Saturday Morning Cartoons - One Last Smoke (BANimation)

Okay, okay! Smoking is bad, we get it!

Many of the cartoons I grew up watching had smoking in them, but I didn't grow up to be a junkie. I just grew up to be a deadbeat, like all the other healthy god-fearing children of my generation who knew the difference between right and wrong.

Even though I was a child of the over-sensitive 1980s, I was still able to watch a lot of the old cartoons my parents grew up with - many of which already depicted smoking to be symbolic of evil. Only the sleazy, the power-mad or the overtly mean cartoon characters smoked. And if they did, it was usually a cigar that was a permanent protrusion from their pursed, evil lips. To my recollection, I never interpreted it as being cool. For example, Mickey Mouse's nemesis Pete was never cool. He was a total asshole!

Some wiser, older characters smoked pipes. Popeye had a pipe. But he never smoked it to my knowledge. He tried smoking once, but it was only to prove he was manly. And it was more horrifying than cool.

Okay, it was still pretty cool. But I'm almost positive that was the only time Popeye ever tried to lead me astray into thinking smoking was cool!

Maybe it was the second time.

Lots of generally good cartoon characters have had smoking vices.

Mickey Mouse lit up the screen early in his career as seen in 1928's 'The Gallopin' Gaucho'.

Porky Pig tried his first cigar in 1938's 'Wholly Smoke' - on his way to church yet!

Donald Duck's ego is the smoke-sucking bully in 1938's 'Donald's Better Self', who makes him hit the "quack" pipe in order to prove his manhood.

Goofy had quite the problem in 1951's 'No Smoking', perhaps the funniest smoking cartoon of all time.

Considering its time of release, it's surprising to see a cartoon that depicts smoking in such an unflattering light. Especially considering the way it was being advertised back then.

Back in the 1960s, an advertiser REALLY got their money's worth. Winston Cigarettes received flack for their sponsorship of The Flintstones - perhaps wrongly so considering it was still a prime-time series intended for adults. But after 2 seasons and upon the birth of Fred's daughter, Pebbles, Winston caved and proved that even big cancer-fuelling corporations can have a heart, and cancelled their sponsorship of The Flintstones.

Other big cancer-fuelling corporations also used cartoon characters to sell their product. And they sounded suspiciously like familiar kiddie icons, like Mr. Jinks and Huckleberry Hound. "Wow mom, smoking looks fun! And SOUNDS fun too!"

Looking at these endorsement deals, I doubt Daws Butler (heard here again sounding exactly like Mr. Jinks) ever purchased a package of cigarettes in his life! 

Kind of a conflict of interest though considering he was also voicing stuff like this at the time...

Man, that Yogi Bear could be downright preachy at times when it came to smoking.

I don't blame Yogi for this. By the 1980s, concerned parents and coalitions for quality programming became the voice of Yogi Bear and all other cartoon characters.

By 1990, these cartoon characters became narcs, part of a secret task force organized by the President and First Lady.

By the 2000s, I don't think you could even say the word 'smoke' anymore. But by then it didn't matter, because cool people stopped making quality cartoons for fear of pissing off somebody's mom. Now kids were watching old vintage cartoons on speciality channels, at any given hour of the day. And angry moms everywhere decided those too needed to be sanitized like everything else.

Obviously I'm being a tad snarky here. Edits to classic cartoons happened decades previous to the 2000s. But maybe they were just done less vocally. And with less attention to detail.

For example, I found a 2001 article from Pediatrics Magazine, that broke down the bad influences that older Walt Disney films presented to our children. And don't worry - there were stats! The worst offender was 1945's The Three Caballeros, which apparently showcases 10.5 minutes of pro-smoking footage within a 72 minute running time. This can be attributed to the fact that Donald Duck's friend, José Carioca, has a cigar in his mouth the entire time.

In 2007, Disney announced it would ban scenes of smoking from all future family-friendly fare, and significantly reduce smoking scenes from more adult-skewing material from their Touchstone Pictures and Miramax divisions.

In 2006, Turner Broadcasting, owners of a cartoon channel called Boomerang, announced they would edit scenes from hundreds of cartoons where smoking was "condoned, acceptable or glamorized" - all over a single complaint received from a viewer in Britain. Two specific Tom And Jerry cartoons were cited as being inappropriate for children, both of which contained scenes of smoking - 1950's 'Texas Tom' and 1949's 'Tennis Chumps'. Never mind that Tom and Jerry was also notorious for racism and relentless acts of violence! No, smoking is what needed to go!

Here are some other examples of scenes where smoking is "condoned, accepted and glamorized" - all of which will be butted out eventually.

But what about the reason we celebrate 4/20? "Where's the good shit", you ask?

Well, Ralph Bakshi brought the counterculture a little further into the forefront with 1972's X-rated Fritz The Cat, which featured several scenes of casual smoking and one full-on freakout.

The Simpsons has featured tons of tobacco use!

And some tomacco use.

But they also haven't been scared to experiment with harder stuff. 

Here's an episode from Season 13 called 'Weekend At Burnsie's', where Homer gets hooked on medicinal marijuana. Fox was supposedly nervous about airing the episode, even though Homer is never actually seen smoking marijuana. An article in Cannabis Culture deemed the episode "uncool" by predicting the network received federal handouts for airing anti-drug propaganda! And the episode of King of The Hill that aired before The Simpsons that night coincidentally contained anti-drug PSA's, maaaan! 



Family Guy also tackled the subject of stoners in a Season 7 episode called '420'. The episode proved popular here in North America, with Brian becoming the first-ever non-human recipient of High Times' prestigious 'Stoner Of The Year' award in 2009. The episode proved not so popular in Venezuela though, where the government banned the episode for its glorification of drug use, and vowed to fine cable networks who aired it.

 

Here's an interesting pro-marijuana cartoon called 'The Flower' from Black Mustache , which has been puffed and passed along to over 2 million viewers online.

For some reason, these cartoons made me hungry for more cereal. But before I depart, I'd like to provide you with some inspiration in case you want to consider quitting. With the right motivation, I believe you can kick any bad habit.

Or at least find a better reason not to.

Saturday Morning Cartoons - How To Kill A Toy Franchise In 65 Episodes Or Less!

Hard to believe, but this "movable fighting man" from the 1960s was enough to inspire 5 animated series and 3 feature films - the most recent of which ('G.I. Joe: Retaliation') should surpass the $100 million mark at the box office next week. It's amazing how much this hunk (and I do mean "hunk" - check out that life-like beard!) of plastic has generated the use of so much other plastic. As in, debit and credit cards.

Lots of cartoons and movies generate successful toy sales, but rarely does the toyline fuel the features like G.I. Joe has. G.I. Joe was a toy first, then became a multimedia merchandising machine.

Sometimes the merchandising is successful early-on, but doesn't translate well to a popular or profitable series. Today we'll take a look at a few examples of this and learn where the toy-makers and TV execs went wrong.  

Hot Wheels is probably one of the most enduring and popular toy franchises in history. Introduced in 1968 by Mattel, the line attracts both car-buffs who appreciate attention to detail, and toy collectors who appreciate their frequent nods to pop culture. Oh yeah, and kids like them too.

Hot Wheels had a successful series in more recent years with Battle Force 5 on Cartoon Network, but when the brand was first launched on CBS back in 1969, it was met with much controversy. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) received complaints from rival toy companies, who claimed the shows were nothing more than toy commercials. Weird, I know! Eventually, a law was passed preventing Saturday morning product placement to be disguised as children's programming, resulting in Hot Wheels' cancellation in 1971.

That ruling was later over-turned in 1983, which spring-loaded an onslaught of mega-merchandising, where cartoon and toy companies created an unholy alliance to make back the money they never received in the 70s. That movement became commonly known as He-Man and The Masters of The Universe.

A quick sidenote about Hot Wheels before we get back on-track - famous voices heard in the original series included Casey Kasem and Albert Brooks.

GoBots were dealt an unfair hand in 1984. Tonka released the toys in North America several months before those "other" transforming robots rolled-out. But by Christmas that year, both lines were in direct competition with each other.

While the GoBot toyline was first to hit shelves, the Transformers cartoon was first to hit the airwaves in 1984, 2 months before Hanna Barbera's Challenge of The GoBots mini-series. GoBots continued one year later with a 65-episode syndicated run between 1985 and 1986, but it was 9 months too late after 13 episodes of Transformers.

There was also a movie called 'GoBots: Battle of The Rock Lords', which beat 'Transformers: The Movie' to theatres by several months in 1986, although the Transformers movie went into production before GoBots did. Upon release, GoBots only made a paltry $1.5 million dollars domestically. Transformers didn't fair much better though, making only $5 million.

Despite the existence of 65 episodes, Challenge of The GoBots makes the fail list because unlike Transformers, it didn't bolster any excitement to buy the toyline. And to be fair, the toys themselves weren't interesting or innovative enough to entice additional viewership. In both toy and cartoon, Transformers simply saturated the market better.

Interestingly, Peter Cullen, the voice of Optimus Prime, also voiced several GoBots, including Pincher, Spoiler and Tank. Frank Welker, who voiced the original Megatron, also provided GoBot voices for Scooter, Blaster and Rest-Q.

Around the same time as the start of these robot wars, Cabbage Patch Kids were begin adopted by the other half of the continent.

Cabbage Patch Kids never had an animated series, although they did get their own lousy Christmas special. But that's not what we're covering today. The franchise we're focusing on wasn't even really a toyline, but it rose to the top of the sales heap in the '80s.

Garbage Pail Kids was a successful series of parody trading cards created by cartoonist Art Spiegelman and Topps in 1985. They still release cards (the most recent series came out last year), but what you won't see anytime soon is another cartoon series. In fact, barely anyone saw the original.

Intended to air on CBS in 1987, the Canadian-made Garbage Pail Kids was dumped days before its premiere and replaced with Muppet Babies repeats. Concerned parents and coalitions for responsible television protested the show's history and content. Some also protested the merchandising tie-ins. 

The show never aired in North America, but was shown in the U.K., Israel and Iceland among other countries.

This was a rotten time for Garbage Pail Kids in other respects. In 1986, Topps was sued by the makers of Cabbage Patch Kids for copyright infringement. Schools banned the trading cards for distracting their students. And 'Garbage Pail Kids' was also an awful and barely released live action movie in 1987, which stunk up the box office and is still regarded as one of the worst films ever made. Not sure how anyone could've been surprised with the word 'garbage' in the title though.

Also putting the "gross" in toy grosses that year were Madballs.

Canadian company Nelvana produced a two-episode Madballs series, which went nowhere, other than straight-to-video. Cool new innovations they introduced "for the kids" were 1) giving the balls legs so they could walk, and 2) putting them in a 1950's rock-n'-roll cover band. Y'know, "for the kids"!

Balls, indeed. Total balls.

Let's move from the crude to the cutesy. The 1980s had so many sickeningly adorable things to buy and watch, like Smurfs, Snorks, Wuzzles, Care Bears, Care Bear Cousins, Monchhichis, Pound Puppies, Fluppy Dogs, Gummi Bears, Glo Worms, etc. But perhaps most useless of all were Popples.

Popples were pretty poppler poppluar popular, and of course, received their own series. I don't have any specific theories as to when Popples popped from the public consciousness (largely because I'm a 30+ year old man), but it can be no coincidence that it happened not long after the release of this terrible cartoon, which featured the screeching hysterics of the most annoying creatures on Earth. I guess considering the series lasted two seasons (!), it can't be labeled a complete failure. But in terms of content, it's an abomination, because it seems like the makers of the show just accepted the fact they had nothing to do with these creatures except for them to be annoying, and we all accepted that and watched anyway. For two whole seasons!

This cartoon didn't fail. Humanity did.

Speaking of annoying...

Troll dolls have been around since the early 1960s. They were invented by a woodcutter named Thomas Dam, who made a version of the doll for his daughter when he couldn't afford to buy her a Christmas gift. Once interest peaked, he started mass-producing a plastic version of the doll with the trademark electric-socket hair. Popularity of Good Luck Trolls ebbed and flowed throughout the years. But in 1992 it hit its apex, when Trolls starred in their own shrill Smurf-like cartoon special, Magical Super Trolls. "Troll-y cow", it's awful!

There was also a series in 2005 called Trollz. Y'know, "for the kids"! I mean, "kidz". These trollz were hip teenagerz who texted each other and hung out at the mall. There was a toyline that accompanied it, but no one seemed to care.

Did I mention I was 30+ year old man?

Sadly, this wasn't enough to kill the franchise. DreamWorks is threatening to release a feature film about 'Trolls' in 2015, starring Jason Schwartzman and Chloë Grace Moretz. But I'm hoping they'll turn their names into puns, like Trollë Grace Moretz. I just made that up. Although I'm not "trolling" for compliments here.

DreamWorks obviously has high hopes for the film, as Cartoon Brew just reported they purchased the worldwide Trolls licensing rights from creator Thomas Dam this week! Won't be long now until another "flow" brings the Trolls franchise flooding back to toy stores!

Okay, you've all sat through some horrible things this morning, and for that I apologize. But it is with great regret I must apologize again, and admit I've saved the worst for last. The most insidious sullying of a toy franchise ever committed to cel! And a once-great toy at that!

I can only imagine how the fateful ABC Saturday morning pitch meeting went down in late 1982...

TV Exec: "So what do you have for us?"

Pitchman: "Well, you know the Rubik's Cube, right?"

TV Exec: "Right. I love that thing!"

Pitchman: "Well, maybe you'd love it more if he had a face?"

TV Exec: "Maybe."

Pitchman: "A blue, childlike alien face!"

TV Exec: "Go on."

Pitchman: "And he talked in a hilarious voice!"

TV Exec: "I'm listening."

Pitchman: "And he flew and had magical powers that could only be released when the colours on his whimsical puzzle body were properly aligned!"

TV Exec: "I'll stop you right there for a second. Anyway he can appeal to a more Hispanic crowd?"

Pitchman: "As a matter of fact, yes! Because this magical box face just happens to be owned by 3 precocious Latino children!"

TV Exec: "I LOVE it! Here's a sack full of money! Hire popular boy-band Menudo to do the theme song."

Pitchman: "Yes sir! Let's do some drugs to celebrate! I found these rad new uppers called Popples!"

TV Exec: "Popples, eh...?"

END SCENE/HUMANITY

I'm pretty depressed right now. Could really use a few Popples. The drugs, I mean. Or maybe I'll just head over here and have a colourful, magical, lovable day!

Join us next week for Part 2 of 20 on "The Saturday Morning Life And Times of Menudo".

Saturday Morning Cartoons - Batmanimation!

Batman and Robin are no longer able to protect me from high toy prices. These are corrupt and lawless times! That's why I'm forced to visit this weekend's Pop Culture and Toy Expo at the Convention Centre. The toys there will definitely be over-priced. But with Adam West and Burt Ward scheduled to attend, I'm sure they'll hear me out and consider bringing back a bit of justice to the comic collectors' league, similar to what they did here...

Weirdly, I consider these Canadian Zellers commercials from 1988 to be the zenith of what I call "Batmanimation". They're great looking spots with vibrant character animation. Better than most I've seen!

Thought we'd take a look today at some other highlights from nearly 50 years worth of TV "Batmanimation". Some of this is bound to disappoint you if you're a hardcore Bat-fan. "What about that one episode of Justice League?", you'll say. "What about Batman's influence on Dynomutt?" "What about LEGO® Batman?" Look, I'm fine with almost anything Batman, but today I'm only expanding on a few of my favourites, and only the ones that focus on the Caped Crusader.

To get started, let me give you some perspective. I'm old and rural. My first exposure to an animated Batman was the theme song from the 1960's TV series. I didn't have cable or satellite when I was a kid, so I couldn't watch Super Friends or Dynomutt. I had to watch episodes of Adam West's Batman packaged within episodes of Laurie Mustard's Switchback on CBC.

I enjoyed the live-action Batman. I knew it was cheesy, but I recognized it as a fun product of my parents' messed-up times. Still, I longed to see an extension of that cartoon you saw during the rollicking theme song.

By Season 3, my wish was granted! The cartoon was extended about 2 seconds to include Batgirl.

 

Here's a fun deviation from my planned chronology by Happy Dragon Pictures, who recreated the 1960s theme song to include the most-recent film oeuvre.

Not long after Adam West became a household name, Batman was given a fully animated showcase, even positioning Superman as second fiddle in 1968/1969's The Batman/Superman Hour.

Superman was later dropped from the series entirely, which was renamed The Adventures of Batman and Robin. Casey Kasem played Robin right from the get-go. And Catwoman appeared to be played by...Future Lisa Loeb?

Batman lent promotional Bat-clout to Sesame Street in 1969. The Muppets would be nothing today if it weren't for that shameless Bat-shill!

Batman appeared in several segments on Sesame Street, teaching kids not to see humour in Robin's use of the phrase 'Holy Manhole!'

Now we get into a long period where Batman became a special guest-star in other people's shows. Prior to 1972, all "Batmanimation" was produced by Filmation. With the start of The All-New Scooby Doo Movies, Hanna Barbera began a long run with Batman and Robin, treating them with the same reverence as other big-name guest stars, like...Don Adams.

Between 1973 and 1986, there was only Super Friends. All the Bat-time. Okay, that's not true. There was some competition on another Bat-channel, but let's get the Super Friends out of the way first.

The All-New Super Friends Hour, Challenge of The Super Friends, The World's Greatest Super Friends, The Super Friends Hour, The Best of The Super Friends, Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show, The Super Power Team: Galactic Guardians, Super More-Than-Friends/Wonder Twin Dance Party. Okay, I made that last one up.

This will probably anger a lot of Super-fans, but I'm going to largely dismiss Super Friends, because it wasn't really Batman's show. I mean, look at that logo! Even the damn dog is more appreciated then Batman! I might do a separate Super Friends post soon, just so I can talk about El Dorado. But for now, I'll only mention a couple of interesting Bat-points about Batman in Super Friends...

1) Up until 1984, Batman was voiced by Olan Soule. But for a brief two-season run, Adam West returned to voice him. Here he is in 'The Fear' from 1986's Galactic Guardians, which was the last season of Super Friends. Note the episode is centered around Batman, with a more mature character-specific storyline. That can be credited to writer, Alan Burnett, who would later help to create the best Batman of all.

2) Batman had a filthy mouth, as seen in this "not for air" footage from [adult swim].



3) Batman and Robin loved each other very, very much.

I must quickly time travel back to 1977 again. As Hanna Barbera's Super Friends continued its reign on ABC, Filmation also put out new Batman cartoons on CBS, running in direct Saturday morning competition.

The first show was The New Adventures of Batman. Adam West voiced Batman in this, and Burt Ward reprised his role as Robin. Together with Bat Girl and Bat-Mite, they chased "the greatest array of villains the world has ever seen, proving that crime...does...not...pay!"

Then in 1978, Filmation made the logical choice to make Batman Tarzan's "boy wonder". (ie. his Bat-bitch)

Batman was packaged in with Tarzan cartoons in The Batman/Tarzan Adventure Hour, which was later repackaged again into 1979's Tarzan and The Super 7 and then 1980's Batman and The Super 7.

Check out the ad below. If you squint, you can kinda make Batman out. It's actually more depressing than the Super Friends logo.

Okay, cheer up Bat-buddies because now we hit the highlight!

So after Galactic Guardians was gone in 1986, the next Bat-mania started with the release of Tim Burton's 'Batman' in 1989. Based on the success and style of that film, and to coincide with the release of 'Batman Returns', Warner Bros. released Batman: The Animated Series on Fox to great acclaim in 1992.

Finally, a series that not only took Batman seriously in a starring role, but actually expanded upon, not only Tim Burton's films, but also the character's legacy.

Creator Bruce Timm based much of the show's look on what Tim Burton had already established in his movies, but added his own futuristic/old timey flourishes, like the police zeppelins you see in the opening credits. He called this style, "Dark Deco".

The series also delved into darker storylines and more Burton-esque versions of classic villains. To me, no one established a better version of Mr. Freeze than the creators of Batman: The Animated Series, and no one ever will. The makers of the non-Burton 'Batman and Robin' from 1997 knew that, and in quieter moments (the only good ones in the film) had star Arnold Schwarzenegger directly lifting scenes from the animated series.

Those scenes were lifted from Mr. Freeze's origin story in Batman: The Animated Series, called 'Heart Of Ice' - hands-down my favourite episode of the show.

Another character, Joker squeeze Harley Quinn, wasn't even featured in the original comics. She was an original creation for the 1992 Batman series, and became so popular, she was later written into the comics.

Batman: The Animated Series is the best super-hero cartoon of all time. Despite its influences, it had an original look. The animation is high quality. The music is epic, including the theme by Danny Elfman. The voice-work is exemplary, including Mark Hamill as the Joker and Kevin Conroy's defining portrayal of both Batman and Bruce Wayne. But what also set this Batman apart from others is the writing. I will watch or read anything that has Paul Dini or Alan Burnett's name on it. They are comic-book fans, so they're always faithful to source material, but they also have a cinematic mind. It's one thing to be a Super-fan, but you also need to know how to tell a coherent and interesting story, and they always accomplish that, as did the other writers. They also incorporate a chronological continuity between storylines and the series, which link together similar to Marvel movies of late.

The Animated Series would later be retitled The Adventures of Batman and Robin in 1993. It ended in 1995. The same creative team then regrouped to release The New Batman Adventures between 1997 and 1999.

Batman Beyond came next between 1999 and 2001. Bruce Timm, Paul Dini and Alan Burnett had their Bat-hands in it. It takes place in Neo-Gotham in 2039, where a bitter, broken and much older Bruce Wayne (still voiced by Kevin Conroy) finds himself handing over the Batsuit to 17-year old Terry McGinnis.

Later storylines from Batman Beyond would lead into Timm and Dini's next projects, Justice League (2001-2004) and Justice League Unlimited (2004-2006), where Kevin Conroy continued to voice Batman. Series regulars like Mark Hamill as The Joker and Arleen Sorkin as Harley Quinn (among others) reprised their roles set-up in Batman over a decade previous.

After that, a new series with a new look and creative team was released called The Batman. This one featured no character continuity from series' previous, and new voices including Adam West as Gotham mayor Marion Grange. I didn't like it. The character designs were ugly, and I couldn't get past the grating theme song.

That Bat-taste in my mouth is the reason I haven't watched Batman: The Brave and The Bold (2008-2011), the most recent Batman TV series. Apparently it's a lot lighter in tone than the last show. The theme song is definitely less annoying, which is a start.

Then this summer we'll see Beware The Batman, a computer-animated series coming to Cartoon Network from Batman Beyond producer Glen Murakami. This one is said to be more serious, with a focus on lesser-known villains like Professor Pyg and Magpie.

Good or bad, the great thing about comic books is that they're always left to interpretation. If you don't appreciate one vision, you know another one will come along shortly for you to sample.

Some of my favourite current comic-book interpretations are being shown in shorts aired during 'DC Nation' programming on Cartoon Network. Purists may not like it, but they are definitely worth your time. I'll leave you with a few below.

Here's a salute to artist Mort Drucker and "Mad Magazine".

Here's a weird one by Aardman Animations of Wallace and Gromit fame.

And lastly, here is Batman of Shanghai, featuring major character redesigns and a martial arts movie flavour.

Well, Bat's it for now! See you next week! Same Bat-day, same Bat-blog!

PS: The 'Legions of Gotham' website was very useful in helping me to sound like I knew what I was talking about. They have a lot more information and credibility than I ever will! Check them out at www.legionsofgotham.org.