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Beyond the Background: The Seven Dwarfs’ Knockoffs

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Bashful, Doc, Dopey, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy and Sneezy. To longtime Disney fans, these names are the Beatles of little people. Nearly everybody loves Disney’s Seven Dwarfs: they stole the show in Disney’s first ever animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, they appear as costumed mascots in all of the Walt Disney theme parks, they’ve recently gotten a 21st century makeover and are starring in their own new animated series The 7D (which it should be obvious by now that we here at Twinsanity are fans of, since this is the 4th time the show has been mentioned on this blog) and they’re internationally known and internationally beloved, and it’s for precisely that reason why we won’t be spotlighting them on Beyond the Background.

Beyond the Background is for showcasing the lesser known, less celebrated or outright forgotten cartoon characters, so the 7D don’t fit the bill. Instead, we’ll be looking at some of the Seven Dwarfs’ various imitators, spinoffs, knockoffs, ripoffs and wannabes.

Ant Hill Mob Names

First up we have The Ant Hill Mob, seven pint-sized 1920’s style gangsters who first appeared in Hanna-Barbera’s Wacky Races in 1968. Their names are Clyde (the leader, voiced by Paul Winchell), Ring-A-Ding (voiced Don Messick), Danny, Rug Bug Benny, Mac, Kirby (not the pink round Nintendo mascot who sucks up dudes and takes on their powers!) and Willy, though only Clyde and Ring-A-Ding’s names were ever spoken on camera. Clyde, a caricature of Edward G. Robinson and likely named after famous criminal Clyde Barrow, was the tough-as-nails boss, while Ring-A-Ding’s chief attribute was being about as dumb as a bag of rocks; Clyde would usually call Ring-A-Ding “Ding-A-Ling” whenever he screwed up, which was often. The gang drove in car number 7, The Bulletproof Bomb (also known as The Roaring Plenty), and were pint-sized characters, an obvious reference to the Seven Dwarfs. In the very first episode, “See-Saw to Arkansas”, they even disguise themselves as the Seven Dwarfs to escape from a policeman. Their usual method of improving the speed of their car was “getaway” power, which they achieved by extending their feet through the floor of the car and running, the same way Fred Flintstone accelerates his own prehistoric car.

Ant Hill Mob

The Ant Hill Mob, circa ‘Wacky Races’. This photo was taken shortly before the Mob knocked over a fruit stand…with their car.
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After a brief stretch in the jar (a literal jar, these guys are short, remember?), The Ant Hill Mob re-appeared in a spin-off of Wacky Races, called The Perils of Penelope Pitstop. By this time they had cleaned up their act, and now acted as Penelope Pitstop’s protectors. Between shows the Mob had a little dustup which resulted in 6 of them having to go into the Witness Relocation program (Clyde got off on a technicality, and a huge bribe) and returning with different names: the others were now called Yak Yak, Softy, Pockets, Zippy, Snoozy and Dum-Dum, and this time around the other 5 had actual personalities: “Yak Yak” couldn’t stop laughing and almost always would laugh during times of peril although he didn’t mean to. “Softy” couldn’t stop crying and would mostly do so during a genuinely happy moment. “Pockets” always had gadgets in his pockets. “Zippy” could run really fast. “Snoozy” was always asleep, sleep-talking and “Dum-Dum” completely lacked all common sense.

The Ant Hill Mob have laid low since then, keeping their noses clean and staying out of the public eye. There have been rumors that the gang put out one last hit, resulting in one Sylvester Sneakly waking up one morning to find the severed heads of the Bully Brothers in his bed, but this hasn’t been confirmed…yet.

Next up we have The Trobbits, who co-starred in a 1981 Filmation CBS Saturday morning cartoon called Blackstar, about an astronaut who gets sucked into a black hole and ends up in a world of sword and sorcery, where he decides to blend in by going all Conan, stripping down to his shorts, wielding a magical sword and taking on some uber-powered dude in funky headgear.

Trobbits

The Trobbits (their name being a portmanteau of “tree” and “hobbit”–surprisingly enough, J.R.R. Tolkien’s estate didn’t attempt to to try merging the words “law” and “suit”) were the peaceful, pink-skinned comic relief little men who rescued Blackstar and provided the cute and the yuks. Again, there were 7 of them (surprise, surprise!) and each Trobbit had his own unique shtick:

  • Balkar – The Trobbits’ king and mentor. He controls elemental magic and is also a great alchemist. He’s also known for not acting wacky all the time like his bros.
  • Terra – The gardener who talks to plants, not the blond Teen Titans chick who turns Beast Boy’s knobs, betrays the team and dies..er, um…gets turned into a statue. Yeah, that’s the ticket.
  • Burble – The babbler who swims very well and freezes during the winter. You’d freeze too if you wore Bermuda shorts in the middle of a blizzard.
  • Carpo – The carpenter who gnaws wood with his teeth to construct things. Make fun of his teeth and you’d lose yours.
  • Rif – The grumpy, flame-capped cook. This dude was a literal hot-head: he had a flame on top of his stocking cap and not surprisingly, had an intense aversion to water.
  • Puolo – The mute whistler. Sound familiar?
  • Gossamer – The scout and lookout who flew via his huge ears.

Continue reading “Beyond the Background: The Seven Dwarfs’ Knockoffs” →

Looney Goons

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Today I was searching the internwebz looking for more info on the upcoming Warner Bros. Animation series Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production, set to debut on Cartoon Network in 2015. A poster on a message board I’m on linked to an article about the show on Animation Scoop. I was curious to read what my fellow animation enthusiasts were saying about Wabbit, so I checked the comments page, and to my surprise I discovered that nearly all of the comments were people hating on The Looney Tunes Show. Seriously? To these people I just have 3 words:

Come on, people. It’s been around 6 months since TLTS’s cancellation was announced, and people are STILL passing out Haterade about that show? Was TLTS really that bad? Enough already. I agree TLTS wasn’t great, but it’s done now. Time to move on. We’ve got a new Looney Tunes series on the way, which is set to NOT be a copy of TLTS. Let me count the ways:
  • The show will contain 4 shorts per episode. So it’s NOT going to be another sitcom.
  • Bugs will be going up against Barbarians, Ninjas, and Terminators. See? Bugs will be outwitting foes again. NOT like TLTS.
  • Taz will be featured, but he will now be known as Theadore Tasmanian. He will work in the accounting department and is repressing his true wild and crazy self. OK, this sounds kind of LTS-esque, but it could possibly work. He won’t, however, be a pet like on TLTS.
  • Wile E. Coyote is going to be an annoying, know-it-all neighbor. Again, unlike on TLTS. I’m also looking forward to this since Wile E.’s “super-genius” persona has largely been buried in favor of his mute form while chasing the Road Runner.
  • Erik Kuska will be producing the show (he was an animator on Looney Tunes: Back in Action). Not Spike Brandt or Tony Cervone.
  • The show is staying away from cliches (aka no anvils). Fine with me, as long as there are still some toon style gags and old fashioned cartoon chaos.
So how’s about we give cautious optimism a chance and hope that Wabbit will be worth the wait? WB and CN have moved on, how about we do the same? For all those still butt-hurt about The Looney Tunes Show…
“I suggest you get over it!”

 

Cartoon Country: Disney’s The 7D

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The 7D, the latest animated outing from Disney Studios, made its’ debut this morning on Disney X-D. We’ve already previewed this show no less than twice here on The Twin Factor, but for those who are too lazy to re-read those, here’s the opening:

And now, the overview:

“In The 7D, Happy, Bashful, Sleepy, Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy, and Doc have ditched (or maybe haven’t yet met) Snow White in favor of Queen Delightful, the slightly dippy monarch of the contemporary fairy tale land of Jollywood. The Queen (and her long-suffering assistant Lord Starchbottom) are perpetually pestered by the husband-and-wife warlock team of Grim and Hildy Gloom — she’s the brains, he’s the…uh, husband. Each half-hour of The 7D promises 2 11-minute stories of the dwarfs foiling Grim and Hildy’s latest coup attempt with much comedic mayhem along the way.”

Thanks to Toon Zone’s Ed Liu for the synopsis.

The Dwarfs’ physical appearances and characters are more exaggeratedly toonified here, but are still what you’ve come to expect from them: Doc (Bill Farmer) is brainy and is skilled at steampunk inventions (complete with Inspector Gadget-like gloved robotic hands and other assorted gizmos stored inside his hat), Dopey (“voiced” by Dee Bradley Baker) looks like Harpo Marx and is prone to whistles, props, sight gags and silliness, Bashful is shy and soft-spoken, typically hiding behind characters and props, even to the point where he’s barely visible during the show’s opening sequence (his twee voice, when he does speak up, is provided by Billy West), Sleepy (Steven Stanton)’s outfit resembles pajamas and he dozes whenever and wherever possible, Sneezy (Scott Menville) is bulbous-nosed, nasally voiced and allergic to everything, sneezing with the ferocity of a hurricane, Happy (Keven Michael Richardson) is jovial to the point of being a little nuts, giddily leaping into cheerily inane songs at the slightest provocation, and Grumpy (Maurice LaMarche) is well…grumpy. (Could be because his hat is an inverted flowerpot.) Rounding out the voice cast is Leigh-Allyn Baker as Queen Delightful, Paul Rugg as Lord Starchbottom, Jess Harnell as Grim and Kelly Osbourne, yes, that Kelly Osbourne, as Hildy.

Personally, I thought it was pretty good myself. The writers did a good job of giving each character a little something to do despite each short only being 11 minutes long. The show’s a tad simplistic, but that’s to be expected given that The 7D was originally slated for Disney Junior (as evidenced by how the episodes’ titles are read aloud by the characters, for the benefit of younger tots who can’t yet read), and anyway not every show needs to be river deep in order to be entertaining. I’ve only seen 1 episode so far, but I can already see Doc, Grumpy and Happy shaping up to be my favorite characters on the series.

Overall, I liked what I saw today, and I’ll definitely be tuning in for more.

Why Applejack is Awesome!

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  1. She’s cool, despite being an Earth pony and not having any special powers.*
  2. That stylin’ Stetson.
  3. She’s named after a a strong alcoholic beverage produced from apples. I’d buy that for a dollar!
  4. She’s voiced by Ashleigh Ball, doing an Ozark accent said to have been lifted from Dolly Parton and Miley Cyrus.
  5. She owns and runs her own farm. Farm livin’ is the life for me, as long as I’ve got indoor air conditioning, high-speed broadband internet, fiber optic cable or satellite television, I’m a short driving distances from the malls, restaurants and shopping centers, there aren’t any animals on the property and I don’t have to do any actual work.
  6. She eats, drinks, sells, lives and breathes apples. We all know someone who’s married to their profession.
  7. She’s prolific with a lasso. It’s amazing enough that she can even tie a knot in a rope with no hands.
  8. Her mane and tail are braided. Nice.
  9. She’s one of the only two members of the main cast who were part of the original My Little Pony cast in the 1980s animated series, the other member being Spike, after Hasbro didn’t maintain the trademarks to nearly all of the original character names and most names had to be replaced. Kinda dropped the ball there, Hasbro.
  10. She has a gaggle of kinfolk, both immediate and extended, a large family of Earth pony farmers, who own apple farms all over Equestria, all of whom have similar apple-themed names. There’s  Apple Fritter, Apple Bumpkin, Red Gala, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Caramel Apple, Apple Strudel, Apple Tart, Baked Apples, Apple Brioche, Apple Cinnamon Crisp, Apple Cobbler, Apple Honey, Apple Pie, Gala Appleby, Lavender Fritter, Peachy Sweet, Apple Brown Betty, Braeburn, Big McIntosh, Apple Bloom and Granny Smith. Betcha thought I was going to screw that up.
  11. Her family are the original founders of Ponyville. That’s stroke.
  12. She can play the banjo and the fiddle. Again, no small achievement when you don’t have hands.
*Actually, Earth ponies are physically very powerful, capable of performing incredible feats of strength with little or no visible strain, and enjoy long-lasting stamina, and have a special connection to nature, animals, and plants. Though they lack the ability to consciously cast spells like unicorns or to fly and walk on clouds like Pegasi, the race possesses a passive, botanically focused magic unique to them, and their connection to nature makes them “just as necessary” as and “perhaps more important” than the other ponies. Plus, heck, I just like to route for underdogs.