Are you ready for the summer? We are. Here at Twinsanity we’ve been enjoying baking our brains in the hot sun and chillaxing in front of the TV (what, you expect us to go outside?!) so much that we’ve decided to take the rest of the month off. Hey. bloggers need vacations too. But don’t worry: we’ll be blogging again come July. Just to keep your collective appetites wet, here are some of the upcoming Twinsanity entries slated for next month:
The Retro Box: Yogi’s Gang – Yogi Bear and most of the Hanna-Barbera Zoo travel the land in a flying boat teaching kids to give a hoot and not pollute and to say their prayers, eat their vitamins and drink their milk. As much fun as it sounds.
Overthinking It: Furry Confusion – Twinsanity takes a far-too in-depth look at the head-scratching phenomenon of the Funny Animal in cartoon society.
The Retro Box:The Flintstones Comedy Hour – Flintstones, skits and rock songs. Oh, my!
Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures Full Review – we follow up our Pac Preview Party entry to give our views on the show, so far.
Cartoon Planet in Crisis – Cartoon Network has given their not-exactly retro cartoon block another time slot on Thursdays, so why is no one cheering?
These topics and possibly more will be tackled by Twinsanity in July. But now, if you’ll excuse us, it’s kegger time.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. A long name, and also a long enduring franchise, current in its’ 26th year and 4th TV series. By now everyone from 5-year-old kids to 30-year-old nostalgia buffs can name the Ninja Turtles: Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo and Raphael, but few nowadays remember or even know of the long-forgotten Fifth Turtle–and no, I’m not talking about that annoying little twerp Zach–I’m talking about Venus DeMilo, the lost Ninja Turtle with something extra, two X chromosomes!
For the uninformed, here is a (somewhat) brief history lesson: Venus de Milo (real name Mei Pieh Chi) was introduced in the live action Ninja Turtles: The Next Mutation TV series as a fifth mutant turtle. She has also appeared in a few books. Her bandanna was cyan colored, a lighter blue than Leonardo’s, and braided in the back to resemble a ponytail. Lalainia Lindbjerg provided Venus’ voice, while Nicole Parker was the suit actor.
Venus was a fifth turtle that was covered with the mutagen that had mutated the other Turtles, but got swept away in the sewers to New York City’s Chinatown district. There, she was found by a Chinese Shinobi master known as Chung I. Chung I took her back to his hometown of Shanghai, China, and taught her the way of the Shinobi, raising her for 18 years. Chung I was in possession of a mystical mirror, which kept the dreaded Dragonlord and his minions entrapped within it. Chung I, the appointed guardian of this mirror, was attacked by the Dragons when they crossed over into the realm of dreams, mortally wounding him in his sleep and kidnapping the spirit of Chung I’s dream realm friend, Splinter. On his deathbed, Chung I revealed to Mei Pieh Chi her true origin in New York.
Mei Pieh Chi traveled to New York and met the other four Turtles. After using her Shinobi magic to dispatch the “Shredder” persona from Oroku Saki’s mind, she went to the dream realm to rescue Splinter’s spirit. In doing so, she inadvertently gave the Dragons a way to enter the physical world. The Dragon Lord and his minions first attacked when Venus was alone in Central Park. During combat, the head of a statue of a woman was broken off; 20 minutes later Raphael came to help her. The statue’s head was taken to the Turtles’ lair and served as inspiration of the male Turtles’ nickname for her.
Venus seemed to have lived a sheltered life in China. During the show, Venus was portrayed as blissfully ignorant of some parts of Western life and culture and at times, equally ignorant of life in general. While proficient in fighting techniques, Venus was not trained in Ninjutsu like her brothers; in battle, she would use mystical orbs to various different effects.
It was established early on in the series that while the four turtles were raised as brothers, none of them (including Venus) were biologically related. This was done by the writers so as not to eliminate the possibility of a romantic relationship between Venus and one of the four male turtles (with hints leading primarily to the rebellious, quick-tempered Raphael and/or the stalwart, even-keeled leader Leonardo).
After the cancellation of the show, Venus’ adventures with the TMNT continued for several years. On the official website a “second season” of sorts was formed in the letters section. Starting in 1996 the Turtles would keep journal entries about their adventures in a shared universe with characters from Mirage continuity, Archie Comics, and the cartoons all together. On October of 1997 “Venus’ Venerations” were added to the website, coupled with four tremendously excited Ninja Turtles each expressing their feelings on the new member of their team. Although she only wrote a little more than a dozen letters, she co-existed with Mirage, Archie, cartoon, and Next Mutation characters until the year 2000. In 2001, “Venus’ Venerations” was discontinued, and the current storyline continued without any explanation or acknowledgment to her prior existence.
After all the major villains were “defeated forever” for the moment, they decided to help their friends, the Mighty Mutanimals, defeat Murk Mariner. Venus planned to get captured and defeat the pirates from the inside, but Leo and Don especially hated the idea. It reopened just how important she was to them and their species, and caused great tension. However, they were eventually forced to carry the plan out and no one was hurt (with the exception of the pirates). In the last adventure she had with them, Rat King had broken their truce and his minions had eaten or destroyed nearly everything in their lair. After a grueling battle the TMNT were finding it hard to deal with their losses when suddenly the character retroactively ceased to exist; the Rat King had still destroyed their lair, but suddenly there were only four turtles again. No canonical explanation was ever given for her disappearance.
After Kevin Eastman sold his half of TMNT to Peter Laird, Venus’ letters were removed from the website. However, the rest of the Turtles’ letters from those dates remain and still mention her.
In a 2007 interview director Kevin Munroe elaborated on the instructions Peter Laird gave to him for TMNT. Munroe admitted that among those rules was, “There’s absolutely no mention of Venus de Milo, the female Turtle. You can’t even joke about that with Peter. It’s just one of those things that he hates with a passion.” It is currently unknown if Venus will make future appearances, but seems highly unlikely.
Thanks, Turtlepedia.
Phew. OK, now, onto my main thesis, finally. I know that Venus was one of the biggest controversies in TMNT’s history. I know that she wasn’t well-liked by most fans of the series, and to many, felt like a shoehorned Deus ex Machina, but here it is: I didn’t and still don’t think that Venus DeMilo was a bad idea.
No, I honestly don’t. Were there mistakes made and could she have been integrated into the franchise better? Absolutely. But was she inherently a bad idea? I don’t think so. My issue with Venus wasn’t that she existed, but how she existed. Here are the reasons why I personally feel that Venus didn’t click with fans:
She arrived too late in the franchise’s history. By the time Next Mutation came around, the Turtles already had a previous TV series lasting 10 (!) seasons, 3 live-action movies, at least 6 video games, several comic stories published and not 1, but 2 live-action music stage concerts. (BTW, I didn’t even know there was a second concert after Comin’ Out of Their Shells until I saw Phelous’ review of the 2nd concert, Gettin’ Down in Your Town; if you haven’t already, I advise you to check out Phelous’ reviews of both concerts on Blip. They’re hysterical.) That was too late in the game to introduce a new major character into the franchise, especially to the titular team. Had Venus arrived on the scene around, say, late in the 1st season or early in the 2nd season of the 1987 TV show, she might have been gone over better.
She altered the Turtles’ mythos too much. One reason why Peter Laird reportedly hated Venus so much was because she went against the idea that the 4 Ninja Turtles were the only mutant turtles in the world, although according to her backstory she was technically there from the start, only washed away (though according to the 80’s show, Mondo Gecko was there as well). This could’ve easily been fixed, however, in a way which I’ll get to later. To me, the REAL problem with Venus’ inclusion was this:
The writers screwed with the series’ fundamentals in order to include her. Namely, this bit of BS mentioned above:
“It was established early on in the series that while the four turtles were raised as brothers, none of them (including Venus) were biologically related. This was done by the writers so as not to eliminate the possibility of a romantic relationship between Venus and one of the four male turtles (with hints leading primarily to the rebellious, quick-tempered Raphael and/or the stalwart, even-keeled leader Leonardo).” THAT is what I took issue with. That was malarkey. The Ninja Turtles being brothers is one of the main building blocks the franchise was founded on. It’s key to the Turtles’ relationship with one another. They weren’t put together like many other crime fighting teams, they were raised and trained together. You don’t mess with that, especially just so you can open the door for shipper nonsense. Even if the Turtles weren’t actually biologically related to one another (we weren’t privy to them being born, we first see them sharing a bowl in a pet shop, so that’s anybody’s guess), they were still raised as brothers and would therefore feel related by bond if not by blood; you do not toss that essential element out the window just so the 1 female team member can possibly date one of the male Turtles. It goes back to a question that I’ve been asking for decades: why do female characters have to be girlfriends first and characters second? It’s good ol’ fashioned shipper pandering and sexism, and it stinks now matter how much perfume you try to spray on it. If Venus had just been used as the Turtles’ mutant sister, I think she would’ve gone over a lot better.
It’s because of possible shipping that some fans want to see another obscure TMNT character get revived for the new series, Mona Lisa, a former female college student turned mutant amphibian/reptilian.
Feh, I say. Mona Lisa only appeared in 1 freakin’ episode, “Raphael Meets His Match”, and she served no other purpose than to be a potential love interest for Raph. I say keep the show’s focus as far away from romance as possible. TMNT isn’t Degrassi, and I wouldn’t watch it if it were. (Plus, she has hair. I don’t like that she has hair. A reptile/amphibian with hair is just wrong.) Forget Mona Lisa.
It’ll probably never happen, but if someone did try to bring Venus back into the series, here’s how I would handle it: with the magic of retcon!
I would start a new series with Venus already there from episode 1. She gets mutated along with her brothers, but doesn’t get washed away, so she’s raised alongside the others as their sister. No romantic relationships. Splinter teaches her some ninjitsu, but she also learns the art of Shinobi after spotting some books and writings on the subject sitting around the lair left by Hamato Yoshi’s old friend from China, Chung I.
When I suggested this before, someone quipped that this idea would tick off the Turtles’ fanbase. I say the franchise has endured far, far stupider ideas over the years. (Again, Phelous already illuminated at least 50 of them in one of his reviews). If TMNT can survive Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 3 or Turtle Tunes or We Wish You a Turtle Christmas or Gettin’ Down in Your Town, it could survive a Venus retcon.
Have you still not recovered from that case of Pac-Man Fever you contracted in 1980? Have you been wishing for someone to make a new Pac-Man cartoon show for the 21st century? Well, thankfully, someone did. Introducing Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures.
Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures (formerly known as Pac-Man: The Adventure Begins and Pac is Back — the show hasn’t even premiered yet and it’s already on its’ third title) is a computer-animated television series in production for Disney X-D, which was originally planned for Nickelodeon.
The series is slated to debut on June 17, 2013. The show is being produced by Marvel’s Avi Arad. Originally planned for 2012, the series features Pac-Man saving the world while attending high school. 26 episodes have been ordered. The series will be presented in stereoscopic 3D. There are 26 episodes planned, and an upcoming video game based on the series is set to be released on PS3, Xbox 360, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS, and PC.
I can’t review this show since it hasn’t debuted yet; however, I can give you the basic overview:
Thousands of years ago, Pac-World was a place of peace and harmony, until traitors tried to take over Pac-World. They were defeated and deprived of their physical bodies and exiled to the Netherworld. Now they have escaped in the form of mischievous ghosts and other horrible monsters who are determined to regain physical bodies and take over Pac-World. Now it is up to Pac-Man, a slow-witted teenage slacker with a voracious appetite, and his friends to restore peace to Pac-World. The show’s main villain is a new antagonist called Betrayus, who commands countless types of ghosts. The show also has Inky, Blinky, Pinky, and Clyde, who work as Double Agents. Pac is your average teenage PacWorlder, except for two things:
He’s a little rounder than most of his fellow citizens.
He and his family happen to be the only YELLOW PacWorlders on the planet.
Beyond that, you’d hardly be able to pick him out of a crowd. That being said, since he’s yellow, he’s fairly easy to spot.
Pac is an upbeat gung-ho teenager and his enthusiasm can occasionally get the best of him. When he’s “on a roll”, which is often, he goes rolling around school and around town at a pretty good clip, and he’s been known to crash, bump, slam and bounce into things on a regular basis.
Pac is a conscientious kid and not like many of his peers who spend their days chasing the latest fads or coveting the newest high-tech gadgets. The fact is, he wants more than that out of life.
Pac wants to make the world a better place and have fun doing it. He wants to know why things are the way they are and when things aren’t working right, he wants to figure out a way to fix them.
In order to combat the ghostly menaces, our hero Pac is given a new breed of power pellets. The power pellets not only give Pac-Man the capability to chomp ghosts with ease (otherwise, he gets full fast) but they also give him other powers such as flight, size growth and underwater breathing.
In 2009, while the series was still being called Pac is Back, a trailer for the new show was released at that yea’s E3 convention. Here it is for your viewing pleasure (apologies for the somewhat blurry images; this trailer is in 3D):
Of course, as with any new update or revival series based on an existing franchise, with this trailer comes the usual hissy-tantrums from naysayers who are calling Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures a disgrace and an abomination and blah blah blah, wit the rallying cry of that beyond-tired internet meme “They Ruined My Childhood!”. No, No, NO! Pac-Man can’t be a teenager! The ghosts can’t be his friends! A Pac-Man show can’t be in CGI! This is not the Pac-Man cartoon I grew up with! EPIC FAILS!!!!111″
Really.
It’s just a new Pac-Man cartoon. Relax a little.
It’s different, yeah, but different doesn’t always instantly mean worse, just different. I can’t say how I feel about Pac being made into a teenager for this show yet, since I haven’t seen the idea in execution yet. The producers could’ve made Pac-Man a married husband and father like in previous incarnations, but I guess they felt that kids would have an easier time relating to the character if he were like them, a kid. Nowadays kid-vid producers don’t want to make kid shows starring adults unless they’re something extraordinary like secret agents, superheroes, aliens or wizards. I just hope that Pac’s being a teen doesn’t mean that the writers will make his high school the show’s principle setting. Pac can be a teenager without all of the show’s action taking place in front of lockers. I’m tired of the high-schoolization of kids’ shows; high school is not the be-all, end-all of human existence. Kids only go to school because they have to; as a kid the last thing I wanted to see after a long drudgery at school when I came home was to watch a bunch of shows about kids going to school.
What boggles my mind is how people are now declaring the Hanna-Barbera Pac-Man cartoon show from 1982 to 1983 to be some sort of classic achievement in animation. Oh, yeah, that old Pac-Man cartoon was sooooooo much better, right? I can’t even watch or think back on that show without grimacing on how messed up the ghosts on that show were. There were never 5 ghosts in the game, and there was never a purple ghost. Clyde should not have been the leader of the Ghost Gang; in the games he was always the slowest ghost. Blinky was the fastest ghost, the first ghost out of the pen and the one who always followed the closest behind Pac-Man, logically Blinky should have been the leader. They shouldn’t have had both Clyde and Sue; Sue was just the name of the orange ghost in Ms. Pac-Man (the orange ghost’s name would be different in each game: in Ms. Pac-Man the orange ghost was named Sue and in Junior Pac-Man the orange ghost was named Tim.) Having 2 ghosts with non-rhyming names ruined the joke. If HB just wanted to have a female ghost, then they could’ve just made Pinky female like so many other forms of Pac-Man merch and memorabilia did. Have people forgotten how cheesy and one-note that 1982 cartoon was?? But that’s the thing about nostalgia: the bad and mediocre stuff gets forgotten, making the past seem better than it actually was.
Given how low the bar has been set for animated adaptations of Pac-Man, I’d say Pac-Man and theGhostly Adventures has nowhere to go but up.
There are actually some aspects of Ghostly Adventures that intrigue me: I like the futuristic look of Pac-World, and some of the high-tech gadgets that the Pac Worlders go wild about I kind of want to see, but then I’m a gadget lover myself. I like the bright pretty colors of the various Pac Worlders, and speaking of colors, I’m also curious as to how the idea of Pac being the only yellow Pac Worlder around will play out; it seems like an interesting plot point, and I wonder if there will be an in-universe explanation for it. I can’t say that the story of this show is on par with that of say, Tales of Symphonia or Final Fantasy VII, but come on, this is Pac-Man. We’re talking about an 8-bit video game from 1980 about a yellow circle that runs around a maze eating dots while being pursued by 4 Technicolor ghosts. Just how deep and intricate is the story supposed to get?
I say at least wait until Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures premieres and we’ve seen a few episodes before we declare it a childhood killer and starting calling for it to be killed with fire.
Once again, Twinsanity would like to give the ol’ thumbs down to one of Robot Chicken‘s attempts at “comedy”. While Robot Chicken can be hilarious when they get a good concept, when the show misses the mark it reeeeealy misses the mark. Such is the case with this Avengers skit, entitled “A Critical Component”:
The main “joke” in this sketch is obvious: The RC staff are implying that the 2 non-super powered Avengers, Black Widow and Hawkeye, are weak and useless in relation to the so-called Tier 1 Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America, Hulk and Thor. The thing is, the 18-20 year old me would’ve agreed with this sentiment, but I see this sketch now, especially after having seen The Avengers at least 8 times now, that this skit fails all across the board. First, the obvious technical gripes (WARNING: lots of nerd nitpicking ahead):
First, it would seem that no major toy company ever bothered to produce a Black Widow action figure, since Natasha in this skit is just ‘Fantasia’ from RC’s “Beast and the Beauties” skit in a black catsuit.
Second, why is Hulk so tiny? In the movie, old Jade Jaws towered over the other team members, as he is supposed to, but here, he’s rail thin and actually looks smaller than the others. RC has a Savage Hulk action figure, so why didn’t they use it here?
Third, why was Hawkeye wearing his comic book costume rather than his movie costume? OK, that’s more of a personal nitpick, but I prefer Clint’s movie costume; I always thought his purple mask and cowl costume looked kind of silly, no offense to comic fans.
Fourth, what kind of ending was that? Black Widow is killed in battle, and the others are just “eh, whatever” about it?? Not only that, but the circumstances behind her death are ridiculous and illogical, but more on that later. RC has a tendency to get unnecessarily dark, typically ending sketches by killing off characters, etc., since we all know that darker = funnier. And so all of the male Avengers are bi-curious?? What the what?!?
-Now, on to the main reason why this skit fails, namely, this notion that Natasha and Clint are weaklings who serve no purpose on the team other than eye-candy. I know several people who share the belief that these 2 characters are useless; even comedian Bill Maher echoed these thoughts in an episode of HBO’s Real Time. He said, and I quote: “If Thor is a god, then why do we need the other Avengers? I especially don’t see why we need the 2 Avengers whose only powers are a bow and arrow and big (breasts) and a hand gun.” Now, far be it for me to question Bill Maher, but I’m not sure that Black Widow’s only contributions to the Avengers are a pistol and a rack. Let’s examine Black Widow a little closer, shall we?
HELOOOOOOO, NURSE!
That’s not what I meant and you know it, ya horn-dogs! I meant let’s look closer at her SKILL SET.
The Black Widow is a world class athlete, gymnast, acrobat, aerialist capable of numerous complex maneuvers and feats, expert martial artist (including karate, judo, ninjutsu, aikido, savate, various styles of kung fu, and boxing), marksman, and weapons specialist as well as having extensive espionage training.
She is also an accomplished ballerina.
Natasha has received the Red Room’s variant of the Super-Soldier Serum. As a result, her physical and mental abilities had been enhanced slightly beyond human limits.
The Black Widow has been enhanced by biotechnology that makes her body resistant to aging and disease and heals at an above human rate; as well as psychological conditioning that suppresses her memory of true events as opposed to implanted ones of the past without the aid of specially designed system suppressant drugs.
Due to the Super-Soldier Serum, the white blood cells in her body are efficient enough to fight off any microbe, foreign body and others from her body, keeping her healthy and immune to most, if not all infections, diseases and disorders. Also, it takes quite a bit for Natasha to become intoxicated.
Her agility is greater than that of an Olympic gold medalist. She can coordinate her body with balance, flexibility, and dexterity easily.
Her bodily tissues have been augmented to superhuman development. She possesses exceptional durability, strength, endurance, and stamina.
Natasha’s reaction time is similarly enhanced and functions with the peak of human efficiency and capability, bordering on superhuman level. It is possible for Natasha to dodge a bullet even at point blank range.
Natasha has a gifted intellect. She displays an uncanny affinity for psychological manipulation and can mask her real emotions perfectly. Like Steve Rogers, she possesses the ability to quickly process multiple information streams (e.g., threat assessment) and rapidly respond to changing tactical situations.
Natasha is an expert tactician. She is a very effective strategist, tactician, and field commander. She has led the Avengers and even S.H.I.E.L.D. on one occasion.
Useless? I think not.
Just to be fair, let’s also take a closer look at Hawkeye’s special skills. (So sorry, no more hot Natasha pics.)
While Hawkeye has no superhuman powers (with the exception of the period when using Pym particles to become Goliath), he is at the very peak of human conditioning; he is an exceptional fencer, acrobat and a grandmaster marksman, having been trained from childhood in the circus and by the criminals Trick Shot and Swordsman. This includes considerable strength, as a supervillain found out when he tried to use the superhero’s 250 pounds-force (1,100 newtons) draw weight bow and found that he could not draw back the string to launch an arrow.
Hawkeye has also been thoroughly trained by Captain America in tactics, martial arts, and hand-to-hand combat. Hawkeye excels in the use of ranged weapons, especially the bow and arrow, and carries a quiver containing a number of customized “trick arrows”. In his role as Ronin, Barton shows great proficiency with the katana and other melee weapons. He has gained a reputation for being able to “turn any object into a weapon”, and has been seen using items such as tin plates, coins, sticks and other debris to great effect against his enemies.
That’s pretty darn impressive I’d say. Furthermore, one of the so-called A-List Avengers, Iron Man’s special talents come from his genius brain, his enormous wealth and his teach armor. No super powers. Captain America is an enhanced Super Soldier whose been augmented to be as strong, fast, agile and durable as a human can get, but is still not technically superhuman.
It’s at this point where a DC fanboy (or girl) usually pipes in with this: “There’s another superhero who doesn’t have any super powers yet still manages to hold his own on a team of A-list heroes. maybe you’ve heard of him…..”
That’s right. This guy here is one of THE most popular and formidable superheroes in the world and he hasn’t got a single super power to his name. Now if you’re going to say or even imply that Batman is useless, then you’d better start running before you finish saying it.
But, you say, that sketch wasn’t wrong, someone like Hawkeye or Black Widow would get pwned if they had to fight a ‘God-Eater’. You can’t beat someone like Ego the Living Planet or Thanos with an arrow or a karate kick. That’s true, but here’s the thing about that: anyone possessing half a brain wouldn’t send a non-powered human to go head-to-head with omni-powered cosmic being in the first place. There’s a statement that a friend of mine passed on to me: “Superman averts Armageddon while Batman takes care of the crazies”. You wouldn’t send Batman in to stop a giant meteor from destroying a nearby town, that calls for metahuman might. The same way you wouldn’t call in Superman to stop a serial killer who’s been picking off public figures one by one. That calls for detective skills and street savvy. So the skit’s line “You can’t beat a God Eater with a karate kick” is stupid and should be obvious to anyone with the IQ of a slice of pizza; Black Widow isn’t equipped to take on a threat like that head-on; she’s a spy who specializes in stealth, espionage, interception, infiltration and one-on-one combat with normal humans and operatives. Any team tactician worth their salt would know that and coordinate their team members accordingly.
Hello and welcome to a new segment on Twinsanity titled The Retro Bin, where we unearth a forgotten show from Toon Town’s past, examine it and basically tear it a new one. Today, we’ll be looking at a Hanna-Barbera “classic” from 1979, The Super Globetrotters.
Look! Down on the court! Is it the 1992 Dream Team? Is it the NBA Hoop Troop?? NO! It’s the Super Globetrotters!!!
First, the obligatory history lesson: in 1970 the world-famous Jesters of Dunk were given a Saturday morning cartoon series from Hanna-Barbera Studios in which they would travel the world having wacky adventures. Not content to rest on their laurels, HB gave the Trotters another series, this time adding a new twist: figuring that just having the Harlem Globetrotters in a SatAM cartoon wasn’t enough, HB decided to take the concept one step further and make the Globies superheroes who transform into their super-selves by running into magic lockers. (We are not making this up.) The Trotters of Tomorrow were an eclectic bunch to say the least:
Nate Branch became Liquid Man, who could turn himself into water. One of Saturday morning’s greatest mysteries is that if Nate was called Liquid Man, then why did he wear an ‘F’ on his costume? That bugged the heck out of me as a kid.
Freddie “Curly” Neal became Super Sphere (aka Sphere Man), who could retract his limbs into his head to bounce, smash, and grow. Naturally, his head looked like a basketball.
Hubert “Geese” Ausbie became Multi-Man, who could clone himself into into a seemingly infinite amount of duplicates to surround and mystify foes. He also carried around a shield which he never seemed to have use of.
James “Twiggy” Sanders became Spaghetti Man, who possessed a body of living spaghetti which he could use his as a ladder, a rubber band or a rope.
Louis “Sweet Lou” Dunbar became Gizmo Man (sometimes just Gizmo), who had an immense Afro which was a gateway to Hammerspace, containing an unlimited supply of gadgets (including one that fit the current situation). Sweet Lou’s particular power was so nutty that it later turned up as a visual gag in an episode of Comedy Central’s Upright Citizens’ Brigade.
The team received their marching orders from the Crime Globe, a basketball-shaped satellite (voiced by Frank Welker) that would alert the Globetrotters of villainous activities and even give them strategies to fight them.
-Wait, an HB show about a team of superheroes featuring a guy who can turn into water, a guy who can create copies of himself and a guy who can spring and stretch. That sounds kind of familiar….
…Hanna-Barbera copying one of their own successful formulas? Nah, couldn’t be. They’ve never done that.
The actual episodes typically blurred together, so it’s not really necessary to go into great detail about them. This opening pretty much sums things up.
The stories were little by way of repetition: The Globetrotters would be playing some exhibition match somewhere when they’d get a message from the Crime Globe warning them that some nut-cake with a wacky-themed costume and gimmick was planning to unleash some diabolical plan of some sort, the Globies would go Super, then the Trotters and the villains of the week would after 15 minutes, shtick each other to a stalemate. Then the Villain of the Week would challenge the Globetrotters to a basketball game for whatever McGuffin they were squabbling over. Since they’re the Harlem Globetrotters, basketball is what they do, they would always accept, expecting a fair game. The villains would always cheat–because they’re villains–and the Globies would get their butts handed to them in the first half, then at halftime the Crime Globe would have to remind them that they’re, like, you know, SUPERHEROES and that they should go Super again and use their powers to beat them. They would, and they would come out triumphant. This happened in every episode. Every. Single. Episode. You’d think just once the Globetrotters would get the idea to become super at the start of the match, but no. I would have loved to have seen this exchange, just once:
Crime Globe: (at the start of the match) Attention, Globetrotters. Suit up and become the Super Globetrotters.
Nate: Why? It’s just a basketball game. We’re the Globetrotters. This’ll be a piece of sweet cake!
Crime Globe: Ah, no. Come on, guys, how many times have we done this? The bad guys are going to cheat and whoop your butts throughout the first half, then I’ll have to tell you that you can’t win this game as regular Globetrotters, then you’ll have to became superheroes to defeat them. So how about this time we skip all that and cut right to the chase??
Twiggy: Well yeah, that’s happened once or twice, but…
Crime Globe: It happens every week. What’s wrong with you?! It’s just like that time you guys met Snow White; you were playing against the Wicked Queen’s living gargoyles and of course the Queen used black magic to beat you, so at half time you finally got the bright idea that since you’re the flipping HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS, that you should be using your exhibition tricks to win, like you should have been doing at the beginning. So go super, now!
Curly: You sure? ’cause I think…
Crime Globe: GET IN THE @#$%ING LOCKERS ALREADY!!
After a single season, the Globies were handed a copyright lawsuit by a certain rock band/superhero trio and also received this letter from the Hall of Justice:
Dear Globetrotters, If you really want to save the world, stay on the courts and leave the super-heroics to the professionals. Back off our racket or we’ll make arrangements for you to have to start dragging around 2 annoying teenagers and a stupid dog in a cape. Signed, The Justice League And that put an end to the practice of basketball stars doubling as superheroes, at least until Shaquille O’Neal took the role of Steel. And we all saw how well that turned out.
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