Game Time: Meet the creator of Zorro (To Tell The Truth, 1958)

 Johnston McCulley lived long enough to see his creation, Zorro, adapted for television for the first time by Disney & ABC, and to appear on To Tell The Truth. Speaking of ABC, Dick Clark (American Bandstand) is on the panel with Hy Gardner, Kitty Carlisle, & Polly Bergen.

McCulley appears in the evening's final game.

Saturday Morning's Forgotten Heroes: Mighty Mouse in Mouse of The Desert (1979)

 From The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle & Jeckle:

Mighty Mouse is in ancient Egypt (!). Otherwise, it's the usual chaos in "Mouse of The Desert".

This was a rare instance of Filmation using one of Terrytoons' story gimmicks, as most episodes, aside from the serial, The Great Space Chase, were more contemporary.

Rating: B--.

Teenage Toons: Cinemadness (Archie's Weird Mysteries, 1999)

 From Archie's Weird Mysteries:

A magic potion that opens a portal between a movie and the real world falls into the hands of lovestruck Reggie, who wants to bring a B-movie actress he sees in an old flick at a second run theatre into Riverdale. Chaos, of course, erupts in "Cinemadness":

Part of the open and the last few seconds of the episode have been edited off.

I wonder how this kind of story would play today.

Rating: B-.

Remotely familiar: Robotix (1985)

 Milton Bradley (now part of Hasbro) produced the Robotix toy line in the mid-80's. Since then, the company, of course, was absorbed by Hasbro, which has, in turn, integrated the Robotix into its Transformers universe.

In 1985, Robotix was adapted for television by Marvel & Sunbow for the syndicated Super Sunday (or Super Saturday) block, which was a 90 minute package also including Jem (previously reviewed) and Bigfoot & The Monster Machines. Of these, Jem was the only survivor, as the others were cancelled after 1 season.

Let's take a look at the intro w/outro. Victor Carioli narrates.

The toyetic toon glut of the 80's is partially responsible for this being a 1-season wonder.

Rating: B.

You Know The Voice: Wally Cox shills for Jockey (1972)

 Wally Cox might've been the last guy to do an underwear commercial, but he did do one for Jockey in 1972. Bionic Disco uncovered this and posted it to YouTube earlier this morning.

How they never asked him to guest host College Bowl, I'll never know.

Sunday Funnies: Remember Utica Club's Schultz & Dooley? (1959)

 Utica Club beer had a successful ad campaign featuring some beer stein puppets named Schultz & Dooley. Oh, there were others, too, but these characters were around for nearly 20 years before the ad campaign came to an end.

In this sampler, we have some gangster mugs (get it?) in a police lineup. Voices by Jonathan Winters.

This is what led the legendary Winters toward a later career in cartoons (i.e. Smurfs).

Toonfomercial: A 2 headed Chef Boy-ar-Dee fanatic (1970)

 Remember this ad airing on Saturday mornings in the 70's?

This was drawn the way it was to suggest that even the target audience----children----could, ah, get the picture. Unfortunately, Beefaghetti did not make it out of the 70's. Beefaroni, though, is one of Chef Boyardee's (note the spelling change) popular brands, more than 50 years later, and that's without the mass advertising it had back in the day.