produced the New Three Stooges shorts in the 60's for his own studio.

In 1977, Moe, Larry, & Curly were reincarnated, if ya will, as cyborg bumblers in The Robonic Stooges, one of two animated segments on The Skatebirds. H-B & CBS figured, if a cyborg dog (Dynomutt) was a hit for ABC, how about taking some comedy legends and giving them bionic parts, too? Predictably, only one season's worth of shorts were produced, and they never once thought about a robotic version of Shemp.

One must assume that Frank Welker had voiced Curly in the Scooby-Doo episodes, since he recycled the voice for the Curly-esque Jabberjaw. So, naturally, Welker was, ah, reunited with the child-like Stooge. Joe Baker (ex-The Rich Little Show) voiced Larry, while the inestimable Paul Winchell voiced Moe. Ross Martin (ex-Sealab 2020, Wild Wild West) was their boss, Agent 000. John Stephenson is the narrator.

Unfortunately, episodes previously posted have been deleted by YouTube and are unavailable at the moment. All that's left is this 11 second intro, narrated by Stephenson:



The episodes tried to mix classic Stooge slapstick with superhero action, but the translation wasn't always there. Of course, it didn't help that studio stablemates were on the other channels and that led to Skatebirds' early demise.

Rating: B-.

Daytime Heroes: Colonel Bleep (1956)

Colonel Bleep hasn't been seen in years, and he's approaching his 60th birthday in 2016.

Maybe it's understandable. Bleep is an alien from the planet Futura who teams with a mute puppet and a caveman to battle evil. Sources say that Joe Barbera had a hand in creating Bleep before launching Hanna-Barbera. I am not so sure.

Noah Tyler narrates and does virtually all of the voice work in this first installment, "Colonel Bleep's Arrival on Earth", uploaded by Dandy Deal.



Colonel Bleep came from a small independent studio in Miami, but there are very few episodes available, and those that are currently are in the public domain, so there is a chance someone could make a run at reviving the series to mark the 60th anniversary. Otherwise, this will end up being a footnote in television history.

Rating: C.

Toonfomercial: There's a reason dogs don't use telephones..... (2013)

The other day, we presented a State Farm commercial starring Scooby-Doo & Mystery, Inc.. Altogether, there are three State Farm ads featuring the gang.

This next one, to which I was tipped by Magicdog, one of our regular correspondents, has Scooby (Frank Welker) dealing with automated phone services. Ruh-roh!

Rare Treats: Magilla Gorilla: Here Comes a Star (1964)

We're starting a new feature here in the Archives tonight. I call it, "Rare Treats", because they're exactly that. Featurettes you're more likely to find on DVD releases of old shows.

Such is the case with our first "Rare Treat". 50 years ago, Hanna-Barbera produced a promotional film for one of its 3 "freshmen" series that year, Magilla Gorilla. Radio & television personality George Fenneman (ex-You Bet Your Life, Dragnet) serves as our tour guide. I'm not going to bother with a rating, as this is more a public service to you than anything else.

And, so, here's Magilla Gorilla: Here Comes a Star:

Edit, 3/27/2020: We've located a still shot from the special:

Edit, 3/23/25: The special is back.

It's easy to forget that Magilla came along the same year as Jonny Quest, who was easily the better known of the Class of '64..........

Saturtainment: Go Go Gophers vs. "The Ironclad" (1964)

Wikipedia claims that the Go Go Gophers were introduced in 1966, added to The Underdog Show, which marks its 50th anniversary this year. Wikipedia doesn't have the accurate information on original content of the latter series, relying instead on syndicated prints that have been around since the 70's.

Until I hear differently from an independent and reliable source, we're going to say that Ruffled Feathers & Running Board are also marking 50 years this year. To that end, here's a hilarious classic that sees Col. Kit Coyote (Kenny Delmar) & Sgt. Okey Homa (Sandy Becker) using a Navy battleship to try to drive the Gopher Indians out of town..........



Five minutes, including the open, just isn't enough time to today's audience, and even then, if you blinked, the story was done. Becker doubled as Running Board while George Irving was the babbling Ruffled Feathers. All three actors, I think, sang the theme song.

Rating: A.