Brainatra
02-24-2004, 11:37 AM
1977 review
1977: Deep in the heart of the disco era, Carter's first year in office forces the Southern bred prez to deal with inflation and energy issues. In music and movies, the release of John Travolta's first big hit film, "Saturday Night Fever" continues to fuel the disco craze to new heights, as well as fueling the Bee Gee's careers. "Soul Train" continues to rake in viewers with "love, peace and *SOUUULLL!*", and Gloria Gaynor, Earth Wind and Fire, the Village People, ABBA, discotechs, and the AMC (American Motor Company)-built Pacer all enjoy their heydays. "Three's Company", "The Jeffersons", Walter Cronkite's CBS evening newscasts, and the TV miniseries "Roots" are all big draws.
In comics, this year's annual JLA-JSA clambake involves an epic battle against Legion of Super-Heroes foe Mordru, who's teamed up with the "Demons Three" (Abnegezar, Ghast, and Rath, three JLA baddies from the early 60's who're actually demons from early Earth history that got imprisoned in crypts a billion years ago; the JLA first faced off against them in 1962's Gardner Fox-written classic "One Hour to Doomsday"); this particular slugfest required the combined efforts of the JLA, JSA, *and* the Legion of Super-Heroes, taking all three teams three issues to finally send all the bad guys packing (just think how long a similar tale would take today). Also, Batman deals with his new beau Silver St. Cloud in another classic Bat-storyline.
Re: Saturday mornings:
If TV Party's (http://www.tvparty.com/sat77.html) (and a few other sources') commentary is vaguely accurate, kids this year finally begin to grow weary of the recycled feeling of most of the Saturday morning shows that've been running on Saturdays during the decade, apparently equating to a huge number of shows being given the axe/shuffled around the schedules in mid-season. Thus, the next big trend to hold audience share, the 90-minute show, is born.
Notable shows from this season:
- "The All-New Superfriends Hour": the Wonder Twins debut on this season's "Superfriends". "Form of... a giraffe!" "Shape of... a bucket of water!" Also debuting are the various token minority heroes such as Black Vulcan (the thinly-veiled/renamed-to-avoid-issues-with-Tony Isabella's DC Comics character Black Lightning)...
- "CB Bears": one hour show, made by Hanna-Barbera, about a bunch of CB-using bears. CB ("Citizens' Band") radios, the staple of truckers, were a hot fad in the late 70's (then again, so were pet rocks). I guess the equivalent today would be a show about a bunch of Internet-using characters or something ("Cyberchase" on PBS would come close, perhaps, though there cyberspace is just a setting for the characters' adventures/math lessons...). The show's canned in January, replaced by "Hong Kong Phooey" reruns and part of the "Harlem Globetrotters".
- "What's New, Mr. Magoo?": new cartoons starring the nearsighted old codger, this time with an equally-nearsighted bulldog accompanying him. TV Party claims it got axed in mid-season for "Speed Buggy" reruns.
- "The New Archie/Sabrina Hour": new episodes mixed with stuff from previous seasons. Sabrina's half gets renamed "Super Witch" at one point (?!). The last "Archie" spinoff for awhile IIRC, until the short-lived late 80's "The New Archies" (a cash-in on the "babyfied"/"kiddified" characters craze, featuring the gang as junior high schoolers in the totally rad 80's) debuts.
- "I Am the Greatest: the Adventures of Muhammad Ali": H-B animated show about the boxing champ (voiced by the former Cassius Clay himself). Short-lived, however, as NBC revamps its lineup in January, and gets replaced by "Pink Panther" reruns.
- "Batman/Tarzan Adventure Hour": The Dark Knight and the Lord of the Jungle are paired up for an hour here. The Batman cartoons here, according to TV Party, are supposedly the ones made by Filmation featuring Bat-Mite (created by desperate Bat-book writers/editors in the late 50's as the Bat-books' answer to Superman's Mr. Mxyzptlk; Bat-Mite was also an extradimensional imp, who was basically a Batman fanboy and got on Batman and Robin's nerves with his hero-worship/attempts to "help them out" and "tag along" with his powers, and only left when he finally got the hint from the Dynamic Duo. Ditched when the recently deceased legendary comic book editor Julius Schwartz took over the Bat-books in 1964 and made Bats more down-to-earth/serious, but shows up once more in a humorous bit involving the writers/editors around this time in the old "Batman Family" anthology title).
Today's shows:
"Laff-a-Lympics"
"Clue Club"
"Laff-a-Lympics" (ABC)
Show description:
An all-star cast of Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters, divided into three teams, compete against each other for the gold medal in various goofy sporting events around the world each week.
Saturday's episode:
A tiger hunt and elephant race contests through India; a sand sailing race near Tel Aviv, Israel; and a reed raft race across the Red Sea.
Sunday’s episode:
A river race and a vine-swinging competition in Africa; a roller-skating race and a fishing contest in San Francisco.
Comments:
Another well-remembered H-B show from the 70's. Back in college, there were various Greek houses with the characters from this show printed up on T-shirts (with some variation on the "Laff-a-lympics" name used)...
The show’s obviously inspired by the various late 70’s TV specials called “Battle of the Network Stars”, where then-popular TV stars would compete against each other in various sporting-type events.
This particular show ran two whole hours originally--- mostly because Scooby and Dynomutt had their own segments (probably the former "Scooby Doo-Dynomutt Hour" show from last season) folded into this program, along with "Capt. Caveman and the Teen Angels" episodes.
The teams were the "Scooby Doobies", the "Yogi Yahooies", and the all-villain "Really Rottens"; Scooby's team consisted mainly of the then-contemporary H-B stars (Dynomutt, Hong Kong Phooey, etc.) while Yogi's team consisted mainly of old-school H-B stars (Augie Doggie and Doggy Daddy, Quickdraw McGraw, etc.). The anchors for the show were Snagglepuss and Mildew Wolf (from the "Cattanooga Cats" cartoon of the late 60's, voiced again by "Bewitched" and "Hollywood Squares" actor Paul Lynde); both wear blazers reminiscent of the standard blazers TV anchors at the time wore (with the network/station logo plastered on the front pocket). Guess if this show were to air today, we'd also get a team consisting of Cartoon Cartoons stars or something...
Yogi Bear's next appearance after this show is in next year's "Yogi's Space Race"; Scooby's next appearance after this series is in "Scooby and Scrappy Doo" in 1979.
Originally, Dick Dastardly and Muttley (from "Wacky Races" in the late 60's) were going to be used in this show, but H-B discovered that the two characters are/were owned by both themselves and some other company involved in the production of "Races", and apparently instead of just dealing with the royalty hassles, they created for this show two lookalike characters, the "Dred Baron" and "Mumbly" (Muttley in a trench coat). Mumbly eventually got his own Saturday morning series, then vanished forever (when H-B could bring Muttley back).
Re: Saturday's episode:
- The map for the middle east shown wasn't overly well-drawn: Afghanistan, as we all know by now thanks to recent events, is directly to the north of India, while Iraq and Iran are neighboring countries to Israel. A sign of how far down H-B's animation quality dropped, I guess (an episode of the mid-60's "Frankenstein Jr." on the other hand had a fairly detailed map drawn of the middle east for one episode).
- Contestants in the tiger hunt were: the Daltons for the Rottens (the Daltons IIRC were Quickdraw enemies/bank robbing outlaws); Capt. Caveman and Shaggy (who's hiding in a cage for the whole time) for the Scoobies; and Snooper and Blabber for the Yogis (these two were a cat-and-mouse detective team that first showed up on Quickdraw's show in the late 50's). Winner (thanks to a somewhat amusing blunder of Capt.'s) is Snooper and Blabber.
- Contestants in the elephant race: the Great Fondue for the Rottens (a magician character created for this show; his sidekick was a rabbit that sporadically would say his own name in a Pokemon-ish manner, "Brak"); Augie Doggy and Doggy Daddy for the Yogis (the other supporting characters on Quickdraw's show), with a cameo assist from Wally Gator; and Babu for the Scoobies (a Joe Besser ["Curly Joe" of Three Stooges fame]-type who was a bumbling genie cohort of Jeannie's on the short-lived "I Dream of Jeannie" cartoon of the early 70's; Jeannie and Babu guest-starred on "The New Scooby Doo Movies"). Winner: the Great Fondue.
Fondue, a cheese-based dish, was a popular fad in the 1970’s.
The Ganges River is a major river in India; the Taj Mahal, IIRC, is actually a huge, elaborate mausoleum/tomb built in honor of one of India's former leader's deceased wife. (Who says cheesy old cartoons can't be educational?)
- Contestants in the sand sailboat race: the Creeplys for the Rottens (characters created for this show, but apparently based on the Flintstones' Gruesomes); Speed Buggy, Tinker, and the Teen Angels (sans Capt.) for the Scoobies; and Quickdraw and Hokey Wolf for the Yogis (Hokey Wolf was a character from the late 50's/early 60's, with a persona based on Sgt. Bilko [a late 50's TV show starring Phil Silvers]/similar to Top Cat). Winner:
Tel Aviv is a major city in Israel.
- Contestants in the reed raft race: the team captains---Scooby, Yogi, and Mumbley for their respective teams. Cameo appearances by Jabberjaw, Peter Pottamus, and Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble as spectators (and probably one of Alan Reed's last performances as Fred before Reed's death). Winner: Yogi (thanks to Grape Ape's bumbling).
Grape Ape was a 40-foot tall purple gorilla who, a la "Pokemon", could only say his own name over and over. First appeared a season or two before this show.
Jabberjaw shows up again in next season's "Yogi's Space Race" as a regular racer (said show probably inspired by the success of this one, see next week’s notes for more comments on this show).
The Red Sea is between the Arabian peninsula and Egypt.
Re: Sunday’s episode:
“Darkest Africa” or “the dark continent” was what Africa used to be commonly nicknamed---which of course ignores said continent’s rich history and culture by writing it all off to be “mysterious”…
“I Left My Heart in San Francisco” was a popular song; wonder if it’s an apt tune or not nowadays with the zillion gay couples who’ve flocked to City Hall there over the past week…
Contestants in the river raft race: the Great Fondue and Brak for the Rottens; Quickdraw for the Yogis; and Scooby Doo and Scooby Dum for the Scoobies. Winner: no one (plus the Rottens got penalized for cheating). Contestants in the vine-swinging contest: the Teen Angels for the Scoobies; Dred Baron for the Rottens; Yogi for the Yogis. Winner: the Rottens.
The pose of the Teen Angel on the tree branch as the Dred Baron swung by (as well as her general physical appearance) was remarkably reminiscient of the pose of 70’s “Charlie’s Angels” celeb Farrah Fawcett (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000396/) on the now-classic pinup/poster shot of hers.
Contestants for the rollerskating race: Pixie and Dixie for the Yogis; Babu for the Scoobies; an octopus for the Rottens. Contestants for the fishing contest: Augie Doggie and Doggy Daddy for the Yogis; “Daisy Mayhem” and her pig for the Rottens; Speed Buggy, Tink and Shaggy for the Scoobies. Winner: the Yogis.
Pixie and Dixie (and Mr. Jinx) are three of H-B’s earliest TV characters; I always liked Jinx myself…
Rollerskating in San Francisco? With as many hills as it’s got? Sounds kinda risky to me…
- Fisherman’s Wharf is a popular (tourist) spot in San Francisco.
"Laff-a-Lympics"'s competition from 9-11 AM EST on Saturdays in '77:
CBS: "What's New, Mr. Magoo?" at 9 (see notes above); "Skatebirds" at 9:30. "Skatebirds" was apparently the "Banana Splits" on roller skates, and short-lived (though giving the world "The Robotic Stooges", which was the Three Stooges as robots). At 10:30, it's "Space Academy" (live-action low-budget space adventure series, featuring Jonathan Harris from "Lost In Space").
NBC: "The Young Sentinels" at 9. To quote from TV Party: "Cartoon series about three teenagers (and their robot) who are trained on another planet to battle villains here on earth. The three take on the qualities of Hercules, Astraea and Mercury thanks to their mighty alien boss, Sentinel One. The show was retitled 'Space Sentinels' midseason." At 9:30 it's "The New Archie/Sabrina Hour" (see notes above). At 10:30, it's "Muhammad Ali" (see notes above).
Clue Club (see notes below on network)
Show description:
A trio of teenagers, their preteen cohort, and two dogs (who only speak to each other, with Southern accents) travel around in their Mystery Mac---er, dune buggy, solving mysteries.
Comments:
Another Scooby ripoff; this one debuted on CBS in 1976, lasted one season, but kept coming back in reruns as a mid-season replacement during the rest of the decade (though according to TV Party's schedules, it wasn't on the air during the 77-78 season, meaning another peculiar choice by Cartoon Network; "CB Bears", "Muhammad Ali", or even the Batmite-featuring Batman cartoons might've been a better choice). Its competition in '76 was the last half hour of the "Krofft Supershow" and a one-season NBC live-action show called "Big John, Little John" (about a teacher who could switch from being a man to a boy by drinking out of a magic water fountain; the show was produced by Sherwood Schwartz of "Gilligan's Island" fame).
Seen often on the show was their high-tech-for-the-time personal computer in the preteen girl's garage lab, and their communicator watches (a common item owned by such similar characters in 70's shows---all well before cell phones became ubiquitous in the 90's).
---
Next time, it's 1978, featuring "Yogi's Space Race" and "Challenge of the Superfriends". See you then...
-B.
1977: Deep in the heart of the disco era, Carter's first year in office forces the Southern bred prez to deal with inflation and energy issues. In music and movies, the release of John Travolta's first big hit film, "Saturday Night Fever" continues to fuel the disco craze to new heights, as well as fueling the Bee Gee's careers. "Soul Train" continues to rake in viewers with "love, peace and *SOUUULLL!*", and Gloria Gaynor, Earth Wind and Fire, the Village People, ABBA, discotechs, and the AMC (American Motor Company)-built Pacer all enjoy their heydays. "Three's Company", "The Jeffersons", Walter Cronkite's CBS evening newscasts, and the TV miniseries "Roots" are all big draws.
In comics, this year's annual JLA-JSA clambake involves an epic battle against Legion of Super-Heroes foe Mordru, who's teamed up with the "Demons Three" (Abnegezar, Ghast, and Rath, three JLA baddies from the early 60's who're actually demons from early Earth history that got imprisoned in crypts a billion years ago; the JLA first faced off against them in 1962's Gardner Fox-written classic "One Hour to Doomsday"); this particular slugfest required the combined efforts of the JLA, JSA, *and* the Legion of Super-Heroes, taking all three teams three issues to finally send all the bad guys packing (just think how long a similar tale would take today). Also, Batman deals with his new beau Silver St. Cloud in another classic Bat-storyline.
Re: Saturday mornings:
If TV Party's (http://www.tvparty.com/sat77.html) (and a few other sources') commentary is vaguely accurate, kids this year finally begin to grow weary of the recycled feeling of most of the Saturday morning shows that've been running on Saturdays during the decade, apparently equating to a huge number of shows being given the axe/shuffled around the schedules in mid-season. Thus, the next big trend to hold audience share, the 90-minute show, is born.
Notable shows from this season:
- "The All-New Superfriends Hour": the Wonder Twins debut on this season's "Superfriends". "Form of... a giraffe!" "Shape of... a bucket of water!" Also debuting are the various token minority heroes such as Black Vulcan (the thinly-veiled/renamed-to-avoid-issues-with-Tony Isabella's DC Comics character Black Lightning)...
- "CB Bears": one hour show, made by Hanna-Barbera, about a bunch of CB-using bears. CB ("Citizens' Band") radios, the staple of truckers, were a hot fad in the late 70's (then again, so were pet rocks). I guess the equivalent today would be a show about a bunch of Internet-using characters or something ("Cyberchase" on PBS would come close, perhaps, though there cyberspace is just a setting for the characters' adventures/math lessons...). The show's canned in January, replaced by "Hong Kong Phooey" reruns and part of the "Harlem Globetrotters".
- "What's New, Mr. Magoo?": new cartoons starring the nearsighted old codger, this time with an equally-nearsighted bulldog accompanying him. TV Party claims it got axed in mid-season for "Speed Buggy" reruns.
- "The New Archie/Sabrina Hour": new episodes mixed with stuff from previous seasons. Sabrina's half gets renamed "Super Witch" at one point (?!). The last "Archie" spinoff for awhile IIRC, until the short-lived late 80's "The New Archies" (a cash-in on the "babyfied"/"kiddified" characters craze, featuring the gang as junior high schoolers in the totally rad 80's) debuts.
- "I Am the Greatest: the Adventures of Muhammad Ali": H-B animated show about the boxing champ (voiced by the former Cassius Clay himself). Short-lived, however, as NBC revamps its lineup in January, and gets replaced by "Pink Panther" reruns.
- "Batman/Tarzan Adventure Hour": The Dark Knight and the Lord of the Jungle are paired up for an hour here. The Batman cartoons here, according to TV Party, are supposedly the ones made by Filmation featuring Bat-Mite (created by desperate Bat-book writers/editors in the late 50's as the Bat-books' answer to Superman's Mr. Mxyzptlk; Bat-Mite was also an extradimensional imp, who was basically a Batman fanboy and got on Batman and Robin's nerves with his hero-worship/attempts to "help them out" and "tag along" with his powers, and only left when he finally got the hint from the Dynamic Duo. Ditched when the recently deceased legendary comic book editor Julius Schwartz took over the Bat-books in 1964 and made Bats more down-to-earth/serious, but shows up once more in a humorous bit involving the writers/editors around this time in the old "Batman Family" anthology title).
Today's shows:
"Laff-a-Lympics"
"Clue Club"
"Laff-a-Lympics" (ABC)
Show description:
An all-star cast of Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters, divided into three teams, compete against each other for the gold medal in various goofy sporting events around the world each week.
Saturday's episode:
A tiger hunt and elephant race contests through India; a sand sailing race near Tel Aviv, Israel; and a reed raft race across the Red Sea.
Sunday’s episode:
A river race and a vine-swinging competition in Africa; a roller-skating race and a fishing contest in San Francisco.
Comments:
Another well-remembered H-B show from the 70's. Back in college, there were various Greek houses with the characters from this show printed up on T-shirts (with some variation on the "Laff-a-lympics" name used)...
The show’s obviously inspired by the various late 70’s TV specials called “Battle of the Network Stars”, where then-popular TV stars would compete against each other in various sporting-type events.
This particular show ran two whole hours originally--- mostly because Scooby and Dynomutt had their own segments (probably the former "Scooby Doo-Dynomutt Hour" show from last season) folded into this program, along with "Capt. Caveman and the Teen Angels" episodes.
The teams were the "Scooby Doobies", the "Yogi Yahooies", and the all-villain "Really Rottens"; Scooby's team consisted mainly of the then-contemporary H-B stars (Dynomutt, Hong Kong Phooey, etc.) while Yogi's team consisted mainly of old-school H-B stars (Augie Doggie and Doggy Daddy, Quickdraw McGraw, etc.). The anchors for the show were Snagglepuss and Mildew Wolf (from the "Cattanooga Cats" cartoon of the late 60's, voiced again by "Bewitched" and "Hollywood Squares" actor Paul Lynde); both wear blazers reminiscent of the standard blazers TV anchors at the time wore (with the network/station logo plastered on the front pocket). Guess if this show were to air today, we'd also get a team consisting of Cartoon Cartoons stars or something...
Yogi Bear's next appearance after this show is in next year's "Yogi's Space Race"; Scooby's next appearance after this series is in "Scooby and Scrappy Doo" in 1979.
Originally, Dick Dastardly and Muttley (from "Wacky Races" in the late 60's) were going to be used in this show, but H-B discovered that the two characters are/were owned by both themselves and some other company involved in the production of "Races", and apparently instead of just dealing with the royalty hassles, they created for this show two lookalike characters, the "Dred Baron" and "Mumbly" (Muttley in a trench coat). Mumbly eventually got his own Saturday morning series, then vanished forever (when H-B could bring Muttley back).
Re: Saturday's episode:
- The map for the middle east shown wasn't overly well-drawn: Afghanistan, as we all know by now thanks to recent events, is directly to the north of India, while Iraq and Iran are neighboring countries to Israel. A sign of how far down H-B's animation quality dropped, I guess (an episode of the mid-60's "Frankenstein Jr." on the other hand had a fairly detailed map drawn of the middle east for one episode).
- Contestants in the tiger hunt were: the Daltons for the Rottens (the Daltons IIRC were Quickdraw enemies/bank robbing outlaws); Capt. Caveman and Shaggy (who's hiding in a cage for the whole time) for the Scoobies; and Snooper and Blabber for the Yogis (these two were a cat-and-mouse detective team that first showed up on Quickdraw's show in the late 50's). Winner (thanks to a somewhat amusing blunder of Capt.'s) is Snooper and Blabber.
- Contestants in the elephant race: the Great Fondue for the Rottens (a magician character created for this show; his sidekick was a rabbit that sporadically would say his own name in a Pokemon-ish manner, "Brak"); Augie Doggy and Doggy Daddy for the Yogis (the other supporting characters on Quickdraw's show), with a cameo assist from Wally Gator; and Babu for the Scoobies (a Joe Besser ["Curly Joe" of Three Stooges fame]-type who was a bumbling genie cohort of Jeannie's on the short-lived "I Dream of Jeannie" cartoon of the early 70's; Jeannie and Babu guest-starred on "The New Scooby Doo Movies"). Winner: the Great Fondue.
Fondue, a cheese-based dish, was a popular fad in the 1970’s.
The Ganges River is a major river in India; the Taj Mahal, IIRC, is actually a huge, elaborate mausoleum/tomb built in honor of one of India's former leader's deceased wife. (Who says cheesy old cartoons can't be educational?)
- Contestants in the sand sailboat race: the Creeplys for the Rottens (characters created for this show, but apparently based on the Flintstones' Gruesomes); Speed Buggy, Tinker, and the Teen Angels (sans Capt.) for the Scoobies; and Quickdraw and Hokey Wolf for the Yogis (Hokey Wolf was a character from the late 50's/early 60's, with a persona based on Sgt. Bilko [a late 50's TV show starring Phil Silvers]/similar to Top Cat). Winner:
Tel Aviv is a major city in Israel.
- Contestants in the reed raft race: the team captains---Scooby, Yogi, and Mumbley for their respective teams. Cameo appearances by Jabberjaw, Peter Pottamus, and Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble as spectators (and probably one of Alan Reed's last performances as Fred before Reed's death). Winner: Yogi (thanks to Grape Ape's bumbling).
Grape Ape was a 40-foot tall purple gorilla who, a la "Pokemon", could only say his own name over and over. First appeared a season or two before this show.
Jabberjaw shows up again in next season's "Yogi's Space Race" as a regular racer (said show probably inspired by the success of this one, see next week’s notes for more comments on this show).
The Red Sea is between the Arabian peninsula and Egypt.
Re: Sunday’s episode:
“Darkest Africa” or “the dark continent” was what Africa used to be commonly nicknamed---which of course ignores said continent’s rich history and culture by writing it all off to be “mysterious”…
“I Left My Heart in San Francisco” was a popular song; wonder if it’s an apt tune or not nowadays with the zillion gay couples who’ve flocked to City Hall there over the past week…
Contestants in the river raft race: the Great Fondue and Brak for the Rottens; Quickdraw for the Yogis; and Scooby Doo and Scooby Dum for the Scoobies. Winner: no one (plus the Rottens got penalized for cheating). Contestants in the vine-swinging contest: the Teen Angels for the Scoobies; Dred Baron for the Rottens; Yogi for the Yogis. Winner: the Rottens.
The pose of the Teen Angel on the tree branch as the Dred Baron swung by (as well as her general physical appearance) was remarkably reminiscient of the pose of 70’s “Charlie’s Angels” celeb Farrah Fawcett (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000396/) on the now-classic pinup/poster shot of hers.
Contestants for the rollerskating race: Pixie and Dixie for the Yogis; Babu for the Scoobies; an octopus for the Rottens. Contestants for the fishing contest: Augie Doggie and Doggy Daddy for the Yogis; “Daisy Mayhem” and her pig for the Rottens; Speed Buggy, Tink and Shaggy for the Scoobies. Winner: the Yogis.
Pixie and Dixie (and Mr. Jinx) are three of H-B’s earliest TV characters; I always liked Jinx myself…
Rollerskating in San Francisco? With as many hills as it’s got? Sounds kinda risky to me…
- Fisherman’s Wharf is a popular (tourist) spot in San Francisco.
"Laff-a-Lympics"'s competition from 9-11 AM EST on Saturdays in '77:
CBS: "What's New, Mr. Magoo?" at 9 (see notes above); "Skatebirds" at 9:30. "Skatebirds" was apparently the "Banana Splits" on roller skates, and short-lived (though giving the world "The Robotic Stooges", which was the Three Stooges as robots). At 10:30, it's "Space Academy" (live-action low-budget space adventure series, featuring Jonathan Harris from "Lost In Space").
NBC: "The Young Sentinels" at 9. To quote from TV Party: "Cartoon series about three teenagers (and their robot) who are trained on another planet to battle villains here on earth. The three take on the qualities of Hercules, Astraea and Mercury thanks to their mighty alien boss, Sentinel One. The show was retitled 'Space Sentinels' midseason." At 9:30 it's "The New Archie/Sabrina Hour" (see notes above). At 10:30, it's "Muhammad Ali" (see notes above).
Clue Club (see notes below on network)
Show description:
A trio of teenagers, their preteen cohort, and two dogs (who only speak to each other, with Southern accents) travel around in their Mystery Mac---er, dune buggy, solving mysteries.
Comments:
Another Scooby ripoff; this one debuted on CBS in 1976, lasted one season, but kept coming back in reruns as a mid-season replacement during the rest of the decade (though according to TV Party's schedules, it wasn't on the air during the 77-78 season, meaning another peculiar choice by Cartoon Network; "CB Bears", "Muhammad Ali", or even the Batmite-featuring Batman cartoons might've been a better choice). Its competition in '76 was the last half hour of the "Krofft Supershow" and a one-season NBC live-action show called "Big John, Little John" (about a teacher who could switch from being a man to a boy by drinking out of a magic water fountain; the show was produced by Sherwood Schwartz of "Gilligan's Island" fame).
Seen often on the show was their high-tech-for-the-time personal computer in the preteen girl's garage lab, and their communicator watches (a common item owned by such similar characters in 70's shows---all well before cell phones became ubiquitous in the 90's).
---
Next time, it's 1978, featuring "Yogi's Space Race" and "Challenge of the Superfriends". See you then...
-B.