I hope you guys appreciate this thread. Like I tell my wife, I'm giving it away for free--giggidy. Sadly, her response is similar. Normally you'd have to buy a book or something for all this nostalgia. Google search at the very least. But here, I give it away now.
"Somewhere in a lonely hotel room, there's a guy starting to realize that eternal fate has turned its back on him. It's 2 AM."
Cartoon #15 began the same way as many others, as characters in greeting cards. Seriously. Look up Strawberry Shortcake and the Care Bears. Same story for these eponymous critters...
The Shirt Tales began as cuddly characters adorning Hallmark Greetings cards in 1980. Aw, so precious.
Two years later the Shirt Tales came to Saturday Mornings on NBC. Starring Tyg Tiger, Ric Raccoon, Digger Mole, Pammy Panda, and Bogey Orangutan (who sounded just like Humphrey Bogart) who lived in Big Tree Park and battled crime in Mid City (must be west of Big City--BF) in their Super Sonic Transport Car while evading being discovered by the park attendant Mr. Dinkel (who sounded an awful lot like Paul Lynde, or at least like Herb Vigran doing his best Paul Lynde). The Shirt Tales could flash words on their shirts that would tell each other what they were thinking or feeling, and in season two they would also all turn red (the shirts, not the animals) when they called out like the Thing, "It's Shirt Tales Time" and then the **** would hit the proverbial fan (though we never actually saw Bogey fling his **** it's safe to assume he did because he's an ape and that's what they do. Dinkel, indeed). So the Shirt Tales could afford high tech shirts and a transforming flying machine but because they're anthropomorphic animals pants are apparently a bridge too far.
Season two brought a new, more verbose theme song and a new character in the form of tiny Kip Kangaroo (voiced by Nancy Cartwright).
No explanation or origin was ever given, she was just suddenly in the opening credits and in every episode as if she'd always been around. In a way she was the opposite of Tiger the Dog (see the Brady Bunch). Marty punched Biff in 1955 and suddenly there's a kangaroo on the Shirt Tales. But it was the 80's and everyone loved the Aussies--they're like Canadians but without the old shoes left in mall parking lots (love ya, Acid!). Men at Work were singing about vegemite sandwhiches (blech!) while Paul Hogan was differentiating between knives. Hell, the X-men died and went to the Outback (the sparse area of Australian bush, not the steakhouse franchise--Bob). So did Tom Selleck. Crikey, at least Wolverine felt back at home there, mate.
See, even Marvel Productions thought Australians and Canadians were basically the same, just one puts gross black gloop on sandwhiches while the other pours gravy & cheese curds all over french fries, different, but equally disgusting. Speaking of pants, C'mon, Cain, just because the Gem of Cyttorak doesn't give you pants it doesn't mean you can't make a pit stop at the local Hills in Westchester and get some dungarees.
Hmmmmmm....?
But why suddenly add an extra character without explanation?
Put a sock in it, Roy. Ew, no, not like that. Gross. Billy's dancing with himself again.
The Shirt Tales sort of had a third season, well, really, just CBS bought the rights and lazily aired reruns as part of their Saturday morning lineup (still better than the Biskitts. But that lasted only a year and then the Shirt Tales would have to join the cancelled cartoon cavalcade on the USA Cartoon Express. They again found life in the early years of the Cartoon Network but now they're too busy re-airing shows from five years ago to air a bunch of great 80's cartoons. But I'm not angry.
But you can buy the complete series on DVD. But you won't. You're probably not even reading this. I'd be surprised if anyone got this far. Go on, laugh at me. All the views are probably just bots and foreign spammers who clicked on the wrong section instead of the LEGO section where all they're spam normally goes for approval (trust me). What am I doing with my life?
Are you there? It's me, Margaret, er Packerbacker 180...
I buried Paul. Coo coo kachu.
"Somewhere in a lonely hotel room, there's a guy starting to realize that eternal fate has turned its back on him. It's 2 AM."
Blackstar and Thundarr the Barbarian is another cartoon series that has a special place in my heart from Saturday morning cartoons... I really wish someone would make a figure line on these guys
Thundarr was a great show. If you couldn't tell by my Ookla the Mok avatar, I was a fan. I'd buy figures in a heartbeat. Blackstar for some reason was ashow I never saw. I was planning on doing Thundarr in my next go around.
"Somewhere in a lonely hotel room, there's a guy starting to realize that eternal fate has turned its back on him. It's 2 AM."
You want to talk about the Butterfly Effect and Marty McFly, I give to you cartoon #16...
As it is very promptly shown in the cartoon intro, the title of the cartoon is clearly Dastardy and Muttley in Their Flying Machine, and the show flew it's way onto Saturday mornings in the Fall of 1969 as a spinoff of Wacky Races (everyone loves Wacky Races, yes?). The premise is pretty simple, during a "war" Dastardly and crew are tasked by the "general" to stop the pigeon, Yankee Doodle Pigeon from delivering top secret messages to the opposing army, thus the repeated musical refrain intro of "stop the pigeon".
Here's the kicker, I swear to god and all that's holy they sang "catch the piegeon" in the intro and that the show was actually called, "Catch the Pigeon". Now, when I was a kid, at the local video store this VHS was a constant grab amongst me and my cousins and we watched it ad infinitum. I'm actually surprised we didn't wear the tape out at some point and doomed it out of circulation. So, yeah, it's safe to say I watched this show a ton. And for years after, even into adulthood, at random moments (maybe we were driving through a parking lot and there were some pigeons around, or in a park per se, or maybe I was just chasing my kids, I would just start singing, "catch the pigeon...catch the pigeon...catch the pigeon...NOW!" Crazy? Maybe, but you have to admit the intro is quite catchy. Now, I was probably 9 or 10 so reading VHS boxes wasn't as likely as looking at the pretty animations on the cover to decide which to choose, so I can't confirm what the title on the VHS case slip may've been, but darn it, it probably said Catch the Pigeon.
Then one day while shootin' some b-ball outside of the school (not really--W.Smith) I did a google search for "catch the pigeon" and I was startled to find it had all been a lie. Maybe I was just remembering it wrong? Maybe it had just been so long I confused the lyrics? Or maybe, and this is much more likely, someone took a DeLorean back in time, punched a bully in 1955, and unkowingly altered the timeline forevermore so that "catch the pigeion" became "stop the pigeon". Totes prob, no?
But maybe I'm just crazy. Maybe you're crazy. Maybe we're crazy. Probably.
"This is freaking me out. In my mind it's never been anything but 'catch'."
"I thought it was catch. Just asked my dad what the show with dick dastardly was called that wasn't wacky races, he said 'catch the pigeon'. then i told him about the mandela effect and he's mind blown!"
So what the hell is going on? Aliens, probably. It just might be time to chew bubble gum and kick ass. Where's my Double Bubble gum? Dubble? Ah, hell, not the gum, too. They got to the gum.
The Mass Memory Discrepancy Effect, or more commonly known now as The Mandela effect is a phenomenon where a large group of people remembers an event differently from how it occurred. The Mandela effect was first described in relation to Fiona Broome, who believed that former South African President Nelson Mandela died in prison during the 1980s. And she wasn't alone. Problem, was Nelson Mandela was released from prison in February of 1990.
So just what's going on, Brain? Narf.
This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill – the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill – you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Remember, all I'm offering is the truth – nothing more.
Well...okay...
It's Sex and the City not Sex in the City Most former kids remember Mr. Rodgers singing “it’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood” but the lyric actually goes “it’s a beautiful day in this neighborhood.” It's Froot Loops not Fruit Loops and Cocoa Puffs not Coco Puffs (unless your mom bought the generic brand) It's the Berenstain Bears not Berenstein.
Have I blown you're mind yet?
Google the Mandela Effect, there's so many more instances out there.
But enough with the science mumbo jumbo, Mr. Wizard. Catch the Pigeon (I'm still gonna call it that) was pretty simple. The show was broken up into two separate episodes in which the Vulture Squadron attempted various ways to stop, er, catch...CATCH! (dammit...now they got me doing it!) the pigeon that would fail so spectacularly it would make Wile E. Coyote, Super Genius, jealous. And inevtably we would get that great Don Messick Muttley laugh:
Curiously enough, the show only had two voice actors Don Messick who voiced Muttley, Klunk and Zilly, while Paul Winchell voiced Richard Milhouse Dastardly (as his full name was revealed in another great HB 80s cartoon, Yogi's Treasure Hunt).
There was also a very brief segment called Maginficent Muttley where Muttley imagines himself in various situations a la a Walter Mitty type character (that's a literary character--Bob).
So go watch Catch the Pigeon, but if you're looking for it you should probably search for Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines because that's what it's allegedly called. In this timeline, at least.
Finkle is Einhorn. Einhorn is Finkle.
"Somewhere in a lonely hotel room, there's a guy starting to realize that eternal fate has turned its back on him. It's 2 AM."
The 17th, and final cartoon on my original list was...
The Littles ran on ABC from '83-'85. I wouldn't say it was a show I went out of my way to watch, but it was always on later in the morning or even noon, so sometimes there wasn't much else on.
The family consisted of Frank and Helen Little, but mostly centered around their kids, Lucy and Tom, and Grandpa and their cousin Dinky.
I knew a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy in college whose nickname with the ladies was Dinky Little. That's totally not me. And I totally didn't just make that up. You know what the ladies called me? They didn't. I was really lonely. Mail order brides, kids. Google it. Me love you long time.
That wasn't the ceiling leaking, those were my tears.
The Littles was actaully one of the first cartoons produced by DiC (along with Inspector Gadgets and Heathcliff0 which were shows I actually did enjoy) and was based on a children's book. The Littles were pretty much like Fraggles, and their episodes often relied upon them venturing out into the larger world. I remember the show being a bit preachy in it's messages, where even as a kid it wasn't the most exciting show to watch. It wasn't beat you over the head like Davey & Goliath, but at the same time, it wasn't a show that grabbed my attention even of characters like Dinky Little were at times amusing.
But hey, the show was big enough to have two movies made from it that I absolutely don't remember at all. But even to this day, I still remember the theme, so I guess there's that. I wish I could say more about it, or write a bunch of babble, but nothing special has struck me this time.
Sorry if I let you down. I'll go stand in the corner now.
Wow, 17 shows. Should I stop now?
"Somewhere in a lonely hotel room, there's a guy starting to realize that eternal fate has turned its back on him. It's 2 AM."
Anyone actually reading these? Anyone enjoying them? Am I just talking to myself? Anyone? I'f you'd like more drop a post (just not on you're toes--ouch!)
"Somewhere in a lonely hotel room, there's a guy starting to realize that eternal fate has turned its back on him. It's 2 AM."
