Thursday, March 02, 2006

The Cartoon Mashups That The 70's Forgot

WHEW! Coming up with an animated summertime blockbuster is hard work! That's the reason for no postings for a month. But there is one thing I had to talk about-

EBAY!

When I'm not pounding the keyboard plotting out my amazing film, I'm scouring Ebay for dubs of the "Cartoon Mashups That The 70's Forgot."

I was too little to have seen them in person at the time, but there's something so cool that speaks to me, when I look at these things now.

I get the impression that the studios had so many good ideas that it was hard to winnow concepts down! There were team-ups of characters from various shows, and combinations of genres that were mind boggling!

For instance, one of my favorite 70's mashups was "Go-Go Goose and The Kount"- the plot was amazingly simple:
Go-Go Goose, a hippie cartoon goose in the year 2525, unlocks a vault that contains the coffin of Count Dracula! They join a rock band and solve mysteries together. Think that was "groovy"? Season Two introduced "Dracula Jr. and the Henchlings" to the cast, along with "FishFace and Fin", a "Fonzie"-type shark and his 'yes-man' sidekick. The combination of wacky slapstick and bone-chilling horror is something the networks would never air nowadays, the cowards.

Or how about "The Fattest Gun The West"- where Wild Bill Hickock uncovers a genie who zaps him into the 70's, where he teams up with Race Rammer, a race car driver? The spell the genie put on Wild Bill that made him balloon up to 800 pounds whenever he got angry was hilarious- but not so hilarious when Race Rammer was trying to speed away from savage tiger-men in a race car! They join a rock band and solve mysteries together.

One of the best though, was "Sprightly BeLightly and the Disco Choppers". Three live action 'kangaroos' (actually actors in costumes) would look into their 'Story-Scope' machine...and then the scene would turn animated as we shift to the story of Sprightly BeLightly- a kind magical imp from the faerie dimension, who works as a Private Investigator with the Disco Choppers; three roller-boogie girls who know Kung-Fu! They join a Disco band and solve mysteries together. The fact that this was set underwater on Mars in the future was just icing on the cake!
Sure, there were a lot of scenes with the gang climbing in and out of airlocks, but it was Sprightly's sidekick, Leprechaun John, who brought the magic home. The way he would mistakenly trip the bad guys while jealously hoarding his pot of gold from the Disco Choppers was just priceless!
Whenever Sprightly would hiccup, it forced whoever heard her do it to tell the truth.
The Disco Choppers secret identities were as rollerskating waitresses at a "Dive-In" restaurant. How many times did I see those feisty Choppers stand up to the ribbing of local motorcycle tough "Nasty Malasty" by pouring a chocolate seaweed malted over his head? It never gets old!!!

The best part was at the end, when they would recap the day's adventure with a disco music video-and this was years before MTV!

The 70's must have been a time of limitless imagination.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Let me know if you ever come across any 'bootleg' DVDs of "SOOPER DOOPER DYNA-PIGS AND THE KIDS FROM FLIPPETY HONK-HONK!" I'd pay ANY PRICE to relive those golden days of my youth over and over and over again to the exclusion of all else!

8:59 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

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3:43 PM  

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