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BessLineberger · Joined: 19 Nov 2020 Posts: 142

Mr. Waste (Hanna-Barbera, Yogi’s Gang, 10/27/73) – A famous record of the 40’s by Red Ingle and the Natural 7 began with the words, “A preachment, dear friends, you are about to receive…” The intro should have preceded every episode of this series, one of the sorriest projects to ever disgrace the Hanna-Barbera legacy. To its credit, it was one of the first ventures of the studio to try to reassemble under one roof a cast of all its famous animal stars of the past, and at least provided royalty checks to many of the studio’s favorite voice-over cast members. But entirely defeating the promise which was eagerly looked forward to by kids of the day from this all-star format were the motivation-driven morality play scripts that beset the entire series, placing every character in as likely a position as any other to be dealing out life lessons to the tiny tots. Thus, every character was played out-of-character for the usual personality traits that we fell in love with when each star was in his or her heyday, exhibiting nearly none of the quirks, temptations, and weaknesses that typically got them into enough trouble to support a plot. Cutting all the starring characters from the same cloth meant that there was no dependable source of comic relief to soften the blow of the hackneyed and over-driven plot points of what conduct the kiddies should strive not to do, making a series nominally about a bear virtually unbearable. It didn’t take more than a few episodes for the kids to realize that watching these snooze-reels wasn’t even going to generate a minimum quota of half-smiles, but seemed only intended to leave the viewer aghast that their cartoon favorites could be lead astray by villains so obviously named for any given vice that anyone with one-quarter of a mind should have easily been able to see through them. We thus lost all respect for the characters we loved, who appeared for at least half the show’s airtime to be blithering imbeciles manipulated like putty in the hands of the bad guys, in ways that were decidedly un-funny. At the time, with several of the lead characters having been out of circulation for several seasons, it almost made me wonder if my memory was failing me, and if these stars had ever been entertaining in the first place. To think now, with retrospect available at the touch of an Internet button, that any show could be written so badly as to achieve the result of nearly erasing from memory the sterling writing and clever wit of Hanna-Barbera’s early days, is a mind-shattering concept.backpack

At the studio, Garfield learns that Deltoid reads all of his dialogue from cue cards, which are drying out in the alley. He also finds a trash can full of old cue cards left over from other shows. “The game is cue card rummy – and I deal”, says Garfield, shuffling in the old cards where he desires. The broadcast commences, and Deltoid finds himself introducing a new exercise – honk like a goose and wave your wings in the sun (a leftover card from a nature show). He then tells the viewers to dress in basic black with a pearl ensemble (from a fashion program), and encourages them to eat pizza (from a cooking show). The station manager furiously calls the show the worst exercise program he’s ever witnessed, and fires Deltod on the spot. Garfield leaves happy, but wonders if an outright firing was a little cruel. After all, who in the audience could be stupid enough to follow all those instructions. He arrives home to find Jon in pearls and black dress, and honking like a goose. That’s who.

Will you be lost if you watch Revelation without seeing the original show first? Unlikely. Masters of the Universe was not that deep. All you need to know is this: a man with a skeleton head wants the secrets of Castle Greyskull, and a muscular barbarian prince with a magic sword won’t let him in there. Also, there’s a character named “Stinkor.” Now you’re caught up.

Fizzical Fizzle (Paramount, Swifty and Shorty, April, 1964 – Seymour Kneitel, dir.), plays directly off the trend to equate fitness with patriotism. Shorty tries to spend a relaxing afternoon sleeping in a hammock, when his siesta is abruptly interrupted by the entrance of Swifty, who sounds like he’s just been appointed a master drill sergeant. “Fall in. Fall out. LOOK ALIVE!” he shouts, then sounds a vocal version of reveille by blowing though a rolled-up newspaper he is carrying as if it were a bugle. “What’s the idea of waking me up?”. reacts Shorty. “It’s time for the whole nation to wake up before we all turn to jellyfish”, retorts Swifty with overzealous patriotic fervor. He shows Shorty a newspaper headline promoting physical fitness as key to long life. “You’re not going to take this lying down, are you?”, asks Swifty. “Gee, can I?”, says Shorty, toying with Swifty’s words. Swifty insists with his knowledge of physical training, he can put three inches of muscle on Shorty’s arms, turn his legs into steel coils, and flatten his stomach like a washboard. Shorty insists all he can succeed in doing is making him sick. Unrolling the newspaper like a royal scroll, Swifty states, “By the power vested in me by this newspaper article, I hereby order you to report for your physical training tomorrow morning.”

Spreading out the equipment to avoid making any more craters in the flooring, the group gets down to the business of Billy’s belly. The first item of interest is a rowing machine. Billy settles into the seat, and commences powerful rowing strokes. In a return to a standard cliche gag, Billy’s momentum causes the machine to slide along the floor, pick up speed, and crash through a wall, descending a riverbank into the water. The machine rests on the bottom of the creek mud, with Billy’s head just above the surface. “It rows pretty good, but it don’t stay on top of the water so well”, observes Billy.

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As I sit here, chomping some pizza from Jenny’s Pizza Perfect, I’m reminded of just how much can happen in a day or a week. These ones have been pretty filled. It’s short today as I prepare to do a big scanning trip. These scanning trips are starting to have some similarity to medical tourism, except they don’t involve any surgery besides an occasional splice fix.

They called me back three or four times and the guy who was auditioning me was an actor who could do a great hippie voice and I thought he was just right for it. I got the part and the show lasted on the network for twenty-three years. They gave me the word “Zoinks” and having him say “like” I guess because of the hippie aspect. I did come up with the “Scoob, ol’ buddy of mine, ol’ pal” thing.