Brainatra
02-09-2004, 10:55 AM
1975 Review
1975: Gerald Ford is president... the Vietnam War finally ends with the fall of Saigon... "Sonny and Cher" is a draw on TV ... "Jaws" debuts as the first modern "blockbuster" movie... disco starts to gain steam... America gets prepared for next year's bicentennial... in comics, Batman continues to get, well, Bat-serious (dealing with the likes of Ra's al Ghul and the Joker), while this year's annual JLA-JSA teamup involves the accidential death of several JSAers, prompting a "Spectre appeals to God to bring 'em back" bit, and the in-story appearance of 70's Superman/Flash scribes Cary Bates and Elliot S. Maggin (they'd accidentially crossed over from the "real world" dimension of "Earth-Prime" into the Earth-One universe; later in the 70's, Bates crosses over into Earth-One again in a "Flash" story)...and on Saturday mornings, another round of animated hijinks from the folks at CBS, NBC and ABC.
Re: Saturday mornings:
The big trend is live-action adventure shows, along with several superhero shows; however, unlike more present-day action fare such as "Batman: the Animated Series" or the "Power Rangers", violence is pretty much verboten, meaning lots of conflicts settled through, well, nonviolent means...
Notable shows debuting on Saturday mornings this season:
- "The Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape Show". Lasted three years. This is the initial resurrection of the cat and mouse team by H-B, noteworthy for A) giving Jerry a red bow tie and B) deciding, in bucking their old-school adversity toward each other for the "kinder, gentler" 70's, to make the two *friends*. Yep, this is probably what inspired the "Porch Pals" version of "Itchy and Scratchy" on that second-season "Simpsons" episode, folks. ;-) Though this version doesn't last: by the early 80's, the next incarnation of the duo (by Filmation) has 'em back to their usual (albeit cheaply animated) mayhem. Personally, I never much liked Tom and (particularly) Jerry...especially that flippin' bulldog, Spike...
The Grape Ape was a 40-foot-tall gorilla who startled people with his sheer size; he tooled around with his friend, a talking van-driving Beagle. The Beagle had the same voice as Auto Cat/Pac-Man, IIRC; Grape could only say his name, "Grape Ape", no doubt serving as a predecessor to the limited vocabulary of the latter-day 'toon stars "Pokemon". :-) Thanks to the cheap animation, Grape's apparent size/height kept changing throughout the episodes/shows.
- "The Shazam/Isis Hour": Last year's big hit "Shazam!" is now paired up with a new half-hour show, "Isis", about a female superhero (really an archaeologist?) who turned into a flying superheroine (no connection with any of the old comic characters, though they could've had some weird combination of the Golden Age Hawkgirl/Mary Marvel in mind, I guess...). The actress who played Isis, as I understand, developed an, erm, cult following for her, um, physical appearance by some of the show's male viewers...
- "The Oddball Couple": cartoon animal version of the popular ABC sitcom (the network this one aired on) "The Odd Couple". Paul Winchell provides a voice. Here, Felix and Oscar are a sloppy dog and a neatnik cat.
- "Lost Saucer", a live-action show about Jim "Gomer Pyle" Nabors and Ruth "Laugh In" Buzzi as space explorers. As TV Party notes, "two of the sixties' biggest primetime stars reduced to a low budget kid show." :-) Folded next season into the "Krofft Supershow."
- "Far Out Space Nuts": Bob "Gilligan" Denver in this live-action show about, well, more space explorers. Space travel is probably still popular for kids in the mid-70's, thanks to the launch of the U.S.'s first space station, "Skylab" (launched in 1973) and the joint Apollo-Soyuz mission of this year.
- "CBS Children's Film Festival". CBS' mainstay of children's films from around the world, run at 1 PM EST this season.
- "Ghost Busters": a live-action production by Filmation. I've never seen it, but can only imagine that a live-action Filmation production must make the special effects on the original "Star Trek" series look like "The Matrix" in comparison...
Anyway, this show featured Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker (of "F-Troop" fame) as two ghost exterminators teamed up with a gorilla for a partner. After the 1984 "Ghostbusters" movie became a hit, this show popped up again as a cartoon (which I *do* recall seeing as a kid--- was pretty lame, natch...), which of course prompted lawsuits between the movie "Ghostbusters" and this one (hence one reason the more familiar, Slimer-featuring 'toon is called "The *Real* Ghostbusters")...
Finally, "Make a Wish", the educational show mentioned in my listings last week, airs on Sundays on ABC. Guess Sunday mornings were still considered a viable timeslot for airing network kids' shows at this point, vs. today's newsmagazine/news obsessed networks that'd sooner run the "Today" show or let the local stations run three hours of local newscasts on Saturdays and Sundays instead of airing any kids shows...of course, today's networks are part of much larger conglomerates than their 70's counterparts, and said conglomerates happen to own various cable channels that they can air "less important" stuff like kids' shows on...
Of course, as anyone who grew up in this time would know, syndication was where one turned to to see the traditional cartoon mayhem (read: violence) of Tom & Jerry, Looney Tunes, etc... :-)
Today's "Boomerang on CN" shows are:
Valley of the Dinosaurs
Speed Buggy
Valley of the Dinosaurs (CBS)
Show description: see description for "1974" last week.
Sunday's episode:
The "Valley" gang fight off invading forces (yet again).
Comments:
CN ran this show *last* week---surely they could've found something different to air *this* week (like "Grape Ape" or something)...see last week's comments for more on this show.
This is the second (and last?) season for this show, probably held over from last season to cash in on "Land of the Lost"'s popularity/pad out the schedule at the end of the day...
Competition for "Dinosaurs" at noon EST on Saturdays in '75 included "Speed Buggy" (see below) on ABC and "Josie and the Pussycats" reruns on NBC, which was moved to a different timeslot in '84 in favor of "Jetsons" reruns. "The Jetsons" had a long run on Saturday mornings in reruns (despite not many episodes of it made), before a batch of newer episodes were made in the mid-80's to boost its episode number for syndication.
In syndication, "Soul Train" might've also been competition for these shows in some markets (depending on its local timeslot), along with Saturday morning perennial "American Bandstand" at 12:30 PM EST.
Speed Buggy (ABC)
Show description:
A speedy, talking (in a "car engine" voice) sand buggy and his three young drivers/mechanics have various adventures around the world, while trying to participate in various car races.
Sunday's episode:
Speedy and the gang must escape from "Kingzilla", a giant ape, and his evil masters.
Comments:
Another famed H-B series from the 70's. As a kid, Speed Buggy was pretty amusing; as an adult, "I guess it's OK"... :-) One of the better Scooby Doo/Josie knockoffs, though "Herbie the Love Bug" (about a speedy little car and its owners) is probably another source. The late, great Mel Blanc voiced Speedy.
This is Speedy's third season on Saturdays, moving from CBS to ABC this season. He moves back to NBC in '76 as a mid-season replacement.
Speed Buggy had a crossover with the Scooby Doo gang in "The New Scooby Doo Movies"; and of course, Speed Buggy showed up on "Johnny Bravo" years later...
In the title scene, Speedy mentions "antifreeze in his carbeurator." Carbeurators are/were, according to my mechanic father, something to do with regulating/handling the flow of gas in an engine (or something... anyone with a better/more accurate description is free to post it), since the 70's replaced by fuel injection. Either way, antifreeze *definitely* doesn't belong in a carbeurator, as Speedy notes.
"Kingzilla" = King Kong + Godzilla, the two famed classic giant movie beasts.
The Andes mountains are located in South America.
---
Next week: it's bicentennial time---1976. See you then (with more to comment on, likely, judging from what's scheduled ["Jabberjaw" & "Dynomutt"])...
-B.
1975: Gerald Ford is president... the Vietnam War finally ends with the fall of Saigon... "Sonny and Cher" is a draw on TV ... "Jaws" debuts as the first modern "blockbuster" movie... disco starts to gain steam... America gets prepared for next year's bicentennial... in comics, Batman continues to get, well, Bat-serious (dealing with the likes of Ra's al Ghul and the Joker), while this year's annual JLA-JSA teamup involves the accidential death of several JSAers, prompting a "Spectre appeals to God to bring 'em back" bit, and the in-story appearance of 70's Superman/Flash scribes Cary Bates and Elliot S. Maggin (they'd accidentially crossed over from the "real world" dimension of "Earth-Prime" into the Earth-One universe; later in the 70's, Bates crosses over into Earth-One again in a "Flash" story)...and on Saturday mornings, another round of animated hijinks from the folks at CBS, NBC and ABC.
Re: Saturday mornings:
The big trend is live-action adventure shows, along with several superhero shows; however, unlike more present-day action fare such as "Batman: the Animated Series" or the "Power Rangers", violence is pretty much verboten, meaning lots of conflicts settled through, well, nonviolent means...
Notable shows debuting on Saturday mornings this season:
- "The Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape Show". Lasted three years. This is the initial resurrection of the cat and mouse team by H-B, noteworthy for A) giving Jerry a red bow tie and B) deciding, in bucking their old-school adversity toward each other for the "kinder, gentler" 70's, to make the two *friends*. Yep, this is probably what inspired the "Porch Pals" version of "Itchy and Scratchy" on that second-season "Simpsons" episode, folks. ;-) Though this version doesn't last: by the early 80's, the next incarnation of the duo (by Filmation) has 'em back to their usual (albeit cheaply animated) mayhem. Personally, I never much liked Tom and (particularly) Jerry...especially that flippin' bulldog, Spike...
The Grape Ape was a 40-foot-tall gorilla who startled people with his sheer size; he tooled around with his friend, a talking van-driving Beagle. The Beagle had the same voice as Auto Cat/Pac-Man, IIRC; Grape could only say his name, "Grape Ape", no doubt serving as a predecessor to the limited vocabulary of the latter-day 'toon stars "Pokemon". :-) Thanks to the cheap animation, Grape's apparent size/height kept changing throughout the episodes/shows.
- "The Shazam/Isis Hour": Last year's big hit "Shazam!" is now paired up with a new half-hour show, "Isis", about a female superhero (really an archaeologist?) who turned into a flying superheroine (no connection with any of the old comic characters, though they could've had some weird combination of the Golden Age Hawkgirl/Mary Marvel in mind, I guess...). The actress who played Isis, as I understand, developed an, erm, cult following for her, um, physical appearance by some of the show's male viewers...
- "The Oddball Couple": cartoon animal version of the popular ABC sitcom (the network this one aired on) "The Odd Couple". Paul Winchell provides a voice. Here, Felix and Oscar are a sloppy dog and a neatnik cat.
- "Lost Saucer", a live-action show about Jim "Gomer Pyle" Nabors and Ruth "Laugh In" Buzzi as space explorers. As TV Party notes, "two of the sixties' biggest primetime stars reduced to a low budget kid show." :-) Folded next season into the "Krofft Supershow."
- "Far Out Space Nuts": Bob "Gilligan" Denver in this live-action show about, well, more space explorers. Space travel is probably still popular for kids in the mid-70's, thanks to the launch of the U.S.'s first space station, "Skylab" (launched in 1973) and the joint Apollo-Soyuz mission of this year.
- "CBS Children's Film Festival". CBS' mainstay of children's films from around the world, run at 1 PM EST this season.
- "Ghost Busters": a live-action production by Filmation. I've never seen it, but can only imagine that a live-action Filmation production must make the special effects on the original "Star Trek" series look like "The Matrix" in comparison...
Anyway, this show featured Larry Storch and Forrest Tucker (of "F-Troop" fame) as two ghost exterminators teamed up with a gorilla for a partner. After the 1984 "Ghostbusters" movie became a hit, this show popped up again as a cartoon (which I *do* recall seeing as a kid--- was pretty lame, natch...), which of course prompted lawsuits between the movie "Ghostbusters" and this one (hence one reason the more familiar, Slimer-featuring 'toon is called "The *Real* Ghostbusters")...
Finally, "Make a Wish", the educational show mentioned in my listings last week, airs on Sundays on ABC. Guess Sunday mornings were still considered a viable timeslot for airing network kids' shows at this point, vs. today's newsmagazine/news obsessed networks that'd sooner run the "Today" show or let the local stations run three hours of local newscasts on Saturdays and Sundays instead of airing any kids shows...of course, today's networks are part of much larger conglomerates than their 70's counterparts, and said conglomerates happen to own various cable channels that they can air "less important" stuff like kids' shows on...
Of course, as anyone who grew up in this time would know, syndication was where one turned to to see the traditional cartoon mayhem (read: violence) of Tom & Jerry, Looney Tunes, etc... :-)
Today's "Boomerang on CN" shows are:
Valley of the Dinosaurs
Speed Buggy
Valley of the Dinosaurs (CBS)
Show description: see description for "1974" last week.
Sunday's episode:
The "Valley" gang fight off invading forces (yet again).
Comments:
CN ran this show *last* week---surely they could've found something different to air *this* week (like "Grape Ape" or something)...see last week's comments for more on this show.
This is the second (and last?) season for this show, probably held over from last season to cash in on "Land of the Lost"'s popularity/pad out the schedule at the end of the day...
Competition for "Dinosaurs" at noon EST on Saturdays in '75 included "Speed Buggy" (see below) on ABC and "Josie and the Pussycats" reruns on NBC, which was moved to a different timeslot in '84 in favor of "Jetsons" reruns. "The Jetsons" had a long run on Saturday mornings in reruns (despite not many episodes of it made), before a batch of newer episodes were made in the mid-80's to boost its episode number for syndication.
In syndication, "Soul Train" might've also been competition for these shows in some markets (depending on its local timeslot), along with Saturday morning perennial "American Bandstand" at 12:30 PM EST.
Speed Buggy (ABC)
Show description:
A speedy, talking (in a "car engine" voice) sand buggy and his three young drivers/mechanics have various adventures around the world, while trying to participate in various car races.
Sunday's episode:
Speedy and the gang must escape from "Kingzilla", a giant ape, and his evil masters.
Comments:
Another famed H-B series from the 70's. As a kid, Speed Buggy was pretty amusing; as an adult, "I guess it's OK"... :-) One of the better Scooby Doo/Josie knockoffs, though "Herbie the Love Bug" (about a speedy little car and its owners) is probably another source. The late, great Mel Blanc voiced Speedy.
This is Speedy's third season on Saturdays, moving from CBS to ABC this season. He moves back to NBC in '76 as a mid-season replacement.
Speed Buggy had a crossover with the Scooby Doo gang in "The New Scooby Doo Movies"; and of course, Speed Buggy showed up on "Johnny Bravo" years later...
In the title scene, Speedy mentions "antifreeze in his carbeurator." Carbeurators are/were, according to my mechanic father, something to do with regulating/handling the flow of gas in an engine (or something... anyone with a better/more accurate description is free to post it), since the 70's replaced by fuel injection. Either way, antifreeze *definitely* doesn't belong in a carbeurator, as Speedy notes.
"Kingzilla" = King Kong + Godzilla, the two famed classic giant movie beasts.
The Andes mountains are located in South America.
---
Next week: it's bicentennial time---1976. See you then (with more to comment on, likely, judging from what's scheduled ["Jabberjaw" & "Dynomutt"])...
-B.