Here’s another Merrie Melody from The Looney Tunes Show, this one starring Mac and Tosh, aka the Goofy Gophers. One of the highlights of TLTS for me was how Mac here was voiced by Rob Paulsen and Tosh by Jess Harnell, making it an Animaniacs reunion of sorts, as Paulsen and Harnell voiced Yakko and Wakko Warner respectively. Funny thing about this segment: when it made its’ debut appearance on Cartoon Network, a lot of people derided it for being a treacly politically correct PSA, when in fact it’s actually a parody of treacly politically correct PSAs. Subtlety, folks; not everything has to be overblown. Anyway, here’s “Be Polite”.
I’ve gotta say, while the Gophers were good, it was Marvin the Martian who sold this one for me.
For those who don’t know, this charming gent is Rat Fink. Rat Fink is one of the several hot-rod characters created by artist Ed “Big Daddy” Roth, one of the originators of Kustom Kulture of automobile enthusiasts, first appearing on airbrushed “Weirdos” T-shirts and in the pages of Hot Rod publications such as Car Craft in the late 1950s. Roth conceived Rat Fink as an anti-hero answer to Mickey Mouse: usually portrayed as either green or gray; comically grotesque and depraved-looking with bulging, bloodshot eyes, an oversized mouth with sharp, narrow teeth, and wearing red overalls with the initials “R.F.” on them.
“Thing is, I looked like that for a time. It was between the years of the Eisner takeover, ‘House of Mouse’ and ‘Epic Mickey’. Oh, and a raging bender at Disney World. Man, those New Years parties at Adventure Land are the stuff of mascot legend!”
Now, a character like Rat Fink is among the last characters that you’d expect to see on kid-vid TV. It would be like if someone decided to make a kids’ cartoon show about Troma’s The Toxic Avenger…..
..Oh, wait, that happened. Anyway, Rat Fink also made a brief foray into kiddie time with a set of hot rod toys called Rat Fink and Rad Rods. One ad was made for the toy line. Here it is…
OK, what was with that out-of-nowhere pot shot at the California Raisins, who are fixtures of TV at the time of this spot? What could possibly be the correlation between Rat Fink and the California Raisins? Was Roth just not a Raisins fan? We asked ol’ Ratso himself, and this is what he gave us:
“Those wrinkled rejects know what they did.”
Thanks, that clears everything up.
Next up, the latest on the ongoing street wars between East Coast and West Coast cereal mascots. Snap, Crackle and Pop were caught on tape jacking up Lucky the Leprechaun and making off with his Red Balloons. Trix Rabbit promises retaliation. Film at 11.
The late Adult Swim series Harvey Birdman, Attorney-At-Law made a career out of skewering the classic Hanna-Barbera shows and characters from the 60’s through 80’s, a little too harshly and with mixed results, some would say, but every so often a good gag managed to pop up. Here’s a bit from the show that I’ve always found amusing, in which Peanut (this show’s fun house mirror version of Birdman’s sidekick Birdboy) dares to ask Jonathan Muddlemore, aka the Funky Phantom, just what makes him so funky.
Today we’re forcing you to remember The Ewoks/Droids Adventure Hour, a Saturday morning cartoon series based on the popular Star Wars franchise, but taking place after Return of the Jedi, which aired on ABC from 1985 through 1987. It was that special time when the Star Wars movies had ended but George Lucas realized he could still milk this cash cow for all its’ worth by shilling it out to every other possible media (including a goshawful fighting game), SatAM included. So this is sort of both a Toons & Tunes as well as a Cartoon Couch, since most of our contemporaries have forgotten this series existed.
I won’t be doing full reviews on either show, since what I remember of both the Ewoks and Droids cartoons respectively, is that they were each a bit boring. Honestly, the best things about both shows were their opening theme songs. First up, the theme from Ewoks. This show was basically one of the many “cute, cuddly creatures living together in a community forest setting” cartoons created in the wake of NBC’s Smurfs, only set in the Star Wars universe. Give a listen:
Great, now I’m going to be hearing “E-E-E-E-Ewoks” in my head for the rest of the day. Still catchy, though.
Next up, the Droids opening. Droids was the more traditionally Star Wars-ey of the 2 shows, with R2-D2 and C3PO passing through various human masters and encountering sci-fi adventures along the way (just no appearances by any of the human characters from the movies, they’d want money for the use of their likenesses, after all) Unlike Ewoks, which boasted a single stand-alone story in each episode, the Droids episodes were each mini-serials, with the stories contained within 3 or 4-part sagas, but each ep still being a self-contained story with no cliffhanger endings. And again, the opening theme was the best thing about the show.
Droids was the slightly more ambitious of the 2 toons, so not surprisingly it was gone after a single season. The following year, only Ewoks returned as a stand-alone series entitled All-New Ewoks, with–drag!–an entirely different theme song:
Granted, this 2nd opening is more indicative of the sort of thing the Ewoks would perform (heck, it’s very similar to the some the ‘Woks were jamming to at the end of Return of the Jedi–which I’m sure was the idea), but I still like the first theme better. I don’t know much about Star Wars, but I know what earworms I like.
Neither Ewoks nor Droids set the world on fire, but trust me, there are worse Star Wars cartoons out there. Much worse.
Before Bob Odenkirk was making it big on shows like Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, he was paired with David Cross on one the best sketch comedy shows in recent years, Mr. Show with Bob and David. I have no problem with comedians wanting to stretch their chops and become serious actors, though personally I don’t see what’s wrong with just bringing the yuks. Today’s 2 Funny is a double-shot: 2 of my favorite sketches from Mr. Show. First, “Dickie Crickets, King of the Megaphone Crooners”.
Next, “The Altered State of Druggachussets”, a full-on sendup of Sid & Marty Krofft’s H.R. Pufenstuf, poking fun at the common belief among wiseguys and stand-up comics that during their stint on Saturday morning TV, the Kroffts were high on something else other than life. (Note that both skits feature the man who would one day become the voice of SpongeBob Squarepants, Tom Kenny. This skit also features the voice of comic Jill Talley, whom Adult Swim fans may recognize as the voice of Sarah Dubois from The Boondocks. Both Kenny and Talley were regulars on Mr. Show, and before that appeared together on the short-lived FOX sketch comedy series The Edge. (In fact, during their stint on Mr. Show together, Kenny and Talley were married.)
Man, I miss shows like this. I wish HBO and other cable channels would give us more shows like this as an alternative to the endless swarm of “critically acclaimed dramas”, which quite frankly tend to look the same and run together to me. Forget zombie fighters, sexy vampires and thrones of gaming, give me more zaniness with comics mugging it up in kooky costumes. Good stuff, man, good stuff.
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