Category Toons & Tunes

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.

Toons & Tunes: The Nudist and Mr. Pendleton

goldstar 1 Comment

Today’s Tunes & Tunes is a music video (of sorts) which aired on the late Cartoon Network series Whatever Happened To Robot Jones?, although the title character himself only appears for a couple of seconds at the very beginning. My guess is that the shows’ creators just had this song number and didn’t have anywhere else to put it, so they aired it on Robot Jones. Still, it’s a groovy, retro chic song and it’s memorably bizarre. Enjoy “The Nudist and Mr. Pendleton” by The Lavender Fudge Experience.

Toons & Tunes: Mission Magic Intro featuring Rick Springfield

silverstar 1 Comment

Before rocker Rick Springfield was wishing he had Jessie’s Girl and staffing on General Hospital, he was serving duty on Saturday morning in Filmation’s SatAM toon, Mission: Magic!, which ran on ABC from 1973 to 1975. Mission: Magic! was about Miss Tickle, a schoolteacher who was a also a witch (of course she needed another job, you know how much teachers make?) who takes her class of 6 quirky students on mystical, magical adventures (sort of a Mod Magic School Bus before it happened), aided by Springfield as a toonified version of himself. Though the show’s star was a witch, Springfield received top billing. Getting billed over a witch, now that’s star power.

-Wait. The witch teacher’s name is…Miss…Tickle. Her name is a play on the word “mystical”! I only just now got that!

Mission: Magic! was a spinoff of sorts from ABC’s The Brady Kids (Miss Tickle guest starred in an episode of the show, which served as a backdoor pilot for MM) and the series boasts one of THE most psychedelic openings of all time. Dr. Timothy Leary would be proud. Rick sang the show’s theme song, obviously, and while it’s trippy as all-get-out and very early 70’s, it’s still a pretty decent tune. Tune in, turn on, drop out and enjoy.

Toons & Tunes: Winx Club – It’s Gonna Get a Little Crazy!

silverstar Leave a comment

I could always take or leave Winx Club; there were some aspects of the show which I liked and others which I didn’t, and I stopped following the show regularly around season 3, but this song was one of the better things to come from the 4Kids dub of it.

Unfortunately there’s no official video for this, aside from fan-made deals, which I don’t want to put up here for obvious reasons. There was a full recording of it by 4Kids’ faux rock band the 4Kids Five, but I haven’t been able to find it anywhere. The song is very bubblegum pop, but a little bubblegum from time to time can be entertaining when it’s well done. Enjoy “It’s Gonna Get a Little Crazy!”.

Toons & Tunes: Summertime Loving (Lovin’ in the Summertime)

goldstar Leave a comment

I just thought that I’d get this in while we’re all going through the dog days of Summer. This is a tune from Cartoon Network’s Regular Show written by one of RS’s writers/directors, Sean Szeles. The song is cheesy, goofy and campy,  but that’s why it’s so enjoyable! Here’s “Summertime Loving”.