Tag Hanna-Barbera

TV Special Tonight!: Hanna-Barbera’s All-Star Comedy Ice Revue

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Hello and welcome to a new segment on Twinsanity called TV Special Tonight!, where we look back at one-shot TV specials, those bonus funfests which would occasionally turn up in prime time as a treat to the kiddos at home and interrupt whatever shows their parents usually watched at that time. Today we’ll be checking out Hanna-Barbera’s All-Star Comedy Ice Revue, a 60-minute live-action/animated television special produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in association with deFaria Productions which aired on CBS on Friday, January 13, 1978 at 8:00 pm EST and was taped at the Bakersfield Civic Auditorium in Bakersfield, California in December 1977.

Into the WABAC machine….

Mr. Peabody: Greetings, friends. You are about to enter the dark and twisted era of 1970’s prime time variety. Some of what you see and hear may shock and disturb you. I humbly suggest that those of you with sensitive stomachs and weak constitutions stay behind in the safety of the present.
Sherman: Gosh, Mr. Peabody. I saw some of those shows on the Obscure Oldies Channel and I thought they were kinda funny!
Mr. Peabody: Yes, well you would, Sherman.
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The year was 1978. You’ve just finished a heaping dinner of Big Macs, Screaming Yellow Zonkers and Drink Me Pop, and now you’re settling down in front of the Boob Tube for a night of good ol’ fashioned brain rot, when suddenly you find that the night’s usual programming has been pre-empted  for an hour because of this….
OK, Houston, right away we have a problem. That’s supposed to be revue, as in a musical show consisting of skits, songs, and dances, but it’s spelled review, as in a revisiting or restudying of subject matter. When the title card of your special contains a typo, you know you’re in for a rollicking night.
Review
“Typography fails. 2 Stars.”
 
Anycrap, Hanna-Barbera’s All-Star Comedy Ice Review..er, um…Revue, was a celebration for Fred Flintstone on his 48th birthday (or to be more accurate, his 65,000,000, 048th birthday) featuring a bunch of otherwise unemployed actors in giant felt mascot costumes of Yogi Bear, Jabberjaw, Huckleberry Hound, Scooby-Doo, The Banana Splits, Hong Kong Phooey, Quick Draw McGraw, Snagglepuss and The Hair Bear Bunch, assembled together as a celebrity roast of sorts, on a giant ice rink. Keep in mind this was the 1970’s, where ice skating rinks and swimming pools were a staple of variety shows and specials (Donny & Marie and the Brady Bunch each had swimming pools on their variety show stage sets), which were themselves a fixture of TV at the time. Don’t ask me why so many 70’s variety shows contained water as a fixture, I guess it was a side effect of it being the Age of Aquarius.
The show was hosted by Hee-Haw country crooner Roy Clark and Bonnie Franklin, who played divorced mom Ann Romano on CBS’s One Day at a Time, ’cause whenever I think of the funtastic world of Hanna-Barbera, the first 2 names that always pop into my mind are Roy Clark and Bonnie Franklin. The special guest stars were The Sylvers (a 70’s knockoff band who usually got all the gigs that the Jackson 5ive turned down) and featuring Course & Young (a comedy duo whom you’ve never heard of), the Fentons, Sashi Kuchiki, the Ice Capettes and a special appearance by The Skatebirds. (The latter group wasn’t hard to round up since they also had a Saturday morning series on the same network at the time.)
As if all that weren’t spectacular enough, we were also saddled with a plot, sort of: it turns out that the guest of honor, ol’ Fredso himself, isn’t at the gala, but rather just chillaxing at home in front of the tube in Bedrock. Fred was under the misunderstanding that the special was scheduled for the following night, and so he and Barney Rubble have to get up from watching the special on their Stone-A-Vision to scramble to get to the studio in time (“Get Him to the Geek!”). They spend the bulk of this telecast just trying to get there, all the while watching the events unfold via a portable TV that they bring along with them.
Wait, what?
OK. Riddle me this…….
….how is any of this possible? How are Fred and Barney even watching a TV broadcast from millions of years in the future? And how are they supposed to drive to the present?? For that matter, how are Roy, Bonnie and the gang able to hold a TV special for someone who existed 65 million years previous? Is there a time/space vortex somewhere in the middle of Interstate 25? Does Fred know a guy with a TARDIS?
“Actually, I’d say it’s more of a TARPIT: Time And Relative Plotholes In Television.”
 
OK, enough nitpicking. This isn’t Talkin’ Nerdy. It’s probably best to just write this all off as a product of Hollywood, Land of No Reality and move on.
Anyshtick, with Fred M.I.A., the hosts are forced to stall for time until the guest of honor arrives. Meanwhile, it would appear that hours before shooting started, someone must have conked the dude in the Jabberjaw costume on the head hard, knocking him barely conscious, and as he was coming to, convinced him that he was Rowdy Roddy Piper and that Fred was Hulk Hogan. Ol’ Jaws spends much of the special drunk on Haterade, snarking on Fred and loudly suggesting that with the cave guy in absentia, that HE should be the guest of honor. Some examples of Jabber’s “wit”:
  • Jabber presents a gift he’s bought for Fred, a baseball bat with a hole in it. When asked why there’s a hole in the bat, Jabber replies “It matches the hole in Fred’s head!”

HATER IN DA HOUSE!!!

  • When Roy informs Jabber that they’re not honoring him because unlike Fred, it’s not his birthday and he’s not loved by all, Jabber eats him SNL Land Shark style, prompting Roy to add, “Plus, you’ve got really bad breath!”
MAMA SAID KNOCK YOU OUT!!
  • Later, Jabber admits that he’s having a lot of fun at Fred’s roast, “‘Cause he’s not here!”
U MAD, BRO’???
  • Roy Clark even laments that they’re stuck with “a shark who thinks he’s Don Rickles!”
DUDE WITH A ‘TUDE!
It’s never explained why Jabberjaw has this mad-on for Fred, he just does. After the 3rd of 4th shticky put-down, I half expected the hosts to ask, “Seriously, dude, what’s your damage?! Did Fred key the side of your underwater car? Did he sell you out to some whalers? What??” Perhaps Jabberjaw was lashing out because Fred had his then current voice actor, Henry Corden, while Jabber had to be voiced by Don Messick instead of his usual voice actor, Frank Welker. Maybe Mr. Welker got a gander of the script and quit.
HATERS GONNA HATE!

Among this special other “highlights”:
  • A bizarre comedy bit by the aforementioned Coarse and Young, involving one of them attempting to sing a song while the other, playing a janitor, constantly disrupts his performance by hitting him with a mop, biting him on the leg and eventually blowing him up. Your guess is as good as mine.
  • Bonnie dons a polar bear’s skin (which must’ve thrilled the poor bear!) and sings “You Are My Lucky Star” while the Ice Capettes skate around the rink while signing “We’re in the Money” Huh?
  • The Sylvers perform “Disco Showdown” while the assorted dancers and costumed mascots shake their collective groove thangs on the rink.
WAVE YO’ HANDS IN THE AIR LIKE YOU JUST DON’T CARE WHERE YOUR CAREERS ARE HEADED!!
  • Roy sings a song from Love Story while strumming on the guitar. Kids, this might be a good time to go to the bathroom.
  • Sasha Kuchiki juggles flaming torches shirtless.
  • Your parents get an eyeful of what they missed by not waking up early to watch The Skatebirds on SatAM, as the titular birds performed some live-action comedy bits. For those who don’t know, The Skatebirds were the bastard cousins of the Banana Splits, 3 guys in giant bird costumes on roller skates (Knock-Knock the woodpecker, Satchel the pelican and Scooter the penguin, respectively) whose shtick largely consisted of them being chased around by someone in a cat costume on roller skates (Scat Cat, voiced by Scatman Crothers). Their show also featured cartoon segments, the most notable of which being a show starring animated versions of the Three Stooges as robotic superheroes, a legendary must-see.
Finally, after some more bits (including one involving 4 identical Wally Gators skating around while Bubi Bear of the Hair Bear Bunch chases after them with a fly swatter–what did these guys use to stir their coffee back then?), a large cake is brought onto the stage and at long last, Fred finally arrives, just in time to see the credits roll.

Comedy routine or hookah-induced trip? You decide.

HBASCIR Fred

He’s finally here! So what happened to Barney??

So, uh, Fred’s a costumed character now? So, is it only live-action inside the studio? If Bonnie or Roy stepped outside of the studio, would they be cartoons too?? This special just went from ‘Huh?’ to ‘Whaaaaaaat?’
Some people have said that Hanna-Barbera’s All-Star Comedy Ice Revue is H-B’s equivalent to George Lucas’ Star Wars Holiday Special. That’s debatable, but at least the Star Wars special had Jefferson Starship performing “Light the Sky on Fire”, while this one gave us rollerskating dudes in bird costumes, skating on ice.
I can’t sum it up any better than one of the great philosophers of our time, Mr. Yakko Warner:
“If you can’t say anything nice, you’re probably at the Ice Capades!”

The Couch: Wake, Rattle and Roll

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It’s time for another segment of The Couch. In this installment, we’ll be looking back at the Hanna-Barbera syndicated series Wake, Rattle and Roll.

Some people may feel that discussing this series here is a cheat, since it’s not technically a cartoon, but Wake, Rattle and Roll did have regular animated segments in every episode but with live action host segments, so WR&R is a live action/animation hybrid, not unlike The Super Mario Brothers Super Show!, so it still counts. In any case, Wake Rattle and Roll was a series produced by Hanna-Barbera Studios which ran on weekday mornings for only a single season (1990) in first run syndication.
 
 
Wake, Rattle and Roll focused on a boy named Sam Baxter (played by then child actor R.J. Williams, who previously voiced the title character on NBC’s Kissyfur and who also voiced the character of Kid Cloudkicker on Disney’s Tale Spin. This kid has a knack for voicing cartoon bears.) and his robot DECKS (which was an acronym for Digital Electronic Cassette-Headed Kinetic System). DECKS was built from old audio-video equipment and was voiced by none other than Rob Paulsen. Mr.Paulsen also voiced Dickie Dastardly on H-B’s Yo, Yogi! that same year, but we like Rob, so we’ll forgive him. Sam and DECKS would have random misadventures in their basement, which was full of impossibly sci-fi high inspired tech, such as a People Processor -a teleporter used to send or retrieve people to and from anywhere in the world. Sometimes, it could even send people through time,  a supercomputer called Mondo View that was used for several reasons on the show, for example, Sam is able to talk to Grandpa Quirk anywhere in the world, and a Debbie Detector, which was a video monitor used by Sam and DECKS to communicate with Sam’s older sister Debbie (played by Terri Ivens) which lessens the amount of time Debbie spends in the basement. It often makes an alarm sound when she approaches. Interestingly, Terri Irvens previously appeared in the short lived FOX teen sitcom Boys Will Be Boys (1987-1988) starring the pre-Friends Matthew Perry as “Chazz”. Other supporting characters included Sam’s wacky-but-brilliant inventor grandfather Lester T. Quirk (played by Avery Schreiber), who constantly supplied Sam & DECKS with sci-fi technology to add to their basement, Sam’s platonic girl friend K.C. – but not the Sunshine Band – (played by Ebonie Smith, who’s perhaps best known for playing Danny Glover’s youngest daughter in the Lethal Weapon movies) and Sam and Debbie’s mother, Mrs. Baxter, voiced by Adrienne Barbeau. Ms. Barbeau never appeared on screen. We only heard her voice, like Orson on Mork and Mindy. Not even a cheesy leg shot. Sorry, guys.
 
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Here’s the shows’ opening:
 
 
In a typical episode, Sam and DECKS would do some shtick, and then DECKS would activate the television screen on his torso and display an animated short. There were 2 shorts which were created specifically for the series: Monster Tails and The Fender Bender 500. Monster Tails focused on the pets of the famous movie monsters who all lived together in a castle in Transylvania, which was maintained by Igor’s son, Iggy Jr. (voiced by Charles Adler) while their famous owners were making movies in Hollywood. The main cast consisted of:
 
 
  • Frankenmutt (voiced by Frank Welker) – The pet dog of Frankenstien’s monster, who unlike his master, possessed the brain of a genius.
  • Elsa (voiced by Pat Musick) – The pet dog of the Bride of Frankenstien, who has the brain of a parrot.
  • Catula (voiced like Iggy Jr. by Charlie Adler) – The pet cat of Count Dracula, who like his master is pretty arrogant, but has a mastery of magic and transformations.
  • Mumphrey (Frank Welker again, doing his best Woody Allen impression) – The pet dog of The Mummy.
  • Dr. Veenie (voiced by Jonathan Winters) – The pet dog of Dr. Jekyll. Normally a brilliant scientist but who like his famous master, had a mindlessly monstrous destructive alter ego named Mr. Snyde, which manifested every time the good doctor sneezed.
  • Angel (Pat Musick again) – The pet goldfish of The Creature from the Black Lagoon. She floated around the castle without the need of water because she was a ghost, a fate which befell her after being eaten by a shark some time before the first episode.
 
The other regular animated segment was The Fender Bender 500, basically an update of H-B’s Wacky Races, only this time with established H-B characters as the competitors. The racers and cars consisted of:
 
 
  • 00 – Dick Dastardly and Muttley in the Dirty Truckster (Design wise, it was the Mean Machine with monster truck wheels)
  • 1 – Yogi and Boo-Boo in the Jellystone Jammer (Which looked like a picnic basket on wheels)
  • 2 – Huckleberry Hound and Snagglepuss in the Half Dog, Half Cat Half Track (Try saying that 3 times fast!)
  • 3- Wally Gator and Magilla Gorilla in the Swamp Stomper (A swamp buggy on wheels. Gorillas don’t generally live in swamps, but let’s not nitpick here.)
  • 4 – Top Cat and Choo-Choo in the Alley Cat (Which looked like a trash can on wheels)
  • 5 – Quick Draw McGraw and Baba Looey in the Texas Twister (Which resembled a motorized covered wagon. Not to be confused with the song by Little Feat or the obscure Marvel Comics character)
  • 6 – Pixie & Dixie in the Cheddar Shredder (Which looked like a wedge of cheddar cheese on wheels)
  • 7 – Auggie Doggie and Doggy Daddy in the Lucky Trucky (which I swear sounds like the title of a preschool show to me)
  • 13 – Winsome Witch with her cat Lucky in the Sonic Broom (It was a cauldron on wheels with a pair of broomsticks for the exhaust pipes)
 
Those familiar with the Wacky Races already know what to expect from this show. Fender Bender 500 didn’t win any points for originality, but it did have a couple of strong points: For one, the announcer was disc jockey Shadoe Stevens. For another, it brought the character of Winsome Witch back to television.
 
Winsome Witch
 
“Seriously? It took Hanna-Barbera this long to remember that I exist? I wasn’t even asked to be in Laff-A-Lympics, for crying out loud! Do you have to be a talking animal wearing a tie to get a part on one these shows?”
 
 
 Trivia Time: The series’ title was a play on the title of the song “Shake Rattle and Roll”, written in 1954 by Jesse Stone and most famously performed by Bill Haley and His Comets.
 
************************************************************************
 
After WR&R ended its run in syndication after 1 season, the reruns were acquired by the Disney Channel from October 1991 to 1994. Because TDC aired the series in the afternoons, the title was changed to Jump, Rattle and Roll. Also, because Disney Channel was commercial free at the time, an additional cartoon (referred to as a “Secret Cartoon”) was added after the live action segments as a time filler. This “secret cartoon” would either be reruns of the “Dino and Cavemouse” (basically a prehistoric Tom & Jerry retread) segments from The Flintstones Comedy Show or reruns of “Undercover Elephant” from H-B’s CB Bears show. I didn’t have the Disney Channel at the time (TDC wouldn’t become part of any basic cable package until a few years later), so I only caught the Disney Channel airings sporadically. Every time that I tuned in to Jump, Rattle and Roll, the “secret cartoon” would always be “Dino and Cavemouse” Lucky me.
 
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Wake, Rattle and Roll wasn’t a great show by any means. The jokes were corny. The plots were predictable, but of course, this was a kids’ show, so I wasn’t expecting the writing to be on the level of Yes, Minister or anything. However, I can’t bring myself to disliking the show. There was something about the shows’ premise that I found to be somewhat appealing. The live action segments had a certain campy charm to them, similar to the live action host wraparounds on The Super Mario Brothers Super Show! (which have aged significantly better than that series’ cartoon segments, in my honest opinion). It could by my inner geek speaking here, but I can’t dislike a series that has wacky sci-fi inspired inventions as part of it’s premise. I actually had an idea for an animated series which was loosely inspired by the live action segments of WR&R; about a pair of fun-loving young kid siblings who would spend the day playing around with goofy science in their high-tech suburban home, driving their parents and neighbors crazy. Kind of like Johnny Test, only good.
 
So here’s to you, Wake, Rattle & Roll. You weren’t on the air for very long, but your presence at least made an impact on this geek.

The Retro Bin: Yo Yogi! (1991)

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It’s that time again! Time for another installment of The Retro Bin. Remember that great animated series that featured all new versions of those beloved classic cartoon characters that we grew up watching? The one that debuted in the early 1990s? The one that had all of those great jokes and well written stories? The one that gave us a reason to start watching cartoons again? That show was Steven Spielberg’s Tiny Toon Adventures, but we’re not going to be talking about that show today. Instead, we’ll be talking about a cheap Hanna-Barbera produced knockoff of that show. A Saturday morning “quickie” (as in quickly gone and forgotten) from 1991 titled Yo, Yogi!.

yo_yogi

When the shows’ title is a worn out buzzword, that’s not a good sign.

Jim Henson’s Muppet Babies begat The Flintstone Kids, which had sex with Tiny Toons to spawn this show. Yo, Yogi! was like Tiny Toon Adventures, only without the memorable characters, clever writing or funny jokes. Yo, Yogi! was one of the last Hanna-Barbera produced Saturday morning shows before NBC abandoned Saturday morning cartoons in favor of live action, teen-centric programming (i.e., Saved By the Bell clones) the alphabet networks did away with SatAM cartoons altogether. Yo, Yogi! ran for only a single season (1991) on NBC. Apparently, someone at H-B studios thought that shrinking Yogi Bear down to half of his height and dressing him up in a lime green puffy jacket and red hi-top sneakers would be a good idea.

“DUDE! The green jacket and rd hi-top are so 90s! It’s AWESOME!!”

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Anyway, here’s the premise:Yo, Yogi! takes place in Jellystone Town (so it’s a town now?). Yogi Bear, along with his sidekick Boo-Boo and their pals Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss and Cindy Bear (voiced this time around by Kath Soucie) have been de-aged into 14-year-old teenagers. The characters hung out at Jellystone Mall (which appeared to be patterned after the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota) owned by “Diamond” Doggie Daddy with Augie Doggie as his heir to the mall business. Yogi and the gang work at an agency called L.A.F. (short for Lost and Found – The initials spell out LAF, as in ‘Laugh’, get it?) where they act as detectives trying to solve mysteries under the supervision of the mall’s security guard Officer Smith. Dick , or “Dickie” Dastardly as he was called here (doing his best Montana Max impression) and his sidekick Muttley would cause trouble for Yogi and his gang. New character Roxie Bear was a teenager who was causing trouble with Dick Dastardly and she was Cindy’s rival and Yogi’s competitor. The characters were never seen at home or school. Some other H-B characters were also turned into teenagers, such as Top Cat, Wally Gator and Hardy-Har-Har, while other characters such as Secret Squirrel and Morocco Mole, were featured as young children. Magilla Gorilla appeared in 1 episode as a famous rapper named Magilla Ice (groan!)
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Here’s the shows’ opening:

A lot of this show didn’t make much sense to me. First, if this series is supposed to take place before the old shorts, does that mean that Jellystone started out as a mega mall and was later torn down to make room for a national park? Second, why did Yogi and his friends wear more clothing as teenagers than they do as adults? And why was Dick Dastardly always trying to mess with the L.A.F. Squad anyway? What did he get out of it? At least in DD’s previous incarnations, he had clear motivations. In both Wacky Races and Fender Bender 500, he wanted to win the race, and he preferred cheating to achieve this goal. In Yogi’s Treasure Hunt, Dick wanted followed Yogi’s Gang around so that if they found any treasure, he could ambush them and claim the treasure for himself without having to do any actual work. Here, he just meddled in the gang’s affairs simply because he seemed to have nothing better to do. And like in his previous appearances, if he didn’t devote so much of his time to trying to screw over the good guys, he’d probably do all right for himself. And it didn’t make sense how some characters were de-aged for the show, while others weren’t. If Yogi and company all hung out with Auggie Doggie and Doggie Daddy in the present, how is it that Auggie and his dad are still the same age here? Unless the Auggie Doggie on Yo, Yogi! is actually Doggie Daddy as a puppy and the Doggie Daddy on this show is his father, who’s also called Doggie Daddy…

Sorry. Didn’t mean to blow your mind. I think that it’s best to think of Yo, Yogi! as an alternate reality rather than a flashback, as that would make a tad more sense. Tiny Toon Adventures was one of the best written TV shows of the 1990s. Yo, Yogi! didn’t seem written at all.

The main problem that I had with Yo, Yogi! was the entire mentality of the show’s supposed appeal smacked too much of this:

Steve Buscemi - How Do You Do Fellow Kids

Or to put it another way, if anyone remembers that one episode of The Simpsons titled “The Itchy and Scratchy and Poochie Show”, the worst thing about Yo, Yogi! was that the whole series was a “Poochie”; a soulless by-product of committee thinking. It was based on the premise that kids would be more willing to watch a show with established cartoon characters from several decades earlier if they were remade to be “cool”, and it seemed like the entire series was concocted in board room by executives who don’t have a creative bone in their collective bodies. I doubt that the producers of Yo, Yogi! even knew what a writer was. The shows’ producers and writers tried to make Yo, Yogi! like Tiny Toon Adventures without realizing what is was that made TTA so great. Quite frankly, if taking established characters and trying to update them for younger audiences by making them desperately cool and hip is the only way to get them back on the air, then I think it’s better that they stay buried.

NEVER FORGET

Beyond the Background: Rick Raccoon, The Forgotten Shirt Tale

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Welcome to a new segment on Twinsanity titled Beyond the Background, where we give obscure, forgotten or less celebrated characters a moment in the spotlight. In this edition, we’ll be going back to Saturday mornings in the 1980s. Do you remember the Shirt Tales? In case you don’t, the Shirt Tales was a SatAM cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera that ran from 1982 to 1984 and was based on characters from a line of popular greeting cards, not unlike the Care Bears. In fact, the Shirt Tales were quite a bit like the Care Bears, except that the Shirt Tales all wore T-shirts with cutesy messages on them instead of having symbols on their stomachs and the Shirt Tales used high tech to right wrongs and help kids and animals with their personal problems instead of using magic and sappy songs. Fans of the Shirt Tales cartoon undoubtedly remember the main team’s various members: Pammy Panda, Bogey the Orangutan, Tyg Tiger (with his signature “TOING!”- Seriously, what was up with that anyway?) and Digger Mole, but there’s 1 member of the team who seems to have slipped from some fans’ memories. I’m talking about the one time leader of the main Shirt Tales Rick Raccoon.

rick-raccoon-shirt-tales-3.74

“Remember me? The creators of Robot Chicken obviously don’t!”
 
During the shows’ first season, the Shirt Tales were like a well oiled machine. Tyg provided the muscle. Digger had his talent for, well, digging. Bogey provided the Humphrey Bogart impression shtick and Pammy provided the femininity. Rick, meanwhile, was the brains. The team leader, and also the only one permitted to drive the Shirt Tales Super Sonic Transport (STSST).

But between season 1 and season 2,something happened. In the shows’ 2nd (and last) season, Rick suddenly went from being the acknowledged leader of the team to having almost nothing to do. He was even forced to hand over the keys to the STSST. The leadership position was given to Pammy, while Tyg now drove the STSST. They would have let Pammy drive, but, you know, women drivers.

No official reason was ever given for Rick’s demotion. One source claims that between seasons, Rick was seen selling secrets to the Critter Sitters, but this is as yet unconfirmed.

During Shirt Tales’ season 2 episodes, Rick would usually have a very small role or be altogether missing. Rick’s friends, in an attempt to justify Rick’s still earning a paycheck to the higher-ups, tried to find things for him to do him to do, such as monitoring the team’s  missions, but Rick spent most of his time chillaxing in the team’s tree house HQ watching that hot new cutting edge MTV channel (this was 1984, you have to remember) and getting fat off of walnuts.  The Shirt Tales were even forced to bring in a 6th member, Kip Kangaroo, claiming that they wanted a new member to train and to pave the way for future generations, but actually, they just need someone else to chip in for the rent.

Kip Kangaroo

“Rent?!? Hey, man, no one told me about this! I’m just an intern!”
 
After the series ended, Rick tried to go freelance and head his own team, The Short Tales, just like the Shirt Tales, only they wore shorts, but this venture wasn’t nearly as successful. Somehow, people just weren’t keen on the idea of cute animals displaying messages across their asses. Of course, there’s always the chance that Rick can get his old job back if the Shirt Tales series is ever revived or rebooted. Hey, if Biker Mice From Mars can a reboot, anything’s possible!

The Retro Bin: Yogi’s Gang (1973)

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As previously mentioned in Jason (Goldstar)’s Yogi’s Space Race review, a staple of Hanna-Barbera Studios was its’ employment of the “potpourri” show concept, namely gathering their vast and rather redundant library of star characters together in a single program, typically with them all involved in some group activity like a major sporting competition or celebrating some character’s First Christmas TM. I suppose to die-hard HB fans, these crossovers were considered the ultimate team-ups. But for folks like me, these characters were simply interchangeable; putting 20 of them on one program was like dawn of the Stepford Cartoons. One early example of the HB “potpourri” show was 1973’s Yogi’s Gang, which aired 16 half-hour episodes on ABC from September 8, 1973, to December 29, 1973 and was based on a TV movie from a year earlier called Yogi’s Ark Lark. For those who aren’t old codgers like me and weren’t around to experience this show, imagine if all of the characters from the Boomerang Zoo block appeared together in one show, suck out all of the fun and mix in the ham-handed PSA preachiness of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids and The New Zoo Revue and you have the basic idea of what we had to endure back then.
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Here’s the basic crux: In the TV movie Yogi’s Ark Lark (1972), a myriad of HB’s funny animal toon stars, specifically Atom Ant, Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy, The Hillbilly Bears, Hokey Wolf and Ding-A-Ling, Huckleberry Hound, Lambsy, Lippy the Lion & Hardy Har Har, Magilla Gorilla, Moby Dick (from Moby Dick and Mighty Mightor), Peter Potamus and So-So, Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinks, Quick Draw McGraw and Baba Looey, Ruff and Reddy, Sawtooth the Beaver (Rufus Ruffcut’s pet beaver from Wacky Races), Secret Squirrel and Morocco Mole, Snagglepuss, Squiddly Diddly, Top Cat and his gang (Benny the Ball, Spook, Choo Choo, Fancy Fancy, and the Brain–not the lab mouse from Animaniacs who wants to take over the world!), Touché Turtle and Dum Dum, Wally Gator, Yakky Doodle & Chopper, Yogi Bear and Boo Boo and an unknown and unnamed dinosaur character (Phew! That’s was a long list, but no worries; since all of them contribute what is in essence a single character–they’re all basically same goofball–and as such I won’t need to delve into any of their ‘characters’ individually again and have no desire whatsoever to do separate reviews of any of their own respective cartoons, I won’t ever have to type it again) headed by Yogi, become concerned about the environment and pollution, and gather together at Jellystone Park to build a flying ship resembling Noah’s Ark with a propeller on top to find “The Perfect Place”, an environment free of of pollution, deforestation, and other forms of mankind’s despoilment. They are aided by Jellystone Park’s handyman, Mr. Smitty, and out of gratitude the gang decide to name the ship after him. The name ‘Smitty’s Houseboat’ is too long to paint on the ship’s bow, but Mr. Smitty’s first name just happens to be Noah, so they end up calling it ‘Noah’s Ark’. (Get it? How original and not at all pretentious!) Anyways, after journeying from everywhere from the Antarctic to the Sahara Desert to outer space (yes, really), the kid animals (Augie Doggie, Boo Boo, Baba Looey, Benny the Ball, Lambsy, Shag Rugg, Yakky Doodle–wait, since when are Boo-Boo, Baba Looey and Benny the Ball kids? I knew that they were short, but them being minors gives their “partnership” with their taller, adult animal partners a somewhat creepy vibe) get the idea that there is no “Perfect Place”, and that they should all simply go back home and clean up the messes that they were trying to get away from, since It’s Up To All Of Us TM. This decision is met with unanimous approval, and the animals all head for home to take pollution down to zero, and turn their home into “the Perfect Place.”
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Nifty. Well, it would seem that these guys must suffer from short-term memory loss, since the following year they were back in that flying boat again, once more looking for a place free of pollution or crime and doin’ the righteous thing for an additional 16 episodes (really 15, as episode 16 was just a rebroadcast of Yogi’s Ark Lark, split into 2 parts. Here’s the opening:

-Now, I know what you younger folks are thinking: about Boo-Boo’s line in the 3rd verse:

…Yeah, Boo-Boo sang “The world be so bright and gay”; keep in mind this was 1973, back when ‘gay’ still meant ‘happy’. It was meant to have shiny, happy connotations, but of course hearing that line now, and then seeing that shot of the little side-stepping dance all those male cartoon characters are shown doing afterwards, it’s unintentionally hilarious. Moving on…

The show typically ran along the same basic lines. The ship, curiously now dubbed ‘Yogi’s Ark’ and now with Yogi at the helm (it’s never stated exactly what happened to Noah Smitty, or at what point Yogi assumed command, but I’m guessing you just might find something interesting at the bottom of the Hudson River chained to a block of cement) traverses the skies and lands somewhere where they run afoul of some loony would-be supervillain who is the embodiment of some human vice, bad habit or negative trait: Captain Swashbuckle Swipe, Smokestack Smog, Lotta Litter, the Envy Brothers, Mr. Hothead, Dr. Bigot (and his henchmen Professor Haggling and Professor Bickering), the Gossipy Witch of the West, J. Wantum Vandal, the Sheik of Selfishness, Commadore Phineas P. Fibber, I.M. Sloppy, Peter D. Cheater, Mr. Waste, Hilarious P. Prankster, and the Greedy Genie (think a dime store Legion of Doom, only not nearly as awesome). Typically these goons would masquerade as allies to the gang, only for our heroes to discover their true intentions by Act 3 (Gee, who would have thought a guy called DR. BIGOT would be bad news), and we the audience would get the basic Moral of the Week pounded into our heads with a sledgehammer: Don’t litter. Don’t play pranks on people. Don’t be envious. Don’t cheat. Don’t fib. Don’t be selfish. Don’t gossip. Don’t steal. Don’t be a hothead. Don’t vandalize. Don’t be wasteful. Don’t pollute. Don’t be sloppy. And above all, don’t expect your Saturday morning cartoons to be in any way fun or entertaining. The preachy moralizing this show did made Smokey the Bear and Woodsy Owl facepalm.

“Dude, seriously. Just give the message to the kids straight. Don’t be drama queens. Nobody likes to be preached to, especially on Saturday morning. And you just gotta love the irony of a bear who’s made a career out of swiping peoples’ pic-a-nic baskets telling people not to be greedy or selfish. Hypocrite much?”
“Remember, TV execs. Give a hoot. Don’t pollute the air waves with Politically Correct pap!”
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Finally, why is Peter Potamus making that messed up face in the crow’s nest in the opening titles? Was he airsick? Did he just receive a vision of the future where Williams Street spoofs him on Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law? Or maybe he just came to the realization that he and his fellow HB toon stars were starring in a show in which they traveled the globe in a flying ark ramming pro-social values down kids’ collective throats. The world may never know.