Saturday 4 January 2014

Saturday Morning Cartoons - Fitness First!




After all of the turkey, after all of those cookies, after that last bucket of egg nog - now we can finally start talking about thinking about doing something about exercising. And what better motivator to "bring out the tiger in you" than sitting down to a big, heaping bowl of sugar glazed oats and watching a bunch of fictional characters who are more motivated than you?

First of all, I've already burned a few calories in outright anger at the above hack, Tony The Tiger. What happened to you, Tony? You used to be such a stud. Now you're a bit of a...well...puss. And you're completely ripping off the genius of a far more fit comedic icon, namely Goofy, who did that exact same bit over 50 years ago in 1949's 'Goofy Gymnastics'.





Boy, Roger Rabbit was right. "Nobody takes a wallop like Goofy".

Side Note: If you didn't see my Roger Rabbit post from last summer, check it if you want to learn why Roger shouldn't have even been watching that cartoon in the first place. But I digress...




Perhaps we should've begun with something less violent and more educational as a token offering to our weaker and more impressionable subscribers? This will prove a nice warm-up before we get into the even more violent content below.




Popeye has always been a proud purveyor of the virtues of better living. In fact, sometimes I think he may have been downright preachy about it, if you ask me.




But when it comes to good healt', you can't disregard someone with such impressive forearms. The man certainly knows fitness, and it's admirably on display in these 2 cartoons - 1936's 'Vim, Vigor and Vitaliky' and 1950's 'Gym Jam'.






Deputy Dawg is no athlete, if 1959's 'Physical Fatness' is any indication. But he tries hard. Wait, no he doesn't. This was a mistake to include.




Krazy Kat krushes out over Ignatz crushing it at the gym, in this sample of his animated adventures directed by cartoon legend Gene Deitch. This one's called 'Fizzical Fitness' from 1963.




Also gay for the gym is Queer Duck, who you may recall from a 2002 web series from former Simpsons writer Mike Reiss. Here he is ignoring his special friend, Openly Gator, in 'Gym Neighbors'. (get it?)




Super-shredded (but only for short term), this cat and dog duo was first introduced by Disney in 1993's Marsupilami, and then later received their own program in 1995 called The Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show. I'll plan to do a separate post about this pair later in the year, but as an intro, here's an episode called 'Weight For Me', which features the pets at their most pumped.




Beavis and Butt-head hope to train us to become better athletes in 'Pumping Iron'. Huh-huh-huh, I said 'anus'.




You know what, why are we even wasting our time with this? My new year's resolution over the past 2 decades has always been to "find the easy way out, faster". And damn it, I'm not going to slow my roll in 2014! So pour yourself another bowl of Tiger Flecks, and let's exercise our right to do even less in the near future! Let's reconvene to share our success stories next Saturday morning, shall we?








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