50TH ANNIVERSARIES

 No mid-life crisis here...just these shows turning

SATURDAY MORNING MASTERS: SCATMAN CROTHERS

 

SCATMAN CROTHERS

(May 23, 1910-November 22, 1986)

 

Notable Roles: Cheshire Cat, Scat Cat, George “Meadowlark” Lemon, King Louie, Hong Kong Phooey/Penrod “Penry” Pooch, Louie Wilson, Rosey, Liquid Man/Nate Branch, Dick Hallorann, Sam the piano player, Uncle Moses, Jazz, Eugene the Genie, Excell Dennis

 

Born Benjamin Sherman Crothers, he began a musical career as a teenager; teaching himself how to sing and play the guitar and drums. He would play with a band in speakeasies throughout his native Terre Haute until he ended up performing five days a week on a radio show in Dayton, Ohio in the 1930s. It was there the station manager suggested he needed a catchier name, so Crothers called himself “Scatman” after his scat singing style. He released several singles through Capitol Records, and an album with High Fidelity Records, went on USO tours with Bob Hope and performed with bandleader Slim Gaillard. Crothers appeared in 3 short films before making his feature-film debut with 1953’s Meet Me at the Fair. He appeared in four Jack Nicholson films; notably Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining for which he won an Academy Award. His television career began in 1957 on an episode of The Adventures of Jim Bowie and went on to include programs like Dragnet, McMillan & Wife, Kojak, Ironside, Charlie’s Angels, The Love Boat, Magnum P.I. and Laverne & Shirley. In 1966, Crothers went into voice acting when he took over the role of the Cheshire Cat from Sammy Davis, Jr. for Hanna-Barbera’s album for The New Alice in Wonderland (or What’s a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?) animated special, as Davis was signed exclusively to Reprise Records, and in 1970 he voiced Scat Cat in the animated film, The Aristocats. The following year, he was cast as the voice of the animated version of Harlem Globetrotter George “Meadowlark” Lemon in The Harlem Globe Trotters and The New Scooby-Doo Movies. He would later play fellow Globetrotter Nate Branch in the follow-up, The Super Globetrotters, as Meadowlark had left the team by then. In 1974 he played the title character in Hong Kong Phooey, which he reprised for Laff-A-Lympics, and provided additional voices for several other Hanna-Barbera shows. During the 1980s, he starred in three short-lived live-action series--One of the Boys, Casablanca (1983) and Morningstar/Eveningstar--as well assumed the role of the Autobot Jazz in the Transformers franchise. He was also given an NAACP Image Award and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. After a four-year struggle with lung cancer, Crothers died in 1986 at the age of 76. He was posthumously inducted into the Black Filmmakers Hall of Fame the following year.

 

Saturday Credits:
Harlem Globe Trotters
The New Scooby-Doo Movies
Hong Kong Phooey
Scooby’s Laff-A-Lympics
The Skatebirds
CB Bears
ABC Weekend Specials (episodes)
The Super Globetrotters
Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels
Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo (1981)
Trollkins
Pryor’s Place

1970s SATURDAY MORNING ADS

            It wasn’t until the late 60s that Saturday mornings were beginning to get into full swing. Content with airing primetime reruns and a few new shows here and there, that all changed in 1966 when CBS revitalized its schedule with an action-heavy slant. When CBS showed massive success, the other networks followed and Saturday morning suddenly became good business. So, how would the networks advertise to their targeted audiences to tune in every week? Simple: advertise in comic books! For almost every Saturday schedule for decades, there was an artfully designed cartoon representing the networks’ schedules in every major publication. They even made sure to cover their bases with ads in TV Guide and newspapers so that parents would be aware shows for their kids would be on.

                Below are some of the ads that ran for the 1970s:

ABC

1970.

1971.

1972.

1973.

 

1974.

1975.

1976.

1977.

1978.

1979. 

CBS

1970.

1974

1975.

1976.

1977.

1978.

1979.

 NBC

1972.

1973.

1974.

1975.

1976.

1977.

1978.

1979.

1979 Saturday Morning club application.

SATURDAY MORNING MASTERS: LEN JANSON

LEN JANSON 

(Unknown) 

Notable Roles: Animator, writer, story editor, producer, director 

Janson began working at Walt Disney Productions as an in-betweener. In 1965, he became a story man and received his first screen credit in Warner Bros.’ Boulder Wham! Roadrunner short. In the following years, he partnered with fellow animator and writer Chuck Menville. Together, they produced a series of live-action short films utilizing the long-forgotten stop-motion pixilation method. Among them was the Academy Award-nominated Stop Look and Listen, which followed a day in the life of motorists who tooled around the city in invisible cars. They wrote, directed and starred in their shorts. Clips from their second film, Vicious Cycles, were used in ABC’s The New Communicators which landed them a gig making commercials for Gulf Oil’s “no-nox” gasoline. In 1969, Janson and Menville started long stints at both Filmation and Hanna-Barbera, serving as story editors and producers for several of their shows. Over at DiC Enterprises in the 1980s, Menville and Janson were offered the story editor position of The Real Ghostbusters, but they initially turned it down due to the massive workload of having to produce a syndicated and Saturday morning version of the show at the same time. Following the departure of story editor J. Michael Straczynski over creative differences in changes ABC wanted to make, Janson and Menville became the story editors for the remainder of the show’s run. They went on to write, produce and story edit for the reboot of Land of the Lost and Tiny Toon Adventures. Following Menville’s death in 1992, Janson went on to develop the Sonic the Hedgehog animated series for ABC, as well as its follow-up, Sonic Underground. He also wrote several episodes of Baywatch Nights and The Woody Woodpecker Show revival. Janson’s last credited work was on an episode of Gadget and the Gadgetinis in 2003, although he did appear in 2008 documentaries about The Real Ghostbusters. 

Saturday Credits: 

Cattanooga Cats 

Will the Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down 

Groovie Goolies 

Sabrina, the Teenage Witch (1969) 

Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids 

The Flintstone Comedy Hour 

The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie (episodes) 

Lassie’s Rescue Rangers 

Speed Buggy 

Star Trek: The Animated Series 

Wheelie and the Chopper Bunch 

Hong Kong Phooey 

Korg: 70,000 B.C. 

Shazam! (1974) 

Uncle Croc’s Block 

The New Adventures of Gilligan 

The Secrets of Isis 

ABC Weekend Specials (episodes) 

Ark II 

The New Adventures of Batman 

Space Sentinels 

Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle 

Tarzan and the Super 7 

Yogi’s Space Race 

Buford and the Galloping Ghost 

Jason of Star Command 

The New Fred and Barney Show 

The New Shmoo 

Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo 

The Flintstone Comedy Show 

Space Stars 

The Smurfs 

Mork & Mindy/Laverne & Shirley/Fonz Hour 

Benji, Zax & the Alien Prince 

The Biskitts 

Kissyfur 

The Real Ghostbusters 

The Little Wizards 

Tiny Toon Adventures 

Land of the Lost (1991) 

The Little Mermaid: The Animated Series 

Sonic the Hedgehog (1993) 

Dumb and Dumber: The Animated Series 

Gadget and the Gadgetinis 

SATURDAY MORNING MASTERS: DAWS BUTLER

DAWS BUTLER

(November 16, 1916-May 18, 1988)

Notable Roles: Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Dixie, Mr. Jinks, Hokey Wolf, Reddy, Snagglepuss, Wally Gator, Peter Potamus, Quick Draw McGraw, Scooby Dum, Augie Doggie, Jonathan Wellington “Mudsy” Muddlemore, Elroy Jetson, W.C. Cogswell, Henry Orbit, Chilly Willy, Cap’n Crunch

Regarded as the nicest man in the business, Butler began his career as an impressionist, winning most of the amateur contests he entered as a means to help him combat his shyness. That led him to gain professional gigs at vaudeville theaters. He joined Jack Lavin and Willard Ovitz to form the comedy trio The Three Short Waves, who played theaters, radio and nightclub engagemtns. After serving in WWII, he voiced his first theatrical short Short Snorts on Sports for Screen Gems in 1948. Following that, he became a regular performer in shorts directed by Tex Avery for MGM and the Warner Bros. puppet show Time For Beany working with Stan Freberg. Butler worked on several commercials and comedy albums with Freberg, and also appearing on Freberg’s radio show. In 1957, he became a regular player for Hanna-Barbera beginning with The Ruff & Reddy Show, and worked often with Jay Ward Productions first in The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle and as the first voice for Cap’n Crunch in commercials. In 1975, Butler began an acting workshop that molded such stars as Nancy Cartwright, Corey Burton, Bill Farmer, Pat Parris, Bob Bergen, Mona Marshall and others. Butler died of a heart attack in 1988, and was succeeded by his protégé Greg Burson in many of his roles.

Saturday Credits:

The Ruff & Reddy Show

Rocky & Bullwinkle

The Bugs Bunny Show

The Space Kidettes

The Super 6

Wacky Races (1968)

Harlem Globe Trotters

The Banana Splits Adventure Hour

Help!... It’s the Hair Bear Bunch!

The Funky Phantom

The New Scooby-Doo Movies

The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie

The Roman Holidays

The Houndcats

Bailey’s Comets

Yogi’s Gang

Hong Kong Phooey

Sesame Street

Scooby’s Laff-A-Lympics

Posse Impossible

CB Bears

The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour

The All-New Popeye Hour

Galaxy Goof-Ups

Yogi’s Space Race

The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show

Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels

Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo

Yogi’s Treasure Hunt

45TH ANNIVERSARIES

HONG KONG PHOOEY

HONG KONG PHOOEY

(ABC, September 7-December 21, 1974)

Hanna-Barbera Productions

MAIN CAST:

Scatman Crothers – Hong Kong Phooey/Penrod “Penry” Pooch

Kath Gori – Rosemary

Joe E. Ross – Sergeant Flint

Don Messick - Spot

            Who is this super hero? Sarge (Joe E. Ross)? Rosemary (Kath Gori), the telephone operator? Penry (Scatman Crothers), the mild mannered janitor? That was the way each cartoon opened before going into the theme song by Chester Stover, W. Watts Biggers, Treadwell Covington and Joseph Harris with Crothers providing the singing.

Penry and Spot.

            Penrod “Penry” Pooch was an anthropomorphic dog who worked as a janitor in a police station. When he overheard a crime being reported by Rosemary to the Sarge (both humans, by the way), he dove into a filing cabinet and (after sometimes getting stuck in the drawers) emerged as Hong Kong Phooey: number one masked super guy. With his trusty book, The Hong Kong Book of Kung-Fu, cat, Spot (Don Messick), and the Phooeymobile, Phooey fumbled his way through protecting the city from the baddest of the bad.

Phooey and Spot in the Phooeymobile.

            Phooey was designed by Playboy cartoonist Marty Murphy with additional designs by Iwao Takamoto. Sgt. Flint’s design was close to Botch, the assistant zoo keeper from Help! It’s the Hair Bear Bunch, who was also voiced by Ross. Ross incorporated his catchphrase exclamation “Ooh! Ooh!” from his role as Officer Gunther Toody on Car 54, Where Are You? into his performance. Rosemary was shown to have an attraction towards Phooey, but completely disregarded Penry in much a similar way as Lois Lane favored Superman over his alter-ego, Clark Kent (before finding out who he was and their getting married in 1996, anyway). Also, like the implausibility of Superman using a pair of glasses to disguise himself, nobody could deduce that Penry--the only human-like dog on the show--was Phooey outside of his hero outfit.

Model sheet of Hong Kong Phooey in action.

            Hong Kong Phooey began on ABC on September 7, 1974 and ran for a single season of 16 episodes. The series was written by Jack Mendelsohn, Larz Bourne, Fred S. Fox, Seaman Jacobs, Len Janson and Chuck Menville. The show continued to be shown in rerun rotations for the next two years before eventually being paired up with Godzilla in The Godzilla/Hong Kong Phooey Hour in 1981. All the episodes were broken up into two segments except for the series finale, “Comedy Cowboys,” which was intended to be a backdoor pilot for several new characters: Honcho, The Mystery Maverick and Posse Impossible. However, while the show never materialized, a version of Posse Impossible would become a feature of The CB Bears Show.

Hong Kong Phooey the comic book.

            Most of Phooey’s merchandising came long after the show ended, save for three tin lunchboxes by Thermos in 1975 and a nine-issue comic series by Charlton Comics. Funko had released Phooey as part of their Funko Force, Wacky Wobbler (complete with glow-in-the-dark variant) and POP! series of toys. In 1999, Phooey was featured as a plush toy in the Warner Bros. Studio Store, and in vending machines made by Play-by-Play in a 11 inch and 13 inch version. A bendy action figure was released with Spot under the Boomerang network branding, and McFarlane Toys and Jazwares released their own action figure versions. Hot Wheels also made two different cars with Phooey’s logo and graphic on them. Phooey even received the salt and pepper shaker treatment complete with the Phooeymobile. In 2018, Phooey returned to comics as part of DC Comics’ second wave of Hanna-Barbera crossover one-shots. Black Lightning/Hong Kong Phooey Special #1 by Bryan Hill and Denys Cowan saw the 1970s version of Black Lightning teaming-up with a more realistic version of Phooey in an homage to 1970s kung fu movies.

The DVD cover.

            After the show, Rand McNally and Company published two short children’s novels: Hong Kong Phooey and the Fortune Cookie Caper (1975) and Hong Kong Phooey and the Bird Nest Snatchers (1976). The theme song, re-recorded by Sublime, was included on the 1995 tribute album Saturday Morning: Cartoons’ Greatest Hits from MCA Records. In 2006, Warner Home Video released the complete series on DVD, and later as two separate volumes. In 2009, the first episode was included as one of the featured cartoons on Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1970s Volume 1. In 2012, the first eight episodes were released in the United Kingdom on a DVD titled Hong Kong Phooey and Friends, which was also packaged with a Top Cat and Wacky Races DVD in a triple pack.

As well as being mentioned in several songs in the following decades, Phooey made a brief return to television in a 2001 short by Alan Lau and Wildbrain.com as part of Cartoon Network’s Web Premier Toons. It featured Penry as he appeared in the show, but a more massive Phooey who plows through a gang of evil anthropomorphic animals. In 2009, David A. Goodman was announced to have been hired to write a film adaptation of the show with Alex Zamm set to direct and Eddie Murphy to provide the voice. Despite some test footage being leaked in 2012, nothing has materialized of the movie as of this writing. However, the character did appear in another movie—namely the 2020 film Scoob!, with his likeness incorporated onto an arcade cabinet in an abandoned amusement park arcade for the fictional game, Phooey Phighter.

EPISODE GUIDE:

“Car Thieves / Zoo Story” (9/7/74) – A stolen car ring is operating in town. / A kangaroo helps Phooey capture animal thieves.

“Iron Head the Robot / Cotton Pickin’ Pocket Picker” (9/14/74) – Phooey chases a robot that steals every safe in town. / Phooey tries to capture legendary pickpocket Fingers Fazoo.

“Grandma Goody (Cat Burglar) / Candle Power” (9/21/74) – All the cats in town are being stolen, including Spot. / Two criminals force the city to use candles for their wax museum.

“The Penthouse Burglaries / Batty Bank Mob” (9/28/74) – Phooey investigates a series of penthouse robberies. / Spot and an octopus help Phooey stop a bank robbery.

“The Voltage Villain / The Giggler” (10/5/74) – Phooey faces off against a villain that can control electrical appliances. / The Giggler uses laughing gas to rob high-society parties.

“The Gumdrop Kid / Professor Presto (The Malevolent Magician)” (10/12/74) – A child-sized villain plans to take over the town’s candy production. / A magician disappears from the station.

“TV or Not TV / Stop Horsing Around” (10/19/74) – Thieves plan to steal everyone’s TVs. / A circus gang is stealing horses.

“Mirror, Mirror on the Wall / Great Movie Mystery” (10/26/74) – A health salon is targeted by a series of robberies. / Phooey is tricked into helping a bank robbery believing it’s for a movie.

“The Claw / Hong Kong Phooey vs. Hong Kong Phooey” (11/2/74) – A mechanical claw steals gold from the National Bank. / An impostor claims all of Phooey’s glory.

“The Abominable Snowman / Professor Crosshatch” (11/9/74) – A snowman steals equipment for a luxury ski resort. / An evil professor trains his bird to steal jewels from store windows.

“Goldfisher / Green Thumb” (11/16/74) – A gang steals a competitor’s fish to raise the cost of fishing. / A gang wants to remove all the plants from the city.

“From Bad to Verse (Rotten Rhymer) / Kong and the Counterfeiters” (11/23/74) – Rotten Rhymer plots to steal the nation’s books. / Phooey investigates a counterfeiting ring.

“The Great Choo Choo Robbery / Patty Cake, Patty Cake, Bakery Man” (11/30/74) – Jim Shady plans to steal every railroad car. / A gang steals jewels by hiding in pastry.

“Mr. Tornado / The Little Crook Who Wasn’t There” (12/7/74) – A villain robs banks by using his super breath. / Phooey tries to find a criminal who can disappear.

“Mr. Disguiso / The Incredible Mr. Shrink” (12/14/74) – A master of disguise robs banks. / A businessman terrorizes the city into buying his umbrellas.

“Comedy Cowboys” (12/21/74) – Tin Nose frames Phooey for a crime, and it’s up to Honcho, The Mystery Maverick and Posse Impossible to clear his name.


Originally posted in 2015. Updated in 2020.