A Tribute to Jack Riley and Marvin Kaplan

2016 has been a terrible year when it came to celebrity deaths.  While some have naturally passed on (like these two), others just suddenly at a young age died like Prince.  Today's focus are these two as they played among other iconic roles these two cartoon characters.  Riley was Stu Pickles on the Rugrats and Kaplan was Choo-Choo on Top Cat.

Jack Riley: I have heard great stories about the man.  He was an incredible nice guy with a great wit.  That type of wit got him the roles that he did on shows like Bob Newhart.  When playing Stu Pickles, I watched Rugrats on a regular basis as a kid (like many of you 90's kids).  It was a unique show.  A lot of haters complained that it was literally a baby show because they're babies, they have baby adventures, and all they do is poop and cry and all that other stuff.  Ehhhh.......no not really.....it was much more than that.  It wasn't this gross pooping and drooling show, it really was part adventurous, and part wit.  In fact, some of the earlier episodes were mostly about the parents trying to raise these kids, and most of the comedy came from them.  Grandpa trying to remember things, Dee-Dee trying to be the perfect mother, and Stu trying to be the perfect inventor.  What's great about Rugrats is that this show could be enjoyed by both kids and adults.  Kids will love the baby adventures of Tommy, Chuckie, Phil, Lil, and Angelica.  Grown ups will love the stuff in between.  This is all stuff I never got as a young toddler, but today, it's great writing.

Some of the most memorable moments with Stu was when he and his brother Drew fighting.  In the episode, Sour Pickles, Grandpa tells the story about how they were fighting since they were babies.  Another episode, Ice Cream Mountain, has them fighting over a game of miniature golf.  Jack Riley sadly had not been well in recent years, and will be missed by many TV fans.

Marvin Kaplan: Here's a gentleman that was never a famous actor, but a humble and generous one at that.  This is a guy that's appeared in many TV shows and movies.  In Top Cat, he played the role of Choo-Choo.  He and other actors remember doing the show ensemble meaning that everyone all together recorded their lines as opposed to today where most shows it's when an actor can come in, record his or her own lines, then walk out.  Although it only lasted one season, the show is Hanna-Barbera's most sophisticated series ever produced.  

 Kaplan always had great stories whether it was working on Top Cat or movies such as It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World.  It was this movie where he remembers people like Arnold Stang (voice of Top Cat) and folks like Jonathan Winters in the movie.  Always had that laugh and according to Stu Shostak TV historian, he had the kindness like he was an uncle to him.  In his final years of his life, though not getting around much, he would still do an occasional convention always caring about the fans, and every time when getting a compliment saying Thank You to the fans.  He passed away peacefully in his sleep.   

May both of these gentlemen rest in peace.

Public Domain Highlights: Meta Video

It's time to take a look at another public domain company.  This time it's Meta Video.  Here is a company that was so cheap it's unthinkable what they did to these cartoons with a little extra effort to ruin them.

Meta started out as Nippon Industries in the 80's.  In 1987, a line of tapes known as Superstar Cartoon Video came out.  These tapes usually only showed about 4 public domain cartoons.  And they are the usual suspects like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Popeye, and The Three Stooges.  The artwork for the VHS covers varied really badly.  Many times there are parts they forgot to color in.  This Bugs Bunny tape forgot to even color Bugs at all.  Sometimes they will refer to official art such as the Harveytoons characters, but again, the colors are all messed up (especially on Baby Huey).

Have a look at one of them.  This Daffy Duck tape shows the cartoons in wrong pitch and incorrect titles (probably to remove all references to the Looney Tunes name and replaced them with Merrie Melodies or no titles at all). https://archive.org/details/20190203165828
But that's not the worst they can do as you will see.

Around 1991, the company either changed hands, renamed, or it was just another company with a similar purpose (I don't it though).  Nonetheless, it is now Meta Video.  Instead of them being Superstar Cartoon Video, it's now All Star Cartoon Video.  The number of tape volumes had been cut, but it's some of the same cartoons.  This is where things start to go bad.  Yes, the quality still varied, but some were ok looking.  However, some of the cartoons (if not most) would end with this:

What is this title card?  Where did it come from, and why was it there?  The why I can't answer.  The what and where I figured out thanks to some help from Cartoon Research.  A Walter Lantz cartoon with Sugarfoot had this background as their opening and closing titles.  This is the end title of this cartoon.  See for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_2mTRlPiYM

It's just so random as to why they would use that cartoon (which isn't even in the public domain).  But there is another thing this tape did, and that's paste a bug on the corner for an unknown reason with their initials on it.

I was nice enough to circle and point it out to you if you can't see it.  These tapes were very cheap.  You could get them for like a dollar a piece I think.  My cousins when they were kids had 3 of these tapes.  A Felix the Cat one, a Betty Boop one, and a Porky Pig one.  I think one of their relatives gave these tapes to them as a gift.  My aunt was nice enough to let me rummage their VHS collection over the years, and at times let me transfer these tapes to DVD (and now digital).  The one tape specifically is the Porky Pig one,  That is our attention draws now.

 The Porky Pig tape I was able to transfer to digital so that I can show off some of it on Youtube.  The quality on each cartoon, again, varied from print to print, but what you are about to witness is a mess.  The only editing I did was made it so you can see the intros and outros of each cartoon.  Everything else that may seem like an edit on my part....well....it's NOT. ALL the cartoons are time compressed.  Porky Pig's Feat had it bad.  Really really bad.  The original intros were stripped from the cartoons except for Porky Pig's Feat (minus the WB shield).  The "The End" title card can be seen throughout.  And here's the best, you'll love this one, in between each cartoon, you'll see an extra "The End" title card and even music going into the next cartoon  before it sounds like it changes it's mind and goes to another cartoon.  My guess is that they changed the order of these cartoons at the last minute that master tape was made, so they basically did some recording over.

I've guess I've stalled long enough.  Ladies and gentlemen, here is the All Star Cartoon Video starring Porky Pig.....the oddball tape that it is.  Again, the only edit was going from intro to outro, not the speed of the cartoons and the in-between mess.

The company has since folded.  Why am I not surprised?

Public Domain Highlights: Goodtimes Video

Here is a new series of blog posts talking about the many public domain companies over the years that released public domain cartoons.

Our first victim is Goodtimes Entertainment.  This company was formed in the 1984 with the primary goal is releasing public domain titles.  Some of the earliest known tapes include the Kids Kartoons, Great American Cartoons, Classic Video Library, just simply Cartoons, or no titles at all.

In the late 1980's, Goodtimes formed a division known as Kids Klassics.  This series of tapes mimicked somewhat of the previous Goodtimes VHS's.  However, they went a step further and began sub licensing  from other companies.

Many of these Kids Klassics tapes include The Berenstain Bears specials, Muppet Babies, but big time with Hanna-Barbera cartoons.  These tapes were made right before Turner bought the Hanna-Barbera library.  The public domain tapes bear similar references to Goodtimes's previous tapes with the box art.  The art covers in the 80's varied, but they were ok for the most part as they tried to make them look like they did on the actual cartoons.

In the 1990's, Goodtimes began to make their tapes a little better looking with the success of the Disney titles being sold.  So the art covers improved dramatically.  Goodtimes operated as both Goodtimes and Kids Klassics labels. Kids Klassics released a series of tapes called 1 hour.  Most of these tapes were the Warner Brothers cartoons like Bugs Bunny (albeit public domain).  The art covers were done by Sparacio

It should be noted for these tapes that the quality is pretty decent for a PD company, but they still varied print to print.  WB fans would be disappointed to hear that on the Kids Klassics tapes for sure (and maybe all Goodtimes tapes) that they muted the intros and outros to avoid any lawsuit for the uses of the themes.  A Corny Concerto was cut in half to only show the Bugs Bunny half.  A hidden "Wasn't that lovely?" from Elmer could be heard at the end of that cartoon during the end titles.

Goodtimes then released their tapes with no banners.  The art covers still were an improvement on many of the re-releases of previous tapes such as Bugs Bunny.

The trouble now becomes that the Goodtimes and the Kids Klassics almost uses the same exact cover art on some of these titles.  All they did is change the label on the cover and tape, make a different background on the cover,

Goodtimes then began making new animated films in 1992 which bears resemblance to the major Disney movies like Beauty and the Beast and Aladdin.  A lawsuit was filed by Disney, but was dropped.  These cheap knock offs became the face of the company.  In 1998, their first and only theatrical release was Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.  It bombed despite major publicity.  More information could be found at Pirates and Princesses.  They also released kids titles such as Fast Moving Trains which I grew up with personally and was a fun tape to watch since I loved trains. It was basically footage of different kinds of trains (new and existing footage).

 In 2000 with the publicity of their new movie, Goodtimes released one more so called PD tape.  The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle was a five volume series plus a collectors box set.  These were select episodes of the syndicated Bullwinkle Show in the 70's.  Many fans believe that the syndicated Bullwinkle Show is in the public domain while others think this is a bootleg.  Nevertheless, they were a success as they included episodes not yet released on home video like Metal Munching Mice.  Picture quality varied, but they were fair.

Goodtimes folded in the 2005 due to bankruptcy.  Their assets such as the movies were then sold to Gaiam Vivendi.  They will forever be best known for their Disney knock offs and public domain tapes.  Overall, they did a decent job, but it's a shame with Kids Klassics having to result in losing the WB themes.  If they were fixed, they would be a vast improvement.

You can read and see more about these tapes on The VCR from Heck on Tumblr.

Alvin and the Chipmunks Knock Offs: Shirley and Squirrely

Now here's an unusual duo of chipmunk sounding voices.  Someone wanted to bring back The Nutty Squirrels (sort of).  You can read about them here: http://jldelbert.blogspot.com/2016/07/alvin-and-chipmunks-knock-offs-nutty.html

This comeback was really two new characters named Shirley and Squirrely and released their song, Hey Shirrley this is Squirrely in 1976.  In the 70's, music was awesome.  There were wonderful singers and songwriters like John Denver and Harry Chappin, piano rock legends like Elton John and Billy Joel, Disco was on the rise, and great rock music from bands such as Led Zepplin came on to the scene.  Many of these songs withstood the test of time and has big radio play value to this day.

CB Radio Music......on the other hand.............yes folks...this existed.  These country type music is basically two people (or squirrels in this case) CB'ing each other since it was the "it" thing for truck drivers everywhere.  This music out of all 70's music did not age very well.  Hearing these types of music is not easy to take seriously and sounds like Country Bear Jamboree.  Don't believe me, hear a sample: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oh66kDox4R0  (and folks....this was a top 40 hit).

The Shirley and Squirrely song is just like your typical CB Song.  All those truck driving terms are on there such as "ten four"and what makes this even weirder is that it's not just squirrels with voices sped up but it's a male and female.  Picture it if you will when hearing it.

With the success of their song, Shirley and Squirrely released a Christmas album.  This album also included another character named Melvin, bringing the total to three just like Alvin and the Chipmunks.  As CB Radio music ran its course, Shirley and Squirrely just became a memory.  Alright....no holding back...here is the song, "Hey Shirley this is Squirrely".

Nicktoons 25th Birthday

On this day, Nickelodeon debuted their first three Nicktoons: Rugrats, Doug, and Ren and Stimpy.  Each one had creative freedom and did whatever they wanted without restrictions of the shows like Hanna-Barbera of DIC.

Nicktoons is of extreme importance as the cartoons would help bring back animation big time along side The Simpsons, Disney, and some WB shows.  Gone would be shows like The Smurfs and was replaced by shows now deemed towards a general audience (even though they were also grabbing kids attention).

Nickelodeon was just a mere kids channel for cable since the late 70's having to acquire licenses for other shows like Inspector Gadget.  Once Looney Tunes went on the air, they knew they had a winner with their ratings and thought that they could create toons of their own because once the Looney Tunes license has ended...that's it (it ran for 11 years by the way).

Each of the 3 shows was different.  Ren and Stimpy was based on exaggeration.  Doug had more subtlety.  Rugrats was more adventurous (albeit baby adventures).  Ren and Stimpy lasted a good long while and had a few reboots I think for MTV to get away with more raunchy stuff.  Doug ended up being acquired by Disney for a brief time and gave him his own movie.  Eventually though, Doug would soon become a Nicktoons character in reruns.   Rugrats lasted at least over ten years and was given three movies.

After the first three, the 90's were indeed "All That".  Rocko's Modern Life, Hey Arnold, Aaahhh Real Monsters, and Catdog are to name a few.  Even the late 90's spawned Rocket Power, Wild Thornberrys, and a little known show called Spongebob Squarepants.  The 2000's gave us Fairly Oddparents, Jimmy Neutron, and an attempt to recreate anime with Avatar the Last Airbender.  This is when Spongebob became a hit.  Sadly, in my opinion, after the cancellation of The Mighty B, Nicktoons and Nickelodeon suffered a downhill spiral.  The focus was more on live action shows like iCarly and others related to it.  Sure, Spongebob got a successful 2nd movie, but some of the decisions include buying the rights to Teenage Mutaint Ninja Turtles (very creative...NOT) and acquiring shows that became hits once again such as Alvin and the Chipmunks and Miraculous Ladybug.

If Nickelodeon was smart enough, Nicktoons could come back.  Now they are rethinking what they've done and wish to reboot their older series.  I wish they'd go back to creating new great products for themselves instead of rehashing the old ones, make not so good ones, or not paying attention to the newer ones at all.  Especially with cartoons flourishing again, every studio is doing something new and creative except Nick.

Sure not every Nicktoon was a masterpiece (ok...sorry), but most Nicktoons have gained a cult following in the general public.  Especially with the millennials who grew up watching these cartoons.  So Happy Birthday Nicktoons!  You don't look a day over 20.  (rimshot)

The Worst Looney Tunes of All Times

There's no denying the Looney Tunes are some of the best cartoons ever made, and there's renewed interest with the fans now that Boomerang begun bringing more shorts back on reruns.  However, not everything that WB did with these cartoons are considered great.  This is the Top worst Looney Tunes ever made in CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER.  Please note, this is based on the majority of the fans' reactions and may not represent my opinions.

1. The Seely Six

Carl Stalling was the main man when it came to music in the WB cartoons followed by Milt Franklyn who trained under Stalling.  But in 1958, a major musicians strike took place and affected WB causing them to go to Captitol Records for background music.  John Seely was the organizer of that music for the company and while these were necessary for early TV shows that had a budget, these felt awkward in the Looney Tunes.  The six cartoons include 1 Bugs Bunny, 2 Road Runners, 1 Tweety and Sylvester, 1 Foghorn Leghorn, and 1 Goofy Gophers.  Hook Line and Stunker uses music that would later become the Dennis the Menace theme. Pre-Hysterical Hare ended up having more problems.  Combine badly drawn characters, a badly voiced Elmer Fudd, and cheap stock music, and you get the worst Bugs Bunny cartoon ever made.  Milt Franklyn returned to work, but died shortly after and was replaced by Bill Lava.

 2 The Porky Pig Show

With the success of The Bugs Bunny Show, ABC picked up another WB package entitled The Porky Pig Show.  Unfortunately, WB closed their studio and Depatie-Freleng was not open yet, so the animation for the intro, outro, and bumpers were done at the Hal Segar Studios.  An offspring of Paramount's Famous Studios, this studio is best known for Milton the Monster and Batfink.  However, they were under a limited budget.  This show has very off modeled characters running around to a cheaply but well remembered theme song to the show.  This is the only time Looney Tunes were animated in New York, and despite being badly animated, the show is mostly composed of reruns of the more classic cartoons.

3. Daffy and Speedy Cartoons

Depatie-Freleng began work on Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies after the WB studios closed.  They originally wanted to do the classic characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Road Runner, and more.  The only characters that made the cut were Speedy Gonzales, Daffy Duck, and the Road Runner.  The cartoon, It's Nice to Have a Mouse Around the House has Sylvester shaken up by Speedy, so Granny hires an exterminator to get rid of Speedy.  That role was played by Daffy.  As an exterminator, it made sense.  They figured the idea worked and continued to have Daffy vs Speedy.  It makes sense for a cat and mouse, but a duck and mouse???  It makes no sense.  Still, fans didn't mind too much until Depatie-Freleng focused more on their original characters like The Pink Panther and The Inspector, and the WB stuff was now being moved back over to the Warner Lot under Warner Bros. 7 Arts.  The art style changed and the animation on a tighter budget which is close to Hanna-Barbera's.  The last Daffy and Speedy cartoon, See Ya Later Gladiator, is considered the worst Daffy Duck cartoon ever made.  It is just sad to see what the cartoons looked in the 50's turn into what they did in the 60's.  The 7 Arts cartoons in general has a cult following with their original characters including Cool Cat, so they would not be 100% considered the worst, but bring the classic characters onto the scene, and then it's bad.

4. Rudy Larriva Road Runner Cartoons

As previously stated, Depatie-Freleng was working to bring Looney Tunes back to the big screen in the 60's/  They managed to work on a few cartoons, but with demands to work on their own cartoons such as The Pink Panther, they had to give the Road Runner series to another studio.  Format Films who worked on The Alvin Show and The Lone Ranger was asked to do the job.  Because this was a studio made to do TV cartoons, the results....Horrible!!!!!!  Bad animation, bad sound effects, stock music, and badly drawn characters.  The Road Runner had very big eyes, and the Coyote at times looked very creepy.  11 cartoons were made by that studio.  These should have been the Censored 11, not the politically incorrect stuff.

5. Redrawn Colorized Cartoons

As TV's began to be in color, it became necessary in the eyes of the executive to colorize the cartoons made in black and white.  Fred Ladd who adapted Astro Boy and Kimba the White Lion into English oversaw this production to redraw the cartoons and colorize them.  Unfortunately, they were done in Korea and done cheap.  The results....BAD.  Bad animation replaced the masterful ones done by the greats in the 30's and 40's.  There was also some bad coloring too.  Sometimes Porky would wear a pink suit.  Daffy's colors always varied.  The cartoon A Coy Decoy is considered one of the worst cartoons ever made if you are to view the redrawn colorized version.  The cartoons were replaced by newly colorized cartoons in the 90's by computer, preserving the original animation.  However, copies of the redrawn colorized cartoons are still in circulation.

6. Daffy Duck and Porky Pig meets the Groovie Goulies

As part of ABC's Saturday Superstar Movies, this special crosses over the WB characters with Filmation's Groovie Goulies.  I think you can figure out the results on your own.  Since ALL the animation was done by Filmation, the Looney Tunes characters suffer from limited animation.  What's worse is the storytelling and a few voice glitches.  Daffy's voice is sped up way too high while Porky's was not sped up at all.  This rarely seen special is considered the worst Looney Tunes cartoon of all time.

7. Space Jam

This movie tells the story of NBA Basketball star Michael Jordan help the Looney Tunes win a basketball game against the Monstars who stole the talents of other NBA players and wish to take the Looney Tunes back with them to Magic Mountain.  This was made with the success of Nike's tie in of Air Jordan's with Bugs Bunny and Michael Jordan.  Despite having a cult following, die hard Looney Tunes fans hate it.  They don't like the idea of mixing sports with Looney Tunes and it suffers from bad writing as well.  A 2nd Space Jam is said to be in the works.

8. Baby Looney Tunes

This cartoon series has the Looney Tunes characters as little babies.  I'm not sure if it's a late cash in for Muppet Babies or a cash in to the Rugrats which was nearly ending its run, but this show puts the Looney Tunes into more educational stories.  Many fans do not like seeing these characters being put into what they say a baby show.  While there is some educational value, they simply do not scream Looney Tunes for many.

9. Loonatics Unleashed

We're not sure if it is really considered Looney Tunes, but this has pissed off so many Looney Tunes fans, we had to include this one.  WB thought that since at the time all kids shows were to be very loud and obnoxious and Looney Tunes should be this way.  Not to mention the hit shows like Yu-Gi-Oh and Pokemon.  As a result, Loonatics Unleashed.  Here's the best, they aren't really Looney Tunes.  Bugs Bunny is now Ace Bunny and Daffy Duck is now Danger Duck.  This series is so bad, you the general public don't even know of it or had cleaned your brains to never remember it again.  I don't even remember it being on

10. King Tweety

For Tweety's 80th Birthday, Warner Bros. released this made to DVD movie called King Tweety.  This featured CalArts designed versions of Tweety and Sylvester.  It stinks.  Many consider this the worst Looney Tune of all time as a result, however something else is in the running for the worst ever.

11. Taz Quest for Burgers

The next made for video movie stars Taz with some new characters.  This one has VERY limited animation, and....could it be........BADLY DRAWN?!  Just like the clones in Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers.  It hasn't come out yet, but it will very soon.  God help us all when it does

Originally this list had The Looney Tunes Show due to it being a situational comedy and the first season designs.  However, public opinion has changed with The Looney Tunes Show due to the realization of clever writing and good character development.  Especially with Lola Bunny.

Click here for a part two.  

Alvin and the Chipmunks Knock offs: The Happy Hamsters

Here is a knock off of the Chipmunks that should have been a short story, but sadly turned into something worse....much worse!

In 1984, Audiofidelity put out a record to cash in on the new success of the Chipmunks called The Happy Chipmunks sing Michael Jackson's Greatest Hits.  It was a typical kind of record you would expect from the Chipmunks.  High squeaky voices singing all the big his.  Some may question why such creatures are singing about Human Nature or a song involving a girl claiming Michael's the father of her child, but we've been exposed to his music so much that we really don't care.

Ross Bagdasarian Jr. filed a lawsuit against Audiofidelity causing them to change from The Happy Chipmunks to.....

  

As the album indicates, these records also came with a poster.  A second record came out titles The Happy Hamsters Sing Ghost Busters.  This time they keep stressing the fact that they are NOT chipmunks, they are hamsters.  As the times changed, LP records began to disappear and it caused The Happy Hamsters to not sell well.  This should have been the end right?  Right??  RIGHT?????????

In 1988, Audiofidelity for unknown reasons formed a VHS company called Amvest Video.  This company had two divisions: 1. Kid Pics (which we'll talk about) and 2. Gampa's Sci-Fi Classics with Al Lewis in his Grandpa Munster getup (noticed the change from GRANDPA to GRAMPA).

The Kid Pics division pretty much released public domain cartoons.  Unlike most tapes, they had a host.  Can you guess who??????   I think you should watch this video of Kid Pics featuring The Happy Hamster.

As the video describes, kids can sign up to be part of the Kid Pics Fan Club where you get free swag such as a T-Shirt, a poster of The Happy Hamsters Sing Michael Jackson, newsletters, and a free tape.  Kids must pay 10 dollars and write a paragraph about themselves.  This should have been a red flag for parents.

The Kid Pics Fan Club......it never existed.  The paragraphs were used to sell off kids to creepy pedophiles that run kids pageants.  This angered many parents.  The company formally known as Audiofidelity, now Amvest Video, had become corrupt.  If you read the Creepypasta 1999, this is it in the blood.  A guy in a full fury hamster suit making moves on children to make them comfortable and love him only to be used to be sold to pedophiles.  Isn't this disturbing?  Wouldn't that make you as a parent angry?  And here's the best....they did a lot of gimmiks with the Disney cartoons that MAY HAVE fallen in the public domain.  I want to do a post about the tapes themselves someday, but here are some pics.

Just for the record, Amvest no longer exists.  Good.  I told the story should have ended after the records.  Maybe all The Happy Hamster stuff then could have been a forgotten but very good memory.  Instead, it was just another story of how a character's mercy is ruined by bad people.  Some say that The Happy Hamster is still out there....waiting and watching for the next move to use kids again.  The world may never know............