Remember that one day when you could wake up without an alarm? When you would get your favorite bowl of cereal and sit between the hours of 8 and 12? This is a blog dedicated to the greatest time of our childhood: Saturday mornings. The television programs you watched, the memories attached to them, and maybe introducing you to something you didn't realize existed. Updated every weekend.
She starred as Penny in The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show and The
Flintstone Comedy Hour; Elektra 6000, Shazalle and additional voices in The
Fonz and the Happy Days Gang; Miss Burns in Rick Moranis in Gravedale
High; Talula LaTrane in Yo Yogi!; Ammonia Pine in Darkwing Duck;
Mother Goose in Mother Goose and Grimm/Grimmy; Mame Slaughter in Captain
Planet and the Planeteers; and Golda Meir in Histeria! She also
provided additional voices in Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo (1979), The
Richie Rich/Scooby-Doo Show, The New Scooby-Doo Mysteries, Snorks, Bobby’s World and Monster in my Pocket: The Big Scream.
He served as a story director for The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang,
Laverne & Shirley in the Army and The Smurfs, a storyboard
artist on an episode of Mother Goose and Grimm and Animaniacs, and
a prop designer for two episodes of Histeria!
As a writer, he wrote an episode of The Harlem Globetrotters Popcorn
Machine. As an actor, he played a police officer and bank president in an episode
of Darkwing Duck and Sid the Squid in episodes of Animaniacs, and
also provided additional voices to Mother Goose and Grimm.
In 1984, political cartoonist Mike Peters wanted to branch
out and begin his own daily comedy strip. He always imagined it based on a dog
that acted like a real dog, unlike the anthropomorphic Snoopy over in Peanuts, because he found he could relate to a
dog. Mother
Goose and Grimmwas centered
on Mother Goose who lived in a shoe (combining the fairytale Mother Goose
with The
Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe) with her dog, hyperactive yellow Bull Terrier
Grimmy (named after the Brothers Grimm),
dimwitted Boston Terrier Ralph, and belligerent purple cat Attila (named after Attila the Hun). They lived
in a world populated by a mix of fairy tale creatures and normal humans. The
strip is steeped in pop culture, often spoofing or referencing things that are
big at the time and notable fictional characters. When the muse descends, the
strip could abandon its core cast and continuing story in favor of stand-alone
one-panel gags. The strip debuted on October 1st and is distributed
by King Features Syndicate to over 800
newspapers.
The first Mother Goose & Grimm strip.
At the height of the strip’s
popularity, Tribune Media decided the
time was right to try and duplicate the success fellow comic strip Garfieldfound in being translated to animation.
To hedge their bets, they contracted Garfield and Friends’ production
companies, Film Roman and Lee Mendelson Productions, to
produce the series, and the show’s story editor, voice director and primary
writer, Mark Evanier, to perform the
same duties (which also meant hiring a number of the same staff). Hell, they
even found a home for it on the same network--CBS--and
had commercials with
Garfield (Lorenzo Music)
promoting the show.
Grimmy and Attila.
Mother
Goose and Grimm debuted on CBS on September 14, 1991. It starred husband
and wife team Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall as Grimmy and Mother Goose,
respectively, with veteran voice actor Greg Burson as Attila. Wang Film Production
Company and Cuckoo’s
Nest Studios handled the animation and duplicated Peters’ style perfectly;
making it seem like the show jumped right off of the newspaper page. Peters
himself designed the series’ opening of Grimmy trying to elude overzealous
dogcatcher, Sven Rottweiler (Hal Rayle,
impersonating Arnold Schwarzenegger),
which was directed by producer Phil
Roman. Ron Grant
composed the series’ music.
Mother Goose and Ham.
Each episode was broken up into two segments with Evanier writing most of
them. Gordon Kent and Earl Kress penned the remaining
ones. The strip’s sarcasm was toned down in favor of more traditional cartoon
slapstick, particularly centered around Grimmy’s fascination with household
appliances (a trait shared by his creator) and his love of fire hydrants and
garbage, as well as 4th wall-breaking humor reminiscent of Garfield. A recurring gag in the end
credits featured Peters’ wife Marian
performing a variety of imaginary functions on the show (like choreographer)
with a corresponding nickname (like “Flash Dance”).
Grimmy at the mercy of neighborhood bullies.
Along with the normal (exaggerated) ordeals of a dog’s life, Grimmy
sometimes had to deal with a gang of neighborhood bully dogs on top of the
dogcatcher. A major recurring character on the show was Mother Goose’s neighbor
Ham (Eddie Deezen), one of the Three
Little Pigs (actually numbered four including a sister, all voiced by
Deezen) that was constantly afraid of the Big Bad Wolf (Gregg Berger) coming for them.
A silent fish named Lassie (named after the dog)
was Mother Goose’s other pet.
Unfortunately, despite duplicating nearly
all the components of Garfield and
Friends, the actual success of the series was not as easily duplicated. The
show struggled through its 13-episode run, although it did bring in respectable
enough ratings to be brought back for a second season of reruns. CBS conducted
research on its failings and determined that kids were put off by the title,
believing it to be just “nursery rhyme” stuff. They changed the name to simply Grimmy for the second season complete
with a new opening. The name change did the series no favors and it was permanently
cancelled by March of 1993.
EPISODE GUIDE:
“Puppy Love Story / Brotherhood of Ham” (9/14/91) – Grimmy falls for a
dog he met in the park that ends up being a cat. / Ham alerts his brothers to a
wolf sighting in town, however it turns out he’s given up pig eating for real
estate development.
“Expensive Taste / Lassie Swim Home” (9/21/91) – Mother Goose wins the
lottery but Grimmy ends up eating the ticket. / Grimmy takes Lassie for a walk
and ends up losing him while trying to prevent some cats from eating him.
“Funny Business / The Boogie Man” (9/28/91) – Needing to pay for
destroying Mother Goose’s garden, Grimmy gets a job as a court jester’s
assistant. / NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE.
“Grimm Encounter / The Grocery Grabber” (10/5/91) – While camping,
Grimmy encounters alien dogs. / NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE.
“Ham Alone / Sheep Thrills” (10/12/91) – Ham is worried that the wolf
is after him and holes himself up in Mother Goose’s house. / Mother Goose writes
an updated version of Little Bo Peep starring
Grimmy.
“Hero Worship / Search for Soap” (10/19/91) – Grimmy tries desperately
to meet his hero, Carl the Wonder Poodle, only to discover he is a she. / After
Grimmy accidentally destroys the TV, Mother Goose stops at nothing to try and
get to watch her favorite soap.
“The Fur Flies / It’s a Flea Country” (10/26/91) – Getting a chance to
enter Attila in a cat show, Mother Goose tries to ensure Grimmy doesn’t scare
the fur off him. / While Mother Goose tries to teach Grimmy a trick to beat
Jack Sprat’s dog, his fleas drive him nuts as they go camping.
“Bone of Contention / The Sweeper Creeper” (11/2/91) – When two bully
dogs steal Grimmy’s food, he ends up in a museum trying to feast on a dinosaur
bone. / Grimmy and Attila find themselves at the mercy of Mother Goose’s vacuum
cleaner.
“The Wickedest Witch / Motel Mutt” (11/9/91) – A wicked witch turns
Mother Goose into a frog as payback for all her stories making witches look
bad. / Grimmy tries to fight getting a bath while one of his fleas checks into
a motel to get away from his nagging wife
“Pussycat Pooch / Open All Night” (11/16/91) – NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE.
“Getaway Grimmy / Tail of a Puppet” (11/23/91) – Overhearing a phone
call, Grimmy and Attila believe Mother Goose wants to get rid of them. / Being
pursued by the dogcatcher for not having a leash, Grimmy uses a puppet with a
leash on his tail to fool him.
“The Egg and Us / Hyde and Go Seek” (11/30/91) – When Humpty Dumpty
falls off a wall, Grimmy, Attila and Ham have to find a Dr. Gleep to fix him
up. / Grimmy accidentally drinks some of the formula Dr. Jekyll left behind on
his last visit.
“Trash Night Trouble / Mirror Monster” (12/7/91) – NO SYNOPSIS
AVAILABLE.
Ellison was a notable science-fiction author who also dabbled a bit in acting. He had unspecified voice credits for Mother Goose and Grimm and The Pirates of Dark Water, and contributed a story for an episode of Silver Surfer.
Givens was most well-known as the designer
that created the original look for Bugs Bunny. He had also provided a variety
of work on Mr. Magoo, Popeye the Sailor, Linus!
The Lionhearted, The Super 6, Doctor Dolittle, Help!...It’s the Hair Bear
Bunch!, The Houndcats, Bailey’s Comets, Yogi’s Gang, Wheelie and the Chopper
Bunch, The Great Grape Ape Show, The Pink Panther Laugh and a Half Hour and a Half Show, The Puppy’s
Further Adventures, Saturday Supercade, ABC Weekend Specials, Dragon’s Lair,
Turbo Teen, It’s Punky Brewster, Mister T, Alvin & the Chipmunks, Mother
Goose and Grimm, Garfield and Friends, Bobby’s World, Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of
Moo Mesa, The Angry Beavers and The
Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries. Many of the Looney Tunes shorts he worked
on were seen as part of the long-running Bugs
Bunny Show in all of its incarnations from 1960-2000.
This weekend we continue our 2 year anniversary celebration.
As we celebrate, we figured we'd also take the opportunity to celebrate the various other programs enjoying anniversaries this year (at least at an interval of 5). Some we've covered, some we'll get to covering sooner or later, but all of them represent Saturday morning. For this installment, we recognize those shows turning 25. A quarter of a freakin' century right here, folks.
Take a walk down memory lane with us, and feel free to share your memories in the comments, or over on our Facebook group or Facebook page. We'd love to hear from you!
Now, without further ado, join us in celebrating...
