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

[BrandonDaCollector]

OK, cool

[packerbacker180]

I was working on my laptop, late one night when my eyes beheld a groovy sight. For Universal Monsters' popularity in the 60's began to rise, and suddenly, to my surprise, they made a cartoon, they made a monsters cartoon. The monster cartoon, it was on Saturdays before noon. They made a cartoon, it was gone in a flash. They made a cartoon, they made a monsters cartoon.



From my laptop here where I live in the east, to the internet for a knowledge feast, the clips all came from Youtube's abode, to get a glimpse of this old show. They made a cartoon, they made a monsters cartoon. The monster cartoon, it was on Saturdays before noon. They made a cartoon, it was gone in a flash. They made a cartoon, they made a monsters cartoon.



No zombies were to be found, they must've still been underground. The cast included hippy Wolfie, Drac, and Frankie. The show was rockin', tthe Bare Bones Band played their sound, The Mummies and the Puppies were some baying hounds, The Rolling Headstones were about to arrive, while the Spirits of ''76 were no longer alive. They made a cartoon, they made a monsters cartoon. The monster cartoon, it was on Saturdays before noon. They made a cartoon, it was gone in a flash. They made a cartoon, they made a monsters cartoon.



Into the wall Drac often did fly, seems the windows often moved on the guy, got to his feet and said real catty, "This place is driving me batty."



It was a bad pun, he'd say a real bad pun, a monster pun, and it wasn't the only one. He'd say a pun, I don't know maybe it was fun, he'd say a pun, he'd say a monster pun.



Not everything was cool, but Drac was with his friends, but after one season this show would end, for you the living, you can watch it too, if you go to Amazon tell them PB sent you.



Then you can watch, you can watch a monster show, the Groovie Goolies, if you didn't now you know. They made a show, Prime will get it to you fast, then you can watch, hurry while supplies last.



Wah-ooh, argh, while supplies last, wah-ooh




The Groovie Goolies were a bunch of monsters that mostly resembled the famous monsters of the 30's and 40's who lived in a boarding house atop Horrible Hill on Horrible Drive in a horrible cartoon made by an animation studio with a history of some horrible cartoons. Hey, you didn't think this whole post was going to rhyme, did ya? I once read somewhere someone referred to Filmation as the bottom of the barrel of animation studios. I don't know if that's completely accurate, but there was a time in the 70's where they definitely put out some stinkers before finding their greatest success with a little show called He-Man and the Masters of the Universe they may've led to the production of a couple of toys. But like a lot of studios, you can easily recognize a Filmation cartoon as they often had off putting sound effects,, weird music, and a horrible laugh track. Just watch a little and you'll see...



I'm not sure if Filmation went out of their way to make obnoxious sounds, or if it's just what the end result was and they went, whatever. But then again, they gave the Brady kids an annoying wizard bird for their cartoon, so not everything terrible could be happy accidents. Yep, they actually made a Brady Bunch cartoon with just the kids and a magical bird wizard and two twin pandas that only spoke Chinese gibberish and replaced Tiger with a talking dog named Moptop voiced by Larry Storch and holy hell, I can't believe that's an actual sentence about an actual show. The toking must've been really good in the 70's. None of the Brady kids slept together on the show, though no word on what Carol was up to.



I guess the Groovie Goolies are kind of the predecessors of the Hotel Transylvania crew minus the mirth and unique characterizations of Adam Sandler and his tagalongs. I'm joking of course, as if you've seen one movie starring Adam Sandler and his cohorts then you've basically seen them all so you're better off just reading the synopsis and saving 100 minutes of your life. That's not entirely fair for the Hotel Transylvania films, as they're actually pretty entertaining. It just always surprises me that people go to see the non-animated Adam Sandler films when it's the same over and over again.



Thanks to the rise of television, old movies found a new home, and the Universal Monsters met a resurgence of popularity in the 60's. In 1968, Filmation producer Lou Scheimer hired Laugh-In writers Jack Mendelsohn and Jim Milligan to begin developing a show called Monster Inn which would eventually turn into the Groovy Goolies and you can see the similarities to Laugh-In as the show was mostly quick gags though I don't believe Drac ever said "suck it to me"--you still had to go to darkened theatres to see that one, Paul Ruebens. With the success of shows such as Scooby Doo, Where Are You? the Goolies also incorporated many songs which sadly use some of Filmation's nails on chalkboard sound effects.



The Groovie Goolies actually debuted in 1970 as the second half of an hour longs block alongside Filmation's Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, and was the highest rated children's show of that year with a 54% audience share. So the logical thing to do of course would be to...?



If you said, keep the shows together you are absolutely wrong because CBS decided to split the two shows up and moved the Groovie Goolies to Sunday mornings where it was promptly cancelled after one year. But even after that, like most monsters, these goolies just wouldn't die as they were co-star in Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies, as yes, by this time Filmation was producing Looney Tunes cartoons and you can absolutely spot the difference in quality and sound compared to other iterations of these characters.



Just don't confuse these guys with the less than groovy, Ghoulies, the toilet monsters.



Like many other cartoon characters, there were plans in the 80's to resurrect the Goolies into a show starring their youngerselves but Fright Camp, the Goolies as kids at camp, and The Goolies, think Muppet Baby monsters, never got off the ground. But Filmation would reuse some ideas from the show such as the Skelevator and the designs for Drac and Bella La Ghostly in the episode "The Girl Who Cried Vampire" of Filmation's Ghostbusters cartoon, not to be confused with the Real Ghostbusters, which added "The Real" to the title to avoid confusion but was confusing nonetheless.



When Columbia Pictures began Ghostbusters in 1984, it didn't take into consideration the fact that Filmation had already produced a terrible live-action series with that same name in 1975. With threat of lawsuits, Columbia agreed to license the name from Filmation for $608,000, plus 1% of the profits. This deal did not include giving Filmation the rights to make an animated series based on the film. After the film became a success, Filmation offered to make an animated series, but Columbia chose gave the contract to DiC. Filmation then decided to make their own animated show based on their 1975 live-action sitcom and released it just a few days ahead of DiC's series. DiC titled their own adaptation of the movie The Real Ghostbusters to directly distinguish it from the Filmation show.



Ah, Larry Storch. Keep reaching for those bright, shiny things in the sky, Kelly.



Another sad staple of 70's (no, not Larry Storch, though...maybe...?) Saturday mornings were the advent of live action kids shows, some of which weren't bad like Land of the Lost and Shazam, some that were downright terrible like The Hudson Brothers Razzle Dazzle Show (even sounds awful and it was), and others that words simply cannot describe...





Still, I guess that's better than making a film with Alec Baldwin. When you realize a lot of people running the world grew up on this dreck the world starts to make more sense. But not everyone. Some were already sucking off the public teat by then. Term limits, folks. No one should leave office looking like the Crypt Keeper,



The Groovie Goolies are available on DVD though why you'd want to pay for that I don't know, send me the money and watch and episode or two on youtube, we'll both be better off for it. Actually, the show itself wasn't bad minus the usual Filmation annoyances. Imagine if He-Man had a terrible laugh track because the jokes were so bad nobody would actually laugh, like that one episode where Orko had an open mic night at Greyskull and everyone laughed half-heartedly at his jokes because they felt bad. Maybe that was just a fever dream?




So the Goolies aren't something I'd go out of may way to watch with their way-too dated hippy jams and bad jokes even for a kids show, but here's something live from the 70's that was actually entertaining, and just in time for Halloween.



Now that had some....bite!



"Aarg, Goolies good Goolies good".



Easy, Igor.

[packerbacker180]

That was cartoon #38 for those keeping track at home.

[BrandonDaCollector]

Superb stuff PB. Love the mixture of this, really cool that blends in with Halloween! Gosh, #38 That's quite a bit

[packerbacker180]

Thanks for always checking them out. It makes the effort feel much more sane.

[BrandonDaCollector]

Your welcome PB, I'm not like a lot people, when I see somebody puts a lot of effort in something, I tend to show them appreciation

I was thinkin about Daffy Duck's Quackbusters for Halloween but just didn't post it. Have you seen it before? I used to watch it all the time for many years since it first came out on VHS. Before your next one you could talk about this for a sec

[packerbacker180]

Oh shoot, yeah, I remember that. I miss the good ol' days when lots of holiday specials would air yearly. Now they have to fight with Apple just to get Charlie Brown on PBS. Garfield Halloween and Great Pumpkin were always the best, but there were others.

Did you ever see Witch's Night Out. I saw a clip of it a few years ago and suddenly remembered seeing it yearly as a kid.

[BrandonDaCollector]

Yep, I seen that before many years when I was a kid but not recently. It was never one of My faves but oh I remember Rotten. I always thought the designs of the cartoon were really weird but quite unique at the same time.

[packerbacker180]

Been busy the last few weeks, anyone missing my posts?

[BrandonDaCollector]

I'd check the YES if I could