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1976
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Batman
YES!!! This was the SHOW, baby!!! (And, in a great number of ways, it still is! :) )
I owned toy replicas of The Batmobile and The Batboat manufactured by Corgi Toys!!! I was a very avid, devoted viewer of it (both TV and movie versions!) on WGNO-TV Channel 26 in the 1970s and on WNOL-TV Channel 38 in the 1980s!!!
That was before, in 1989, The Family Channel claimed the rights to air the show, with--*choke!*--precious minutes edited from the episodes to accommodate tight commercial airtime space!!! There have been subequent runs, on F/X, The Sci-Fi Channel, and TV Land, but there've been no improvements there, either. In fact, I think F/X butchered Batman so badly it was practically condensed!
Not once in its 17 years on cable has the show been seen fully intact. It's high time all that legal red tape between Fox and DC Comics were snipped through so that uncut DVD season sets can be released...either that or Encore ACTION snatches up rights to air the show uncut and complete with all original scenes (the same waty they do The Green Hornet and The Time Tunnel...both ABC Primetime flops in 1966)!
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1977
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The Great Grape Ape Show
You know why they call him The Great Grape Ape? Because every time he eats grapes, he goes bananas!
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1977
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Batman: The Movie
I was already hooked on showings of the television edition Batman on WGNO-TV 26 as a kid; I'll never forget the first time I saw The Caped Crusader's 1966 cinematic masterpiece...in a hospital room at Charity Hospital (I went there for an operation on my eye) with my mom on WWL's Saturday Matinee on TV in 1977.
Unfortunately, I was being discharged on that Saturday and had to miss most of the movie. I wasn't aware it was a movie at first; I thought WGNO-TV 26 was showing a special airing on Saturday!
And, sadly, the TV series later vanished from the airwaves, and the closest I came to seeing it again was frequent showings of the movie on WGNO-TV 26...until March 1984, with the launching of WNOL-TV 38! The Batman TV show was part of its premeire schedule, and I thrilled to enjoying The Dynamic Duo's live-action hijinks all over again!
You notice that the action fight words are much smaller in the movie than those in the tv show? Undoubtedly the movie, unlike the series, had a bigger budget; to aid the studio (20th Century-Fox) in selling the TV show overseas and to create the new Batvehicles - The Batcopter, The Batboat, and a newly revamped Batcycle (the latter having debuted on the TV show [in "The Penguin Goes Straight"/"Not Yet He Ain't"] as a prototype) - and then use them in the series for its following season (it was released between season 1 and 2, but then, you already know that...).
And a great cinematic extravaganza Batman is! Of course, 105 minutes does prove to be overkill, but, hey, the more, the merrier! Only 2 other 20th Century-Fox-produced TV shows share the honor with Batman of being successfully transferred from TV to the big screen, and they, of course are The X-Files (in 1998) and The Simpsons Movie (in 2007).
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1977
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The Partridge Family: 2200 A.D.
I remember seeing Partridge Family: 2200 A.D. as part of Fred Flintstone and Friends (they were then known as The Partridge Family In Outer Space) in 1977, every Monday-Friday morning locally (on WGNO-TV 26, New Orleans)...
I missed it the first time out, on CBS Saturday Morning. Luckily 2 episodes of the series, "My Son, The Spaceball Star" and "Car Trouble", are available as bonuses on The Partridge Family: The Complete First Season DVD set!
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1977
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The New Adventures of Batman
Hmmm...okay, if you want to call this an animated remake of the 1966-68 live-action ABC Primetime edition, sure. What with Adam West and Burt Ward reprising their roles. Really cool. Really strange, too, with Filmation's updating the "R" on Robin's outfit (a black "R" on a yellow circle instead of the traditional yellow "R" on a black circle!); but for some reason it seemed to work for 'em!
Also, this show was running on CBS the exact same time as Hanna-Barbera's SuperFriends was burning up the Nielsen charts on ABC. Interesting enough, the Hanna-Barbera version recruited the Bat-voices of the late 1960s Filmation version (The Batman/Superman Hour, also on CBS), Casey Kasem and the late Olan Soule, to voice their Dynamic Duo counterparts, just as the stars of live-'60s primetime series, the aforementioned West and Ward, reprised ther original roles. I think it would've been grand had Filmation afforded to recruit the other stars from the show to voice their parts, like Frank Gorshin as The Riddler, Cesar Romero as The Joker, Burgess Meredith as The Penguin, etc. (You know, I never realized that Alfred Pennyworth, the butler, was deleted from this version!) I kept up with its delightful 3-year run on CBS throughout its 3 incarnations.
Then, the ultimate B-52 landed on Batfans (myself included!) the nation over: CBS eighty-sixed the show, thus paving the way for the one version of Filmation's Batman to be avoided @ all costs: the dreaded Batman And The Super Seven on NBC! Bleahhhhhhhhh! What happened here?! All of the episodes had been shamelessly edited!! I remember watching with my sister just one episode, then swearing never to tune in to this unforgivable piece of dreck again! Is it any wonder it didn't last beyond one season?! The Caped Crusader was best off keeping his contract with CBS.
It's a good thing the show's a regular feature on AOL's IN2TV site! And that I have a copy of The Complete Series on DVD; so far, it's as close to a DVD release of the 1960s show viewers will ever come. ;-)
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1978
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September 9
The All New Popeye Hour
Unfortunately, I did not get to watch The All New Popeye Hour in my area (New Orleans) during its first season, for WWL-TV Channel 4, New Orleans' CBS afilliate, rejected the network feed in favour of playing its own local Popeye And Pals, which was scheduled @ the same time as The All New Popeye Hour (9:00 AM Central).
The next year, WWL-TV blacked out The All New Popeye Hour again, thus prompting me to watch it on former independent station WGNO-TV 26, which was generous enough to carry the CBS feed of the show that season (once I found out about it!). And you know, I kinda dug it! WWL-TV finally accepted the network feed when the whow became The Popeye And Olive Comedy Show
I bought one of the Rhino Video releases of the 1970s Hanna-Barbera Popeye 'toons, but boy, was I rooked! I thought they'd include the original main title opening to The All New Popeye Hour...but then the tape included Hanna-Barbera Popeye 'toons from other seasons, too. (It's a good thing TV Ark site had a RealVideo file of the opening!) Fortunately, I have the "Popeye And Friends" Warner's DVD of the 1978 H-B Popeye animated installments, which included the main and end titles from both seasons!
Shame on you, WWL-TV, 4 not accepting The All New Popeye Hour and depriving its local legion of Saturday Morning fans the opportunity to get a glance at this spectacular show!
(P.S.: JerryBlank, the name of The Hamburger Guy was none other than J. Wellingon Wimpy.)
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1979
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The New Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape Show
I remember getting an eyeful of repeats of The Great Grape Ape Show, but I hadn't even heard of The New Tom & Jerry counterpart from '75 until 1978 or '79, WVUE-TV Channel 8, New Orleans' local ABC afilliate-cum-FOX afilliate, reran them along with theatrical-era MGM T&Js from the '40s, '50s, and '60s, every Monday-Friday afternoon @ 3:30.
Of all the Tom & Jerry cartoons they showed, I remember taking such a liking to the '70s T&Js (especially with Jerry's bow tie, and T&J working together as a team!), and have done so ever since.
I mean, here it was, a modernized mid-'70s version of an old Hanna-Barbera favourite and I missed it the first time out! 'Course, it's not possible to see every HB production ever made on every network back then (unless you've got 3 TVs tuned to a different network!); I do, however, remember being fixated on an awful lot of CBS Saturday shows (Shazzam! sticks out in my mind the most). The 1975 Tom & Jerry TV 'toons proved to be so endearing to me that, in March 1997, I opened a web tribute to them, @ http://www.1975tomjerry.50megs.com/! Check it out!
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1984
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The Harlem Globetrotters
After watching the guest shots on The New Scooby-Doo Movies on WGNO-TV 26 (Television New Orleans Style!), I first saw the original 1970-73 series featuring the 'Trotters (with Granny and Dribbles the dog) on WNOL-TV 38, New Orleans, in 1984...and took a BIG liking to it. I've collected Gold Key comics of the Harlem Globetrotters' escapades, and thrilled to the day when TVLand repeated the series as part of its Super Retrovision Saturdaze lineup in April 1999 (I still have the tape of all 6 shows from the first day!!)! This show I hadn't seen in 15 years! I quickly rushed out to the store and purchased 2 tapes for recording the series for posterity, which I have saved to this very day, long after TVLand abandoned its SRS lineup. (It's a pity that they did; I thought the Super Retrovision Saturdaze package was a most promising extravaganza.)
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1984
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Dynomutt, Dog Wonder
Another H-B icon whose original run I missed but saw later on.
One of the more hilarious Batman & Robin parodies. In fact, I posted a webpage dedicated to the series THE FALCON'S LAIR: The Unofficial Guide To Dynomutt, Dog Wonder @ http://www.angelfire.com/la/aaronh3d/. Come check it out!
When watching it on USA's Cartoon Express from the mid-'80s to the early '90s, I noticed the intro was similar to the 1978 syndie titles but shorter, and featured Scooby in them; and, the end titles featured the credits flashing above Scooby and Dynomutt. I am now certain they were a couple of original 1976 bridging titles of The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour. (These were the main reasons I looked very much forward to watching Dynomutt on USA!) :-)
Pity we never saw such goodies on the so-called "Complete Series" DVD set of The Scooby Doo/Dynomutt Hour from Warner Home Video, which forsook the original 1976 broadcast versions (which would have included only one opening and closing credits sequence per episode) for syndicated versions! Every minute they state on that box they have 3 episodes from the 90-minute Scooby Doo/Dynomutt Show and the lyrics to the original "catchy theme song which celebrates, '...while Scooby is haunted by a spooky ghost, Dynomutt is doin' what he does the most!'" and feature completely different material on the 4 "delightful" discs within, they're fleecing customers...and diehard animation fans! WHV, I know you have numerous projects on your docket, but institute some sort of a disc replacement program for Scooby Doo/Dynomutt, please! :-P
When you recieve dose after dose of the syndicated editions for many years, you kinda get a hankering for the original. (Anyone out there saved VHS copies of Dynomutt Dog Wonder from USA's Cartoon Express in the 1980s? Or are the 1976 Dyno-titles shown on a foreign version of Boomerang from CN?)
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1986
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The Monkees
I remember first seeing The Monkees TV show in a marathon on that fateful Pleasant Valley Sunday on MTV back in late February 1986 (to coincide with the group's 20th anniversary) along with my sister @ our grandmother's. Those live-action cartoon SFX, those musical numbers, those fast-paced oneliners and that outlandish humor...boy, they sure had a profound effect on me. (I remember thinking to myself, "I could swear I'd seen this before"!) They virtually (and still do!) got rich off me, as, in the 14+ years since, I squandered the lot purchasing and collecting LPs, audiocassettes, CDs, books, cards, videocassettes, magazine articles and TV Guide listings of original firstrun episodes of The Monkees on NBC (the last 2 items in the form of xeroxed photocopies). I also have been a proud subscriber to The Monkee Business Fanzine for its last 8 years.
My favorite Monkees album is Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones, Ltd.. My favorite Monkees songs are "Randy Scouse Git", "For Pete's Sake", "Star Collector," "She Hangs Out" (Part 2), "Tear The Top Right Off Of My Head," "Tear Drop City," and "I Don't Think You Know Me". My favorite episodes of The Monkees are "Mijacogeo" (a.k.a. "The Frodis Caper"), "The Monkees Of The Wheel," "Art, For Monkee's Sake," "I've Got A Little Song Here," and "The Monkees Mind Their Manor." Years of collecting film and TV data on The Monkees led to my 1997 creation of The Monkees Film & TV Vault (http://members.tripod.com/~ahiii/monkeesfilmTV.html), a web site which pays strict, specific attention to facts and figures of The Monkees' 1966-68 NBC-TV series' 58 episodes (right down to the original summer repeats!), their 1968 Columbia Picture HEAD, their 1969 NBC-TV special 33 1/3 Revolutions Per Monkee, and their 1997 ABC-TV special, Hey, Hey It's The Monkees, and it includes transcripts and WAV soundfiles to The Monkees' commercial sponsor tags for Kellogg's, Yardley Of London and Kool-Aid. Check it out!
And this year, we're happily celebrating 40 years of Monkeemania, with deluxe 2 CD sets for all the albums up till "The Monkees Present", an official Monkees web site to feature downloadable material from Rhino's archives, and more DVDs! No reunion tour, however...
In any case, MONKEEMANIA! ;)
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