Stay Tooned!!!--The End!?????

[packerbacker180]

Yeah, Elmyra had the same kind of dopey face as Elmer, and MM had a similar voice inflection as Yosemite Sam. I wish those shows were on reruns somewhere on TV. I'd still watch them. I'll have a "short" piece on cartoon 23 tomorrow! Stay tuned...

[AcidDragon]

Yeah. I remember they had this Justice League spoof called the Just Us League that Batduck and Decoy tried to join and they couldn't get in because they had no super powers. Then Wex Wuthor (I think that's what they called Montana Max as Lex) went to the League to steal their powers and when he went to take Batduck's powers, he became weak and depowered.

[packerbacker180]

But Tiny Toons lied. Kind of.

Thanks to the lyrics, I always thought that Looney Tunes debuted in 1933 ("Our teaching staffs been getting laughs..."), but that's only sort of correct. In 1929, Warner Bros. wanted to compete with Walt Disney and his Silly Symphonies. WB made a deal with Leon Schelisinger to produce cartoons for them and he hired Rudolf Ising and Hugh Harman to produce them. The first Looney Tune Sinkin' in the Bathtub debuted in 1930 starring Bosko the kid.



In 1933 Harman and Ising left Warner Bros. over a budget dispute and took the rights to all the characters they had created with them. Thus, in 1933 the world was introduced to Buddy and Schlesinger brought in a Murderers Row of new directors including Tex Avery, Friz Freleng and Bob Clampett.



Porky Pig didn't debuted until 1935. Daffy Duck in 1938. And the big guy, Bugs Bunny 1940.

Buddy would again appear in the origin of the Animaniacs, but that lists the first Buddy cartoon as 1929 so it kind of makes you wonder if there's still some lingering resentment at WB over the 1929-33 product. Or maybe 1933 just rhymed?



So as you can see, 1933 isn't exactly correct. Class dismissed.

[AcidDragon]

Great history lesson!

[packerbacker180]

When there was a Warner Bros. Store in the malls back in the day I had gotten a WB Trivial Pursuit game. Sadly, no one likes to play trivia with me anymore. Sad face.

[packerbacker180]

While Mr. T was big, the star of titular cartoon #23, was not...



Inch High, Private Eye debuted on NBC in the fall of 1973, and would have a short run of sorts lasting only until December of that same year. Believing it could help him in his detective career, Inch High (apparently named such by his parents in the greatest bit of foresight in human history--I hope they played the lotto) took an experimental shrinking poition that shrunk him to a mere inch (I often use the same excuse to less success).

Along with his niece, Lori, his hulky not-so-bright good ol' boy southern assistant, Gator, and their erroneosuly named cowardly St. Bernard, Braveheart, Inch High worked for the Finkerton Detective Agency for Mr. Finkerton (voiced by John Stephenson and sounding exactly like Mr. Peevly, a character he voiced a couple years prior in Help! It's the Hair Bear Bunch--a real show, I assure you) and Mrs. Finkerton (voiced by Wilma Flinstoen herself, Jean Vander Pyl). The show would often use sight and height gags such as Inch travelling through a gutter, hiding in a phonebook (what's a phonebook?), hiding in food, drawers, etc.



Like many clumsy detectives, Inch would often stumble his way into solving crimes or was often helped by his much more intelligent niece, who used gadgets such as her makeup case phone (it was still the early 70s, Betty). Come to think of it, how did she know it ws Uncle Inch calling in that intro? Inch was voiced by Leonard Weinrib to sound a bit like Maxwell Smart, the bumbling star of the recently cancelled Get Smart! tv show. You'd have to imagine that coming up with new ways for Inch to infiltrate criminals was a tall order after a while.



Even though Inch High, Private Eye never quite reached the same heights as other Hanna-Barbera shows, it's short run did find renewed life aboard the USA Cartoon Express in the 80s, and again in the 90's as a part of the newly launched Cartoon Network.



Later on, Inch High would again appear on the Cartoon Network in an episode of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, in which he sought to sue the Finkerton's for wrongful termination and height discrimination. I never watched Harvey Birdman, but looking at some clips I'm wondering if maybe I should. Anyone?

While Inch High, Private Eye the show wasn't long for life in the 1970s, like many Hanna-Barbera cartoons of that era not named Scooby Doo, it seems to have had a lasting fanbase. I remember it fondly from it's days on the Cartoon Express. It seems like the kind of show that could hold up as a live action movie these days with the right script, but who knows. The whole 13 episode series is available on DVD in the Hanna-Barbera Classics Collection.

[Tango X]

Ha some of these are so obscure the only reason I know I have seen them is because of Harvey Birdman Attorney at Law.

[packerbacker180]

That's why I'm enjoying this so much, there's so many old cartoons out there I wish were still airing somewhere. My kids watch Nickelodeon a lot and it seems like everyday is Spongebob followed by the Loud House followed by Spongebob, etc. And Cartoon Network's Boomerang tends to air a lot of stuff from less then twenty years ago whereas back in the day it aired much older content more often. Sigh, I guess I'm just old. Hard to believe "twenty years ago" was 2001, where does time go? Time time time, see what's become of me.

I never watched Harvey Birdman, Adultswim just wasn't my thing for the most part (besides The Venture Bros.), but now seeing a few clips I really want to check it out.

[BrandonDaCollector]

Yeah, Elmyra had the same kind of dopey face as Elmer, and MM had a similar voice inflection as Yosemite Sam. I wish those shows were on reruns somewhere on TV. I'd still watch them. I'll have a "short" piece on cartoon 23 tomorrow! Stay tuned...

Yeah, they really could have reruns of them among other classic stuff but no they gotta have all of this new stuff and IMO just doesn't even come close to how great the ones were long ago. Like I said before, IMO the last great animated TV shows was the reboots of MOTU & TMNT in the early 2000s.

[packerbacker180]

There have been some good shows since. The Venture Bros. was a good show. Phineas and Ferb was pretty entertaining. There have been some absolutely hilarious episodes of Teen Titans Go! I liked Clarence. I do have a gap from probably the late 90s until the late oughts where I didn't watch much in the way of cartoons. It wasn't until my kids were born that I started watching the cartoon channels more.

When Teen Titans Go! first came on I refused to watch it because it was replacing Young Justice, but after my kids started watching it I really found myself enjoying. It has a lot of jokes and parodies I think adults would get more than kids. If anyone has the time I'd recommend going out of your way to check out "Video Game Refrences", "Kicking a Ball and Pretending to Be Hurt", 'Hey You, Don't Forget About Me in Your Memory", "40% 40% 20%", "Rad Dudes with Bad Tudes", "Oregon Trail", "Oh Yeah", and "Riding the Dragon". They're alll funny. My wife actually went to school with the guy that does the sound for the show, there's even an episode named after him, "...And The Award for Sound Goes to Rob", which is ironically ebough, about 75% without sound. The show didn't really gets it's footing, IMO< until season 3. Season 3 and 4 have a lot of gems in them.