April O’Neil

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April O’Neil was the female companion of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Well when I say companion I mean she associated with them on their ‘missions’ rather than meaning it that way!

Ariel

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Yep, the Little Mermaid herself. Although the fact she has no legs does raise certain questions, but there are ways round that.

Gadget 

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How cute is Gadget? lol She appeared in the Chip and Dale cartoon and really she was the only reason to watch such an awful cartoon.

Jane Jetson

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From the Jetsons, there is something quite appealing about Jane Jetson. Now if only she had a daughter a lot of people’s fantasies would be complete. Oh wait she did!

Judy Jetson

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Yep, Judy Jetson the daughter of Jane Jetson – she certainly inherited the good looks, fortunately she didn’t inherit the hair colour too! 

Lola Bunny

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Lola Bunny was (or at least really wanted to be) the beau of Bugs Bunny. This picture shows her in all her splendid beauty from the film Space Jam.

Princess Jasmine

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Disney really knows how to pencil in the beauty don’t they? The cartoons may be aimed at the children but they need to keep the parents entertained as well!

Supergirl

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It’s Supergirl, what else really needs said. You know you would and if you wouldn’t you would be in trouble from her. lol

Turanga Leela

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Don’t let the fact that she only has one eye put you off. Beauty is after-all in the eye of the beholder – literally in this case. lol

Velma

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Daphne may be the ‘real’ looker of the Scooby Doo gang but we all know that Velma is hot – and she has the brains too. Perfection!

If you missed the first part of this, here is the link to 10 Sexy Female Cartoon Characters

High hopes may be warranted if he’s being judged on the long line of successes in his career thus far. Quincy may be best known for his work on MADtv and South Park, but his real passion lies in creating his own characters and animations.

Quincy got his start doing short animated pieces for MADtv shortly after landing in Los Angeles, and eventually secured a position on the South Park feature-length movie South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut as an animator. Once production rapped, Comedy Central kept Quincy on board over at the television series where he has climbed the ranks from Animator to Lead Animator to his current Emmy-garnering post as Animation Director. Along the way Quincy cranked out a few of his own animations that began attracting their own fan base.

His prolific body of work remains just under the radar at his best-kept-secret website ryanquincy.com if you’re wondering. And you should be. Quincy began his artistic journey just about the time he took his first breath. His art is sweet, innocent and firmly planted in the sandy soil of adolescence. Behold the “so-far” feeling you get perusing his career, artwork, music video catalog, and although sparse…his intriguing “blahg” posts. You’ll get the distinct (and it turns out accurate) feeling you’ll be seeing more of his sweet characters that are searching for something of simple substance in the world.

Quincy’s characters literally swim the stars. But do not take my word for it…check out his video creation for Brooklyn-based band Les Savy Fav. Provocative, a little sexy and a little melancholy…all mixed up.

If his fans are fortunate enough, Ryan Quincy’s brainiacal world just may show up on our television screens sooner than later.

*Special thanks to Ryan Quincy for his contribution and cooperation.

Taken from Wikipedia: What’s Opera, Doc?is a 1957 animated cartoon short in the Merrie Melodies series, directed by Chuck Jones for Warner Bros. Cartoons. The Michael Maltese story features Elmer Fudd chasing Bugs Bunny through a 6:11 operatic parody of 19th century classical composer Richard Wagner’s operas, particularly Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung) and Tannhäuser. It is sometimes characterized as a condensed version of Wagner’s Ring, and its music borrows heavily from the second opera Die Walküre, woven around the standard Bugs-Elmer conflict.

As a child I was exposed to so much music and it has increased my admiration of a variety of music. Disney’s Fantasia, a 1940 American animated feature produced by Walt Disney and the third film in the Walt Disney Animated Classics series, is easily the first exposure I had to classical music. I fully credit these experiences as being moments in my life when music became part of my mental growth, so I began to wonder, what music are children being exposed to in cartoons today?

I have a niece and nephew and they both adore Spongebob Squarepants, a show that I thoroughly do not enjoy. I was wondering though, what music is on the show and how it has been incorporated so with a little bit of research I’ve uncovered quite a bit of information.

The SpongeBob SquarePants theme song was composed by Derek Drymon, Mark Harrison, Stephen Hillenburg and Blaise Smith and is primarily based on the sea shanty, “Blow the Man Down”.

A cover of the song by Avril Lavigne can be found on The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie soundtrack and another cover by the Violent Femmes, which aired as a commercial on Nickelodeon to promote season two, can be viewed in the special features of the Nautical Nonsense/Sponge Buddies DVD.

A choral version was recorded for the SpongeBob Christmas special where the last repetition of “SpongeBob SquarePants” was replaced by, “It’s the SpongeBob Christmas special.” The theme song is occasionally utilized as marching cadence. An instrumental version of the opening theme is used in Italy.

Traditional sea shanties are used for the musical themes in the show. Most commonly used is that of “Drunken Sailor”. In the episode “Krusty Krab Training Video,” a young Eugene Krabs is shown walking to a soda vending machine, la-laing the shanty “Blow the Man Down.”

The majority of the background music used in SpongeBob SquarePants comes from the Associated Production Music library, some of which have also been used in shows such as The Simpsons, Ren & Stimpy, Rocko’s Modern Life, The X Factor, Camp Lazlo, My Gym Partner’s a Monkey, Bill Nye The Science Guy, and The Adventures of Pete and Pete. For competition-based episodes, some of Sam Spence’s NFL Films music is used (such as “A Golden Boy Again” used in episodes such as The Fry Cook Games and “Ramblin’ Man from Gramblin” is used in Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy V. “The Lineman” is also used extensively in Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy episodes.) Ironically, one of Spence’s more famous songs for the NFL Films library of music is an orchestral version of “Drunken Sailor” called “Up She Rises”, first suggested by Steven Sabol to his father Ed because he liked the song at summer camp.

Also used to great comedic and dramatic effect in the show, is Hawaiian steel guitar music. Various compositions featuring the Hawaiian steel convey happy, sad, or goofy emotions and situations. Many are traditional Hawaiian melodies such as “Aloha ‘Oe” and are usually sampled from the above-mentioned APM music libray, and are from time to time performed by classic steel guitar artists.

A number of songs are written and recorded by surf instrumental guitar-based rock bands, including The Woodies and The Langhorns. The MelTones’ songs “Kung Fu Saturdays,” “Polynesian Adventure” and “Rocket Sled To Oahu” were used in the series. The Surfdusters’ songs “Henpecker”, “Dementia” and “Kona Angel” were also used in the series.

In the episode “Prehibernation Week,” the music is played by the heavy metal band Pantera. Whenever SpongeBob does something dangerous, the music starts playing. The opening credits have a shot that reads “Special musical guests Pantera”.

The episode “SpongeBob B.C.” features background music including a track best known to British viewers as the theme to 1970s TV sitcom Terry and June. The music was written by John Shakespeare, a former member of 1960s pop group The Ivy League.

The episode “Band Geeks” ends with a shortened version of the song “Sweet Victory”, which was written and performed by David Glen Eisley and Bob Kulick.

The very first episode “Reef Blower” which has no dialog in it was scored by the LA band “The Blue Hawaiians”. The music from that episode has gone to be the “busy” music theme for montages whenever SpongeBob is busy doing something.

That is a wide inclusion of music but none of it is as elaborate as what was in the cartoons of the 40’s and 50’s.

In the 90’s, we had cartoons like Animaniacs which regularly featured music by They Might Be Giants, so my question is really this, Does the music we are exposed to as children create an influence in us that dictates our tastes later?

I’m not a huge fan of Opera, despite the early exposure via Merrie Melodies but the very first time I heard Opera live, it blew me away and brought me to near tears. Classical music, as lovely as it is, has never really been something I listen to but I can, even to this day, differentiate between various composers more recognizable work even having no recollection of listening to them.

The children of today are being exposed to much more simplistic and less involved music, but will it change the way we hear and understand music in the future?

Unfortunately, I can’t predict the future. I hope that with the rise in video games, which feature a wide variety of music, that it will only help to fuel a passion for the art, but I can’t say for sure.

Image via Wikipedia

In 1996, Dennis made his first appearance on television in a fun cartoon series that kept a lot of the spirit of the comics but gave him a few more coherent, if far fetched, adventures to fill their twenty-minute time slots. The series was full of cheeky pop-culture references, for example one episode had Dennis appearing on Blue Peter or a cheeky episode in which the whole town must go without television in order to win a million pounds, but had all the recognisable features from the strips: the pea-shooter, the catapult, Gnasher’s attacks on the postman, and characters such as the hopeless policeman Sergeant Slipper, the Colonel and Dennis’ equally troublesome Granny. The series proved popular, running for two seasons and bought by channels like Fox Kids.

So with a winning formula and still running in the Beano after more than fifty years, Dennis’ antics should remain practically unchanged, right?

Well apparently Red Kite Animation don’t think so. A new cartoon, shown from September 2009 and called simply “Dennis and Gnasher” has robbed Dennis of his usual troublemaking, along with his catapult and water-pistol, and instead has him helping members of the community, sorting out accidents with the help of his dad, and even teaming up with Walter and the Softies to help Sergeant Slipper! Even Dennis’ Granny has changed to the point of being unrecognisable. The media, including the Sun newspaper, have claimed these changes are a case of “political correctness gone mad” but the animation studio insist they were trying to “modernise” the character. So, who’s right?

Admittedly, the changes are not as extreme as journalists first reported in August: Dennis still scowls, he still causes trouble (although much of this seems to be accidental) and Gnasher still “gnashes” people with trademark glee, but with a rather irritating high-pitched voice and regularly enlisted to lend a hand, it seems Dennis really has lost a lot of his menace.

While there are some elements of “modernisation” in the series, Dennis’ little sister Bea, a relatively new character from the comics is added, it’s no more up-to-date than the 1996 version: there’s no introduction of, say, mobile phones or the internet. Nor is the character outdated: a quick look through the TV listings reveals that similarly naughty characters are just as common today as they were when Dennis first appeared in the Beano in 1951, just look at CBBC’s puppet-driven antics in “Bear Behaving Badly” or rival channel’s most popular series “Horrid Henry” (based on a series of books and featuring a stripy-jumpered naughty boy’s mischievous shenanigans…remind you of anyone?).

Image via Wikipedia

So, if the general theme of the comics (and the comics themselves) are still popular, why change the character so much? Are the cartoon’s developers afraid of children copying what the see on television when they wouldn’t necessarily copy the comics? I adored those comics but I had a lot more in common with Walter than Dennis himself. Wouldn’t Dennis’ energetic schemes actually be a good example for the technology-obsessed and rather sedentary younger generation?

Is this “political correctness gone mad”? No, I don’t think so. It may be a slightly misguided change of tack, but Dennis’ troublemaking isn’t likely to be stopped by on-screen alterations; as one of the Beano’s longest running and most loved characters no drastic change is likely to affect the comic without good reason. Changes that have affected the comic strips have proved to be sensible ones. Take the name changes in “The Numbskulls” (which was one of my personal favourites): in 1993 when the lad whose head house the titular characters finally got a name, some of the Numbskulls names were altered too, leaving the ear-orientated “Luggy” now named “Radar” and rightly so, what 90s kid would know what a “lughole” was? The Beano has always known how to balance the nostalgia of former readers and the demands of modern child4ren, mixing latter day parodies with the return of old characters; I remember the return of original Beano cover-star Biffo the Bear when I was younger and now even Lord Snooty, one of the comic’s original stars, has made a recent return. So never fear members of the Dennis the Menace fan club (yes I had one of those furry Gnasher badges too), Dennis will still be menacing Beanotown for a long time yet.

It started to make me think that the type of language that we use in everyday life might actually be effected by the language used by cartoon characters on a regular basis. We all know that the language used by so called celebrities have this effect, but what about cartoon characters. For the younger viewers they are celebrities, and help to shape their moral and ethical values (along with parenting, schooling, and social interactivity).

So when the classic cartoon “Bob the Builder” came onto the television several years ago, I am sure that many of us can remember the craze of younger children shouting “can he fix it, yes he can” and singing the theme tune. Now whilst this was certainly a feat of marketing genius, it also came into popular culture and regularily was heard said by a myrid of people on the television shortly thereafter.

This has been repeated several times, by several different cartoons, including the Simpons, where the favourite catchphrase of Homer Simpon “D’oh” is used frequently by many different sections of the community. As well as Bart Simpson’s catchphrase of “Eat my shorts” is used frequently by many children of a less than sweet nature.

So what do you think? Is what we hear on television and specifically on cartoons becoming more of a popular way of language being driven into popular culture. We see this happening with adult entertainment shows such as “Little Britain”, which has given us phrases such as “yes, but, no, but, yes, etc…” along with catch phrases which dissemminate into childrens popular culture like “I want that one” from the same aforementioned show.

Leave your comments below, and let myself and the entire world know what you think!

   Rocky & Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right, and George of the Jungle were among those TV cartoons of the 1950’s and 1960’s that were done in the limited-animation style that was commonplace at the time.  The reason why nobody ever forgot these TV classics was due in part to their smartly-written scripts that made them favorites with not only audiences, but also critics and historians.  Even today, these shows retain their popularity, as a new generation is discovering them, not only on cable TV, but also in the now DVD-dominated home video market.  All are indebted to animation producer Jay Ward for giving us Rocky, Bullwinkle, and company — and for influencing several generations of film and TV writers, producers, and directors, some of which have produced modern-day animated TV cartoons like The Simpsons (in which two other Ward creations, Mr. Peabody and Sherman, made a brief cameo in a 1994 episode) and Family Guy.

   But almost a decade before Rocky and Bullwinkle made their TV debut, there was Crusader Rabbit, one of TV’s first animated series which was first shown in syndication in 1949-50, and the first TV show that Ward (who graduated from UC Berkeley in 1941 with a B.A. degree) produced, this one in collaboration with advertising artist/designer Alex Anderson (who later designed Rocky and Bullwinkle), one of the producer’s sometimes business partners.  Crusader Rabbit was also one of the first TV shows to be filmed in color, but shown in black and white (especially since black & white TV sets were the norm at the time).  The series focused on the title character (voiced by Lucille Bliss, later to voice Smurfette in Hanna-Barbera’s animated TV series The Smurfs in the 1980’s) and his dim-witted sidekick Ragland T. “Rags” Tiger (voiced by Vern Louden) and their comic encounters with such villains as Dudley Nightshade (who presaged Snidely Whiplash by over a decade — Nightshade’s voice was handled by Russ Coughlan).  The animation on Crusader Rabbit may have been a few steps below the animated shorts shown in movie theaters, but the show’s clever scripts were several notches above some of the earliest TV sitcoms — and foreshadowed Ward’s later successes.  The original Crusader Rabbit lasted just a single season — after that, Ward and Anderson sold the rights to the character, which explains why the 1957 revival didn’t involve their services.  The 1957 version had a new actress to voice Crusader Rabbit (GeGe Pearson); other than that, it followed the same format as the original version — and like the original, it lasted only a single season.  Crusader Rabbit, of course, is all but forgotten today — but without him, Rocky and Bullwinkle would have never found their way into the hearts and minds of audiences of all ages by the end of the decade.

 Boris Badenov, Natasha Fatale and their boss Fearless Leader.

   Rocky and Bullwinkle, the most famous animated cartoon characters associated with Ward, made their debut in Rocky & Friends, which first appeared on ABC in 1959 (and later renamed The Bullwinkle Show when it moved to NBC in 1961) — the flying squirrel and dim-witted moose’s adventures were but one part of the series, which had several other segments that were no less funny than Rocky and Bullwinkle’s comic misadventures.

   Like Crusader Rabbit, the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons were blessed with clever scripting (by, among others, Allan Burns, a key figure in popular TV sitcoms like The Munsters and The Mary Tyler Moore Show), which not only spoofed the pop culture crazes and personalities of the time, but also the Cold War that dominated news headlines for almost half-a-century — which inspired the creation of Rocky and Bullwinkle’s most famous (and inept) adversaries, Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale, the European spies who bedeviled the furry duo in almost all of their TV adventures (which were presented in serial chapter form, complete with cliffhangers).  Rocky and Bullwinkle also appeared in several filler segments of the show, including “Bullwinkle’s Corner” (in which the moose recited famous poems and rhymes) and “Mr. Know-it-all” (in which Bullwinkle showed the viewers how to do various things, usually with disastrous results).

   Of course, some of the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons got Ward and the show’s writers in serious trouble — one example was a multi-part episode concerning a hat called the “Durward Derby,” named after TV announcer Durward Kirby, who sued Ward for making fun of him.  (The lawsuit was eventually settled out of court.)

   The Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons were also blessed with a great vocal cast, perhaps one of the best ever assembled.  June Foray, the sole surviving cast member from the Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons (and Ward‘s later TV efforts) voiced Rocky and Natasha; Bill Scott, Ward’s co-producing partner from the late-1950’s to the mid-1980’s — and who was also an animation writer for Warner Bros., UPA, etc. during the 1940‘s and 1950‘s — voiced Bullwinkle; Paul Frees, a veteran character actor and voice-over artist for almost half-a-century, voiced Boris and other supporting characters like Peter “Wrong-way” Peachfuzz; and William Conrad, who was active in not only TV, but also film and radio for half-a-century, and whose show business resume included the original radio version of Gunsmoke (in which he played Matt Dillon) and Cannon.

   There were several other segments of Rocky & Bullwinkle that were just as entertaining as the cartoon duo’s adventures.  For example, Fractured Fairy Tales spoofed popular fairy tales, done Jay Ward-style — the segment’s narrator was character actor Edward Everett Horton, while additional voices were provided by Foray, Scott, and an uncredited Daws Butler.  One of the most popular Fractured Fairy Tales cartoons during the entire run of Rocky & Bullwinkle spoofed not only Sleeping Beauty, but also Walt Disney and his California-based theme park Disneyland.  Another segment was Peabody’s Improbable History, in which Mr. Peabody, a bespectacled talking dog (voiced by Scott) and his young sidekick Sherman (voiced by Walter Tetley) who used the Way-Back Machine, a time machine that took them back in time to some of history’s greatest events with hilarious results; both characters were created by cartoonist Ted Key, best remembered for his popular Hazel cartoons that appeared in the Saturday Evening Post (and later inspired the successful 1960’s TV sitcom of the same name).  Currently, DreamWorks’ animation division plans to produce a computer animation feature film based on Peabody’s Improbable History.

Snidley Whiplash, Dudley Do-Right, Nell Fenwick, and Horse.

   When Rocky and Bullwinkle moved to NBC in 1961, two new features were added to the series — the first featured another legendary Ward creation, Dudley Do-Right (voiced by Scott), a loveable dimwit who was a member of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, who was in love with Nell Fenwick (voiced by Foray), who really had eyes for Dudley’s horse.  The cartoons, a spoof of the popular film melodramas and operettas of the ‘30’s and ‘40’s (especially Rose Marie), also featured Dudley’s chief nemesis, Snidely Whiplash, another classic Ward comic villain who was voiced by character actor Hans Conreid (who also voiced Captain Hook in Walt Disney’s animated feature Peter Pan [1953]).  Dudley Do-Right would eventually get his own TV show in 1969, which consisted of past cartoons, plus segments from King Leonardo and Underdog, two other 1960’s animated TV series.

   The other new feature that was added to Rocky & Bullwinkle in 1961 was Aesop & Son, in which the legendary storyteller (voiced by Charlie Ruggles) told his son Aesop, Jr. (voiced by Daws Butler) one of his many fables, which like Fractured Fairy Tales, were done Jay Ward-style — each cartoon ended with Aesop providing the moral to the story, only to have his son outdo him with a combination moral/punch-line.

   Rocky and Bullwinkle’s popularity continued to grow even after their show went off the air in 1963, thanks in part to reruns being shown on network TV — and later on, in syndication and on cable TV — and its brand of subversive humor would influence fans like Matt Groening, who would help to change the course of TV comedy with shows like The Simpsons and Futurama.  Rocky and Bullwinkle’s popularity would also serve them well as advertising pitchmen for products like General Mills’ Cheerios breakfast cereal and fast-food restaurant chains like Taco Bell.  There was even a short-lived chain of family restaurants named after Bullwinkle, which capitalized on his and Rocky’s popularity.  Since the 1990’s, many episodes of Rocky & Bullwinkle have been available in both VHS and DVD format — including, since 2003, the DVD sets from Classic Media (who co-owns the rights to the majority of Ward’s properties) that have spotlighted the series’ first three seasons, as well as those spotlighting its other features.

   Jay Ward’s next project after Rocky & Bullwinkle was different in the fact that it was the only live-action series that he ever produced.  Fractured Flickers, a half-hour TV comedy show hosted by Hans Conreid, which was syndicated in 1963, featured silent film footage and new comic dialogue spoken by June Foray, Bill Scott, and Paul Frees.  Fractured Flickers, which only lasted one season — and is also available on DVD — was also notable for featuring such live-action guest stars as Bob Newhart, Barbara Eden, Cesar Romero — and even Twilight Zone creator Rod Serling!

   Ward returned to animation in 1964 with the syndicated TV cartoon Hoppity Hooper, the title character being a frog (voiced by Chris Allen) who had a number of comic adventures with Waldo Wigglesworth (voiced by Hans Conreid), a fox and con artist, and Fillmore Bear (voiced initially by Alan Reed, then Bill Scott).  The series also featured past segments from Rocky & Bullwinkle, plus the Commander McBragg cartoons from another 1960’s TV cartoon, Underdog.  Hoppity Hooper is a cartoon that’s hardly mentioned these days, despite the fact that Ward and Scott produced it — but even today, the show still retains its cult following, thanks to both smart scripting and engaging characters.  The Hoppity Hooper cartoons, plus those from Rocky & Bullwinkle, were later incorporated into the 1966 syndicated TV cartoon Uncle Waldo’s Cartoon Show.  The Hoppity Hooper cartoons were released in VHS format in the early-1990’s — in 2001, some of them were released on DVD.

Cover art for one of the George Of The Jungle VHS tapes.

   Ward’s final animated TV series — and one that would, in many respects, achieve the same cult following as Rocky & Bullwinkle — was George Of The Jungle, which was part of ABC’s Saturday morning line-up during the 1967-68 TV season.  The show’s main hero — a satiric take-off on Tarzan — spoofed the jungle movie genre, as jungle klutz George (voiced by Bill Scott), aided by his lady love Ursula, Ape (a talking ape who was far smarter than George), and faithful elephant Shep (who acted more like a dog than an elephant) clobbered the bad guys — despite the fact that George always ignored one of the lyrics of his theme song, “Watch out for that tree,” with somewhat painful results (at least for George).  The other two-thirds of George Of The Jungle were devoted to, respectively, Tom Slick (again, voiced by Scott), a daredevil race car driver, and Super Chicken (voiced by Scott, too), who gained superhuman strength via “Super Sauce,” a liquid vitamin concoction.  The George Of The Jungle TV series marked the last time that Paul Frees would ever work with Jay Ward and Bill Scott, as Frees moved on to other voice-over work for the rest of his career, most of it for Rankin-Bass.

   Jay Ward never created another animated TV series after George Of The Jungle — but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t active for the rest of his career.  Ward co-produced two theatrical compilation films, The Crazy World Of Laurel & Hardy (1967), featuring highlights from some of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy’s films, and The Golden Age Of Buster Keaton (1975), spotlighting clips from many of the comic legend’s films.  From 1971 to 2005, a merchandise store founded by Ward, and located in Los Angeles, sold various items featuring the images of the producer’s famous creations, including Rocky, Bullwinkle, and Dudley Do-Right.  And Ward produced a number of entertaining TV commercials for Quaker Oats’ Cap’n Crunch and Quisp breakfast cereals from the 1960’s to the mid-1980’s, which reunited Ward alumni Daws Butler, Bill Scott, and June Foray.

   By the 1990’s, Jay Ward’s cartoon creations were still embedded in the public‘s imagination, as several of them finally made their way to the big screen in several feature-length films — and in live-action form, no less; however, in most cases, the finished products left much to be desired.  The first was Boris & Natasha (1992), featuring Rocky and Bullwinkle’s arch-enemies (played by SCTV’s Dave Thomas and Sally Kellerman), was never released in theaters and headed straight to cable TV and home video.  Thomas and Kellerman are great actors, but considering the material they worked with, it wasn’t one of their better efforts.

   Walt Disney Pictures had somewhat better success with their live-action version of Ward’s George Of The Jungle (1997) — part of the film’s moderate success at the box office was due to the casting of Brendan Fraser as George, while Monty Python veteran John Cleese voiced Ape.  Six years later, the film’s success would inspire a direct-to-video sequel, George Of The Jungle 2 (2003), which only tended to sully the original TV version’s reputation.

   In the wake of George Of The Jungle’s success, Brendan Fraser was cast as another Ward creation, Dudley Do-Right, in the 1998 film of the same name — but not even Fraser, and co-stars Sarah Jessica Parker (as Nell) and Alfred Molina (as Snidely Whiplash), under the direction of Hugh Wilson, could make this film a hit, which only served to tarnish the cartoon character’s popularity a bit.

   Rocky and Bullwinkle finally made it to the big screen in The Adventures Of Rocky & Bullwinkle (2000), in which the duo, in animated form, faced off against a live-action Boris (Jason Alexander) and Natasha (Rene Russo), plus their superior Fearless Leader (Robert DeNiro, whose production company co-produced the film).  But the end result greatly paled in comparison with the classic TV series that inspired it, which explains why the film failed at the box office — but then, the other live-action films based on Jay Ward’s animation creations were hardly film masterpieces.

   In late-December 2007, George Of The Jungle enjoyed a comeback of sorts when Canada’s Teletoon co-produced a new version of the 1960’s animated TV series that was different in several respects — for one thing, it employed Adobe Flash animation, which partly explains why the show’s characters were redesigned (including George).  In the United States, the 2000’s revival of George Of The Jungle has aired on Cartoon Network (which had also broadcast reruns of the 1960’s version during the 1990’s).  In mid-August 2008, the series’ first season was released on DVD.

   A half-century after the fact, Rocky & Bullwinkle, George Of The Jungle, and the other hilarious TV shows that Jay Ward gave us continue to entertain millions throughout the world, and whose never-ending influence on both the entertainment industry and pop culture can never be forgotten or denied.  They were popular during some of the most troubled periods in 20th Century history — and they remain so, even as the second decade of the current century begins.

   Please check out John Lavernoich’s official website (http://jlavernoich2008.web.officelive.com/default.aspx) — as well as his pages on Windows Live Spaces (http://cid-ef88d131988ab38f.profile.live.com), Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/john.lavernoich?ref=name), MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/jlavernoich), Twitter (http://twitter.com/JLav65), and WordPress (http://www.johnlav.wordpress.com).

A scene from “What A Night For A Knight,” the very first Scooby-Doo episode in 1969 — which was also used in the opening title sequence during the series’ first two seasons.

   Scooby-Doo, one of the most popular animated TV stars who dominated Saturday morning during the 1970‘s and 1980‘s, was actually created in 1969 — but make no mistake: the cowardly canine’s appeal has spanned forty years, still an impressive record, appearing in various formats over the years — yet, no matter what the format, the character’s personality and soul has always been consistent.

   Scooby-Doo was the first animated TV superstar that was especially created for the Saturday morning crowd, unlike his other Hanna-Barbera stablemates Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, The Flintstones, etc., who were created for either syndication or prime time.  Despite a couple of years’ worth of reruns, Scooby-Doo’s TV show (in its various formats) had a successful seventeen-year run as part of CBS and ABC’s Saturday morning lineups.

   During the mid-1960’s, animated super-hero TV shows dominated Saturday morning, including those produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, who contributed Space Ghost, Frankenstein, Jr. & The Impossibles, and Birdman to the craze — all of this was owed in part to the success of ABC’s live-action Batman TV show.  But the 1960’s was also a troubled decade, marked by the assassinations of U.S. President John F. Kennedy and his brother Robert, as well as Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., not to mention increased TV coverage of the Vietnam War.  By the late-1960’s, politicians and parents’ groups forced the three major TV networks to reduce the violence that was present in most TV programming, including Westerns — and cancel the animated super-hero TV shows that were popular for a few years.  The three major TV networks at that time — CBS, NBC, and ABC — resorted to animated TV shows created for Saturday morning in accord with the wishes of both the politicians and parents’ groups — with less than successful results.

   Then in 1969, Hanna-Barbera, along with film editors-turned-writers Joe Ruby and Ken Spears would present CBS executive Fred Silverman with what would eventually become the genesis of Scooby Doo: four teenage detectives and their dog — a Great Dane — would solve mysteries, while coming across a variety of would-be ghosts and monsters, with elements of I Love A Mystery (the 1940’s radio series) and Dobie Gillis (a major hit for CBS during the late-1950’s and early-1960’s) thrown in.  CBS thought that the concept would be too scary for children who would watch it — but Silverman made some Solomon-like decisions that would bode well for the success of Scooby-Doo: make the dog (named after a lyric in Frank Sinatra’s hit song “Strangers In The Night“) the star of the show, as well as making the series itself more of an animated sitcom with elements of drama and mystery thrown in for good measure.

Iwao Tokamoko, who provided the production and character designs for Scooby-Doo.

   In the fall of 1969, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? debuted on CBS, with the basic concept that would be present for most of the series’ long run: teenage detectives Fred Jones, Daphne Blake, Velma Dinkley, and Norville “Shaggy” Rogers, along with Scooby-Doo, would travel across the country (and in some cases, around the world), as they solved a variety of mysteries that involved would-be ghosts and monsters who were really human beings who broke the law to suit their own purposes (though there were a few exceptions).  The series offered something for everybody — mysteries with actual clues that would appeal to kids with inquiring minds, as well as slapstick-type comedy supplied by Shaggy and Scooby, who were usually trying to outrun (and sometimes, outsmart) the various “ghosts” and “monsters” whose paths they would cross.  Scooby-Doo would become a Saturday morning hit for CBS during its first two seasons, thanks in part to not only Iwao Tokamoko’s production and character designs, but also clever voicing — with the exceptions of the actresses who voiced Daphne and Velma (Stefanianna Christopherson voiced Daphne during the first season, then Heather North took over for the rest of the show’s long run on both CBS and ABC — Velma’s voice was handled by, respectively, Nicole Jaffe, Patricia Stevens, B.J. Ward, etc.), the actors who voiced Scooby-Doo, Fred, and Shaggy  — Don Messick (who also voiced The Jetsons’ pet dog Astro, which helped to inspire Scooby), Frank Welker, and radio personality Casey Kasem would stick with these roles for the duration of the series.  The one flaw that the series had was the use of a laugh track, which Hanna-Barbera added at the request of CBS executives — the laugh track would be present for the majority of the series’ first eleven years.  (The laugh track was removed from almost all the pre-1980 episodes when Scooby-Doo went into syndication in 1979, and later on cable TV during the 1990’s.)

   In the fall of 1972, after a year of reruns, Scooby-Doo was expanded to a full hour, as the cartoon canine and his friends teamed up with not only real-life celebrities like Don Knotts, Jonathan Winters, Davy Jones, and Sandy Duncan, but also fictional icons as Batman, The Addams Family, and Josie & The Pussycats — the hour long series was called The New Scooby-Doo Movies, which would last from 1972-74.  The 1972-74 episodes would later be shown in syndication (as two half-hour episodes) and on cable TV.

   By that time, Scooby was starting to conquer the comic book pages as well; starting in 1969, Whitman/Gold Key published a Scooby-Doo comic book that lasted for five years.  Afterwards, various comic book publishers, including Marvel and DC, would publish various Scooby-Doo comic books in the decades to come, a good number of them featuring stories written and drawn by Mark Evainer and Dan Spiegel.  The character would also successfully lend his name to various kinds of merchandise, from board games to computer games.  Not to mention children’s multi-vitamins, just like his fellow Hanna-Barbera cartoon superstar Fred Flintstone!

   In the fall of 1976, after CBS aired two years’ worth of reruns from the original Scooby-Doo series, the cowardly canine and co. would move over to ABC, where he would stay right until 1991.  The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour combined new Scooby mysteries (some featuring his dim-witted cousin Scooby-Dum) with the comic adventures of Dynomutt, the bionic canine crime-fighter, and his long-suffering partner/master The Blue Falcon.  Scooby and Dynomutt’s adventures would become part of Scooby’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics, which aired from 1977-79, and not only featured “Laff-A-Lympics,” in which Scooby’s team, the Scooby-Doobies competed with Yogi Bear’s Yogi-Yahooes and the Really Rottens in a combination spoof of the Olympics and ABC’s Battle Of The Network Stars specials, but also the adventures of Captain Cavemen & The Teen Angels, who solved mysteries in the Scooby tradition.  The Scooby-Doo segments produced between 1976-79 would later be aired in syndication and on cable TV under the title The Scooby-Doo Show.

   In the fall of 1979, Scooby-Doo’s TV series was renamed Scooby & Scrappy-Doo, as Scooby’s brave nephew Scrappy teamed up with the cowardly canine and his human pals — Scrappy’s voice was originally handled by Lennie Weinrib, but was taken over by Don Messick the following year.  Some fans felt that Scrappy-Doo was hurting the popularity of his famous uncle’s TV show — still, a small puppy that doesn’t cower with fear every time he comes across a ghost or monster can’t be all bad.  That same year, Scooby appeared in the prime-time TV special Scooby Goes Hollywood, in which he tries to break away from his TV image by becoming a serious actor, without much success.

   In the fall of 1980, the basic concept that served Scooby-Doo well during his first eleven years underwent some major alterations when The Richie Rich/Scooby-Doo Hour debuted — three six-minute cartoons starring Scooby, Scrappy, and Shaggy were shown alongside the animated adventures of Richie Rich, the popular Harvey comic book icon.  But the most important alteration that must have rankled true Scooby fans was the absence of Fred, Daphne, and Velma from the Scooby-Doocartoons of the early-’80’s — yet, this decision wasn’t enough to boost the series’ already sagging ratings, made even worse when The Smurfs debuted on rival network NBC in the fall of 1981, a series that was produced by none other than Hanna-Barbera.

   In the fall of 1982, Scooby and Scrappy changed partners, as the Scooby-Doo/Puppy Hour debuted, which featured the globe-trotting adventures of Petey the Puppy and his friends, as well as a segment starring Scrappy-Doo and another of Scooby’s cousins, Yabba-Doo.  (The Scooby-Doo shorts produced between 1980-82 would later air seperately in syndication and on cable TV as part of the Scooby & Scrappy-Doo series.)  The following year, in order to boost Scooby-Doo’s sagging ratings, Daphne was brought back to join Scooby, Scrappy, and Shaggy.  In the fall of 1984, when Scooby-Doo got his own half-hour show again, Fred and Velma appeared in several episodes — yet, there was no denying that the end was near.

   In the fall of 1985, in a final attempt to boost Scooby-Doo’s faltering ratings, the series went in a new direction, as Scooby, Scrappy, Shaggy, and Daphne, aided by Dr. Vincent Von Ghoul (voiced by Vincent Price) and the orphan Flim-Flam, attempted to stop thirteen ghosts and monsters from taking over the world — hence, the show’s title, The Thirteen Ghosts Of Scooby-Doo.  Yet, by the end of the 1985-86 season, Scooby-Doo was history — after seventeen years, the cartoon canine was out of place in the Saturday morning TV arena that was dominated by The Smurfs and Pee-Wee Herman.

   But Scooby-Doo didn’t entirely disappear from TV screens — the character, along with Shaggy and Scrappy-Doo, appeared in three syndicated TV-movies that were broadcast in 1987-88: Scooby-Doo & The Boo Brothers, Scooby-Doo & The Ghoul School, and Scooby-Doo & The Reluctant Werewolf.  With one exception (an appearance in 2002’s live-action Scooby-Doo feature film), these three TV-movies marked the final appearances of Scrappy-Doo — his fading into obscurity by the end of the 1980’s must have delighted his harshest detractors.

From the opening title sequence of A Pup Named Scooby-Doo in 1988.

   In the fall of 1988, Scooby Doo returned to network TV — in an unexpected form.  A Pup Named Scooby- Doo, spotlighting the adventures of Scooby and his friends when they were young kids, was inspired by such hit series like The Flintstone Kids and Muppet Babies, which featured younger versions of the popular TV icons.  However, A Pup Named Scooby-Doo went one step further by spoofing the concept that made the original Scooby-Doo TV series a hit for almost two decades.  The series won two back-to-back Daytime Emmy nominations in 1989-90, but only lasted three seasons — it went off the air in 1991, the same year that Scooby-Doo ended his association with ABC.

   Scooby-Doo’s next appearance on TV would come three years later in the 1994 syndicated animated TV movie Arabian Nights, in which he and Shaggy appeared alongside Yogi Bear and Magilla Gorilla.  By the mid 1990’s, when reruns of Scooby-Doo were being shown on cable’s Cartoon Network, and later on, the WB television network and Boomerang (all owned by Time Warner, which also owns the Hanna-Barbera characters), Scooby found a new generation of fans, even as older fans were rediscovering one of their favorite Saturday morning TV stars from years past, not only on cable TV, but also on home video.  (There have been a number of Scooby videos that have been released in both VHS and DVD format since the 1980’s, including the various DVD boxed sets that collects Scooby-Doo in its various incarnations.)

   In 1997, Scooby-Doo and Shaggy reunited with Fred, Daphne, and Velma when they guest-starred in an episode of Cartoon Network’s Johnny Bravo.  Nobody who saw that particular episode had any idea that this guest spot would help usher in a new chapter in Scooby-Doo’s career.  In 1998, Warner Home Video released Scooby-Doo On Zombie Island, in which Scooby and friends headed to Louisiana to take on a barrage of pirate zombies — Frank Welker returned to voice Fred, while radio personality Scott Innes did Scooby’s voice (and later on, Shaggy’s; Billy West voiced Shaggy in Scooby-Doo On Zombie Island).  The direct-to-video movie was dedicated to the memory of Don Messick, the original voice of Scooby-Doo, who died in 1997.  The success of Scooby-Doo On Zombie Island would lead to over a dozen subsequent direct-to-video (and DVD) features over the next thirteen years, the most recent being Scooby-Doo: Camp Scare, which was released on DVD in September 2010.

Movie poster for the live-action Scooby-Doo feature film in 2002.

   In 2002, Scooby-Doo finally made it to movie theaters in a theatrical feature film that featured live-action actors (including Sarah Michelle Gellar and Freddie Prinze, Jr.) interacting with the CGI-animated Scooby-Doo.  The result, however, left much to desired, which garnished mostly negative reviews — not that it stopped the film from becoming a modest success at the box office and inspiring the 2004 sequel Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed, not to mention a scene in 2003’s Looney Tunes: Back In Action, in which an animated Scooby and Shaggy criticized actor Matthew Lillard (who played Shaggy in the two live-action Scooby films, and who now voices the character in animated form).

   In the fall of 2002, Scooby-Doo and his pals made their grand return to network TV with What’s New, Scooby-Doo?, which aired as part of the WB television network‘s Saturday morning schedule, and remained so until 2005.  The series updated the cowardly canine and his pals for the current century, while keeping the basic format of its predecessors intact.  Casey Kasem returned to voice Shaggy, while Frank Welker did double duty as not only the voice of Fred, but also Scooby-Doo as well.

   In the fall of 2006, Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get A Clue debuted on the CW television network (the merging of the former WB and UPN TV networks), in which the characters inherit the mansion and fortune of Shaggy’s Uncle Albert, an ultra-rich inventor/scientist who went into hiding to avoid being captured by criminal scientist Dr. Phinius Phibes (his name derived from the character that Vincent Price played in two early-1970‘s horror films), who wants to use Uncle Albert’s advanced nano technology (the kind that’s been incorporated into Scooby’s Scooby Snacks) to rule the world — yet whose plans to gain control of them, plus trying to get rid of Scooby and Shaggy (now voiced by Scott Menville), usually end in disaster.  Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get A Clue was the last project that Joseph Barbera worked on before his death in mid-December, 2006 — over five years after the death of long-time creative partner William Hanna in late-March, 2001; the series ceased production in early-March 2008.

   In the past few years, Scooby-Doo has also conquered the live stage in a pair of live-action stage plays that have been performed around the world — Scooby-Doo In Stagefright, debuted in 2005; the second, Scooby-Doo & The Pirate Ghost, premiered four years later in 2009.

   In 2009, to commemorate Scooby-Doo’s forty years in show business, Warner Home Video released the live action, direct-to-DVD movie Scooby-Doo: The Mystery Begins (which also aired on Cartoon Network soon after), depicting how Scooby and his human friends first met and formed Mystery, Inc.; the sequel to that — Scooby- Doo: Curse of the Lake Monster, that will air on Cartoon Network in mid-October 2010 (and released on DVD in early-2011).

   In July 2010, Cartoon Network started to broadcast the latest Scooby-Doo animated TV series, Scooby-Doo: Mystery, Incorporated, a re-booting of the franchise in the cowardly canine and company solve mysteries in the small town of Crystal Cove, despite the objections of the local townspeople (including Fred, Daphne, Velma, and Shaggy’s parents), while trying to uncover the mystery behind Mr. E (voiced by comedian Lewis Black).  The series is most notable for the fact that Matthew Lillard now voices Shaggy (the role he played in the two live-action Scooby-Doo theatrical feature films released in the past decade), replacing Casey Kasem, who retired from full-time voice over work in 2009 (though Kasem can be heard in the current TV series, voicing Shaggy’s father).

   Scooby-Doo has had a rich career that hasn’t been without its share of high and lows — but one fact’s clear: in spite of the many changes that’ve occurred over the past forty years, Scooby’s essential character — the cowardly canine who always came out the hero — is one of many constants that’ll never change.  And die-hard Scooby-Doo fans wouldn’t have it any other way.

   Please check out John Lavernoich’s official website (http://jlavernoich2008.web.officelive.com/default.aspx) — as well as his pages on Windows Live Spaces (http://cid-ef88d131988ab38f.profile.live.com), Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/john.lavernoich?ref=name), MySpace (http://www.myspace.com/jlavernoich), Twitter (http://twitter.com/JLav65), and WordPress (http://www.johnlav.wordpress.com).

The show is starting its sixth season and Fox wasn’t going to offer the cast a salary that most shows give the cast during it’s sixth season so one cannot necessarily blame them for holding out for more pay.  It is surprising that Fox wouldn’t offer much to a show that has been so successful at both DVD sales and also has a serious replay value which gives residuals both to the network and its actors. 

We are all glad to hear that they are back.  All of the actors have posted on either Facebook or on personal websites that they are glad to be back and have announced their agreements to Fox’s new terms.  Even Maurice LaMarche who do supporting roles have released videos detailing his excitement to return to the show.  Lets see how well this series will continue as we enjoy the show and hope that it will continue for a long time.

Image via Wikipedia

Episodes

1. Family Goy
2. Brian’s Got a Brand New Bag
3. Ode to 85
4. Quagmire’s Baby
5. Hannah Banana
6. Road to the Multiverse
7. Dog Gone
8. Jerome is the New Black
9. Big Man on Hippocampus
10. Business Guy
11. Dial Meg for Murder
12. Brian Griffin’s House of Payne
13. Extra Large Medium
14. Go, Stewie! Go!
15. Peter-assment
16. The Splendid Source
17. TBA
18. TBA
19. TBA
20. TBA
21. We Have a Bad Feeling About This pt. 1
22. We Have a Bad Feeling About This pt. 2

Image via Wikipedia

Every one knows the Simpson’s, They exist for more than ten years, but non of them ever gets any older. That is what I like about cartoons. The Simpson’s cartoon started as a site show on the Tracy Ullman show, but the Simpson family soon became so popular that they show got theirown show. What is so great about the Simpson is that children and adults both like it for different reasons. 

I never get tired of watching the Simpson’s not even the old episodes. My first encounter with these extraordinary family was on a holiday hostel in Cahersevine in county Kerry. We had to be sure that the manager could use the cooker before 6 o’clock in the evening, because he had to have his diner eaten before the Simpson came on. This was in 1997. Curious where the fuss was about I watched the show. From that moment on I was hooked.

The Simpsons live in Springfield, but knowbody actualy knows where this is, or do you?    

As you can see on the map above, the Simpson’s family lives in county Fermanagh in Ireland.

If anyone ever doubts you, show them this article.