saturday_am_80s | Entries tagged with cbs

captain-slinky.livejournal.com

In 1985, Disney was desperate to get back in to the Television Animation business. A series of underperforming animated movies since the death of Walt Disney in 1966 had left the once powerful House Of Mouse a slowly rotting corpse of a company being picked apart by corporate scavengers.

Then came Michael Eisner who said "Screw that, we're DISNEY!" and with that they pumped new money, new talent and, unfortunately, new 1980's greed-fueled corporate policies in to what had once been a tight-knit "Family" corporation of sorts.

Regardless of the greed-fueled motivations, though, Michael Eisner got the company back up and running for a whole new generation of kids, starting with Saturday Mornings in 1985 because Saturday Morning cartoons were cheap, easy to make, and could be turned out FAST to get the Disney name back in to homes that weren't tuning in to the Disney Sunday Night Movie every week out of habit for family-friendly viewing.

The first cartoon that was made ready was "The Wuzzles", with a concept that was created by Michael Eisner himself for his new Disney Television Animation Studio to create. Because Michael was such a good 80's businessman, he had the toy rights sold to Hasbro before they even had a storyline, full name, concept sketch or really anything beyond "It's a show about mixed-up animals, like part giraffe and part elephant". It had the Disney name behind it, so they bought it and BOOM! An 80's classic was born!

The Wuzzles only lasted one season (13 episodes), making it the shortest lived Disney Television Animated show ever, but the following year ABC bought the reruns of that first season as a part of an experiment which we will discuss next week when I tell you all about Disney's Adventures of The Gummi Bears :)

captain-slinky.livejournal.com

(No matter how often i hear it and KNOW that he's saying "Horace J. Honeypot", to me it always sounded like the mayor was saying "Horace J. Onion-F*cker". Listen and see if you agree!)

By 1985, The Berenstain Bears had been featured in a gazillion "Easy Reader" books and even a few prime-time animated specials, so why not bring them to Saturday Morning television? CBS, who was always looking for new cartoons that could potentially fill that ever growing "Educational And Informative" mandate, took the chance and put The Berenstain Bears at the head of their Saturday Morning line-up in the 8:00 slot.

Never seen it? One-line summary: Little House On The Prairie, with bears instead of people, but the kids are thoroughly modern 80's kids.

captain-slinky.livejournal.com

Another year down! This list includes all the new 1984 cartoons as well as the returning ones from the previous seasons. It should be noted that my Master List posts are based on the line-up that premiered in the Fall of each year, and does not reflect any of the minor scheduling tweaks that may have happened in the Spring. Cartoons that debut in the Spring line-up (which are very rare) will be included in the following year's Master List.

So here's the hotlink-filled OFFICIAL SATURDAY MORNING MASTER LIST OF 1984:

ABC

CBS

NBC

captain-slinky.livejournal.com

Pryor's Place (1984, 11:30 on CBS) is generally believed to be one of the more ill-conceived Saturday Morning programs of the 80's that looked great on Paper. In 1984, traditionally adult-themed comedian Richard Pryor was riding a wave of popularity with kids thanks to movies such as "The Toy" and "Superman III", and so a bunch of Hollywood-types started offering him kid-friendly projects, most of them being just terrible (one pitch I heard of was a kind of revamp of the Super Globetrotters theme, only with Pryor providing all the voices for an "Ethnic Super Team" - he walked out of the meeting, insulted).

Sid and Marty Krofft (makers of H.R. Puffinstuff, Land Of The Lost, etc) were the only ones who pitched him a show that wasn't racially insulting; a cross between Sesame Street and Mister Rogers Neighborhood, where Pryor could populate the entire street with characters of his creation. Partially inspired by the recent trend in those noted programs to touch on more "serious" issues such as Death, Pryor was inspired to take the offer.

Unfortunately, there were the censors at Standards & Practices. Perhaps because of Pryor's reputation as a controversial and profane comedian, the censors seemed to to keep an extra-harsh judgmental eye towards the rough drafts, scripts and even finished episodes of the show before they even hit the air. As a result, the aired episodes came off as being extremely dark and moody. A combination of mixed reactions, poor ratings and lengthy delays from the S&P Censors resulted in the show being cancelled before the end of the year.

The show had potential... it even had Ray Parker Jr doing the theme song and in the opening credits!

captain-slinky.livejournal.com

1984 seemed to have a theme of some sort... can you spot it? 10:30am on CBS was one of the several new Video Game cartoons that had been rushed in to production in the wake of Pac-Man's success and departure from Saturday Morning Television. The (unconfirmed, not from a confirmed source) story of this show and it's creation are kind of neat...

Former Hannah-Barbera writer and story-editor Andy Heyward had this idea floating around in his head for several years, a story about a traveling stock car stunt show circus that was a front for some secret agents and their high-tech computerized James Bond cars. When Andy finally left Hannah-Barbera to help form DIC, he pushed the idea through to get fully developed. When the writers were polishing and refining the idea (adding a little sister to the mix along the way), they were pitching ideas for an actual NAME to the show, which had been stuck under the title "Secret Agent Cars" for far too long. Various names were shouted out, stuff like "C.A.R.Z.", "Fast Track", "Pit Stop"... and then when somebody stated listing automotive/racing terms ("Checkered Flag", "NASCAR", "Race Track", etc) and hit "Pole Position", somebody said "What... like the Video Game?"

The room went quiet as everyone looked at everyone else.

"Yes" it was agreed. "Just like the video game!" And so that's how they sold it.

Mind you, the cartoon has literally NOTHING to do with the video game AT ALL beyond the title but who would have tuned in after the Saturday Supercade to watch a single car driving around a track for 22 minutes?

The theme song for this show was *perfect*, reminiscent of both "Airwolf" and "Knight Rider", hooked me from the get-go:

captain-slinky.livejournal.com

So I've been struggling with this one all day long, trying to figure out exactly how to write up what is quite possibly THE most universally liked and enjoyed cartoon of the entire 1980's, Jim Henson's Muppet Babies. "The Show That Will Never Be On DVD" because of it's liberal use of what was, at the time, "Fair Use" clips of everything fro Star Trek to Charlie Chaplin films, Jim Henson's Muppet Babies was a case of everything going right at the right time for Jim Henson. As a bit of fluff/filler for the third Muppet Movie, "The Muppets Take Manhattan", they put in a cute little number featuring baby versions of The Muppets. They had a lot of fun filming the sequence, and Jim instantly saw the potential in the characters. Without even having an idea beyond "Baby Versions Of The Muppets", they shopped the concept around and CBS snapped it up *quick*.

The cartoon debuted a scant two months after The Muppets Take Manhattan hit theaters, and a multi-level marketing tie-in with McDonalds helped make sure that every kid in America knew about The Muppet Babies, but that's not what made this cartoon so beloved - the cartoon was REALLY GOOD! ANd we really owe it all to that prolific writer of 1980's Saturday Morning Cartoons, Jeffrey Scott - who wrote the entire first THREE SEASONS of the show by himself!

captain-slinky.livejournal.com

In 1984 at 8:30 in the morning, CBS ironically ran the most Orwellian of all 1980's cartoons, The Get Along Gang. Created by a committee of artists and marketing specialists at the American Greetings Toy Design & Marketing Division (trying to refine and recreate the powerhouse merchandising magic of Strawberry Shortcake, Care Bears, Shirt Tales and Smurfs) working in conjunction with the never-more-powerful Parental Watchdog Groups, The Get Along Gang was an experiment in just how much influence and control mass media had over the masses. Writer Mark Evanier summed it up very well:

"[Television watchgroups] all seek to make kidvid more enriching and redeeming, at least by their definitions, and at the time, they had enough clout to cause the networks to yield. Consultants were brought in and we, the folks who were writing cartoons, were ordered to include certain "pro-social" morals in our shows. At the time, the dominant "pro-social" moral was as follows: The group is always right...the complainer is always wrong.

This was the message of far too many eighties' cartoon shows. If all your friends want to go get pizza and you want a burger, you should bow to the will of the majority and go get pizza with them. There was even a show for one season on CBS called The Get-Along Gang, which was dedicated unabashedly to this principle. Each week, whichever member of the gang didn't get along with the others learned the error of his or her ways....

...I don't believe you should always go along with the group. What about thinking for yourself? What about developing your own personality and viewpoint? What about doing things because you decide they're the right thing to do, not because the majority ruled and you got outvoted?"

Thirteen mind-controlling episodes were produced, which American Greetings still refuses to release on DVD for some unknown reason. Like, not just a "Meh nobody would want a DVD of that show", but an actively negative stance towards any company approaching them regarding DVD release rights! The closest to a full season DVD release we've ever gotten is from Mill Creek Entertainment, who released a low-quality "Best Of" DVD that contained 10 of the 13 episodes(?!) and then the remaining 3 episodes were released as "Bonus Features" on other 80's cartoon DVD releases such as Heathcliff and the popular-but-oddly-mish-mashed TV Toons To Go DVD set. Weeeeeeird....

captain-slinky.livejournal.com

Another year down! This list includes all the new 1983 cartoons as well as the returning ones from the previous seasons. It should be noted that my Master List posts are based on the line-up that premiered in the Fall of each year, and does not reflect any of the minor scheduling tweaks that may have happened in the Spring. Cartoons that debut in the Spring line-up (which are very rare) will be included in the following year's Master List.

So here's the hotlink-filled OFFICIAL SATURDAY MORNING MASTER LIST OF 1983:

ABC

NBC

CBS

captain-slinky.livejournal.com

(I defy anyone to find full episodes of this show in English!)

On Saturday Morning in 1978, the ABC Weekend Special aired an animated adaptation of Jane Thayer's "The Puppy Who Wanted A Boy", the story of a puppy named "Petey" who becomes attached to a young orphan named Tommy. One of the most heavily repeated of all the ABC Weekend Special episodes, the next 4 years of ABC Weekend Specials included such titles as "The Puppy's Great Adventure", "The Puppy's Amazing Rescue" and "The Puppy Saves The Circus". In 1982, The Puppy got a co-starring title role in The Scooby And Scrappy Puppy Hour, and then finally in 1983 he got his own half-hour show at 11am on ABC. See? If you start at the bottom, you CAN work your way to the top!

This cartoon featured The Puppy and his friends searching all over the world for Tommy and his adoptive family, then in the second season opener they FOUND the boy and traveled all over the USA with them having adventures where they met and teamed-up with a flying puppy named "Glyder" (his ears were so large he could use them to fly like Dumbo the elephant).

No matter who I ask about it, nobody seems to know why there's such an embargo on this beloved Ruby-Spears classic other than "I dunno, I think it's something with the rights being tied-up?" This is really sad, because this was an incredible series of cartoons!

Reruns were later picked up and aired on CBS as "The Puppy's Great Adventures".

captain-slinky.livejournal.com

In last week's Friday Poll, it was decided that the best thing on ABC Saturday Morning in 1981 was Super Friends, followed closely by Thundarr The Barbarian which is good, since

the_gneech probably would have left a fairly massive rant if Thundarr hadn't come in at least second place :)

Folks, I don't mean to insinuate that y'all are getting predictable or anything, but this is EXACTLY the same way the vote ended for the 1980 ABC line-up!

This week we delve further in to Saturday Morning of 1981 with CBS!

[Poll #1923819]

captain-slinky.livejournal.com

At 10:30 in the morning on CBS in 1983, you got something pretty darned special - The Charlie Brown And Snoopy Show! These characters had been around since 1950 and been the subject of several movies and seasonal television specials, but never before - not even during the HEIGHT of popularity in the 1960's - had there ever been a weekly cartoon!

The show was pretty straightforward and easy to produce, as they had over 30 years of "storyboards" to pull from - and that's exactly what they did. Direct adaptations of the comic strips. It was quite brilliant! Produced by Bill Melendez, whose animation studio generally specialized in specials, these episodes fit seamlessly with all the existing movies and specials that had already been produced!

captain-slinky.livejournal.com

The Dungeons & Dragons Cartoon that debuted at 9:30 on CBS in 1983 was a historically significant milestone for Saturday Mornings on many levels, and I hope I can keep my thoughts collected/organized enough to convey the importance of this cartoon to you.

First of all, it was a milestone for the team at Marvel Productions. Since their inception just over a year ago, their cartoons fell in to two categories - Marvel Super Heroes, and Hanna-Barbera Rejects. When they made animation for established Marvel super-hero properties it was a huge hit, but when they tried to make original stuff like the other big names of Saturday Mornings we got forgettable stuff like "Pandamonium" and "Spaghetti & Meatballs". Dungeons & Dragons was their first non-comics property to become a HIT, consistently winning in the ratings for it's time slot for its first two seasons against shows such as Pac-Man and The Smurfs!

Second, it was a milestone in Voice Acting. This show had a star-studded cast full of folks who were actually on prime-time television shows at the time! Willy Ames from "Charles In Charge" (as well as movies and other TV shows at the time), Donny Most ("Ralph Mouf" from Happy Days) and Adam Rich (from "Eight Is Enough"), all considered to be "real actors", provided lead character voices for this show (Hank, Eric and Presto). Unlike other celebrity voice acting in cartoons, this was a real novelty to have professional actors providing voices for characters that they didn't already play on another show - the cast from Happy Days, Laverne & Shirley and Mork & Mindy provided the voices for their animated counterparts, but never for original characters like this.

Third, it was the first (and as far as I have been able to tell, the ONLY) cartoon that the National Coalition on Television Violence (BOOO! HISS!) demanded that the FTC run a warning during each broadcast stating that "Dungeons & Dragons had been linked to real-life violent deaths". Their demand was ignored, but it had the effect of many scripts never even making it to the storyboard stage. As a result, the orders for new episodes each season kept dwindling - 13 episodes the first season, 8 for the second season, 6 for the third season. Basically, they starved the audience away :(

Fourth, this show had one of the best legends of all the Saturday Morning Cartoons, namely a fabled FINAL EPISODE that never aired but many kids SWORE they had seen it. The final un-produced episode would have revealed that the latter is Dungeon Master's corrupted son, and would have explained that the children were brought into the realm to help redeem Venger and restore balance. Want to read it? It's right here AND they even made an audio play of it for the deluxe DVD release of the full series so go pick that up if you're interested!

captain-slinky.livejournal.com

In 1983, CBS started their official broadcast offering at 8:00 with the Hanna-Barbera show THE BISKITTS. The Biskitts are a group of tiny anthropomorphic Robinhood-esque dogs who live on Biskitt Island and guard the crown jewels of Biskitt Castle while also performing good deeds for the underprivileged inhabitants of their tiny island. The villain of the series is the king's mean-spirited, wasteful, younger brother King Max who rules the neighboring Lower Suburbia. In lieu of a proper coronation, Max constantly schemes to steal the royal treasure with the help of his hench-hounds Fang & Snarl and his jester Shecky. The Biskitts are also in danger of being captured and eaten by a large wildcat named Scratch.

And then they were almost killed by ANOTHER group of anthropomorphic animals, The Shirt Tales

See, when The Biskitts was first ordered and presented to advertisers, they all thought they had a genuine hit on their hands. LITTLE ROBIN HOOD PUPPIES!!! It looked like The Smurfs, only with TALKING PUPPIES! How can you go wrong with PUPPIES???

PUPPIES!!!

Provided that the show could pull in the ratings, The Biskitts were poised to be the next Smurfs, with toys, comics, posters, books, sheets, tissues, school supplies - you name it! Provided that the kids would tune in...

The mid-season rating came in and it seemed that children everywhere agreed - The Biskitts ranked somewhere between "The Morning Farm Report" and "Just turning off the TV so we can go outside and play". They tried for a FULL SEASON ROTATION (Fall and Spring) to make this show click with the kids, but it just didn't happen.

Meanwhile, some magical shenanigans were underway behind the scenes! The fickle finger of fate was stirring things up in several place at once to make sure that this show reached the proper audience! All at once, these seemingly unconnected thing happened:

CBS was pestering Hanna-Barbera over misrepresentation of this show, insisting that H-B "Fix it".
NBC, realizing that they couldn't win the Saturday Morning Ratings Game with re-packaged reruns, were looking to streamline and modernize their Saturday Morning line-up.
Patriotism in America was on the rise thanks to The Cold War.

SO! CBS cancelled the second season of Biskitts at the last possible moment. NBC Cancelled Shirt Tales to make room for stuff like Kidd Video. Hanna-Barbera pledged to provide the Armed Forces Network with more "fresh" programming than ever before, "for the troops".

Hanna-Barbera said "Hey CBS! We've got a proven performer for you, SHIRT TALES!"

Hanna-Barbera said "Hey Armed Forces Network! We've got a super-fresh cartoon for you, THE BISKITTS!"

So come Fall of 1984, The Biskitts were replaced by The Shirt Tales AND The Armed Forces Network started showing The Biskitts to the children of our troops stationed abroad, primarily Europe and Asia. That SHOULD be the end of the story, but...

The Biskitts achieved a level of popularity on the Armed Forces Network that they had hoped for here in the States! CRAZY! CBS was supposedly FURIOUS and said something akin to "How DARE YOU take away our wonderful show and replace it with this mediocre cast-off from NBC? GIVE US BACK OUR BISKITTS!"

And so in the Spring of 1985, The Shirt Tales went away and were replaced with re-runs of The Biskitts. Theory was that The Biskitts had just been "before it's time" in the US, but once again it tanked in the ratings and was gone by Fall of 1985.

HOWEVER, as a happy footnote for all you Biskitts fans? The Armed Forces Network continued to rerun the 13 episodes (26 11-minute segments) all the way through the 80's, giving them an international notoriety rarely seen by a single-season cartoon :)

captain-slinky.livejournal.com

In our last Friday poll, it was decided that The Bugs Bunny / Road Runner Show was the absolute best thing on your Saturday morning TV in 1980. Shockingly, Thundarr The Barbarian came in second place while The Daffy Duck Show (which had ben voted as The Best Thing On NBC in 1980) recieved *zero votes*. Numbers are weird sometimes :/

And so we come to THE LAST 1980 POLL!

[Poll #1921386]

When voting, try to think of which one of these channels you would be okay with just leaving on ALL DAY LONG. Like, let' say your TV i broken and it only gets one of these channels - which channel do you hope you're tuned in to?

captain-slinky.livejournal.com

Another year down! This list includes all the new 1981 cartoons as well as the returning ones from the previous seasons. It should be noted that my Master List posts are based on the line-up that premiered in the Fall of each year, and does not reflect any of the minor scheduling tweaks that may have happened in the Spring. Cartoons that debut in the Spring line-up (which are very rare) will be included in the following year's Master List.

So here's the hotlink-filled OFFICIAL SATURDAY MORNING MASTER LIST OF 1982:

ABC
8:00 - Super Friends
8:30 - Pac-Man / Richie Rich / Little Racals
9:30 - Pac-Man
10:00 - Mork & Mindy / Laverne & Shirley / Fonz Hour
11:00 - The Scooby & Scrappy Puppy Hour
12:00 - The ABC Weekend Special

CBS
8:00 - Speed Buggy
8:30 - The Sylvester & Tweety, Daffy and Speedy Show
9:30 - The Bugs Bunny Road Runner Show
10:30 - Gilligan's Planet
11:00 - Pandamonium!
11:30 - Meatballs & Spaghetti
12:00 - The Popeye & Olive Comedy Show
12:30 - Fat Albert & The Cosby Kids
1:00 - Blackstar

NBC
8:00 - Flintstone Funnies
8:30 - Shirt Tales
9:00 - The Smurfs
10:30 - The Gary Coleman Show
11:00 - The Incredible Hulk / Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends
11:30 - The Jetsons or Johnny Quest (re-runs with no new content or awesome stories so they have no official entry in this community)
12:00 - The New Adventures of Flash Gordon

captain-slinky.livejournal.com

"SPEED BUGGY!??!" I can hear you yelling at your computer screen. "But Captain!" you protest, "Speed Buggy is a Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and broadcast on CBS from September 8, 1973 to August 30, 1975 that followed the adventures of an anthropomorphic, fiberglass Dune Buggy and his teenage friends as they solved Scooby-Doo-esque mysteries! What's it doing under the heading of 1982?!?!?"

Blame Bo and Luke Duke.

The Dukes of Hazzard was an extremely popular and high-rated hour-long prime-time television show on CBS Friday nights. Having seen the success of prime-time-to-animation transition shows such as The Fonz, Laverne & Shirley (as well as historically successful cartoons of The Partridge Family, Gilligan's Island and Star Trek), CBS decided they wanted to diversify and bring them Duke Boys to Saturday Mornings. "Hey, Hanna-Barbera, can YOU make us a Dukes of Hazzard Cartoon?" they asked, and since Joe & Bill could never say no, they did all the work needed to get a cartoon done (model sheets, story boarding, voice casting, script writing, etc) and everything was ready to go! Bring in the celebrities in, record the dialogue, bring the actors in again for a final voice-over and...

In the spring of 1982, as filming was due to begin on the fifth season of the prime-time show, series stars Tom Wopat and John Schneider did not report to the set due to a contract dispute. Catherine Bach (their cousin "Daisy") also considered walking out due to similar contract concerns, but Wopat and Schneider convinced her to stay, insisting that settling the dispute was "man's work" (actual quote). Rather than cave in to the demands of the talent, CBS pulled the old "YOU ARE NOT SPECIAL. YOU CAN BE REPLACED" move and hired two new actors, Byron Cherry as Coy Duke and Christopher Mayer as Vance Duke.

"Hey, uhm... Hanna-Barbera? You guys can change all the animation and voice-over and everything before September, right?"

Hanna-Barbera said no, we CAN'T do that are you CRAZY it's not that simple, but CBS (at this point crazy with Ceasar-esque power) said something akin to YOU WILL HAVE A CARTOON READY THAT FEATURES OUR NEW GUYS AND LOOKS NOTHING LIKE THE OLD GUYS OR YOU'LL NEVER WORK IN TELEVISION AGAIN, and so H-B said well I guess we can try but we can't guarantee anything so maybe you shouldn't put it on the Fall Schedule...

...And CBS proceeded to promote that a Dukes Of Hazzard Cartoon would be the first cartoon in their 1982 Saturday Morning Line-up.

There are different accounts of what happened next, but the facts are these:

The affiliates were told that they would have a Dukes Of Hazzard cartoon at 8:00 Saturday morning, September the 18th.
The network and the affiliates sold advertising based on the projected number for a brand-new Dukes Of Hazzard cartoon.
CBS received a shipment from Hanna-Barbera labeled "The Dukes Ep 01".
The shipment contained re-run of the 1973 Speed Buggy cartoon.
Advertisers and Affiliates were PISSED OFF.

The official story is that CBS was aware of the possible Speed Buggy substitution, having communicated with H-B and said something like "Well if you CAN'T get us a Dukes of Hazzard cartoon in time, just send us SOMETHING to do with cars and racing" and intended to compensate affiliates and advertisers only in the event that H-B could not get the Dukes cartoon completed in time.

Popular Theory (and my personal favorite) is that CBS remained stubborn and threatening, so H-B sent them a box labeled "The Dukes" as a decoy while they frantically wrapped production on the new version of The Dukes, with lots of "Gee I don't know how this happened, we finished production a week ago, it must have been my new intern, we're tracking it down right now, blah blah blah" excuse till the Spring of 1983.

Spring of 1983 saw only one new cartoon debut, "The Dukes". More about THAT when I get to 1983 :) Also, it all became a moot point because Coy & Vance only lasted one season before the contract disputes were settled and the proper Duke Boys were back, making the second season of The Dukes SO EASY for Hanna-Barbera to produce since they were 98% done and in the can :)

captain-slinky.livejournal.com

I know so very little about this series! Looks like "Tenacious D: The Animated Series" to me. Yet another of the Marvel Productions attempts at a traditional Hanna-Barbera / Filmation action/comedy, The series centered on Meatballs & Spaghetti, a husband-and-wife singing duo who roamed the country in a mobile home with their friend Clyde (who was the bassist), and their dog Woofer (who was their drummer).

I have never seen an episode of this show... anybody care to share any thoughts about it?

Debuted in the 11:30 time slot of 1982, moved to 9am in the Spring of 1983, and then was *gone*.

captain-slinky.livejournal.com

Last week you all voted the first season of The Daffy Duck Show as the best thing in the NBC Saturday Morning Line-Up over a pretty impressive list of contenders such as The Flintstones, Godzilla and even BATMAN!

Today is an ULTIMATE SHOWDOWN to determine which cartoon of 1980 wa the BEST. To make things even more difficult and/or fair, I've also included the runner-up from each network so the votes can be more evenly spread. And please remember... this is for *SCIENCE*!
[Poll #1920224]

captain-slinky.livejournal.com

In 1982, CBS gave the Saturday Morning 11:00 time slot to a show called "Pandamonium", which was the new Marvel Productions team's first attempt at an original Hanna-Barbera-style Saturday Morning Cartoon.

The show had a pretty complicated set-up, but easy-to-follow episodes. When an evil alien named Mondraggor tried to steal The Pyramid of Power (an ancient artifact thingee with untold power and whatnot), the pyramid shattered into many pieces, which scattered around the world. Each week, Mondraggor would race against the brother/sister team of Peter and Peggy Darrow, and three talking pandas named Chesty, Timothy, and Algernon, who were irradiated by the Pyramid's magic. The three of them could come together Voltron-style to form Poppapanda, a being with supernatural power.

Over the course of their 13 episodes, the team of good guys found most (but not all) of the pieces of the pyramid and the show was cancelled before there could be any kind of resolution :(

(Also aired at 8:30 starting in the Spring of 1983)

captain-slinky.livejournal.com

Gilligan's Planet was on your local CBS affiliate at 10:30 in 1982 (and at Noon in the Spring of 1983) that featured nearly the entire cast of the original 1964 sit-com "Gilligan's Island", the only exception being Tina "Ginger" Louise, who even after nearly 20 year was still upset at having been "tricked" in to taking the roll on the original show (luckily, Dawn "Mary-Ann" Wells was able to fill in and provide the voices for both roles).

Much like the original Gilligan' Island theme song had done, the intro to this cartoon summed up the entire back-story and plot in one compact snippet. They're castaways on an island, they build a rocket, they're now stranded in space.

Produced by Filmation (in conjunction with MGM/United Artists), Gilligan's Planet was the last cartoon series that Filmation produced for Saturday mornings. After this point, it's all syndicated stuff. It was also the first Filmation series to feature the Lou Scheimer "signature" credit (as opposed to the rotating Lou Scheimer/Norm Prescott "wheel" credit which had been used since 1969).

And of course, it was directed by my close personal friend, Hal Sutherland (and by "Close Personal Friend", I mean "I bought an animation cell of Orco from him at a comic book convention and had him sign it for me")