Toon-In: Coveralls

The Great Pumpkin!

Saturday Morning Week

Saturday Morning Week

Saturday Morning Week

Saturday Morning Week

Saturday Morning Week

Toon In: “Tom & Jerry Kids”

If Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies was the height of the existing characters in their younger form genre, truly Tom & Jerry Kids was its low point. 

The idea that these two mortal enemies would, at one point, be such great friends was ridiculous enough. That this lazy cartoon was just a cheap attempt to cash in on a trend was like putting toothpaste frosting on a rancid cake.

Toon In: In The Beginning, Part Two

Since most advertisers wouldn’t sponsor children’s programming because the conventional wisdom was that it was a waste of time since kids had no money, most after school programming of the 1950’s was cheaply produced or just repurposed cartoons. Walt Disney had been approached by syndicators who wanted to get their hands on his back catalog of cartoons and throw them on alongside the Looney Tunes in the afternoon TV ghetto that was children’s programming at the time. Mr. Disney resisted, instead trying his hand at producing his own TV show- the Mickey Mouse Club.

The Mickey Mouse Club sought to bring high quality to children’s programming. Perhaps a show with high production values could convince advertisers to jump aboard. Certainly the kids jumped aboard. The show was a wild success, spawning merchandise, albums, spinoffs and trips to DISNEYLAND. Sadly, advertisers were stubbornly ignoring the show. After all, kids had no money, so why advertise to them? Despite its high viewership, the show would not last long, though its influence would live on.

Toon In

Toon In: In The Beginning, Part One

While children’s television is possibly not as educational as it could be, it was a wasteland in the 1950’s. Advertisers at the time were trying to figure out how to use television to their advantage, but on the road to figuring out what might work, they had to make a few assumptions about their audience, many of which were eventually proven wrong. The biggest mistake they made was assuming that since kids have no money it was not worth targeting them with advertisements. Thus children’s television was seen as an afterthought.

“Hey kids, I’ll be in your nightmares tonight!”

Children’s programming was cheap and dreadful. Most channels considered it to be more of a service to harried mothers who needed to distract their children for a few hours while they prepared supper. Thus it was seen as an afterthought, hosted by terrifying clowns and filled with cartoons, purchased on the cheap from movie studios desperate to make cash in a world where their biggest competition was free each night.

Since most movie studios had not yet learned the hidden value in their back catalogs, many of them were selling anything not nailed down for quick cash. Even Warner Bros. had little respect for its animated catalog. (Jack Warner once famously derided his own studio’s animated product by saying the only thing he knew was that his company produced Mickey Mouse cartoons, which was obviously not true.) Warner Bros. sold off its entire catalog of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies for a relative pittance, only getting them back in the 1990’s after it purchased Ted Turner’s Company.

While children’s television was littered with cheap programming, there were a few people who saw that it could be much more than it was. That’s a story for next week. Toon In next time!

Toon In: Why Does This Exist?

Looking for a good late 1980’s film franchise to make into a cartoon for children? Obviously the best choice would be the ultra violent film RoboCop! Wait, what? (If this was a 1980’s movie trailer this is where the record scratch would go.)

B-words Leave!

RoboCop was the ultra violent movie about a dystopian city where the bullet mangled body of a nearly murdered policeman is literally scavenged from the morgue and melded with robot to make a remorseless killing machine. The film’s original cut had been given an X rating due to its extreme violence- a rarity, since the prudish MPAA typically reserved X ratings for films with sexual content. Producing a cartoon out of that seems ridiculous today, but was apparently seen as viable to Orion Pictures in 1988.

Want me to ‘k’ this ‘a’, boss?

The show’s violence was toned down a bit from the film; instead of the dystopian setting of the film, the cartoon had more of a Sci-Fi feel. Regular guns became laser blasters that seemingly always missed. Despite these changes, the 1980’s decided that FINALLY somebody had gone too far. The show died a quick death, lasting just two months. The memories of the time that several allegedly sane executives greenlit a show for children based on an R rated motion picture remain, as well as twelve episodes of this bizarre endeavor.

Toon In: An Absoludicrous Cartoon!

“Toon In” Spongebob Squarepants

There’s No Such Thing as a Ghost!

“Toon In” Inappropriate 1980’s Cartoons

The 1980’s were a time of deregulation and rampant cocaine use. These two things collided on Saturday Morning Television when R rated movies were turned into cartoons. Certainly only cocaine use could explain why Hollywood executives commissioned cartoons based on violent, inappropriate films.

Rambo saves Christmas by helping Santa with his slay.

Rambo was a film about a Vietnam veteran with severe mental issues and PTSD. Using a credo of “shoot first, ask questions later”, the violent, mentally addled John Rambo had to be a perfect role model for kids, right?

Bitches leave. Kids stay.

Robocop was meant to be a satirical look at the glorification of violence during the 1980’s. That fact was lost on Orion Pictures, which was eager to turn the film into a profitable franchise, regardless of the violence.

The Blue Oyster Bar? Is that a day care center?

The Police Academy films were full of off-color jokes and crude humor. Perfect for a children’s cartoon, right? Certainly nobody thought that would be a good idea- except for some drug addled Hollywood executives.

“Toon In”: Hanna Barbera’s Copy Machine

One of Hanna Barbera’s biggest television hits ever was the Saturday morning cartoon show Scooby Doo, Where Are You? which premiered in 1969. The hit show seemed to change the animation studio somehow, as it seemed incapable of making anything except for Scooby Doo clones.

Velma, how would we go about filing a copyright infringement lawsuit?

The formula was as follows- take a group of meddling teens, pair them with a talking animal of some kind, have them travel the countryside solving mysteries and BOOM- the latest Hanna Barbera cartoon. Even when the studio licensed characters from others, it still couldn’t resist Scooby-izing them, like Josie and the Pussycats.

Other than the name and character designs, the show had little in common with the comic book it was based on. Josie and her band would seemingly always find mysteries to solve no matter where they traveled on their tour.

The Clue Club was an even more obvious ripoff, though it had *two* dogs instead of just one. This gang of teens ran its own detective agency, unlike the Scooby gang, whose reason for solving their mysteries was never made clear.

Jabberjaw was yet another ripoff in which a cowardly shark joined forces with some humans to form a band- and solve mysteries. Hard to believe that something could make Scooby Doo seem more realistic.

These three Scooby Doo ripoffs were just a handful of Hanna Barbera’s many attempts to clone Scooby’s success- none of which were actually successful. Unbelievably, Hanna Barbera would continue ripping off its own hit show until well into the 1980’s.