Barely Remembered Cartoon Characters

Such as:
Klondike Kat

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKJj4ZP6SdY

(xp)
Who I believe was the mortal enemy of a French Canadian mouse named Savoir-Faire with the catchy catchphrase “Savior-Faire eez everywhere!”

Whose comedy French Canadian accent was rivaled only by Larry Storch appearing in an extra role on F Troop as (Agarn’s cousin?) Lucky Pierre whenever he mentioned “The Burglar of Banff” (always with a few extra terminal f’s)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qUagJGeZhc

Don’t know from Kwicky Koala!

But I do (barely) remember Quick Draw McGraw.

Top Cat.

Although he was and still is perhaps huge in Mexico as Don Gato.

Arnold Stang doing an imitation of Phil Silvers playing Sergeant Bilko!

Ricochet Rabbit & Droop-a-Long

Tennessee Tuxedo. Voiced by Don Adams!

I can't keep up

https://i.imgur.com/q4xBwzL.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PJIQ6MYJ1Q

Dudley Do-Right:

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/DoRightCast.JPG

^now we’re talking!

Augie Doggie

Tooter Turtle is one I really don’t remember, nor his friend King Leonardo.

Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse

The version of Sinbad the Sailor who pulled on his belt to gain super-strength.

holy shit now I know where that nonsense in the Replacements song comes from

Fearless Fly? His glasses gave him superpowers of some kind

lol, what Replacements song is that? xp

in Hold My Life on Tim, there's something like "Drazzle Drone, time for this one to come home"

https://www.themoviedb.org/t/p/w1280/u8tGMcZrJFasolT5MsBxdOeuExo.jpg

Signor Rossi

xp Ook Eeek Achoo!

in Hold My Life on Tim, there's something like "Drazzle Drone, time for this one to come home"

Said line is often quoted by early MST3K -- in their formal episode guide, Mike notes Frank knew it came from the cartoon but Mike himself preferred to think of it as being a Mats reference. (Westerberg references occur elsewhere and in one early Mike episode Servo says something about a chaotic scene being like a hootenanny, to which Mike semi sotto voce sings "Hootenanny" in a very obvious nod to said song.)

learn something new everyday

I just learned that Kimba the White Lion is better remembered than I might have thought. (Because of The Lion King?)

Surely EVERYBODY knows Augie Doggie & Doggie Daddy, and Top Cat! Why, they're no most obscure than Quick Draw McGraw!

Who I believe was the mortal enemy of a French Canadian mouse named Savoir-Faire with the catchy catchphrase “Savior-Faire eez everywhere!”

Ha, another MST3K connection, Crow said this a few times!

I have very vague, hazy memories of a weird Huckleberry Finn cartoon that combined live action film with animation.. it seems it actually did exist:

https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y6p3IEK3YOY/WBdEzum9dEI/AAAAAAAAETY/ASJlk0JtwwEAicHYoNrKyL4FABL3N7K0QCLcB/s1600/HuckFinn8.jpg

Anyway I give you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y7CxqtYs0H0

Also did Grape Ape ever do anything besides say his name? Proto Groot, that one.

?? Top Cat isn't forgotten at all. He was being used in Halifax bank ads as recently as 2016!

There's loads of awful bottom-tier characters from the DePatie-Freleng back catalogue that used to plague holiday schedules when I was a kid but have since fallen into a cultural memory hole, like Sheriff Hoot Kloot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZyddcYL8IeU

Fangface OTM

Oh I got one for you -- and I'm sure this particular episode isn't offensive in the slightest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qOLryQAONI

(I somehow caught reruns of this on a local station, I think, in 1980 or so up here in the Bay Area. Very weird.)

that seems more Moldovian that bay area lol

I was speaking to my family last week and I was surprised that they didn't remember some of the rocky & bullwinkle adjacent cartoons or sub-cartoons -- aesop & son, factured fairytales, the aforementioned dudley do-right, sherman & mr peabody.. All of those are so firmly entrenched in my mind.

Wally Gator? I remember Grape Ape by name but not any of his adventures at all.

Huckleberry Hound will never be forgotten, due to his namecheck in Arthur Conley's "God Bless" (written by Jerry Williams Jr) -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kykMF4lAxXI

appropriate that this youtube clip is taken from a copy that sounds like it was severely partied with.

I remember Chilly Willy being shown with Woody Woodpecker- was there another cartoon that would have been shown alongside those two? I feel like I'm forgetting something.

Peter Potamus and his Hippo Hurricane Holler.

Do people know Baby Huey these days?

This one was new to me -- probably not getting much airtime by the time I was born.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=spJznoiaTPk

xo Peter Potamus is new to me... i think.

Wally Gator: I vaguely remember the name and can picture him, I think.

With his limited vocabulary, Grape Ape was like an inert Roadrunner, who was already kind of annoying to begin with, so watching Grape Ape was like watching paint peel, like watching grass grow. But Magilla Gorilla anyone? I now have his theme song on the mental turntable.


Tbh I probably preferred Fractured Fairytales and Mr. Peabody and His Boy Sherman to the Moose and Squirrel so definitely didn’t forget them. Send more Edward Everett Horton! Does everyone remember Morbius’s story about him that is burned in my brain or should I provide a link?

I remember Baby Huey but was almost about to forget him for some reason. He was the model, the epitome of a certain type of behavior (I mean well but I seem to always keep making things worse because of my naïveté) and I used to cite as such until I think I started to feel like nobody knew what I was talking about.

I have very vague, hazy memories of a weird Huckleberry Finn cartoon that combined live action film with animation.. it seems it actually did exist:

🖼

I remember Chilly Willy being shown with Woody Woodpecker- was there another cartoon that would have been shown alongside those two? I feel like I'm forgetting something.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZGfrPVLstQ

There must be a good book about the early decades of classic cartoons, no?
And I'm not sure I know Morbs's story...

A lot of this is subjective: the ones I listed were almost always those I hadn’t seen, talked about or even thought about since the time before I was a teenager which also didn’t seem to be anywhere in sight when my own kids were little. But I’d rather have some false positives then for people to be uptight about posting.

Post by Dr Morbius (Dr Morbius) from Edward Everett Horton C/D S/D?

I saw June Foray (voice of Rocky the Squirrel) at a Museum of Broacasting thing on "Bullwinkle" once, and she said EEH showed up at a recording session wearing the most moth-eaten woolen thing. She marveled at it, and Horton, then in his 70s, beamed "It's my COLLEGE sweater!"

I liked Chilly Willy, for some long forgotten reason. I’m wondering now was he named after Chill Wills?

I’ve always thought about that as well.

This thread of silby’s is relevant:
The Saturday Morning Memorial Animated Series Poll: nominations

As is this thread of skot’s, (essentially one post):

Hooray! The New T.V. Guide Fall Preview Issue Is Out! Oh Wait, It's From 1978.

I actually was forced to deal with and google Tooter Turtle once when we had some friends and neighbors over for a major sporting event viewing, maybe it was World Cup season, so let’s say twelve years ago. The neighbor said something about Mr. Wizard along with perhaps a turtle and their magic incantation but seemed to be getting the names wrong, mixing them up with some other, better remembered cartoon characters and characteristically got a little testy when we tried to correct him. After he left, my friend, who is pretty mild-mannered but was a fact-checker for most of his career, said “we couldn’t let what that guy said stand!”

I worded the thread title the way I did because I was trying to avoid derogatory terminology like “Second String,” “Inferior” or “Justly Forgotten.” I mean I do want that kind of stuff, but not only that stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=010aaw1Ajo0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjmioIukch4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OfyBBOgGAyQ

Andy Panda was the character who alternated with Woody Woodpecker and Chilly Willy on the same show. Later Andy Panda became a successful producer of freestyle dance music (Nayobe, The Cover Girls, etc).

Totally forgot about Andy Panda and what he looked like.

That Arrthur Conley song was written by Swamp Dogg!

https://themesong.info/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Widget-the-World-Watcher-Theme-Song.jpg

Widget the World Watcher

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/vha1xrC_RdE/hqdefault.jpg

Bucky O'Hare

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/1/1c/Merlin_the_Magic_Mouse_and_Second_Banana.jpg

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Ruq29u2-AJM/maxresdefault.jpg

Cowboys of Moo Mesa

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/98/Cool_Cat_Looney_Tunes.png

A+ thread, not sure I have anything to contribute aside from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jackson_5ive_(TV_series)

https://chirpforbirds.com/avian-inspiration/what-heckle-and-jeckle-got-right-about-magpies/

Batfink
https://cartoondatabank.com/cartoonscrapbooksupersite/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/batfink-1967_L08.jpg

The Groovie Ghoulies
https://i2.wp.com/universalmonstersuniverse.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/groovie-goolies.jpg

Speed Buggy
https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BODU2NmU4ZjEtYjQyNS00MWMwLWE4ZTYtNDY2NmE2MGY2ODQ3XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjA5MDgyNjc@._V1_.jpg

Thumbs up to the Yellow Kid's very late-period eighth-rate Looney Tunes characters.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b7/VHS_Video_%27Rubik_The_Amazing_Cube_%27_Vol_2.jpg

omg

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/Yhc55OvtcTo/hqdefault.jpg

The Littl' bits

It's that wacky rock and roll duo Meatballs and Spaghetti!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClesJ55Y__U

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/hanna-barbera/images/d/d8/MONCHHICHIS.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130212025024

Ah, fuck, it was meant to be the Monchichis.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/hanna-barbera/images/d/d8/MONCHHICHIS.jpg

A lot of these dont seem that obscure to me but maybe it is due to my age? eg Dudley Dooright, Top Cat, Captain Caveman, Speed Buggy etc

Do people remember these ones?
Cool McCool
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmWLLuYRo28

The Beatles
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMoiqsdi_os

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwQCLEcx3KU

Little Eva - Making with the Magilla

Its very existence baffles me.

I remember when the first looney tunes & merrie melodies collections started coming out on dvd & discovering that along with the characters I knew so well from growing up watching those old shorts there were also all these random other characters I’d never heard of, like I felt I maybe remembered Henry hawk but Pete puma? Hubie and Bertie??

I particularly remember a squirrel character who basically had the same voice as bugs bunny and acted like a more abrasive & unpleasant version of bugs; looking it up now I see that there was a screwy squirrel who was seen as a shouty and obnoxious attempt at a character in the bugs mould, but that’s not the one I’m thinking of, nor indeed the squirrel character who starred in a short called MUCH ADO ABOUT NUTTING (which has to have been repurposed for the modern era surely) - the one I’m thinking of is apparently The Hipster Squirrel

https://cartoondatabank.com/cartoonscrapbooksupersite/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/the-hunter-1960_L07.jpg

the hunter

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/8c/Murun_Buchstansangur_Ep1.jpg

murun buchstansangur - a name which pops up in my head from time to time for no reason.

Yes, that was a weird one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludwig_(cartoon)

https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/JE4AAOSwLyVZ2pdW/s-l500.jpg

Ludwig was cool. Would never have guessed there was an Annual tho!

How about Heyyy, It's the King!?

Basically, Happy Days, but with animals. The King (Fonz character) is a lion, obvs.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/cbbc/images/7/74/Fiddley_Bird.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20210106031337

The Fiddley Foodle Bird. The only thing I remembered about this was that it was narrated by Bruce Forsyth, but apparently Dennis Waterman voiced the bird and it was created by the guy who wrote the Shake n' Vac jingle.

Jonathan Philip Hodge (26 January 1941 – 7 July 2019) was a British composer who wrote more than 2,000 jingles for TV and radio, including the Shake n' Vac tune.[1][2]

Life and career
Hodge was born in London in 1941.

Jonathan wrote the scores for Villain (1971), featuring Richard Burton, and Great (1975), an Oscar-winning animated musical documentary about engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel directed by Bob Godfrey. He also wrote and produced Fiddley Foodle Bird (1991), a children’s animated series for the BBC narrated by Bruce Forsyth, wrote pop music and had a No.3 hit in 1978 with "If I Had Words sung by Scott Fitzgerald and Yvonne Keeley. The song sold millions worldwide.

He died on 7 July 2019 at the age of 78 at the William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, Kent from multiple organ failure.[1]

I don't feel like I have a good sense of what is remembered and what isn't e.g. do people remember the Telebugs

https://adamnostalgia.files.wordpress.com/2019/05/vlcsnap-01195.jpg?w=646

don't think that image of the Fiddley Foodle Bird posted properly so here's another one

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/zczdy4XzKg8/hqdefault.jpg

beginning to suspect top cat was very much more of a deal in the UK -- where we only had two channels showing kids TV until the 70s and many down-tier US imports didn't make it, so he stood out more

we also called him don gato viz BOSS CAT (bcz there was already a catfood brand called top cat and the BBC felt this constituted advertising, which was not allowed)

Think Bilko was also more popular in the UK in reruns than it was in the US, so big Brit love for Top Cat makes a kind of sense.

These clowns always seemed to be on kids' TV in the 70s

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/8/80/Touchedum.jpg

i also remember HECTOR HEATHCOTE THE MINUTE-AND-HALF MAN. i knew zip abt the american revolutionary war obv but i do remember hector was responsible for the crack in the liberty bell (i had no idea what the liberty bell was) (i'm not very sure now)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKwxOzCJHkA

and i also remember HASHIMOTO -- very fondly in fact bcz evidently aged 5 i was a bit racist, the textures of his life were strange and compellling to me!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4eXH-q3xUE

https://new-york.czechcentres.cz/en/img/http/czechcentres.cz/new-york/events/2021_02/Krtek-DAFilms/krtek-zelena-hvezda-2.JPG/427e5c8e78efb4c26663c9c1f3ebfd86.JPG

Krtek the mole. I had a dog-eared Krtek book of the adventure where he finds a discarded rocket and fixes it up for a quick flight into space. I have a vague recollection of the animated version of him being played on British tv in the 70's and was buzzing my tits off because the book was like a sacred relic to me.

'the dibble' as slang for the police comes via Top/Boss Cat, yes?

Krtek is still massive in Czech Rep, my girlfriend when I lived there had loads of Krtek stuff, "krtek" is just the Czech word for mole.

The other immensely famous cartoon character there is Káčer Donald, but think he's probably better-remembered.

eps of the mole were still being shown in the UK quite often well into the 80s -- and were still being made in the czech rep into the 00s, tho i think shown far less often in the UK. possibly bcz after c.1970 they SUCK, i insist as a contrarian hipster who has not actually seen any of the more recent eps of the mole

the book I had was beautifully illustrated - it was probably from the early 60's and likely bought from a jumble sale.

the bbc's "neither washington nor moscow" era delivered a fvckton of grebt kids' TV: viz the singing ringing tree (east germany) and belle and sebastien (the pyrenees, not that belle and sebastian ffs) -- also we learned early to nagivate dubs and subs so it was educational also and in conclusion this is why jeanne dielman *shot rings out*

neither of these was a cartoon tho so i will shut up

a quiz question popped up the other day: what was the symbol that politically suspicious/commie bbc employees had put on their files to flag them up for MI5 attention. It was a christmas tree!

that's bcz santa's factory is in przemyśl in poland (evidence revealed in babar the elephant and father christmas) (the book, i think they censored the TV show at this point, paging glenn greenwald for comment)

Recently learned that as well as the well known Future Flinstones rip-off that was The Jetsons, Hanna Barbera also did a Roman Flinstones show called Roman Holiday.

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/viacom4633/images/9/99/The_Deputy_Dawg_Show_TV_Series-150339399-large.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20200405231147

Dagnabbit! Was supposed to be an image of Deputy Dawg.

Was wondering when Deputy Dawg would show up.

He was on the cusp for me. He seemed to generate a lot of Google hits but I still ultimately think he belongs here.

Pete Puma seems to be kind of an example of the inverse of the original intention of this thread in that he was a character who appeared only once in the cartoon beforetimes (the fifties) but made such an impression that he was revived (in the seventies) in various New and Tiny reboots of the Loony Tunes characters. Nonetheless I will accept him.

realised that a bunch of top-cat-related stuff was going round my head, like the theme tune and the names of the gang

in both cases i was convinced i remembered everything: actual application of thought caused me to realise that age had dissipated most of the names (excpetion: BENNY THE BALL was the little one whose voice was based on maurice gosfield in bilko (bcz he was actually voiced BY maurice gosfield) and that i had never grasped most of the lyrics

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/voice-actors-from-the-world/images/c/cd/Maurice_Gosfield.jpg/

singing thru the themetune i got this far before i began to think wait up: "top cat! he's indestructible! top cat! his ineluctable close friends get to call him TC! roll right up he's whipping to be!" so "ineluctable" seemed a bold word-choice and i looked it up: of course it's "intellectual" -- but also "he's indestructible" is "the most effectual" (bold word-choice!)

there are several other lines i never once decoded: "he's the boss! he's the pip! he's the championship!" -- is he really the pip? ok another reading here is "VIP" (but pronounced to rhyhme with pip)… and "roll right up he's whipping to be!" is "pro-vi-ded it's with digni-tee!"

as for the gang i remembered that i had a huge kid-crush on CHOO CHOO! i was only really interested if he had a big role in the story (mostly they preferred to focus on BRAIN, who was the dope) -- i liked choo choo's turtle-neck sweater and also the way he talked (which i belatedly discover is modelled on woody allen, so my outing as a very problematic cartoon-watching child continues)

anyway here he is, wot a total hottie rowr

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/hanna-barbera/images/8/81/Choo_Choo.gif/

Hmm. Deputy Dawg was a Terrytoon which makes him a sibling if the aforementioned Heckle and Jeckle and the well-remembered (because of Andy Kaufman?) Mighty Mouse. He was originally supposed to be part of Captain Kangaroo but ended up being spun off avant la lettre to star in his own show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6DmeR9a6ig

Sibling of.

Don’t think avant la lettre is the right term there, just used it in a kind of comic kinship with mark s’s Belle and Sebastian post.

there was an episode of Top Cat that showed Choo Choo attempting suicide multiple times after being rejected by an actress, which is the kind of thing you probably don't see too much in kids cartoons these days

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/topcat/images/b/be/Tc_gaga_3.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20180426154246

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/topcat/images/6/64/Tc_gaga_4.jpg/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20180426154300

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DjIOBWfU4AA7pO7?format=jpg&name=small

^ The temptation to use that after every bad post on ILX...

nooo choo choo i love you

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PoaTZ2XFEA

Amazed at all of Quick Draw McGraw’s latter day appearances, including on The Simpsons. Also, Wikipedia sez:

Quick Draw was the mascot for Sugar Smacks in the early 1960s.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eWd7vmbim8

I just learned that Kimba the White Lion is better remembered than I might have thought. (Because of The Lion King?)

― Soda Stereo Total (James Redd and the Blecchs), Monday, December 5, 2022 8:23 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I think it was syndicated more heavily during the 70s, which is before my time. DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince referenced Kimba in their 1989 song Then She Bit Me.

as for the gang i remembered that i had a huge kid-crush on CHOO CHOO! i was only really interested if he had a big role in the story (mostly they preferred to focus on BRAIN, who was the dope) -- i liked choo choo's turtle-neck sweater and also the way he talked (which i belatedly discover is modelled on woody allen, so my outing as a very problematic cartoon-watching child continues)

Choo Choo was my favourite too but was his voice modelled on Woody Allen? It was Marvin Kaplan who voiced him and that's what he sounded like! Surely the most Jewish cartoon character ever?

Top Cat vs. the Fonz

I had totally forgotten about The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang cartoon until just now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvAV_hGg73E

That thread seems to have been prompted by some discussion here: I Hate the Fonz

Top Cat theme lyrics here:
Favourite lyrics in a telly theme tune

Is Sex in the City actually just Golden Girls without the withere boobs?
the slut = Ricochet Rabbit
the innocent = Sqiddly Diddly
the cynic = Top Cat
the sophisticated center = Secret Squirrel
― Draw Tipsy, ya hack. (dave225.3), Friday, August 19, 2005 11:33 AM (seventeen years ago)

On another thread the same poster makes the point that the themes from Top Cat and The Patty Duke Show are similar: Hanna Barbara Cartoons. DIE DIE DIE!

was his voice modelled on Woody Allen?

wikipedia: "His voice, by Marvin Kaplan in the TV series, is an impression of Woody Allen. Lenny Leonard on The Simpsons is thought by some to be a homage to Choo-Choo."

= quite possibly not! i'm totally just repeating something i read this morning on the internet ("thought by some" is the new citation needed)

A lot of these HB characters I remember only from Laff A Lympics, which itself is only barely remembered.

the bbc's "neither washington nor moscow" era delivered a fvckton of grebt kids' TV: viz _the singing ringing tree_ (east germany) and _belle and sebastien_ (the pyrenees, not that belle and sebastian ffs)

OBIT: Deputy Dawg

Thumbs up to the Yellow Kid's very late-period eighth-rate Looney Tunes characters.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9cWmVZTWjg

Resisting the temptation to post weird cartoons I have only just read about until maybe later in the thread's lifetime.

"Topo Gigio, a soft foam mouse with dreamy eyes and a friendly, childish personality, was very popular in Italy for many years"

same

(xp)Is that about Topo Gigio himself or his Chicken Friends? His memory still haunts my reverie, even if only as kind of an Ed Sullivan-signifying tag line.

"And now, Tessie O'Shea! And now, Topo Gigio! And now, here they are, The Beatles!"

RETVRN

Forgot to add some "ladies and gentlemen" in there.

And now, Tunes and Loons, here he is, Pete Puma!

Calimero, intensely irritating whiny Italian chicken with half an eggshell on his head.

今日のあっこ様は、磔磔のセンターの木と語り合っていたとのことです😊💕

はい、前列はじじい率高めでした😊笑笑#おとぼけビ〜バ〜#otobokebeaver #磔磔#つしまみれ#はじめての磔磔 pic.twitter.com/6mrBPrh6zK

— イッシー (@DOSX0cSVKMZ4hp2) December 6, 2022

Whoops. Wrong link. Here's the annoying little tit.

https://exploringyourmind.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/calimero-e1591433298434.png

Better still.

https://exploringyourmind.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/calimero-e1591433298434.png

Hannah Barbera were responsible for many forgettable characters

Grape Ape (pictured here with Beegle Beagle)

https://artworks.thetvdb.com/banners/fanart/original/72758-3.jpg

The justly forgotten Hong Kong Phooey

https://www.pinclipart.com/picdir/big/454-4540192_hong-kong-phooey-skok-sut-hong-kong-phooey.png

Deputy Dawg was, I reckon, a Terrytoons production (pictured here with Muskie the Muskrat, Vince the Mole and Ty Coon)

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/4e/f8/dd/4ef8ddea1eb3c5103509790b838b995f--television-tv-vintage-television.jpg

Again, I think Hong Kong Phooey may have been more popular in the UK than in the US, because I would guess he's pretty fondly remembered by iLXors of a certain vintage. And after all, he's got style, a groovy smile, a bod that just won’t stop.

I used to watch it on Saturday mornings (I grew up in Colorado) and my impression was that, apart from the theme song, it was pretty forgettable.

Talking of theme songs to forgettable cartoon series...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP8NoCcf1LQ

i hate hong kong phooey, he's no hashimoto thats for sure

Hair Bear Bunch part of H&B's 'countercultural' moment - they're basically the Freak Bros recast as bears - see also Wait Till Your Father Gets Home.

OMG at Wait Til Your Father Gets Home.

I used to have a small white binded karate book because I was going to take it up. I wrote on the cover of it "Ma Hong Kong book of Kung-foo" because I was bad! The kid I was supposed to be doing the karate lessons with got run over and killed by a drink-driver so I stopped going. Had a lucky escape really - the Karate teacher was convicted of sexually assaulting scores of children in the 90's. But anyway - Hong Kong Phooey was fun at the time!

OMG

Lock thread.

lol soz, was trying to keep it as light as poss!

No worries. Dredging up Barely Remembered Memories of whatever is like a neuroscientist sticking a needle into a random part of the brane stimulating other memories.

On the "barely remembered cartoons referenced in hip-hop lyrics" tip: The Grape Ape appears in "Flute Loop" by the Beastie Boys.

When I was in my 20s a buddy and I used to crack each other up doing old cartoon voices, so we wrote a script utilizing a bunch of them and took it to a comedy club open stage night. It went okay, so we did a second one a few weeks later and bombed. We never did it again. The moral of the story: not everyone remembers the voices of King Leonardo and Odie and Tooter the Turtle.

Oh, looks like we haven't mentioned The World of Commander McBragg. We did that one too.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dxb81ZKXQAULDy_.jpg

^excellent!

I kind of liked that one. Also had some switch in my brain that thought Commander McBragg was distantly related to Mr. Magoo.

On the "barely remembered cartoons referenced in hip-hop lyrics" tip: The Grape Ape appears in "Flute Loop" by the Beastie Boys.

― fetter, Tuesday, 6 December 2022 17:53 (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

also referenced in title of The Great Grape Ape Hangers by Denim, surprisingly large pop-cultural impact

Commander: Have I ever told you about the time...
Friend: Oh good heavens, speaking of time, I really must be...
Commander (interrupting): THERE I WAS! BURMA!!

These days my goto when I need a Commander McBragg-style hit is just:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyyE6S5tWLw

I love that song but had never seen the video! A+

https://i.pinimg.com/originals/ba/be/b2/babeb2d13318cac4c06af993906e7a17.jpg

Hapless scientist Clyde Crashcup and his assistant Leonardo, whose barely-animated scientific antics padded out episodes of The Alvin Show in the early 60s.

I guess Underdog doesn't qualify as "barely remembered." I loved the intro as a kid, and "Simon Bar Sinister" is a top shelf villain name.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Y8m29ZLX5ag/TPDKNiTO_zI/AAAAAAAAGVY/kCHXHrrQz2M/s400/UNDERDOG%2BTAKING%2BOFF%2BCOLOR%2BCROP.jpg

OTM. The other day I posted

if you’re feeling simon bar sinister

on rejected JBR screen names

I don't know if the Catillac Cats count as "barely remembered," but I just searched and I was the last person to post about them on ilx nearly 8 years ago.

TS: garfield vs heathcliff

in my mind Heathcliff is the median of cartoon rememberedness, so minor characters from Heathcliff properties, absolutely.

Should have called this thread Cartoons Are the Art of Pretend Forgetfulness.

I'm having trouble naming a Care Bears ripoff I seem to recall? I don't mean any of the Care Bear cousins neither.

member there was a Ghostbusters cartoon without Slimer and stuff?

https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/a-tale-of-two-ghostbusters/

no

sorry this thread is only for barely remembered characters ;)

whoops! well, Jake Kong Jr.

Commander: Have I ever told you about the time...
Friend: Oh good heavens, speaking of time, I really must be...
Commander (interrupting): THERE I WAS! BURMA!!

lol higgins and magnum/tc/rick depending on who he has cornered

member there was a Ghostbusters cartoon without Slimer and stuff?

https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/a-tale-of-two-ghostbusters/

― maf you one two (maffew12),

yep -- I watched both. "The Real Ghostbusters" Had the voice of Garfield as the voice of Bill Murray.

a vintage thread with some fun stuff/similar territory:

Obscure Children's Cartoons

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/d/d1/Jabberjaw.png

in preschool (age 4) i won a jabberjaw coloring book for being good at naps. i've never watched the cartoon but i was super proud of my coloring book win.

this is the image i remember better than the above

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/2/26/Jabberjaw_and_The_Neptunes.jpg

Again, I think Hong Kong Phooey may have been more popular in the UK than in the US, because I would guess he's pretty fondly remembered by iLXors of a certain vintage. And after all, he's got style, a groovy smile, a bod that just won’t stop.

Absolutely

https://tenor.com/view/laugh-chuckles-dog-happy-gif-15278809

Has Muttley come up yet?

https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_hfirdv34n7A/SmReEhmINrI/AAAAAAAABGY/fQerPOgVtI8/s1600-h/HB+MUTTLEY.JPG

I give up

https://media.tenor.com/9BhMWIZXFMoAAAAd/muttley-dog-laughing.gif

lol@ Touche Turtle. Has to be the same guy who voice Droopy. Here's the episode where he takes on a king sized bong.

The article that maffew12 linked has more interesting background on The Real Ghostbusters than the Filmation version. Short version - ABC hired a marketing firm that softened Janine's character and image to be more "nurturing" and reduced Winton's role to "driver."

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/ghostbusters/images/3/30/Janinethruseasons.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20090714174320

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/ghostbusters/images/3/30/Janinethruseasons.png/revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/1000?cb=20090714174320

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/ghostbusters/images/3/30/Janinethruseasons.png

oh well, just click the first link

Woah I'd forgot all about Commander McBragg!

Having mad flashbacks now - put the theme on youtube and sang every word without hesitation not having heard it in at least 40 years I reckon.

There’s stuff that Australian TV channels bought on the cheap and used interminAbly as schedule fillers in the 80s that I have no idea how well-remembered it is in the outside world. Roger Ramjet? The Herculoids? That weird pulp SF thing with drawn characters but filmed human lips superimposed?

Space Angel, apparently.

Had to look up that lip thing. Fascinating. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syncro-Vox

Mentioned before here: what is the weirdest show to ever be broadcast on a major u.s. broadcast network?

Not _quite_ in the main stream of this thread, but maybe y’all can help me out with something that’s been bugging me for years. There was an episode of a cartoon — maybe Tom & Jerry? — where there was this cute but fucking annoying cat, whose only vocalization was a repeating, nasal “me-yow, me-yow.”

Google-fu has got me nowhere. I need to dig up a clip of this. Can anyone help!

Herculoids had a long rerun afterlife on either TBS, USA, Cartoon Network or possibly all three. I remember the blob friends and someone being named Ooklah the Mok? It's little mixed up with Thundarr the Barbarian tbh.

So many of these shows truly aspired to nothing more than to fill time and maybe sell breakfast cereal. I'm sure each one had some people on the creative team trying their best to make them better, and that somebody somewhere is really fond of each of them... but their lack of a cultural footprint feels appropriate in most cases. Maybe I'm just projecting from my own experience - I never wanted any toys or stickers or comics books or anything related to these shows, I don't remember acting them out on the playground, etc.

Before the internet, several of my friends and I went close to a decade being unable to recall where in the world we'd seen "Possible Possum," a sort of Appalachian critter whose catchphrase was "It's possi-boool, it's possi-boool." Turned out to be a TerryToon thing called Kooky Cucumbers, a title destined to be forgotten.

https://i.imgur.com/oyyj94i.jpg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q80pCfzilgM

Very anticlimactic.

oh I guess Possible Possum was the name of the actual show while Kooky Cucumbers was just an episode.

Took me like three passes through this thread to catch Ludwig. Oh my god I loved that show and had not thought of it in forever. Magical.

Another one I've remembered, this one from the 80s, was Mighty Orbots. It was probably not good but did have a banging intro song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NFD-sNO0k_M

Has Muttley come up yet?

Muttley will never be forgotten.

I remember Galaxy Goof-Ups mostly for the psychedelic sci-fi disco scenes, but as well as Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound it also featured two other characters called Quack-Up and Scare Bear who I don't think ever appeared anywhere else

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uzoFI5LzyfE

Galaxy Goof-Ups was one segment of a longer show called Yogi's Space Race that also featured these two cartoons, I don't think I remember ever seeing either of them:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f9/Buford_Files.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/0/0a/The_Galloping_Ghost_titlecard.jpg

The Buford Files
Buford is a lazy bloodhound with a mournful bark and a sharp nose for solving mysteries who lives deep in Fenokee Swamp. He teams up with the teenage Boggs twins – Cindy Mae and Woody – and the trio solves confusing mysteries that baffle Sheriff Muletrain and his overeager, but dimwitted deputy Goofer McGee. Buford's abilities are expanded with ears that revolve like radar dishes, and his nose responds to clues like a Geiger counter.

But Buford has two weaknesses: when the moon comes out, he howls his heart out (often at the most perilous moments) and he also has a running feud with a karate-whacking raccoon.[5]

Voice cast
Frank Welker – Buford
Pat Parris – Cindy Mae
Dave Landsburg – Woody
Henry Corden – Sheriff Muletrain Pettigrew
Jim Nabors – Deputy Goofer McGee

The Galloping Ghost
Nugget Nose is the short and feisty ghost of an Old West gold prospector who finds adventure riding his invisible horse. He is also a guardian to Wendy and Rita, two young cowgirls who work at the Fuddy Dude Ranch owned by grouchy, old Fenwick Fuddy. Whenever Fuddy threatens to fire the girls, Nugget makes himself invisible and becomes a helping friend. He is always battling Fuddy and takes delight in harassing him in odd and humorous ways. When the girls are in trouble, Wendy summons Nugget by rubbing on her special gold nugget necklace.[6]

Voice cast
Frank Welker – Nugget Nose
Marilyn Schreffler – Wendy
Pat Parris – Rita
Hal Peary – Fenwick Fuddy

Muttley will never be forgotten

My niece currently lives and studies in Mutley in Plymouth and when I visited her this year I made constant gags about medals etc. She of course had no idea what I was talking about.

Sassinfrassin Rick Rastardly

i'm gnna check in with my niece (14) abt all this over xmas -- but her dad is a filmbro and will not only know all these he can probably reel off the voice artists

they used to bond on weekend mornings watching cartoons of all ages so her young brain is no longer typical lol, she will school me on possible possum and i will be amazed

Possible Possum was supposed to be a thing before Deputy Dawg during the Captain Kangaroo planning stages but then got shelved for a while to avoid competition and comparison with Pogo.

Oh, okay, the original Possible Possum was demoted to a secondary character on Deputy Dawg named Muskie Muskrat. The name was revived later for another character. Ralph Bakshi got his start as an animator on The Deputy Dawg Show.

_Has Muttley come up yet? _

Muttley will never be forgotten.

Probably Griswald, since they were both played by the same voice actor, Don Messick.

Muttley, Scooby-Doo and Astro were all created by the same animator and voiced by the same actor.
Scooby Doo, RIP (the Artist that was Iwao Takamoto)

https://www.illustrationhistory.org/artists/iwao-takamoto🕸

The reduced budget of TV animation with Hanna-Barbera versus film animation with Disney meant that fewer frames would be produced - 12 frames per second for TV animation versus 24 frames per second for film animation. Another cost-cutting measure was to use as much of a cel as possible to construct a scene. This caused the effect of “ring around the collar” – the tendency of Hanna-Barbera characters to be drawn with neckties and collars. According to Takamoto, “This was so the head could be easily separated onto its own cel without a seam line.” When possible, animators would draw characters like Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble with five o’clock shadows to further reduce animation.

Which refers to this potentially interesting tl;dr article:
https://www.illustrationhistory.org/essays/hanna-barbera-the-architects-of-saturday-morning

There’s almost a Warholian experiment in how cheap animation can be and still be something - good? tolerable? - going on there, DO U SEE?

Iwao Takamoto’s memoir seems to be easily available and his step-daughter wrote a book about him as well.

Wacky Races

From that Hanna Barbera link:

After the debut of The Huckleberry Hound Show, Hanna and Barbera were surprised to learn that over 40% of that series’ audience was comprised of adults. In fact, bars would advertise Huckleberry Hound happy hours during the airing of the program. (Mittell, p.42) Barbera recalled, “In one San Francisco bar favored by the college crowd, the barkeep would ring a bell at six on the evening when the show was aired and direct the patrons’ attention to a sign that announced: NO TINKLING OF GLASSES OR NOISE DURING THE HUCKLEBERRY HOUND SHOW.” (Barbera, p.127)

Warholian experiment
Heh, the guy who wrote that gigantic article about Hanna-Barbera previously spent two decades at The Andy Warhol Museum.

Just found this but can’t look at any of it right now:
https://www.childrenstvarchive.com/interviews_ChildrensTVarchive.html

I barely remember Beanie and Cecil (from… 11 years before my birth) but what i do remember is burned into my brane

Of course.

TS: Warner Bros. vs. Hanna-Barbera

Don’t recall reading that thread before. I didn’t know what I was missing.

That long illustration history thing made me feel more kindly toward Hanna-Barbera but still.

Woah I'd forgot all about Commander McBragg!

― Stoop Crone (Trayce)

Having mad flashbacks now - put the theme on youtube and sang every word without hesitation not having heard it in at least 40 years I reckon.

― Stoop Crone (Trayce)

Same thing with me - I saw the name and the theme song instantly popped into my head, haven't thought about it in 40 years.

Andy Panda and Chilly Willy got me thinking about other Woody Woodpecker related cartoons and I remembered a hillbilly family where the dad would step on a board on the porch and it would get stuck on his nose. They were apparently named Maw and Paw:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/intanibase/iad_screenshots/1953/5112/16.jpg

https://s3.amazonaws.com/intanibase/iad_screenshots/1953/5112/16.jpg

That Hanna-Barbera history is great. I watched endless hours of HB as a kid, but Winsome Witch and Breezly and Sneezly bring up absolutely zero in my memory banks.

Wondering if it is time to start mentioning totally unremembered stuff like The Beagles yet.

There’s almost a Warholian experiment in how cheap animation can be and still be something

Speed Racer comes to mind.. only the mouths moved, there was literally no other action

Also there were Marvel Super Heroes cartoons in the ‘60s that were literally panels from the comic books moved around to create the impression of action.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C8Gl1IBbHy4

beginning to suspect top cat was very much more of a deal in the UK -- where we only had two channels showing kids TV until the 70s and many down-tier US imports didn't make it, so he stood out more

― mark s, Tuesday, December 6, 2022 10:30 AM (three days ago) bookmarkflaglink

can confirm being at a dinner party full of canadian gen x-ers (i.e. none more gen x) who had never heard of top cat (or, unrelatedly "since you've been gone" by rainbow)

Should have been Top Fox

xp whaaaaaatt

To both of those things

I remember a cartoon called Denver The Last Dinosaur that had a rather catchy theme tune, the first line of which is the title of the show. Read somewhere a few years ago that the second line of the song goes 'He's my friend, and a whole lot more'. Still think about that sometimes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D5tXJ0nq0vc

beginning to suspect top cat was very much more of a deal in the UK

yeah definitely, we even had a teacher at school we called Dibble due to an uncanny resemblance

I went searching for info about Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse, mostly to confirm that his nemesis was a frog with a voice he borrowed from Edward G. Robinson, and found out a few other interesting things.

First thing that jumped out at me was that one of the voice actors was Roy Halee, who was also credited with the voices of Heckle and Jeckle, as well as the singing voice of Mighty Mouse! I couldn’t calm myself down until I found out that there were two Roy Halees. The voice actor was Roy Halee Sr., father of the recording engineer who worked with Simon and Garfunkel and so many others.

Maybe he wasn’t quite a Sr. though, different middle name or something, because Wikipedia claims that the recording engineer has a son named Roy Halee Jr., hard to parse.

Another name that jumped out at me was Bob Kane, who supposedly co-created the show as a parody of his earlier creation of Batman and Robin.

Finally I saw that the Peter Gunn-flavored theme song was pretty popular. Alex in NYC has mentioned it several times on this borad, and at some point The New York Dolls went so far as to record a version.

Hm!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HklOEDbW2CI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8FNmhbj4-4

Hm!

The Dolls cover of the Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse theme was v good. otoh, the youtube of the cartoon persuades me that it merits its obscurity: wooden animation, pedestrian voice work & a repetitious story that would quickly bore an 8 year old.

Tbh I am starting to remember that, while I liked the show at the time, it always seemed to be a comedown after the credit sequence was over.

xp: it's interesting but, sans nostalgia, mostly just an oddity

Pretty much, yes.

watching the world cup final montage remimnds me that The Power Of Love is probably the only number 1 song to mention The Hooded Claw.

as a parody of his earlier creation of Batman and Robin.

Mostly created by Bill Finger, Kane just hogged the credit.

somewhere on ilx i THOUGHT i began a thread asking for examples of unheralded craft continuity w/i pop artforms:

of which my prize example was/is the use of peter lorre's voice patterns as a signifier of squat cowardly villainy within the cartoon world -- viz a notion passed down by cartoon voice artists long years after anyone in the viewership (originally grown-ups, now children) can possibly have known who peter lorre ever was

i: i can't now find this thread or subthread (and anyway if i started it at all iirc no one understood what i was asking for) (this is often the case lol)
ii: the list of voice artists who did droopy is absurdly long and extends across eight decades so he probably wins (when was the last *new* peter lorre impression u heard in a cartoon)

do cartoons characters still get hit over the head and then start talking like Lenny from Of Mice And Men (referring to their interlocutor as 'George' etc)? This is a thing I was aware of as a trope in cartoons years before having any familiarity with Of Mice And Men (though I think that's a school syllabus mainstay in the US, so maybe kids there know the source)

there must be a lot of people who know Mayor Quimby and Chief Wiggum from the Simpsons who don't recognise the voices as being JFK and Edward G Robinson, but maybe do recognise the voices as signifying 'sleazy politician' and 'comedy cop' (maybe also comedy gangster?)

For me the barely-remembered example is always Gigantor, who doesn’t really qualify as a “character” per se. I think he was an earlier piece from the creator of Astro/Atom Boy.
Shoutout to George of the Jungle and Marine Boy, while I’m showing my age.

(xp) I was literally coming here to post that! I was going to say I had the feeling that the big dumb character/smart short character duo you sometimes saw in cartoons, as based on Lon Chaney Jr./Burgess Meredith in "Of Mice and Men", persisted for much longer than you might expect.

borderline-barely remembered 1970s cartoon shark Jabberjaw talked like Curly from the Three Stooges, I think that Curly's voice had a long run as one of the default dumb-guy voices in cartoons

(when was the last *new* peter lorre impression u heard in a cartoon)

Decades ago but still more recent than you'd think - I was recently made aware that Ren from Ren & Stimpy does this voice!

xp 'the big dumb character(who is good-natured and guileless)/smart short character duo (who is irritable and gruff)' had a resurgence in the 90s post Ren and Stimpy - Pinky and the Brain, Cow and Chicken etc, it never occurred to me that it developed from Of Mice And Men - did this archetype predate Lenny and George?

excellent work ren and stimpy literally combining two archetypes in this hand-me-down mode!

surely a lot of this is also mix-n-match of reliable tropes and setups from vaudeville - still a thriving form when the first cartoon shorts arrived - that have far outlived those bygone stages by entering the DNA of animated comedy early on. i'm thinking of Abbott/Costello, Laurel/Hardy, et al. newspaper strips probably also belong to this story.

probably true but hand-wavey! i demand concrete examples!

Looney Tunes use of actors wasn't only an "everyone gets this" thing but also cross promotion - viz many of the actors portrayed were Warner Bros stars. Same with the songs (Warner Music catalogue).

Decades ago but still more recent than you'd think - I was recently made aware that Ren from Ren & Stimpy does this voice!

― Daniel_Rf, Monday, 19 December 2022 12:50 (one hour ago) link

This is made even more explicit in the 'Space Madness' episode, wherein Ren starts paraphrasing Lorre's lines from Mad Love.

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/teen_scene_01.jpg

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMWMzZGYwNzEtZTI1NS00N2IxLWI4NzItMjlkZDkzYzg2YWNhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjExODE1MDc@._V1_.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/9c/The_Biskitts.jpg

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BYTFjOWEyODMtMjE0ZS00ZTdjLTg2OGQtMDg0ZGJmMGRhNDQ1XkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNjExODE1MDc@._V1_FMjpg_UX1000_.jpg

i liked the theme song from "Beverly Hills Teens," not sure that i ever actually watched an episode of the show though.

an even more recent Lorre-inspired character

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KIzrvuTwsWQ

Pink Panther always ruined when this loser came on

https://static.next-episode.net/tv-shows-images/huge/crazylegs-crane.jpg

I don't remember Crazylegs at all, but it was a short-running series and I was past cartoon watching age by 1978. But speaking of basing cartoon voices on celebrities:

In the cartoons that star Crazylegs Crane (voiced by Larry D. Mann), he always goes through various misadventures (often accompanied by his son Crazylegs Crane Jr. (voiced by Frank Welker)) and often deals with his frenemy, a fire-breathing dragonfly (voiced by Frank Welker impersonating Andy Kaufman).

This is something of a specialty for me.
Some are possibly mentioned upthread but not with images.

https://i.imgur.com/MjL1VOw.png
Vampira and Toad from Drak Pack

https://i.imgur.com/UdjumZ4.png
Hornswoggle, the bad guy from The Gary Coleman Show

https://i.imgur.com/EAYa1uQ.png
Hector and Mungo, Catillac Cats from Heathcliff (Cleo, unsurprisingly, is something of a furry speciality)

https://i.imgur.com/EAYa1uQ.png
Nightcrawler from the Inhumanoids

https://i.imgur.com/y3UBJUu.png
Captain Clam from Plastic Man

https://i.imgur.com/fbz1tDC.png
Ookla the Mok from Thundarr the Barbarian (co-created at Ruby Spears by Howard the Duck's daddy Steve Gerber!)

https://i.imgur.com/FmbLgIN.jpg
The Caucasian Defenders from Visionaries

https://i.imgur.com/Msxe4X2.png
Overlord from Blackstar

https://i.imgur.com/a3gpchF.png
Chumley from Tennessee Tuxedo

https://i.imgur.com/lT4wr8B.jpg
Ned already name dropped Spaghetti and Meatballs upthread in video but here's an immortal production shot

Crime Wave Clyde from the Super Mario Brothers Super Hour (note the Beagle Brothers nod!)

Trying again:

https://i.imgur.com/filG21C.png
Crime Wave Clyde from the Super Mario Brothers Super Hour (note the Beagle Brothers nod!)

https://i.imgur.com/Vwq2PMK.png
Nightcrawler from the Inhumanoids

oh, just invert those captions.

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/81KFYB9EMzL._RI_.jpg

https://static.next-episode.net/tv-shows-images/huge/police-academy-the-animated-series.jpg

As far as I know, the only one of those forks posted that has been mentioned so far has been Chumley.

xp 'the big dumb character(who is good-natured and guileless)/smart short character duo (who is irritable and gruff)' had a resurgence in the 90s post Ren and Stimpy - Pinky and the Brain, Cow and Chicken etc, it never occurred to me that it developed from Of Mice And Men - did this archetype predate Lenny and George?

The Brain is doing an Orson Welles voice, too, which is not something kids would get.

I never watched kidd video but still get the theme song stuck in my head from time to time:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkWKyE9ycC8

i can sing it at the drop of a hat. Wish i could find episodes (with videos) somewhere...

i think i shouted out Ookla the Mok! and i know someone mentioned the Cadillac Cats.

definitely watched a fair bit of after-school COPS. all i really remember is the narration over the closing credits (?) which named all the characters.... i remember thinking "Turbo Tu-Tone" had a nice ring to it. it was one of those cartoons, similar to James Bond Jr., where the designs and names of the characters (presumably all done by action-figure designers) outstripped in creativity anything actually happening on the show. i'm guessing He-Man was really the starting point for this. TMNT was maybe the apex of brilliant and off-the-wall figure designs, which the show actually matched in entertainment value (at least in the early days).

the shows that really left no trace are those where the show was forgettable AND the action-figure character designs were generic and interchangeable. Visionaries is a good example - the hologram gimmick was cool, but otherwise the figures are all the same. they actually got beat out for coolness by a different forgotten toy line, the Supernaturals, whose entire bodies and faces were holograms. way spookier, but they didn't have a show, sorry guys.

another sub-variant: shows inspired by Transformers (and thus by mecha anime at some remove), based on toy lines where the action gimmick was the attraction more than the character designs. here i have in mind MASK (whose toys and theme song are cool enough that they don't really belong in this thread) and The Centurions (who probably do):

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/powerextreme/images/b/b8/Team.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20201219005626

perhaps relevant, this classic thread: top100- stock plot devices for children's action/adventure cartoons

my family got a vcr in 1989, taped every kids film over the Xmas holidays, then we just watched those tapes over and over again until the late 90s. so this is my most-watched cartoon character

https://www.pellesvanslos.se/wp-content/uploads/pelle-3-425x425.gif

https://static1.colliderimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/centurions-slice.jpg?q=50&fit=contain&w=1140&h=&dpr=1.5

another attempt at a Centurions image

also these guys

https://filemon.be/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/JA_Maitres-du-temps-les-3-Laloux-1024x604.jpg

I remember Blackstar well: a proto-He Man: Masters of the Universe

"Drak Pak" and "Thundarr the Barbarian" were my go-to cartoons in 1980-1981.

You might remember Blackstar but do you remember

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMjAwMjkzMzAyNl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwOTE1ODk2MQ@@._V1_.jpg

For me the barely-remembered example is always Gigantor, who doesn’t really qualify as a “character” per se.

The Dickies cover that!

Centurions was a favourite. Less well remembered - though I recognised a still some way down an image search for 'cartoon with hover cars -jetsons' - is Pole Position:

https://m.media-amazon.com/images/M/MV5BMDRkYTBjZTItYTMxZS00ZjM1LWIxNDMtYzZlYWQxMDVhZDVhXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyODU5ODY0ODc@._V1_.jpg

_as a parody of his earlier creation of Batman and Robin._

Mostly created by Bill Finger, Kane just hogged the credit.

I'm shocked no one's mentioned "Pandamonium" yet!

Several levels of wtfery here.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1So6wFGpIo

Now wondering who or what made Underdog rise above the pack in terms of memorability: better voice actors?

Mainly Wally Cox as the hero and George S. Irving as the narrator.

I listened to the Dickies cover of the "Gigantor" theme about a million times in high school, but have never seen the cartoon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2BAE1FTJEY

Gigantor Gigantor Gigantor
Gigantor Gigantor Gigantor
Gigantor the space age weapon
He's at your command
Gigantor the space age weapon
His power is in your hands
He's bigger than big (BIG!) taller than tall (TALL!)
Quicker than quick (QUICK!) stronger than strong (STRONG!)
Ready to fight for right against wrong

Wow!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Watts_Biggers#Animation

TTV created and produced a variety of animated TV series, including The King and Odie (the studio's first program),The Hunter, Tooter Turtle, Tennessee Tuxedo, Go Go Gophers, The World of Commander McBragg, Klondike Kat and Underdog. For these series, Biggers co-wrote more than 500 scripts and composed all theme songs, words and music.

my family got a vcr in 1989, taped every kids film over the Xmas holidays, then we just watched those tapes over and over again until the late 90s. so this is my most-watched cartoon character

due similar to circumstances, the 1975 animated film 'Tubby the Tuba' was one of the films I watched most often as a child

https://www.justwatch.com/images/backdrop/186287569/s640/tubby-the-tuba-1975

It was produced by the New York Institute of Technology and was apparently going to be the first animated film to be made with computer graphics, but ending up being with traditional hand-drawn animation

one thing about the continuation of the Peter Lorre voice as stock 'type' cartoon voice even after Lorre himself was no longer a big cultural figure is that some versions of the voice seem to drift into a Spanish/Mexican accent? I remember assuming that the WB version of Lorre was supposed to be Mexican. I guess this started as an unintentional side-effect of exaggerating Lorre's voice, but then maybe became 'canon' over the years? Ren from Ren and Stimpty being a Chihuahua maybe also coloured my thinking on this

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BwskLRVIQAAL-eb.jpg

would the actual Peter Lorre's accent have been read by most US audiences as 'generic sinister foreigner' at the time of his stardom, rather than anything more specific?

Here's a UK-centric one, one of the late period Cosgrove Hall characters that doesn't seem to've stuck in the collective pop cultural memory

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpmsJfYmBy8

Watching the intro now it seems like a knock-off of the sixties telefantasy show Adam Adamant Lives.

would the actual Peter Lorre's accent have been read by most US audiences as 'generic sinister foreigner' at the time of his stardom, rather than anything more specific?

I would think so, yes - to whatever extent the US has a stereotype for "Hungarian accent" I don't think his fits...dunno if he was a native German speaker (being part of the Austro Hungarian empire), but it certainly doesn't sound like a German accent, either. Guy played Mr.Moto and "Joel Cairo", I think mysterious unplaceable foreigner was v much his brief. Could tie this into anti-semitic fears of rootless cosmopolitaness too, tho I'm not sure if contemporary audiences were much aware that he was Jewish.

It's that sort of cringing, yet somehow charming villainy that is unique to Peter Lorre.

My first thought watching Joel Cairo in The Maltese Falcon long ago: "Ren?"

when lorre arrived in hollywood he made his mark as cairo alongside bogart, claude rains and sydney greenstreet and went on to play opposite greenstreet as a sinister semi-comedy duo in a long run of thrillers, which definitely became a thing at the time (= wartime) -- so yes i think his accent *was* associated with the character he was tending to play, which was very recognisable even when the movies are not all them well known nowadays. a couple of them are based on eric ambler novels, which i think sets the tone of murky european intrigue full of dodgy figures of uncertain background (bcz e.g. they were lying abt lol)

he (understandably) hated playing mr moto

"You despise me, don't you?"

What a delivery.

(he'd already made a rather different mark back in europe, as a brechtian actor and also in like m and dr mabuse and such… )

I'm always seeing Roger Delgado pop up on Talking Pictures TV playing villains of various different ethnic backgrounds, pretty much anything other than white northern european or sub-saharan african, I suppose that used to be a whole niche for certain actors

I remember this from my childhood. Why the BBC thought that The Harlem Globetrotters would go down well in football mad UK who knows.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xO_dWmrJV_U

xp actually he would occasionally play evil Germans, so some northern europeans as well

i loved the harlem globetrotters cartoon so rhe bbc were correct (to cater to me)

one thing about the continuation of the Peter Lorre voice as stock 'type' cartoon voice even after Lorre himself was no longer a big cultural figure is that some versions of the voice seem to drift into a Spanish/Mexican accent? I remember assuming that the WB version of Lorre was supposed to be Mexican. I guess this started as an unintentional side-effect of exaggerating Lorre's voice, but then maybe became 'canon' over the years? Ren from Ren and Stimpty being a Chihuahua maybe also coloured my thinking on this

Pretty sure the character of "Señor Ugarte" was meant to be Spanish

You eediot!

fans of Under the Volcano will know this reference:

https://www.benitomovieposter.com/catalog/images/movieposter/96959.jpg

he plays "julius o'hara" in beat the devil, he had great range

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CuIJUvz5hvI

It walks, talks, and philosophizes.

Love the Peter Lorre imo done by The Firesign Theatre.

I love the episode of the Jack Benny Program where Lorre plays an escaped serial killer who gets plastic surgery to look like Benny and they restart the show half-way through with Benny-playing-Lorre-playing-a-seral-killer re-doing Benny's opening monologue

Lorre was also the original Le Chiffre, and thus the original Bond villain. Granted, he was facing off against JIMMY Bond but.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztsXWp0nj2c

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casino_Royale_(Climax!)

(And happily the still there captures him in mid-eyebrow arch.)

Pepe le Pew was based on Charles Boyer in Algiers, both actor and film probably less well-known than the cartoon character these days (although there a few articles recently about Pepe being 'cancelled' due to wokeness, so maybe that one has reached the end of the line)

maybe Gaslight is better remembered these days because of 'gaslighting' becoming a widely used phrase? And I think The Earrings of Madame de… was on the new Sight and Sound list? Maybe it's time to buy stock in Charles Boyer

Hanna-Barbera + Mike Curb + op-art psychedelia = Cattanooga Cats

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyP-x0WCseI

The Ant And The Aardvark (John Byner does both voices w/the aardvark as Jackie Mason and the ant as Dean Martin)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozoVhCk4T-o

40 minutes of Hanna-Barbera opening themes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8RHVd5dg_A

Slightly off-topic, but there were two barely-remembered cartoons that I held as cherished memories. As an adult, I went looking for them and discovered that they weren't cartoons - just 30-second toy commercials with brief animation in them!

Battle Beasts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3N4yzJbLmTY

Battle Beasts were part of the Transformers cartoon universe, but as far as I can tell, only on episodes aired in Japan.

Starriors

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbTFW24cvfs

Starrior figures came with mini comic books, which explains my continued attachment to the characters.

On the other hand, I did not know that construction set toys Robotix had a cartoon series attached to it. I had boxes full of these toys and would have watched it if I had known about it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9zvRNKs9Z2M

I watched all these commercials, remember every second.

My neighbors had a Robotix set, but I don't remember ever seeing it out of the box. Up on the shelf, it looked intimidatingly complex and grown-up to 6-year-old me, like my brother's Lego Technics. I wish Capsela had been blessed with a crappy tie-in cartoon...

snap, I remember the Centurions!

who remembers THIS motherfucker? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spartakus_and_the_Sun_Beneath_the_Sea

Nickelodeon showed it briefly in the 80s. I was too young to understand what the fuck was going on.

I should sit down and watch a little Spartakus sometime and see how familiar it really is. The striking character designs and their turtle spaceship definitely got into my imagination as a very young child, but it was never "my" show the way the similarly underappreciated and vibey Mysterious Cities of Gold was.

i collected battle beasts, big fan of those toys. Also kinnikuman aka M.U.S.C.L.E.!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPfqyGtKcVo

pole position is a garbage show but oh that theme song
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQXqHNHPLHI

has Dragon's Lair, the cartoon adaptation (not by Bluth) of the video game by Bluth shown up here?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHug7aOzK9k

ayyyyy how could i forget the players in the complex drama that is SPIRAL ZONE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvHxhUyPiq4

Also, Little Boss from The Adventures of T-Rex
http://https%3A//i.imgur.com/J5cS0U1.png

totally cursed theme song btw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lA4o6WhJO-A

oh here:
http://imgur.com/J5cS0U1

My kids really liked this one, which has sunk into total obscurity:

Hot Wheels AcceleRacers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Wheels:_AcceleRacers

Jeez: LITTLE BOSS
http://imgur.com/qXLkMQF

it's a conspiracy

You will die in seven days

Lorre was also the original Le Chiffre, and thus the original Bond villain.

The mention of Andy Panda reminded me of his sidekick Kyrre Kylling, whom I have now googled was called Charlie Chicken in the original:

http://images.comiccollectorlive.com/covers/899/89956772-dcbd-4fb4-abaa-e45f0e85f30c.jpg

Hm image fail, how about this?

https://d1466nnw0ex81e.cloudfront.net/n_iv/600/886251.jpg

if comics are eligible here, I just remembered Wendy The Good Witch

ZIV ZULANDER from The Bots Master, a show where the details of the convoluted premise are conveyed at great speed through the medium of incomprehensible rapping robots.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__m8Q-zRdEA

ayyyyy how could i forget the players in the complex drama that is SPIRAL ZONE

I was obsessed with this cartoon in eighth grade. The premise was intriguing; the results were closer to G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero meets KISS.

My kids really liked this one, which has sunk into total obscurity:

Hot Wheels AcceleRacers

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_Wheels:_AcceleRacers

― immodesty blaise (jimbeaux), Saturday, January 7, 2023 4:00 PM (two days ago) bookmarkflaglink

Since we're bringing up stuff from our kids' era, here are a few from the mid-to-late 2000s

Growing Up Creepie - Orphaned girl is adopted by a family of insects.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDsMxXfMTSE

Grossology - Brother and sister superhero duo fight crimes related to "gross" science topics. Main villain was named Lance Boil.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POSp3Sz8s-Y

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/villains/images/8/85/File.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130831033958

Tutenstein - King Tut is resurrected in modern times. He lives in a museum and has adventures with a young girl and her cat. This one is getting a reboot soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wmzRZzGRtc

Three Delivery - Three orphans (again) become delivery bicyclists for a Chinese restaurant and have to fight an evil sorcerer.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYkcW_9YoFU

Tutenstein I do recall!

https://blog.duolingo.com/world-character-visemes/

La Petite Parade was a one-off and I never quite forgot it but I don’t know what other threads it works on so here it is.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=orX8bDXr28k

a fire-breathing dragonfly (voiced by Frank Welker impersonating Andy Kaufman)

assume 'impersonating Andy Kaufman' means doing the Latka from Taxi voice, but I'd like to imagine that the dragonfly sounded like Kaufman did when he was being interviewed on Letterman or something

i grew up in the absolute pits of saturday morning cartoons. there was "turbo teen". he was a teenager who turned into a car! it was awful. and there was "galaxy high", which was a high school, in _space_! it was also terrible. later some of the hanna barbera shows showed up on the usa cartoon express, and i hated them, hated the snorks and jabberjaw, but "turbo teen" and "galaxy high" were probably worse. have i mentioned this before? i didn't read the whole thread, i don't know if i've posted here before or not.

rushomancy, I wanted to be Turbo Teen. I would pretend to turn into a car and then my hands would become the wheels just like his. And then I wouldn't go anywhere because my hands did not actually become wheels. A little disappointing, but those are the things you learn when you're 5 or whatever.

I don't remember Galaxy High, but when I google image searched it, one of the suggested searches was for Galaxy High Deviant Art, which I'm absolutely never gonna click on.

xxp sadly no it was just the Latka voice

I had never heard of this character until today. His transformation is terrifying.

https://media.tenor.com/K0_SjsZJzWoAAAAd/turbo-teen-transformation.gif

it really is, i don't think i really appreciated the disturbing body horror aspects of "turbo teen" when i was a kid

ok, i looked it up, turns out it was one of those shows where they animated the transformation differently every time... before the time when animators realized when you could save money by just repeating the same transformation sequence every time. (cutie honey also had a unique transformation sequence every time.) also the show _was_ on the usa cartoon express. oh and of course it's creepy, _jack kirby_ designed it. i mean y'all have seen his '70s comics, i take it.

oh and also the youtube channel hosting all of the circulating turbo teen episodes, if you look at all of his other videos, he seems to seriously believe that the "mandela effect" is evidence that we're all being shunted into an alternate reality or that CERN is using time-travel experiments to change reality, and also that jesus is _definitely_ coming back. i liked this better when it was philip k. dick. hell, i liked it better when it was steins;gate, even though i had to stop watching that show when the lead character went on a ludicrously over the top transphobic rant in episode 2 or 3.

rushomancy, I wanted to be Turbo Teen. I would pretend to turn into a car and then my hands would become the wheels just like his. And then I wouldn't go anywhere because my hands did not actually become wheels. A little disappointing, but those are the things you learn when you're 5 or whatever.

― peace, man

it always makes me feel a little sad when i hear stories like that. i mean i know wanting to be a car when you're five isn't necessarily the same as me being trans. it still makes me sad, though. like i was told as a kid that what i wanted was as ridiculous as, like, wanting to be a car or a dinosaur or something like that... like, imagine if somebody told you oh actually you know what, it turns out you _can_ be a car after all? i guess in practical terms you'd just say "oh well i don't want to be a car anymore", i guess that's the difference.

somewhere in me there's a five year old kid who is constantly just saying "I GET TO BE A GIRL? NO WAY! THAT'S SO COOL!" to me, like, all the fucking time. it makes me so happy.

sometimes i hear transphobes say stuff like "well, _i_ wanted to be a dinosaur when i was 5, is that the future the left wants?", like it's some incredible mic-drop moment, and i've never understood that. i'd like to live in a world where people who wanted to could become cars or dinosaurs or whatever. if being a car or a dinosaur makes them as happy as being a woman makes me. i don't understand why some people think that would be a bad thing.

<3, Kate

^^^

Jim Woodring on Turbo Teen.

Then I worked on one of the masterpieces of shit — it was called Turbo Teen, about a guy who turned into a car. Not just any car, it was a big muscle car. And the people who wrote that show were such jackasses that ... I remember there was one character who was dancing at a dance in one scene, and this guy called out, “Get it down, Jack!” — the writer evidently couldn't quite remember if it was “Get it on” or “Get down,” and then to just give this ‘80s show an authentic '50s touch, “Jack!” It was just so sad!

Also:

sometimes i hear transphobes say stuff like "well, _i_ wanted to be a dinosaur when i was 5, is that the future the left wants?", like it's some incredible mic-drop moment, and i've never understood that. i'd like to live in a world where people who wanted to could become cars or dinosaurs or whatever. if being a car or a dinosaur makes them as happy as being a woman makes me. i don't understand why some people think that would be a bad thing.

This is what I always find weird whenever I see one of those made-up “Schools are being FORCED to put LITTER BOXES in classrooms for students who identify as CATS!” posts. All I can think is,that actually would be kind of awesome. Like, if I was a kid, I would *want* to be friends with the kid who considered themselves a cat! At the very least, it would break up the monotony of the school day.

somewhere on ilx i THOUGHT i began a thread asking for examples of unheralded craft continuity w/i pop artforms:

of which my prize example was/is the use of peter lorre's voice patterns as a signifier of squat cowardly villainy within the cartoon world -- viz a notion passed down by cartoon voice artists long years after anyone in the viewership (originally grown-ups, now children) can possibly have known who peter lorre ever was

i: i can't now find this thread or subthread (and anyway if i started it at all iirc no one understood what i was asking for) (this is often the case lol)
ii: the list of voice artists who did droopy is absurdly long and extends across eight decades so he probably wins (when was the last *new* peter lorre impression u heard in a cartoon)

― mark s, Monday, 19 December 2022 12:18 (two years ago) bookmarkflaglink

^^adding to this something presumably extremely heralded to all stooges fans (= therefore not to me): dr zoidberg's shrill bubbly cry when he runs about in futurama is totally from the stooges, for connoisseurs an hommage but for normies just a handily funny noise

There's been a lot of talk in millenial geek circles around things like the Peter Lorre voice - we grew up with a) cartoons that stemmed from the classic Hollywood era and referenced them, b) then current stuff whose creators felt it was totally normal to reference popcult from decades before their audience was born (Animaniacs is cited as a prime example, the UK Sonic The Hedgehog had recurring villains modeled on the Marx Brothers called the Marxio Brothers, also as a sideswipe against a certain plumber...Saved By The Bell is frequently cited as a portrayal of 90's teens that seems stuck in the 50's half of the time) and c) terrestrial TV still being an important thing and old movies still playing on there, so you could eventually stumble upon Peter Lorre or Edward G Robinson.

I don't think kids now will receive that sort of passive education - they might very well get into old stuff, and those that do will easily gain advanced expert knowledge of whatever they're into that we could only have dreamed of, but it can only come from active interest, it won't be the sort of osmosis we experienced.

Peter Lorre's actually in quite a few Warner Bros cartoons, of course.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BwskLRVIQAAL-eb.jpg

it can only come from active interest, it won't be the sort of osmosis we experienced.

is Family Guy still popular?

Good question! I seem to remember a semi ironic, semi nostalgic revival from the zoomers a few years ago?

The Simpsons obv also responsible for some surprising millenial knowledge - Paint Your Wagon! - but unlike Animaniacs et al it and Family Guy weren't explicitly aimed at kids.

I see Kate has already mentioned Galaxy High, which I remember from early 90s along with Bucky O'Hare. Also some Canadian thing called Space Baby/ Fantastic Max. Mighty Mouse and Sharky & George were weekend staples too.

My kid has a friend called M@xi and I spend a LOT of my time with the M@xi's World theme tune in my head.

I see Kate has already mentioned Galaxy High, which I remember from early 90s along with Bucky O'Hare. Also some Canadian thing called Space Baby/ Fantastic Max. Mighty Mouse and Sharky & George were weekend staples too.

― kinder

obscure cartoon characters are still kind of a special interest of mine. i think i started because a lot of gen x nostalgia just pissed me off. "hey remember thundercats?" yeah, i do, it fucking sucked, i watched because there was nothing better on TV. i had a shitty, awful childhood, and "thundercats" wasn't the reason, but it sure didn't do anything to make things better. i mean don't get me wrong if someone loves thundercats, cool, great, happy for you, i just don't have any nostalgic fondness for any of this stuff.

a friend of mine was talking about how great "avatar: the last airbender" was on, that it came out when she was six. when i was six? when i was six the cartoons were shit like "gilligan's planet". i was lucky enough to have "star blazers", it was miles better than anything else, and it's _still_ worse than basically any of the anime kids born a decade after me got. even with a 4kids dub.

i came across a show... i can't remember where, i came across a show called "sport billy". he was good at sports! as in, he was literally an alien whose superpower was that he was good at sports! he had a magic gym bag called the "omni-sack", from which he could take any piece of sporting equipment he could possibly want! this was an adaptation of a european comic for the european market, in fairness. it just ran as filler in the US. the whole series was written by paul dini! some of it might have been good? i tried watching dini's "gilligan's planet" episode and it was extremely dire. on the other hand, i watched the lovecraft pastiche he wrote for the third season of "transformers" and it was really good! by the standards of mid-1980s kids cartoons.

which is to say JESUS SHE HAD "AVATAR: THE LAST AIRBENDER" WHEN SHE WAS SIX? jesus CHRIST i had "the robonic stooges".

-

I don't think kids now will receive that sort of passive education - they might very well get into old stuff, and those that do will easily gain advanced expert knowledge of whatever they're into that we could only have dreamed of, but it can only come from active interest, it won't be the sort of osmosis we experienced.

― a ZX spectrum is haunting Europe (Daniel_Rf)

i do think cultural osmosis has significance beyond peter lorre impressions. i was reading today about the transformers cartoon (the fan hypothesis that the "transformers" sound effect is derived from DEVO's "auto modown" is still neither confirmed nor debunked; it doesn't seem terribly likely given the obscurity of the "mechanical man" EP but a lot of the line came out of marvel comics, so i can't say it's impossible...)

sorry, i was reading today about the transformers cartoon and why casey kasem stopped working on it... it seems that one of the writers had the brilliant idea for a satire on libya with the nation in question called "carbombya"... kasem (who happened to have been born to lebanese immigrants) rightfully pointed out the portrayal was racist as fuck. well, the episode aired and kasem stopped working with the show. even when i did gain stuff through osmosis... i mean it's not like i knew who peter lorre was or anything!

I remember making Jimmy Hoffa jokes based on my readings of Bloom County, only learning who he was years later.

sorry, i was reading today about the transformers cartoon and why casey kasem stopped working on it... it seems that one of the writers had the brilliant idea for a satire on libya with the nation in question called "carbombya"... kasem (who happened to have been born to lebanese immigrants) rightfully pointed out the portrayal was racist as fuck. well, the episode aired and kasem stopped working with the show. even when i did gain stuff through osmosis... i mean it's not like i knew who peter lorre was or anything!

Well I don't think these things are comparable! Cultural values, including bigotries, continue to be transmitted through the entertainment kids consume, that kind of osmosis is I think always going to happen.

xp I remember Sport Billy and Sport Lilly! They had a spaceship. They were good at sports, but they were also good sports, that was the entire premise as I recall.

I also have fond memories of The Mighty Heroes- wow that was created by Ralph Bakshi, also I guess it only ran for one season. Strong Man, Rope Man, Tornado Man, Cuckoo Man, and Diaper Man!

xp I remember Sport Billy and Sport Lilly! They had a spaceship. They were good at sports, but they were also good sports, that was the entire premise as I recall.

kinda reminds me of the Golden Age superhero Mister Terrific, whose literal superpower is that he was good at everything. i think he wore a shirt that literally said "fair play" on it. that kind of thing annoys the piss out of me, tbh - a guy who's literally better than you at everything admonishing you to "play fair". maybe i'm not the target audience. my superpower is that i'm _bad_ at every sport, which is doubly galling since people like me are supposed to have such incredible genetic advantages that we're banned from competing in most of them. i didn't need to be pushed into "playing fair", i needed to be pushed into playing instead of wandering off trying to find interesting stones.

now that i'm looking him up, though, mister terrific is more interesting than i remember. a lot of these golden age folks... he first appeared in Sensation Comics #1, the same issue Wonder Woman debuted in. admittedly i don't find mister terrific quite as compelling as wonder woman, a superhero whose initial stories were basically themed around sapphic bondage. that said, his origin is him quite literally trying to kill himself because he's accomplished everything he ever wanted to accomplish. kinda reminds me of candy darling's famous final letter... "Unfortunately before my death I had no desire left for life ... I am just so bored by everything. You might say bored to death." would i love to live in a universe where candy darling recovered from her lymphoma and went on to form a "fair play club" to teach the dolls how to play well with others? hell fucking yes.

I also have fond memories of The Mighty Heroes- wow that was created by Ralph Bakshi, also I guess it only ran for one season. Strong Man, Rope Man, Tornado Man, Cuckoo Man, and Diaper Man!

― epistantophus

"diaper man" certainly sounds like a ralph bakshi creation. definitely one for the "superhero based on a barely-disguised sexual fetish" books. some people might suspect rope man as well, but look, the standards are _pretty high_ when it comes to that particular category. a guy named "rope man" is never going to compete with grimbor the chainsman.

This is what I always find weird whenever I see one of those made-up “Schools are being FORCED to put LITTER BOXES in classrooms for students who identify as CATS!” posts. All I can think is,that actually would be kind of awesome. Like, if I was a kid, I would *want* to be friends with the kid who considered themselves a cat! At the very least, it would break up the monotony of the school day.

― gjoon1, Thursday, October 26, 2023

2025 update: ehhhhh, it's complicated. i've run into an increasing number of folks who... nobody uses litterboxes in public at least, but yeah there are a number of folks who literally don't use human language. to me it comes across as some variety of neurodiversity (i've personally had bouts of selective mutism before) combined with just, like... shell-shock. thinking about it i think there is a difference between "shell shock" and "PTSD". people get shell shock when they're in the shit. it's not an acute thing, it's a chronic thing. sometimes trying to continue to be, like, a _human being_ through all this drives me fucking crazy. i know those pins used to say "i wasn't recruited, i enlisted", but i didn't actually sign up for this shit. i just couldn't keep pretending to be a dude any longer. so i don't blame anybody who, the way they survive is by _not_ being human. at the same time, i can't say it's entirely dissimilar to those stories i used to here of people locked in asylums who would just start barking like dogs. it's not a matter of being "crazy", it's more like what holly anderson wrote in "mica" - "why mix modes? if you feel like a patient, why not dress like one?"

i know that's dark. i'm sorry. i genuinely wish i could tell you it's just some weird sexual fetish like the bigots keep saying it is. we're doing our best, and i know y'all are too. much love.

there were three bears who drove a dump truck. there may have been space travel. it was not the hair bear bunch 🤷‍♂️

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CB_Bears

?

wowzers! thank you!

i remember using 'Sport Billy' as an insult whilst at school (maybe copied from someone else)

I was a big childhood fan of "The New Shmoo" by Hannah-Barbera (my mother named a whole recipe of bread "Shmoo bread" because the rolled out dough was blob-shaped) and the one that no one else ever remembers, Jana of the Jungle (my fave because I wanted to be an Amazon).

There were also a bunch of "space teen superhero" shows around the same time, I think! I def watched Space Ghost, but also the SilverHawks, The Herculoids, and more. H-B was busy in in the '80s what can I say.

Wonder twin powers, activate.

so i was watching the new lily alexandre video about why the simpsons and legos and emoji are yellow

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vio9Yr0x4YY

and at some point she lists off a bunch of '80s cartoons: foofur, spiral zone, adventures of the gummi bears, rubik the amazing cube, the california raisins show, wolf rock tv, dink the little dinosaur, alf tales, and bigfoot and the muscle machines

ok first off "adventures of the gummi bears" was the best cartoon on tv when it started airing, without it we wouldn't have had the disney afternoon, no way does it belong in the same category as rubik the fucking amazing cube

second off how did i not know wolfman jack had his own saturday morning cartoon? of course immediately said "god i have to watch this" but sadly it is lost media. :(

somebody actually found an episode

no shit, god, i clearly need to spend more time on the lost media wiki forums or something

Amazing

For a while I thought it must be a false memory implanted by The Groovie Goolies.

Wolfie makes an appearance about one minute in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-upR4C3_xbM