Brainatra
02-16-2004, 11:02 AM
1976: America celebrates the bicentennial of its independence, as bicentennial-themed stuff of all sorts (<SimpsonsQuote>"those tall ships really lifted the nation's spirits after Watergate"</SimpsonsQuote>) is in vogue. The U.S. of A also elects Jimmy Carter over Gerald "I fell down" Ford, author Amistead Maupin's first "Tales of the City" book installment takes place in San Francisco (complete with vivid details of life in San Francisco's wild 70's heyday), disco enjoys its day in the sun, inflation continues to be a problem (http://www.inthe70s.com/prices.shtml), and of course, another Summer Olympics (http://www.olympic.org/uk/games/past/index_uk.asp?OLGT=1&OLGY=1976) (held in Montreal). On TV, Sonny and Cher, the Captain and Tenille, Starsky and Hutch, and the Bionic Woman all enjoy runs on TV. In the movies, “Rocky” wins the Oscar for best picture. As much fun as all of the above sounded, I spent '76... learning to talk. (<KWB announcer voice>Hey kids---guess how old Brainatra is and you could *win* a cameo appearance in "Baby Looney Tunes", a room full of "Scooby Doo 2" movie merchandise, become used as Recycled Stock Footage™ in future Kids WB show promos, *and* receive a copy of the upcoming direct-to-video film "The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones 2: Revenge of the Cast of 'The Roman Holidays'"! Enter today!)
In comics, we see a Superman imaginary story involving what it'd be like if Supes as a baby landed on Earth "today" (in 1976) and grew up in the world of "tomorrow" (all the way in the far-off year of 2001), plus the annual JLA-JSA coffee klatch involved dealing with a "Crisis On Earth-S"; this year's throwdown involving the return of an old Capt. Marvel villain who's trying to conquer the multiverse, which somehow involves both the Earth-Two version of the Joker (who still had a few years left to harass his version of Bats, before Earth-Two's Bats was killed off in a 1979 story) and the return of 40's era Fawcett Comics superhero sidekick Pinky ("WAHAHAHA, lookit me Brain, I'm an obscure superhero involved in a convoluted comic crossover-thingy!"); oh, and also Yet Another Superman-vs.-Capt. Marvel "Who'd Win"-Style Fight Scene. Plus, Batman gets to deal with more Bat-stuff like the return of the criminal Signalman (who used signals as a motif in his crimes), and the "Underworld Olympics of '76" (from the descriptions I've read, it involved crooks from around the world getting together in Gotham City to see whose country had the top crime syndicate via contests involving murder, huge thefts, etc... [shrug]).
But on to Saturday mornings....
Re: Saturdays in '76:
According to TV Party's website (www.tvparty.com/sat76.html), '76 is pretty much the same as '75, plenty of live-action shows. The networks also start to shake up their schedules in mid-season.
Prominent shows debuting this year included:
- "America Rocks": Bicentennial-themed segments of "Schoolhouse Rock" debuted this season.
- "Clue Club": yet another Scooby ripoff/show with young people tooling around in a dune buggy. From what I recall of early childhood, my dad owned a red Torino in the late 70's; no dune buggies here. :-) Anyway, this show also had two dogs, who only talked to each other, and had southern accents. Lasts one season (but returns for reruns).
- "Ark II": To quote "TV Party": "Live action futuristic drama about a roving scientific team in the 25th century looking for lost civilizations in a souped-up mini-van after a great disaster has ravaged the Earth." Lasts one season, also returns for reruns.
- The return of 50's kids show hosts: Soupy Sales in a game show called "Junior Almost Anything Goes" (based off of a then-current game show), which lasts one season (and moved to Sundays in February, replaced by reruns of "The Oddball Couple"); another game show called "Way Out Games", featuring one Sonny Fox (who became head of Saturday morning in 1977 for NBC), which also lasted one season (moved from 12: 30 PM to 1 PM mid-season, then to Sundays, but most stations not airing it in favor of sports/syndicated shows, according to TV Party); and Kukla, Fran & Ollie as hosts of the "CBS Children's Film Festival".
- "The Krofft Supershow": the Kroffts hit their kidvid career highpoints with this series, featuring an hour and a half of weirdness (trimmed back to an hour midseason for "Superfriends" reruns). The show that gave the world the superheroic duo "Electra-Woman and Dyna-Girl."
And of course continuing this season is "American Bandstand"; this season's guests, according to TV Party, include Chaka Khan, the Pointer Sisters, the Bay City Rollers, the Four Tops, Rick Dees (with "Disco Duck"), Rick Springfield, and on the season premiere, Elton John. Of course, by this point, "Soul Train" is probably rocking-and-socking it to "Bandstand" in the ratings. Dick Clark was also seen on weekday daytime TV as the host of the "$25,000 Pyramid".
Today's cartoons are:
Jabberjaw
Dynomutt, Dog Wonder
Jabberjaw (ABC)
Show description:
In 2076, a talking great white shark and his young adult cohorts, collectively known as the rock band the "Neptunes", have various adventures in their underwater civilization.
This weekend's episodes:
The gang accidentally procure a powerful "thinking cap" while in "Aquapulco"; in a Japanese town ("Aquahama"), they deal with a 40-foot-tall monster.
Comments:
Another well-remembered H-B 70's series. I liked this one as a kid as well (of course, liking the "Three Stooges" helped)... and despite the cheesiness, it still beats "Kenny the Shark" on NBC's current "Discovery Kids" lineup...
As is obvious from the title scene alone, Jabber himself is a ripoff of Curly from the "Three Stooges" (complete with his "nyuk-nyuk"s); his "no respect" catchphrase is also directly swiped, since it was the catchphrase/punchline of then-popular standup comedian Rodney Dangerfield. His bandmates, and the rest of the show, are mostly "Josie and the Pussycats" clones (particularly Bubbles = Melody and Shelly = Alexandra).
The other inspiration of the show is the fact that it's also an attempt to cash in on "shark mania", spawned by the previous year's hit movie "Jaws" (speaking of Jaws-related cartoon spinoffs, anyone remember "Misterjaws"?)...
The date of 2076 comes from another episode reran the last time Boomerang on CN did Jabberjaw on "1976" (an Olympics-themed episode).
Apparently, civilization in Jabber's future is completely underwater based, and is quite high-tech/futuristic (complete with the show's running gag of "shark ejectors" based around the entrances to every underwater city, to keep sharks out). Of course, since this is H-B, any civilization in a different time-era must resemble 20th century culture, which also means this show, like the Jetsons/Flintstones/Roman Holidays/etc. features the prerequisite... stupid "ocean" puns! (The Olympics episode mentioned above featured "Oyster-alia" [Australia] for instance) ;-)
Contrary to the remarks on the "Jump the Shark" website about this show, I still think Jabber's Curly impression was decent enough. Then again, I wonder---is it possible for a show *about* a shark to "jump the shark"? :-)
Apparently, there's two separate versions of the title scene: one with Jabber introducing himself and singing along to a few of the song's lyrics, and one version where we only hear the chorus singing the theme.
"Aquapulco" is obviously the stupid "ocean" pun name for Acapulco, a town in Mexico; don't know what "Aquahama" is supposed to be...
The "Cartoon Network Presents"(title?) comic, IIRC, had a story a year or two ago involving Jabberjaw and his gang (something about his mother paying them all a visit...). I should find that issue one of these days...
"Jabberjaw"'s competition on Saturdays at 9 AM EST in '76 were:
CBS: The second half of the "Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Hour." TV Party claims in mid-season it got shortened to a half-hour, with "Clue Club" filling the timeslot, but returns in the summer to an hour...
NBC: The second half-hour of "The Pink Panther." Runs at 90 minutes this season (probably heralding the next big trend of the 70's, 90-minute-long TV shows).
"Jabberjaw" lasted just one season with original episodes (as was common for shows in the 70's); it returns next season in reruns, then Jabber himself shows up on the late 70's "Yogi Bear" space-based series (as one of the interstellar racers against Yogi and Huckleberry Hound).
Dynomutt, Dog Wonder (ABC)
Show description:
Superhero Blue Falcon and his cybernetic sidekick dog, Dynomutt, fight crime in Big City, though with Dynomutt being quite the bumbler (and getting chewed out by Blue Falcon over it). Second half of the "Scooby Doo-Dynomutt Hour".
This weekend's episodes:
The heroic duo deal with a swamp-based pair of crooks (with the Scooby Doo gang's help); the duo face off against the Queen Hornet and her drones.
Comments:
As noted above, this show originally aired with Scooby as a lead-in in the "Scooby Doo-Dynomutt Hour", hence the reason for the various cameos the Scooby Doo gang made on "Dynomutt". The original opening title theme for the hour-long show is similar to what's seen in the syndicated "The Scooby Doo Show", but with the lyrics (and presumably footage) reflecting the presence of both Scooby and Dynomutt. A somewhat original offering, by H-B standards of the time (i.e., in that it's not about teenagers, rock bands, or being based on a pre-existing TV show, unless one counts Blue Falcon and Dynomutt being Batman and Robin arch-types, not unlike a zillion other superheroes...).
In the book "Mythology" put out by DC Comics/Time-Warner a while ago, one can see an Alex Ross (of DC Comics' "Kingdom Come" fame) painted "realistic" rendering of Dynomutt and Blue Falcon (as part of a montage of H-B action show heroes)---worth seeing along with the other "realistic" renderings of other H-B action characters such as Space Ghost, Shazzan, the Wonder Twins (and Gleek), the Herculoids, etc. Additionally, the heroic duo also showed up on an episode of "Dexter's Lab".
Presumably, the Scooby Doo gang's hometown of Coolsville (going by the name given to it in "A Pup Named Scooby Doo") is located somewhere near Big City. This series also marks the second set of superheroes the Scooby Doo gang meet up with (the first being Batman and Robin). This was the first new appearance of the kids since "The New Scooby Doo Movies" of several seasons ago; the "meddling kids'" next appearance after the "Scooby Doo-Dynomutt Hour", not counting "Laff-a-lympics", is probably "Scooby and Scrappy Doo" (unless I'm missing a spinoff/show, esp. given the confusing names for the various Saturday morning Scooby series/syndication reruns...).
As noted above, Blue Falcon's obviously based heavily on Batman (the Falcon-whatever named gadgets, a millionaire secret identity, etc.). Bruce Wayne *did* spend a chunk of the 70's living/operating out of a penthouse apartment (on top of the Wayne Foundation building), figuring that he'd be able to operate better as Batman if he were within the heart of the city (plus figuring that with Dick off at college, it'd be a time for a clean break)...though by the decade's end(?), he was back in good old Wayne Manor...
In the comics, the JLA did spend time fighting the Queen Bee (who had a bee theme to her, complete with "drones").
Cross-promotional "synergy" note: the lounge singer (backed up by an orchestra) singing the entire "Jabberjaw" theme song as a number.
CB (or "citizens band") radios, the ubiquitous communications device used by truckers, were all the rage in the late 70's. Even a H-B show called "CB Bears" (about, erm, a bunch of CB-using bears) got made during this time...
"Dynomutt" was the followup show to "Jabberjaw"; its competition at 9:30 AM EST on Saturdays:
CBS: "Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle." A cartoon version of the jungle hero.
NBC: The last half hour of "The Pink Panther" show.
Next season, the "Scooby Doo-Dynomutt Hour" is folded into the next season's semi-Scooby spinoff, "Laff-a-lympics".
---
Next week, it's 1977...
-B.
In comics, we see a Superman imaginary story involving what it'd be like if Supes as a baby landed on Earth "today" (in 1976) and grew up in the world of "tomorrow" (all the way in the far-off year of 2001), plus the annual JLA-JSA coffee klatch involved dealing with a "Crisis On Earth-S"; this year's throwdown involving the return of an old Capt. Marvel villain who's trying to conquer the multiverse, which somehow involves both the Earth-Two version of the Joker (who still had a few years left to harass his version of Bats, before Earth-Two's Bats was killed off in a 1979 story) and the return of 40's era Fawcett Comics superhero sidekick Pinky ("WAHAHAHA, lookit me Brain, I'm an obscure superhero involved in a convoluted comic crossover-thingy!"); oh, and also Yet Another Superman-vs.-Capt. Marvel "Who'd Win"-Style Fight Scene. Plus, Batman gets to deal with more Bat-stuff like the return of the criminal Signalman (who used signals as a motif in his crimes), and the "Underworld Olympics of '76" (from the descriptions I've read, it involved crooks from around the world getting together in Gotham City to see whose country had the top crime syndicate via contests involving murder, huge thefts, etc... [shrug]).
But on to Saturday mornings....
Re: Saturdays in '76:
According to TV Party's website (www.tvparty.com/sat76.html), '76 is pretty much the same as '75, plenty of live-action shows. The networks also start to shake up their schedules in mid-season.
Prominent shows debuting this year included:
- "America Rocks": Bicentennial-themed segments of "Schoolhouse Rock" debuted this season.
- "Clue Club": yet another Scooby ripoff/show with young people tooling around in a dune buggy. From what I recall of early childhood, my dad owned a red Torino in the late 70's; no dune buggies here. :-) Anyway, this show also had two dogs, who only talked to each other, and had southern accents. Lasts one season (but returns for reruns).
- "Ark II": To quote "TV Party": "Live action futuristic drama about a roving scientific team in the 25th century looking for lost civilizations in a souped-up mini-van after a great disaster has ravaged the Earth." Lasts one season, also returns for reruns.
- The return of 50's kids show hosts: Soupy Sales in a game show called "Junior Almost Anything Goes" (based off of a then-current game show), which lasts one season (and moved to Sundays in February, replaced by reruns of "The Oddball Couple"); another game show called "Way Out Games", featuring one Sonny Fox (who became head of Saturday morning in 1977 for NBC), which also lasted one season (moved from 12: 30 PM to 1 PM mid-season, then to Sundays, but most stations not airing it in favor of sports/syndicated shows, according to TV Party); and Kukla, Fran & Ollie as hosts of the "CBS Children's Film Festival".
- "The Krofft Supershow": the Kroffts hit their kidvid career highpoints with this series, featuring an hour and a half of weirdness (trimmed back to an hour midseason for "Superfriends" reruns). The show that gave the world the superheroic duo "Electra-Woman and Dyna-Girl."
And of course continuing this season is "American Bandstand"; this season's guests, according to TV Party, include Chaka Khan, the Pointer Sisters, the Bay City Rollers, the Four Tops, Rick Dees (with "Disco Duck"), Rick Springfield, and on the season premiere, Elton John. Of course, by this point, "Soul Train" is probably rocking-and-socking it to "Bandstand" in the ratings. Dick Clark was also seen on weekday daytime TV as the host of the "$25,000 Pyramid".
Today's cartoons are:
Jabberjaw
Dynomutt, Dog Wonder
Jabberjaw (ABC)
Show description:
In 2076, a talking great white shark and his young adult cohorts, collectively known as the rock band the "Neptunes", have various adventures in their underwater civilization.
This weekend's episodes:
The gang accidentally procure a powerful "thinking cap" while in "Aquapulco"; in a Japanese town ("Aquahama"), they deal with a 40-foot-tall monster.
Comments:
Another well-remembered H-B 70's series. I liked this one as a kid as well (of course, liking the "Three Stooges" helped)... and despite the cheesiness, it still beats "Kenny the Shark" on NBC's current "Discovery Kids" lineup...
As is obvious from the title scene alone, Jabber himself is a ripoff of Curly from the "Three Stooges" (complete with his "nyuk-nyuk"s); his "no respect" catchphrase is also directly swiped, since it was the catchphrase/punchline of then-popular standup comedian Rodney Dangerfield. His bandmates, and the rest of the show, are mostly "Josie and the Pussycats" clones (particularly Bubbles = Melody and Shelly = Alexandra).
The other inspiration of the show is the fact that it's also an attempt to cash in on "shark mania", spawned by the previous year's hit movie "Jaws" (speaking of Jaws-related cartoon spinoffs, anyone remember "Misterjaws"?)...
The date of 2076 comes from another episode reran the last time Boomerang on CN did Jabberjaw on "1976" (an Olympics-themed episode).
Apparently, civilization in Jabber's future is completely underwater based, and is quite high-tech/futuristic (complete with the show's running gag of "shark ejectors" based around the entrances to every underwater city, to keep sharks out). Of course, since this is H-B, any civilization in a different time-era must resemble 20th century culture, which also means this show, like the Jetsons/Flintstones/Roman Holidays/etc. features the prerequisite... stupid "ocean" puns! (The Olympics episode mentioned above featured "Oyster-alia" [Australia] for instance) ;-)
Contrary to the remarks on the "Jump the Shark" website about this show, I still think Jabber's Curly impression was decent enough. Then again, I wonder---is it possible for a show *about* a shark to "jump the shark"? :-)
Apparently, there's two separate versions of the title scene: one with Jabber introducing himself and singing along to a few of the song's lyrics, and one version where we only hear the chorus singing the theme.
"Aquapulco" is obviously the stupid "ocean" pun name for Acapulco, a town in Mexico; don't know what "Aquahama" is supposed to be...
The "Cartoon Network Presents"(title?) comic, IIRC, had a story a year or two ago involving Jabberjaw and his gang (something about his mother paying them all a visit...). I should find that issue one of these days...
"Jabberjaw"'s competition on Saturdays at 9 AM EST in '76 were:
CBS: The second half of the "Bugs Bunny/Roadrunner Hour." TV Party claims in mid-season it got shortened to a half-hour, with "Clue Club" filling the timeslot, but returns in the summer to an hour...
NBC: The second half-hour of "The Pink Panther." Runs at 90 minutes this season (probably heralding the next big trend of the 70's, 90-minute-long TV shows).
"Jabberjaw" lasted just one season with original episodes (as was common for shows in the 70's); it returns next season in reruns, then Jabber himself shows up on the late 70's "Yogi Bear" space-based series (as one of the interstellar racers against Yogi and Huckleberry Hound).
Dynomutt, Dog Wonder (ABC)
Show description:
Superhero Blue Falcon and his cybernetic sidekick dog, Dynomutt, fight crime in Big City, though with Dynomutt being quite the bumbler (and getting chewed out by Blue Falcon over it). Second half of the "Scooby Doo-Dynomutt Hour".
This weekend's episodes:
The heroic duo deal with a swamp-based pair of crooks (with the Scooby Doo gang's help); the duo face off against the Queen Hornet and her drones.
Comments:
As noted above, this show originally aired with Scooby as a lead-in in the "Scooby Doo-Dynomutt Hour", hence the reason for the various cameos the Scooby Doo gang made on "Dynomutt". The original opening title theme for the hour-long show is similar to what's seen in the syndicated "The Scooby Doo Show", but with the lyrics (and presumably footage) reflecting the presence of both Scooby and Dynomutt. A somewhat original offering, by H-B standards of the time (i.e., in that it's not about teenagers, rock bands, or being based on a pre-existing TV show, unless one counts Blue Falcon and Dynomutt being Batman and Robin arch-types, not unlike a zillion other superheroes...).
In the book "Mythology" put out by DC Comics/Time-Warner a while ago, one can see an Alex Ross (of DC Comics' "Kingdom Come" fame) painted "realistic" rendering of Dynomutt and Blue Falcon (as part of a montage of H-B action show heroes)---worth seeing along with the other "realistic" renderings of other H-B action characters such as Space Ghost, Shazzan, the Wonder Twins (and Gleek), the Herculoids, etc. Additionally, the heroic duo also showed up on an episode of "Dexter's Lab".
Presumably, the Scooby Doo gang's hometown of Coolsville (going by the name given to it in "A Pup Named Scooby Doo") is located somewhere near Big City. This series also marks the second set of superheroes the Scooby Doo gang meet up with (the first being Batman and Robin). This was the first new appearance of the kids since "The New Scooby Doo Movies" of several seasons ago; the "meddling kids'" next appearance after the "Scooby Doo-Dynomutt Hour", not counting "Laff-a-lympics", is probably "Scooby and Scrappy Doo" (unless I'm missing a spinoff/show, esp. given the confusing names for the various Saturday morning Scooby series/syndication reruns...).
As noted above, Blue Falcon's obviously based heavily on Batman (the Falcon-whatever named gadgets, a millionaire secret identity, etc.). Bruce Wayne *did* spend a chunk of the 70's living/operating out of a penthouse apartment (on top of the Wayne Foundation building), figuring that he'd be able to operate better as Batman if he were within the heart of the city (plus figuring that with Dick off at college, it'd be a time for a clean break)...though by the decade's end(?), he was back in good old Wayne Manor...
In the comics, the JLA did spend time fighting the Queen Bee (who had a bee theme to her, complete with "drones").
Cross-promotional "synergy" note: the lounge singer (backed up by an orchestra) singing the entire "Jabberjaw" theme song as a number.
CB (or "citizens band") radios, the ubiquitous communications device used by truckers, were all the rage in the late 70's. Even a H-B show called "CB Bears" (about, erm, a bunch of CB-using bears) got made during this time...
"Dynomutt" was the followup show to "Jabberjaw"; its competition at 9:30 AM EST on Saturdays:
CBS: "Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle." A cartoon version of the jungle hero.
NBC: The last half hour of "The Pink Panther" show.
Next season, the "Scooby Doo-Dynomutt Hour" is folded into the next season's semi-Scooby spinoff, "Laff-a-lympics".
---
Next week, it's 1977...
-B.