Author silverstar

The Retro Bin: Laff-A-Lympics (1977-1978)

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As you may have noticed by now, Twinsanity generally doesn’t probe too deeply into the careers of Hanna-Barbera’s premier roster of characters like Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss and the many, many Scooby-Doo clones. This is for 2 reasons: one, they tend to be a tad on the interchangeable side, and two, the H-B studio has provided us with opportunities to discuss several of them at once.

One such example is the subject of today’s Retro Bin, Laff-A-Lympics.

 Laff-A-Lympics was the co-headlining segment, with Scooby-Doo, of the package Saturday morning cartoon series Scooby’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics, beginning in 1977. The show was a spoof of the Olympics (duh!) and the ABC television series Battle of the Network Stars, which debuted one year earlier. It featured 45 Hanna-Barbera characters organized into the teams (the Scooby Doobies, the Yogi Yahooeys, and the Really Rottens) which would compete each week for gold, silver, and bronze medals. One season of 16 episodes was produced in 1977–78, and eight new episodes combined with reruns for the 1978–79 season as Scooby’s All-Stars. Yes, both incarnations of the show were named after Scooby-Doo; he was pretty much the Kingpin of Saturday morning back in the 70’s.

“Riss my ring, ritches!”

The episodes themselves basically reiterated the same formula: the 3 teams would lock horns in various sporting events, typically taking place in some exotic location. The various team members would employ their special talents, quirks and shticks to win; sometimes they’d work, sometimes they wouldn’t. The ‘bad guy’ team, the Really Rottens, would habitually cheat and suffer the consquences, and at the end, 1 team would emerge victorious with a gold medal, a 2nd would earn the silver and the loser (usually the Rottens) would get stuck with the bronze. Yada yada yada. What made this show special was its’ novelty: it featured no less than 45 H-B stars occupying a single program. That means nothing to anyone born past Generation X, but for a kid in the 70’s, especially one who was a hardcore Hanna-Barbera fan, LAL was the equivalent of giving a kid the keys to a candy store and saying they can go nucking futs, or a horndog let loose in the Playboy Mansion with a License to Grope badge. Here’s the intro:

 

Now, on to the show’s major selling point: the teams and the stars themselves. The “good guy” teams, consisting of the Scooby Doobies and the Yogi Yahooeys, were good friends and their respective team members gladly helped each other whenever they got into a jam. The Really Rottens, however, always cheated and pulled dirty tricks which would ultimately cause them to be the last-place losers in most episodes. Much like Dick Dastardly and Muttley on Wacky Races, typically the Really Rottens would be just on the verge of winning, before they would make a fatal error at the very end that allowed one of the other two teams to end up at the top. Occasionally, though, the Rottens’ cheating technique wouldn’t actually be against the rules, which resulted in them (unlike Dastardly and Muttley) actually winning in a few episodes; there was even one episode where they won through sheer chance. The final event on the show’s final episode, which took place on the moon (!), ended in a 3-way tie.

Each team adhered to a particular ‘theme’ or genre/era of H-B cartoons.

THE YOGI YAHOOEYS

This team was comprised of Hanna-Barbera’s 1950’s through 1960’s television shorts characters. It was the only team made up entirely of anthropomorphic animals. Grape Ape was the only post-1962 character in the line-up. With this team, the challenge wasn’t finding members for it, but narrowing the choices down to just a few!

TEAM ROSTER:

  • Yogi Bear (captain)
  • Boo-Boo Bear
  • Cindy Bear
  • Huckleberry Hound
  • Mr. Jinks
  • Pixie
  • Dixie
  • Wally Gator
  • Quick Draw McGraw (no Baba Looey)
  • Hokey Wolf (no Ding-a-Ling)
  • Snooper
  • Blabber
  • Augie Doggy
  • Doggy Daddy
  • Yakky Doodle
  • Grape Ape

“Oh sure, name your frelling team after one of us but don’t even ask us to be on it! No royalty check, nothin’! We couldn’t even get jobs as water boys! Yeah, that’s fair!”

“You folks are probably wondering why your old pal Beegle Beagle didn’t make it to the Yahooeys team. Well, it turns out I was blacklisted by the Laff-A-Lympics Ethics committee. Geez, you offhandedly mention that you know a guy who can hook your team up with some Happy Win-Time Go-Go Juice injections, and suddenly you’re banned for life!”

“So let me get this straight: the Scooby Doobies had a magic user. The Really Rottens had a magic user. I’m a 60’s era H-B character who’s a magic user, and I don’t get so much as a phone call? What the what?!”

THE SCOOBY DOOBIES

Much like how the Yogis team represented 50’s-60’s era H-B, the Scooby Doobies team had a heavy 1970’s vibe to them. (They were the ‘modern era’ team at the time.) This team drew mainly from the 1970s Hanna-Barbera cartoons, particularly the “mystery-solving/crime busting” series derived from Scooby-Doo, whose titular character served as team captain.

TEAM ROSTER:

  • Scooby-Doo (captain)
  • Norville “Shaggy” Rogers
  • Scooby-Dum (Why? I don’t know)
  • Dynomutt
  • Blue Falcon
  • Captain Caveman
  • Brenda Chance
  • Taffy Dare
  • Dee Dee Skies
  • Babu (from Jeannie)
  • Hong Kong Phooey
  • Speed Buggy
  • Tinker

*Rumor has it that Mark and Debbie from Speed Buggy had fled to get busy in a love nest in Tijuana at the time.

BTW, take a gander at the original lineup for the Scoobies.

Yes, that’s right: the early production art for the series showed Jeannie from the Jeannie series and Melody, Alexander, Alexandra, and Sebastian the Cat from the Josie and the Pussycats series as members of the Scooby Doobies team, but legal problems with Columbia Pictures Television, Screen Gems’ successor, prevented it. Babu from Jeannie made the final cut, as he was an original creation of Hanna-Barbera, but Columbia controlled all rights to Jeannie’s image. As a result, Babu appeared alone as a member of the Scooby Doobies. Likewise, Archie Comics held rights to the Josie characters. In the actual series, Jeannie was replaced by Hong Kong Phooey and the Josie characters were replaced by Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels.

“When we lawyers sink our teeth into something, there’s no letting go!”

“Shafted again, naturally…”

THE REALLY ROTTENS (Boo! Hiss!)

No prizes for guessing, This team is composed of villainous characters. With the exception of Mumbly and the Dalton Brothers, all of the members are original characters, many of whom are based on various characters that appeared in cartoons and comics prior to Laff-A-Lympics. Originally, Muttley and Dick Dastardly were planned as the leaders of the Really Rottens; however, they could not appear on the show due to those characters being co-owned by Heatter-Quigley Productions. In their place, Hanna-Barbera used the existing character Mumbly and created the new character Dread Baron.

“What did I just tell you??”

Prior to Laff-A-Lympics, Mumbly was a heroic detective rather than a villain on his original show. (Turns out he was another cop gone corrupt, just like in Serpico.) Following the character’s revision as the villainous team leader, he remained a villain in Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose, which was also Dread Baron’s only other role. The Dalton Brothers appeared in 1950s and 1960s shorts (including the 1958 short Sheriff Huckleberry Hound, which featured appearances by Dinky, Dirty, and Dastardly Dalton, as well as their other brothers Dangerous, Detestable, Desperate, and Despicable). However, they were given new character designs for the Laff-A-Lympics series. After Laff-A-Lympics, Dinky reappears in The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound with brothers Stinky (who bears a resemblance to Dastardly Dalton from Laff-A-Lympics), Finky, and Pinky. Mountain-sized Dinky (get it?) was the only mainstay of the Dalton clan.

TEAM ROSTER:

  • Mumbly (captain)
  • Dread Baron (co-captain)
  • The Dalton Brothers (Dinky, Dirty and Dastardly)
  • The Creeply Family (Mr., Mrs. and Junior; loosely based on the Gruesomes from the Flintstones and the J. Mad Scientists from the H-B shorts)
  • Orful Octopus (aka Octo, the Creeplys’ pet)
  • The Great Fondue (villainous magician who seemed to be incapable of performing magic with any sort of accuracy; Similar to Abner K. Dabra from the 1963 book, Yogi Bear and the Cranky Magician)
  • Magic Rabbit (Fondue’s pet, dialogue limited to “Brack!” Bears a resemblance to the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland (or What’s a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?)
  • Daisy Mayhem (or as Goldstar likes to refer to her “Boner Launcher”; mean-spirited hillbilly gal with split ends, Daisy Dukes and bare feet, who bears a resemblance to the Li’l Abner character Moonbeam McSwine)
  • Sooey Pig (Daisy’s pet pig. You can tell he’s rotten because he wears sneakers and an eye patch!)

“What? You recruited a bunch of newbies and doppelgangers instead of me? You could’ve just hired me and all the bad guys from ‘Yogi’s Gang’. There’s your Rottens team right there!”

“I didn’t get a call either? What’s the deal? Just yesterday I was in the park feeding the pigeons…to some alley cats! I’m totally rotten up here!”

Trivia Time:

  • In one season 2 episode, Mumbly is referred to throughout as Muttley.
  • Hong Kong Phooey was originally set to be an official (i.e., referee), but he was added to the Scooby Doobies team roster at the least minute to replace Jeannie (see above).
  • Dick Dastardly and Muttley appear in issue #13 of the Laff-A-Lympics comic book series, “No Laff-A-Lympics Today!”. In the book, Dread is revealed to be Dick Dastardly’s twin brother.
  • In the Latin American dub of Laff-A-Lympics, Dread Baron and Mumbly are called Dick Dastardly and Muttley.

Each episode was presented in a format similar to an Olympic television broadcast, with announcing/voice-over duties handled by an unnamed/unseen Announcer character (see also Wacky Races, Yogi’s Space Race and Fender Bender 500). Hosting duties and commentary were provided by Snagglepuss and Mildew Wolf from the It’s the Wolf! segments of Cattanooga Cats (though unlike It’s the Wolf!, Mildew was not voiced by Paul Lynde; he was here voiced by John Stephenson). Apparently, Lynde had a reputation of being difficult to work with, so HB opted to go with a sound-alike rather than contend with the real deal.

I guess H-B considered Mr. Lynde to be kind of a silly savage.

Also, since the show was airing on ABC, Snagglepuss and Mildew wore the then-traditional yellow jackets of ABC Sports announcers.

Laff-A-Lympics ran for 16 episodes in it’s first season (1977-78) and an additional 8 episodes for its’ second season (1978-79). The series kind of fizzled after that; probably because it was the same basic formula repeated again and again, and also, let’s face it: the show lacked the ‘jiggle factor’ that permeated throughout the series that inspired it, Battle of the Network Stars. Let’s address the elephant in the room…

 These guys don’t have much to offer in the wet T-shirt department.

Talkin’ Nerdy: It’s All Freak to Me

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X-Men

One of Marvel Comics’ most popular and iconic franchise characters are the X-Men. Created in 1963 by writer Stan Lee and artist/co-writer Jack Kirby, and achieving mainstream success in the 1990’s thanks to their successful Saturday morning cartoon show on Fox Kids in the 1990’s, this sub-species of humans who are born with superhuman abilities and who fight for peace and equality between normal humans and mutants in a world where antimutant bigotry is fierce and widespread, are among the most recognizable and lucrative intellectual properties of Marvel Comics, appearing in numerous books, television shows, films, and video games…..

….Just not in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. And the cries of a million fanboys can be heard across the cosmos.

Why not, you may ask? It’s because of the ongoing tug-of-war between Disney/Marvel and 20th Century Fox, who currently hold the film rights to the mutants.

Corporate Tug of War

“The X-Men are OURS! We created them! Hand them over! We want to cross them over with the Guardians of the Galaxy!”

-“No, they’re OURS! You gave the rights away! No take-backs! We need the mutants! The Simpsons aren’t funny anymore!”

Fox isn’t about to relinquish the rights to the X-Men Franchise as long as their films are putting butts into seats, but Disney/Marvel wants to use them real bad. They have had to bite their tongues about it so much that their tongues look like a dog’s chew toy. In the first 2 seasons of Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., whenever someone would debunk psychics as being fake, what they were really saying was:

“We can’t reference the X-Men because 20th Century Fox still holds the movie rights.”

Unable to utilize the muties for the MCU, Marvel has turned its’ attention to another sub-species of super-powered individuals, The Inhumans.

X THIS!

X THIS!

For those who don’t know, the Inhumans are are a fictional race of superhumans which first appeared in Fantastic Four #45 (December 1965), though members Medusa and Gorgon appeared in earlier issues of that series (#36 and #44, respectively). Their comic book series has usually focused more specifically on the adventures of the Inhuman Royal Family, and many people associate the name “Inhumans” with this particular team of super-powered characters. Their home, the city of Attilan, is described as the home of a race existing alongside of humans that was evolutionarily advanced when human beings were still in the Stone Age.

Since Marvel can’t use the X-Men, they’ve subsequently introduced Inhumans into the the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the second season of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and they will also be featured in the film Inhumans, set for release on July 12, 2019.

But wait, there’s more: in the comics, there has recently been a story arc which begins with a Terrigen Bomb (the principal Inhumans were given their special powers due to experimentation with a mutagenic Terrigen Mist — a process known as Terrigenesis) going off and spreading Terrigen Mist all over the place. This mist has begun sterilizing Earth’s existing mutants as well as preventing humans from giving birth to new mutants, basically spelling the extinction of the mutant race, and this same mist has started created new Inhumans in various places, thus effectively making Inhumans the new Mutants. Marvel must be figuring “If WE can’t have the mutants, then NO ONE can!”

“WHAT? Ah finally git muh powers under control so ah can finally go on a date with a fella without puttin’ him in a coma, an’ now they’re tryin’ to wipe us out in favor of Black Bolt’s crew?? Now, don’t that just churn your butter?!”

-Now it’s worth mentioning that mutants have faced near-extinction in the comics before; the Legacy Virus and the House of M storyline, to name only 2 examples, so this whole mess could easily be undone with a corporate meeting and a universe-sweeping retcon, but if Marvel is truly planning to change the rules regarding their super-freaks and remake their mutant population, then I’d like to offer some suggestions of my own. Just some things I’d personally like to see altered regarding the Mutant/Inhuman (or whatever they end up calling them) over at Marvel.

  1. TOO MANY MUTANTS

I don’t think Mutants/Inhumans need to go away, but I definitely feel the mutant herd needs to be thinned out considerably. For a time in the comics, there were so many mutants in the Marvel Universe that not only were there 2 X-Men teams (Blue and Gold), but there were also numerous offshoot mutant teams: X-Force, X-Factor, Excalibur, Generation X, X-Treme, X-Perts, X-Rays, X-Thems, X-YZ, X-Marks The Spot…I’d personally do away with all that and just have one single mutant team. Regarding the Inhumans, I like the idea of all the Mutants/Inhumans all coming from a single bloodline or Royal Family; they could all originally reside in one single citadel before being “discovered” by human beings.

Advanced civilization. Advanced technology. Increased rent.

Advanced civilization. Advanced technology. Increased rent.

I like that idea a lot more than mutants just being random people who keep popping up all over the globe. After all, if every 10th person on the planet is a mutant, then what’s so special about being an X-Man? I’d also give the Mutant/Imhumans a special mark or royal seal that they’d all bear, like a snazzy tattoo:

Like in 'Mortal Kombat Annihilation', only not lame.

Like in ‘Mortal Kombat Annihilation’, only not lame.

It could also be a bar code if you want the mark to be more Mad Science-y. The Inhumans were originally experimented on by the alien Kree, after all.

The seal could also be a bar code on the back of their necks a la “Dark Angel” (for the 2 of you who remember that show) if you want the mark to be more Mad Science-y. The Inhumans were originally experimented on by the alien Kree, after all.

I’d definitely keep the Mutant/Inhuman race small and self-contained and keep the mutations within the same clique of clans.

“Ever’body on Atillan is kin folk, some in 2 or 3 diff’rent ways. Know whut ah mean?”

2. FIVE ON ONE HAND, HALF OF TEN ON THE OTHER.

Come closer, I’d like to share a little secret I have with you all. Ready? Here it is:

-In it’s current dimensions, I think that the X-Men mythos only really works when mutants are the only super-powered beings on the planet; they don’t really work alongside other super heroes.

Homer Scream

T’is true. If you’re really gonna milk the whole “People hate and fear mutants because they’re scared of their powers and worried that they’re gonna take over and turn on humanity, yada yada yada” shtick, then that kind of falls apart once you start adding radioactive spider-men, gamma-radiated green giants, Asgardian gods, serum-augmented super-soldiers, aliens, wizards, and cosmic ray-bombared space explorers into the mix. That then raises questions like “Then don’t people also think Hulk and Spider-Man are mutants?” or “Why don’t people pelt Captain America, the Fantastic Four and the Avengers with rotten fruit?” or “What about Iron Man? How many people are that smart? How do we know that he doesn’t possess an x-gene that increases his intellect tenfold?” To boot, several mutant and non-mutant heroes have the same or similar powers. For example, this is Crystal of Atillan.

She can psionically control the forces of air, earth, fire and water, i.e., controlling the elements.

She can psionically control the forces of air, earth, fire and water, i.e., controlling the elements.

And this is Storm of the X-Men.

She can mentally command and control the forces of wind, rain, thunder and lighting. A mistress of controlling the elements.

She can mentally command and control the forces of wind, rain, thunder and lighting, i.e.,  controlling the elements.

-See the problem here?

I say if you’re going to place Mutants/Inhumans alongside other costumed heroes, then you have to make them in some way unique from the other capes.

Here’s my idea: I would establish that the mutants of Atillan would have been exposed to four varieties of Terrigen Mist: yellow, red, green and blue, each one creating 1 of 4 specific varieties of Mutant, inspired by the syndicated series Mutant X. (Bonus points to anyone who saw that show.)

You'd have FERALS, mutants exposed to yellow mist who possess both human and animal DNA: canines, felines, birds, reptiles, amphibians, etc.

You’d have FERALS, mutants exposed to yellow mist who possess both human and animal DNA: canines, felines, birds, reptiles, amphibians, etc.

“FERALS RULE!!”

“Dino Power! AHH!”

ELEMENTALS, mutants exposed to the green mist, who can manipulate nature: pyrokinietics, cryokinetics, electrokinietics, all the kinetics.

ELEMENTALS, mutants exposed to the green mist, who can manipulate nature: pyrokinietics, cryokinetics, electrokinietics, all the kinetics.

MOLECULARS, mutants exposed to the red mist, who can alter their physical forms and/or defy physical science, i.e., speedsters, shape-shifters, teleporters, etc.

MOLECULARS, mutants exposed to the red mist, who can alter their physical forms and/or defy physical science, i.e., speedsters, shape-shifters, teleporters, etc.

And PSIONICS, mutants exposed to the blue mist. Those would be your telepaths, telekinetics, telempaths, precognitives, intiuitives, technopaths, technokinetics, and New Age nuts.

And PSIONICS, mutants exposed to the blue mist. Those would be your telepaths, telekinetics, telempaths, precognitives, intiuitives, technopaths, technokinetics, and New Age nuts.

And Marvel would have to be strict with themselves; the Mutant/Inhumans could only possess power sets in one of these 4 categories or some combination thereof, and no other heroes in the Marvel Universe could possess these same abilities. Heck, why not give the Inhumans unusual-colored skin while we’re at it?

“Rainbow Power, suckas!”

This way, combined with the tattoo thing I mentioned earlier, would be a way to effectively distinguish mutants from all the other caped heroes in the MU.

“Alls I’m sayin’ is you put a mutant an’ a mutate next to each other, an’ I can’t tell ’em apart!”

3. CAN’T WE ALL JUST GET ALONG?

This is the other major thing that’s always bugged me about the X-Men mythos: look, the X-Men have been fighting the good fight since 1963. It’s been 52 years already; shouldn’t mutant/human relations have improved some by now? Even a little? Mutants still have to live in secrecy and can’t walk the streets without getting rotten egged, despite them saving the world countless times. I get that the writers want to keep the angst factor up because they think that’ll sell more books, but that whole things makes no sense. A fellow poster on the interwebz explained it to me once: “Think of it like there’s a cop or a fireman who’s really good at his job and dedicated to helping and protecting to their community, but he/she also happens to be gay or a Muslim. Even though this person does nothing but good for the community and always puts the needs of other people before his/herself, there are still those who don’t trust this person due to their being Muslim or gay or whatever.” I get that, but that theory falls apart because in the Marvel universe, no one would let a mutant be a cop or a fireman in the first place. If it were me, I’d have humans for the most part learn to co-exist with mutants. Sure, there’d still be bigots who wouldn’t trust them and bad muties who want to take over, but for the most part, humans and mutants would be able to peacefully live alongside of one another with few difficulties. It’d be like on The Super Hero Squad Show; yes, I’m drawing inspiration from a parody kids’ cartoon.

-That’s what I’d do, anyway. I do feel that there should be some form of mutants in the MCU, as they represent something which no other comic book superheroes represent: the nature and stupidity of prejudice. Everyone has felt isolated from society in some way, shape or form, be they black, white, Latino, Jewish, Muslim, LGBT or whatever, and X-Men speaks to that. So I’m sure there will always be some form of mutants in Marvel, even with some alterations made to them, and with different names and identities.

“‘Cept for me, bub! Mutant, Inhuman, potato, po-tah-to. As long as I’m bein’ worshiped by the fanboys and keep on eatin’, sweatin’ and bleedin’ money fer Marvel, the Ol’ Canuckle Head ain’t goin’ anywhere! The fans would chew their own arms off ta see me in the next Avengers movie!”

Toons & Tunes: Soul Coughing Groovies Double Feature

silverstar 3 Comments

Today’s Toons & Tunes is a double play. Both of these tracks are from the band Soul Coughing, and both are from the same album, El Oso (‘The Bear’). Also, both of them have been used by Cartoon Network (and later Boomerang) for their old Groovies filler segments. First up is “Rollin'”, which is used to accompany the animation for a classic Betty Boop cartoon, complete with Koko the Clown and all.

Next up is “Circles”, the accompanying animation cleverly pokes fun at the old Hanna-Barbera tradition of looping backgrounds (i.e., the “lamp-chair-couch”) syndrome.

-Like many folks I suspect, these segments were my first introduction to Soul Coughing. To this day, I have both of these tracks on my mp3 player.

Retroville: Cereal Killers

silverstar 3 Comments

Today Retroville takes a walk down the murky depths of the breakfast cereal aisle, chronicling breakfast’s Hall of Lame; some of the most infamous and shortest-lived kid-vid breakfast cereals and their mascots.

First up, we have OJs, no, not an O.J. Simpson themed cereal (“use the map on the back of the box to find the real killers!”), but rather an orange juice flavored cereal circa 1985, whose mascot was an orange-wrangling cowboy named OJ Joe.

Not hard to see why this one didn’t last; it was 2 great tastes that taste weird together. Generally speaking, folks like cereal, milk and orange juice for their breakfasts, but not all in the same dang food! Though I hear that mixing orange juice with milk is something of a trend in California.

“Californians are weird, brah!”

Next up is Punch Crunch, one of the lesser-known and quickly forgotten cereals from the Quaker Cap’n Crunch family. It was a fruit punch flavored cereal. Its’ mascot was Harry S. Hippo, an enormous (so what else?) pink hippo who liked to dance.

“Hmm, that guy sounds kinda familiar.”

Yes, that was Bill Scott, the original voice of Bullwinkle J. Moose, as Harry.

-Funny story: for a while there was an internet rumor saying that the reason why Punch Crunch was taken off the shelves was because people found the character of Harry S., a dandy pink hippo who loved to hoof it, to be an offensive homosexual stereotype (’cause we all know guys who like pink and enjoy dancing are automatically gay, right?), but that’s not even close to the truth. The reason that Punch Crunch was discontinued was because it was one of THE single nastiest concoctions ever wrought by man! As a kid I begged my parents to buy this after seeing that commercial, that Saturday morning I poured myself a bowl, and on that day I learned what a gag reflex was. I quickly poured that crap right down the garbage disposal–before it committed suicide.

Next, we have Ice Cream Cones cereal, which was (no prizes for guessing), an ice cream cones flavored cereal. Another gem from the 80’s.

I can’t put it any better than Mr. David Letterman, who had this to say about Ice Cream Cones cereal:

“All you need is a couple of candy bars, and you’ve got a real nutritious breakfast here.”

Finally, we have Sugar Rice Krinkles (yes, it was actually spelled with a ‘K’; yay, literacy!) from Post, which boasted numerous mascots over its’ brief lifetime. When the cereal debuted in 1951, its’ mascot was Krinkles the Clown. For those too young to remember, try to imagine if John Wayne Gacy did a cereal ad:

For years, this guy plugged Sugar Rice Kuh-Rinkles, all the while giving kids at home childhood Tuh-Rama.

“EVERYTHING FLOATS IN MILK!!”

There's a reason why clowns perform at children's hospitals: the kids can't run away from them there.

There’s a reason why clowns perform at children’s hospitals: the kids can’t run away from them there.

Later, Post replaced Krinkles with an animated character named So-Hi, who, like all of Post’s cereal mascots at the time, appeared on Linus the Lionhearted, a 30-minute animated plug for General Mills Post cereals which ran from 1964 to 1969. So-Hi was a Chinese boy–and that was his entire character shtick. He fell very firmly in the fortune-cookie phrase spouting “no tickee, no shirtee!” shtick, but keep in mind when this was. The character was named So-Hi because he was “just so-high”. Don’t shoot the messenger, I didn’t come up with that.

“Not cool, man. Geez, I’m an ancient martial arts master from a fighting video game, and I found that horribly racist!”

Sugar Rice Krinkles’ final mascot before getting discontinued altogether was a rather chipper milkman named Manfred, whose ‘nemesis’ was a sourpussed old coot named Gloom McDoom who wanted everybody else to be as miserable as he was (obviously an anhedonic, or a typical sullen teenager).

I don’t know, ‘the krinkles’ don’t sound like something I’d want my stomach to have.

“Say, that ‘smile a happy smile today’ line sounds kinda similar to our Hey Girls’ motto ‘Share a Smile’. Think we have a lawsuit? Mama could use a new gingham hat!”

Rumor has it that Gloom McDoom went on to pursue a career in political punditry:

Glenn Beck

As an added bonus, here’s something else Manfred the Milkman plugged during his short career:

*Give yourself a bonus gold geek star if you noticed the Honeycomb Hideout in the background there.

Well, there’s only one word for that trippy trip down Memory Lane:

2 Funny: Running Errands with My Mom

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Cartoon Network’s late skit-comedy series Incredible Crew rubbed a lot of fans the wrong way, but I myself had no major qualms with it; I just didn’t think it belonged on CN since it was a live-action show. I felt it could’ve worked had it run on a different network, plus I like the title Incredible Crew (fun trivia fact: Incredible Crew was one choice for the name of this site!). Here’s one of the better (I thought) bits from that show. IC is unique due to some of its’ cast members’ outside activities; Jeremy Shada also serves as the voice of Finn the Human from Adventure Time, and another regular Shameik Moore would go on to star in this summer’s Dope. Here’s “Running Errands with My Mom”.