Happy Thanksgiving!

Cartoon Network Bumper from 1997


Cartoon Network Fred Flintstone Thanksgiving... by 90sCartoonNetworkFan

Classic Commercial Sunday - #62

Goofy For Disney Cruise Line

This is a piece of animation done to promote a new feature with the Disney Cruise Line check in process. It was done in the style of Goofy's "How To" cartoons from the 40's & 50's. Very brief, but Big Fun!

Old School Frosty

Here's a nifty little video featuring a 1953 animated short of Frosty The Snowman. This was made 12 years before the popular TV special that we all enjoy today. The cartoon was produced by the UPA studios. After the short, this video has some retro images of Frosty from books and merchandise from the early days up through his appearance on television.

Christmas Comes But Once A Year

Here's a pretty neat little cartoon I like called Christmas Comes But Once A Year. It was released on this date back in 1936 from the Fleischer Studios. Fleischer was responsible for the original Popeye cartoons, as well as the old Superman shorts and Betty Boop. In fact, the star of this cartoon - Professor Grampy - is from the cast of the Betty Boop shorts. The cool effect used in the beginning of this film with the house and again at the end with the Christmas tree was achieved by building actual cartoon sets and filming them traditionally. The effect doesn't stand out from the rest of the picture nearly as much as today's computer animation tucked inside hand drawn work.

Photo Quiz

Why am I running this photo today?

A) Because it features my little brother (in the stripped shirt) and his buddies on their 8th grade field trip back in 1990.

B) Because the one kid is wearing a Lowenbrau beer t-shirt at age 13 on a Catholic School field trip.

C) Because the picture features a glimpse of walk-around character Quick Draw McGraw circa 1990 Kings Dominion.

The answer is C, of course.

Super Fun Superhero CD

I'm not really big into superheroes but I do appreciate their place in pop culture. After all, superheroes are essentially cartoon characters that fight instead of throw pies and run into walls. One thing I am a fan of though are TV theme songs! So I gotta tell ya, I enjoyed the heck out of the new CD The Music of DC Comics: 75th Anniversary Collection.

This is an awesome collection of music from various television shows and motion picture outings for several of DC Comic's top stars. It's not just the amount of superheroes that are represented here that makes this CD impressive. It's the span of time the tracks cover. The first track on the CD is the theme music to the old Max Fleisher Superman cartoon shorts of the 1940's. The music takes us all the way up to the jazzy retro theme song for Batman: The Brave and the Bold, a newer series currently in it's second season on Cartoon Network.

DC's two biggest stars have always been Supes and the Bat, and they are represented here the most. The Superman tracks include the John Williams theme to the 70's/80's film franchise, themes to the Filmation cartoons of Superman and Superboy, and the music to the prime time entries Lois & Clark and Smallville. The Caped Crusader tunes include the opening to the 1943 serial The Batman, various cartoon shows along the years and the themes to both Tim Burton and Chris Nolan's incarnations of Batman. One of the inclusions that sold me on picking up this CD is the groovy theme to the 1960's Adam West Batman show - which is really where I got my first taste of superheroes.

Another great show from my childhood was The SuperFriends. There have been several reboots of the concept over the years. Six different series are represented on this disc but none greater than Hoyt Curtan's theme to The All-New Super Friends Hour from 1977. That show was the bomb!

There's still 10 more tracks after that! How great is a CD with the theme to The Plastic Man Comedy Adventure Show and Swamp Thing!? And where's Wonder Woman you ask...this compilation ends with not only the theme to the recent Wonder Woman animated film but also the classic Linda Carter television series from the 70's. Well played, DC...well played!

An eclectic mix of all sorts of shows and films that the DC Universe has populated over the last 75 years. A great and unique listen!

Let The Halloween Cartoons Begin

Halloween is just a few weeks away and the kids and I have been in the mood to kick off the holiday special viewing season. So, this past weekend we decided to relax after a day of pumpkin picking and hay rides with the annual ritual of "Pulling Out The Halloween Videos."

We started things off with a screening of Bugs Bunny's Howl-oween Special, a good ol' fashioned CBS primetime offering from 1978. As with the majority of the Looney Tunes specials, this show mixes a handful of classic animated shorts with some newer low-grade animation to form one continuous half hour cartoon. Even as a young kid, the newer bits of the cartoon stuck out like a sore thumb in the middle of the original masterpieces. Sometimes the new animation was just used to link together three or four complete cartoons, other times (such as the case with Howl-oween) the newer bits are sprinkled in and out the old cartoons to try and make it seem like one whole story. When the latter approach was used, the shows feel disconnected and choppy. Animation style, character design and voices change every couple of minutes and it makes viewing a bit difficult. It's a wonder why they didn't just collect a handful of Halloween themed shorts and air them in their entirty.

I was never really a huge fan of these chop shop Warner Bros. specials, but I watched them every time they were on because that's how we rolled back in the old days before VCRs and 24 hour cartoon channels. In more recent years, I kinda had a nostalgic yearning for some of these specials and have sought some out on video and DVD. Bugs Bunny's Howl-oween Special makes it's debut on DVD this year, having not been released since a 1994 VHS cassette. The special itself features clips and scenes from nine vintage shorts including Broom-Stick Bunny (1956), Hyde and Hare (1955) and Transylvania6-5000 (1954). One of my all-time favorite Looney Tunes shorts, Scaredy Cat from 1948, is also used luckily without too much interruption.

All in all, even though the show alters the original state of the cartoons the special is entertaining and promotes enough Halloween spirit to get everyone in the mood. The new DVD also features the complete short Hair-Raising Hare from 1946. This is the one where Bugs Bunny meets the giant orange-haired monster and does his nails. Good stuff and actually worth the price of admission alone!

In the mood for more classic animated shorts, we then popped in Tom & Jerry: Hijinks and Shrieks. I picked up this DVD at a yard sale a couple of years ago (they had it priced at $3 but I talked `em down to $2...suckers!) but we had never gotten around to watching it. This isn't an old TV special, but rather a collection of 7 top-shelf Tom & Jerry shorts from 1952 to 1965. The bad news is that only two of these shorts have anything at all to do with Halloween, the good news is that they are all pretty good cartoons. The amazing thing is that after 60+ years, these cartoons are still laugh out-loud funny to kids and grown ups alike! And quite frankly, there is no greater sound than hearing your kids crackup to pieces laughing at silly things like animals running into walls and cats getting their tail chopped off!

The two Halloween themed shorts, 1956's The Flying Sorceress & The Haunted Mouse from 1965 are both filled with sufficient levels of spooky fun to carry the other 5 titles into making this a fun collection for the Halloween season. A couple of the shorts were produced in CinemaScope and of course are presented here in pan and scan. I think a DVD of just a handful of cartoons presented in their widescreen glory for new television sets would not only be an awesome addition to the WWoB DVD library, I think it would be a big seller as well!

Both Bugs Bunny's Howl-oween Special and Tom & Jerry: Hiijinks & Shrieks are available at Wal-Mart, Amazon and for rental from Netflix. Good stuff for your pre-Trick or Treat viewing!

Off The Mark 6/23

A Retired Captain Sails Again

Just saw these new Retro designs on the latest boxes of Cap'n Crunch cereal. They feature the original Jay Ward designed characters from when the cereal first came out. Very fun!

Glass Toonagerie

I'm not in the market for any new glasses right now...but wait a few weeks and our son Joey will break a couple and we'll have room in the cupboard for a few more. Either way, I'm always taking a look at the cartoon themed drinking glasses that can be found at yard sales and flea markets. This past weekend I found not one...but two rare glasses that I haven't seen in my travels before. First, we have our good buddies the Shirt Tales. All five of the friends that appeared in the TV show are featured on this glass. They're all sitting around the big tree that, as you may recall, housed all their gadgets and computers to help the police commissioner solve crimes. Ah...the 80's! I'm not even sure where this glass came from, if it was from a fast food joint or somewhere online it was suggested that these glasses were a promotion with Hallmark Stores. Could be!?

The other glass has got on it a forgotten, but dearly loved 80's toon - Party Popple of The Popples! The Popples was one of the rare cartoon series that didn't have any bad guys...it was just a bunch of these little fur balls running around having fun. Yes, it was a great show. You don't see much of The Popples these days, but at one time they were popular enough to warrant their own Pizza Hut promotion - which is where this glass if from. I can honestly remember only going to Pizza Hut ONCE as a child, so I'm not surprised that I'd never seen this glass before.

I passed on buying either of this gems, but the guy who owned the stand at the flea market was kind enough to allow me to snap a pic for all my blog buddies!

House of Straw

My wife and I recently spent an extended weekend in the Bahamas on beautiful Grand Bahama Island. Mrs. South was a bridesmaid in a beautiful beach wedding, we also took a tour on a glass bottom boat and enjoyed some fine local cuisine. One of the highlights of our trip was spending the day at Port Lucaya Marketplace which is a neat little shopping complex made up of little shops, eateries, and bars. One of the other attractions at the Marketplace is known as the Straw Market.

If you've been to the more famous Straw Market in nearby Nassau you haven't experienced quite the same thing as the markets in Grand Bahama. In Nassau the markets are filled with rip-offs of designer handbags and other name brand goods. In Grand Bahama the markets are way more low key. There are over 100 little booths where islanders sell handmade goods and other simple souvenirs like t-shirts and hats. One of the most popular items that you'll find for sale at almost every vendor are straw bags. They come in all shapes and sizes and each is handmade. You can find a bag decorated with almost anything you can think of. It was pretty cool to find tons of bags with the (unauthorized) likeness of several cartoon pals. Of course, I took some pics:

This vendor had a large assortment. We saw alot of Mickeys and Doras...this was the only place we saw Muppets and even Bratz.

This was one of the better looking Disney bags I found.

I was hoping to find a Flintstones bag and spotted this Wilma tucked away in the back of one booth. I took a picture and then turned around and found a Fred bag which instead of taking a picture of, I forked over ten bucks and bought it. I guess I could have taken a picture of it still, since it's sitting in my bedroom now, but for now just enjoy the Wilma.

Inspector Gadget Theme Played on Empty Bottles

Cooler Than Those Golf Pants

Here's a fun game to play on the weekend, take your kids to the neighborhood Dick's Sporting Goods store and see how long it takes you to get yelled at for letting your kids putt around a few golf balls on their little practice green. I know it's there for serious golfers to test out $500.00 golf clubs, but seriously, you can't put what is essentially a miniature golf course hole in the middle of a store and not expect kids to want to play on it! Gimme a Break!

Anywho...check out these sweet golf club covers featuring the likenesses of true honest-to-goodness classic cartoon characters. There was no Spongebob or South Park characters on display here...just old fashioned cartoon heroes like Popeye and Wimpy and even a one Mr. Rocket J. Squirrel! They also had Bullwinkle, Dudley Do Right, The Pink Panther, Snoopy and Sherman and Mr. Peabody. Very nice! Here's a link to a site that won't yell at your kids which features these and a few more toon golf club covers.

After being told to put down the golf clubs in the golf section, we like to mosey on over to Dick's footwear department and let the kids blow off their un-golfed steam on a half dozen laps around the running track they have painted on the floor!

Great Customer Service, Dicks!

Yogi Yahooeys Fan For Life

An exciting treasure from the Hanna-Barbera vaults finally made it's way to DVD this week. Scooby's All Star Laff-A-Lympics Volume 1 features four episodes from the fondly remembered 1977 - 1979 Saturday morning series. This has always been one of my favorites from the guys at H-B and I was pretty excited to see the show get a DVD release. Judging from the cover art, Warner Bros. is hoping to ride off the immense popularity of Scooby-Doo. He's featured prominently in the show's opening segment and in most of the episodes but for most H-B fans Laff-A-Lympics stands out due to it's cast of dozens of cartoon superstars.

The Laff-A-Lympics is an Olympics style event, actually a parody of ABC's Battle of the Network Stars. In each episode, three teams compete in an assortment of athletic events at venues all over the world. The teams are: the Scooby Doobies - made up of Hanna-Barbera characters from half hour mystery shows like Scooby Doo, Dinomutt, Speed Buggy and Captain Caveman; the Yogi Yahooeys - featuring the gang from H-B's classic animated shorts like Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Wally Gator and Quick Draw McGraw; and there's the Really Rottens - who look similar to other Hanna-Barbera bad guys but are mostly all original creations for this show. The teams compete in different events and are awarded points throughout the competition. Of course, the Really Rottens always try to cheat and it always backfires on them!

One of the coolest aspects of the show was the guest cameos that pop up from time to time. In the four episodes on this collection there are brief appearances from Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble and Jabber Jaw. The other fun thing about this show is how much my kids got into it! They both really got behind the Scooby Doobies and were cheering them on and hooting and yelling like they were watching something on ESPN. Myself, I'm a life long Yogi Yahooeys fan so the line was drawn down the middle of our house and the kids took great delight in seeing their team squash mine. I really like when my children appreciate the simpler cartoons from the past.

I also have to add that "Laff-A-Lympics" is a totally great title! I'm a big fan of 70's programing that incorporates the words "Laugh", "Comedy", or "Smile" into their title.

Here's a rundown of who's who on the Laff-A-Lympics teams:

Here He Comes to DVD!

I've been anxiously awaiting the arrival of Mighty Mouse on DVD. The classic Terrytoons shorts that were produced in the 1950's and 60's were a major staple of my cartoon diet growing up and I've always loved the little guy. There were a few hard to find releases of the original shorts on VHS, but all-in-all just a handful of the library was ever made available. There were also two other series where Mighty Mouse appeared; The New Adventrues of Mighty Mouse & Heckle and Jeckle produced by Filmation ran for two seasons beginning in 1979, and there was Mighty Mouse The New Adventures which was produced by legendary adult animator Ralph Bakshi which popped up near the end of the 1980's. I love all three versions of the show, none of which have been on television in quite a while. I do have a few segments of each in the ol' VHS collection, however!

It's been reported that a nice deluxe DVD set of the original Mighty Mouse cartoons is scheduled to be released with a brand new CGI-movie that Nickelodeon is producing. In the meantime, in between time, it's just been announced that Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures! is going to show up on shelves on January 5, 2010. My least favorite of the three different shows, it's still a great show with a really warped sense of humor and plenty of jokes thrown at adults to make it even more fun. It will be a welcome addition to my DVD library.

When the show originally aired, some people were uneasy that a Saturday morning cartoon for kids was being produced by a studio that formerly turned out X-rated cartoons. Some media watchdog group accused the show of featuring a scene where Mighty Mouse snorted cocaine even though it was clear he was just smelling a flower. (I've seen the clip, he's smelling a flower!) Besides, why would Mighty Mouse need to do cocaine!? He doesn't need any drugs to beat up cats! He's Mighty Mouse!? Duh!

Classic Commercial Sunday - The Many Sides of Woodsy

Even though I'm terrifyingly afraid of owls, I think Woodsy the Owl is a pretty great cartoon creation. He stared in a number of PSAs sponsored by the United States Forest Service beginning in 1970. His ads were always a pleasant part of afternoon cartoons in the 70's and 80's. Apparently everyone was too busy picking up litter to ever bother to keep track of what Woodsy's voice sounded like.

Here's an ad where he sounds like Winnie The Pooh...


Now he has the same voice as the Nestle Quick Rabbit...


and here's another random voice...


No matter what he sounds like, I love that jingle!!! (And I almost always internally sing it when I throw trash away in a park!)