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.
Notable Roles: Spanky, Bingo Beaver,
Thaddeus Micawb, Jonny Quest, Prince Dexter, Freddy Flintstone, Ralph Gumer,
Captain Cortex, Wonder Kid, Red Herring, Ma-Ti, Joe McIntyre, Slightly, Hayato,
Duane, Toby Danger, Ira Melman, Trouble/Kenny Braverman, Goro/Shoichi, Zack,
Fraz Flub, Kevin French/C-Dog, Tubute, Robin/Tim Drake, Red X, Nightwing/Dick
Grayson, Shaggy Rogers, Metamorpho/Rex Mason, Quicksilver/Pietro Maximoff,
Jimmy Jones, Bucky/James Barnes, Salad lad, Chrono Spanner/Ken Tennyson, Bucky
Hensletter, Arthur, Sneezy, Crankshaw, Stretch/Jake Armstrong, Scott Dingleman,
Dr. Octopus/Superior Spider-Man/Otto Octavius, Grady Scraps
The son of animator and writer Chuck Menville,
Scott Menville went into the “family business” by becoming a voice
actor; with his first credit being a 1979 episode of Scooby-Doo
and Scrappy-Doo. His first starring role came as Spanky in The
Little Rascals animated series in 1982, followed by Bingo Beaver
in The Get Along Gang. He proceeded to have a series
of starring, minor or guest-starring roles for Hanna-Barbera Productions,
Ruby-Spears Productions, Bagdasarian Productions
and DiC Entertainment, while branching out into live-action acting with a guest
appearance on One
Big Family in 1987. That led to his having recurring roles
on The Wonder
Years, Full
House (reprised on its sequel spin-off Fuller House), The Parent ‘Hoodand
others. Interestingly, he performed on both the live-action Punky Brewster and
its animated spin-off. He has maintained a steady career as both a live and
voice actor, doing cartoons, anime dubs and video games. Most frequently, his
voice allows him to be cast in the roles of young boys like Robin in the Teen
Titans franchise and Scott Dingleman in Bunnicula. Along with acting, Menville is a
musician. He played bass guitar for the band Boy Hits Car from their founding in 1993
until 2006. The band released three albums with Menville as a member,
and their song “LoveFuryPassionEnergy” was used as the theme song for WWE wrestler Lita. Menville has been nominated
for a Young Artists Award and a Behind the Voice Actors Award,
winning several of the latter.
After
discovering and later severing ties with R&B/pop quintet New Edition, Maurice Starr
and his business partner, Mary Alford, set out to create an opposite counterpart
act. 15-year-old Donnie Wahlberg became their first recruit, impressing them
with his rapping and dancing abilities, as well as his showmanship. Donnie
helped recruit the next members of the group, including his brother, Mark, best friends Danny Wood
and Jamie Kelly, former schoolmate Jordan Knight, and Jordan’s brother,
Jonathan. Eventually, Mark would leave and Starr would replace Kelly with
12-year-old Joey McIntyre; a move the other bandmembers initially resented.
The New Kids: Donnie, Danny, Jonathan, Jordan and Joey.
Dubbed Nynuk
by Starr, he rehearsed the group after school and on weekends. He secured them
a recording contract with Columbia
Records, however under the demand that the group’s name be changed.
Inspired by a rap Donnie wrote for their first album, Starr renamed the group New Kids on the Block. Their self-titled
first album dropped in April of 1986, but failed to catch on around the
country and only received minor airplay in the group’s native Boston. The group
toured around New England wherever Starr could book them, and Starr managed to
convince Columbia to give them a second album.
Member of the entourage: Biscuit.
Unhappy
with the bubblegum pop sound of the first album, the group pushed to have more
creative control of their output and presentation. Their first new single, “Please Don’t Go Girl”,
was released in the spring of 1988 and seemed to indicate a repeat of the
group’s earlier failure. Columbia was set to drop them from the label until
they learned that the song became the most requested at a radio station in
Florida. Columbia decided to keep the group on and put more effort into their
marketing; including shooting a music video for the single to send to radio
stations and show the group’s appeal. “Please Don’t Go Girl” eventually reached
#10 on Billboard’s Hot 100
Singles Chart. The second album, Hangin’ Tough, dropped
in September, with Wahlberg, Wood and Knight receiving associate producer
credit.
NKOTB and manager Dick Scott on a magazine cover.
The group’s
popularity began to rise, with the album’s second single, “You Got It (The Right Stuff)”,
reaching the top 5 in the charts. More singles released from the album also
scored high, and such was their popularity that when Columbia released “Didn’t I (Blow Your Mind
This Time)” from the previous album it not only reached #8 in the charts,
but ignited a renewed interest in the album as a whole. By the end of 1989, Hangin’
Tough was #1 on the Billboard
200albumschart and had been certified platinum 18 times.
They were the first teen act to have five top-10 hits from a single album.
A sea of fans.
By early
1990, New Kids on the Block was one of the most popular acts in the country.
The title track from
their next album, Step
by Step, became their biggest-selling single. They were performing an
estimated 200 concerts a year, with The Magic Summer
Tourmaking them the top-grossing touring act in the nation as well as
being one of the highest-grossing concert tours of the decade. Their official
fan club became one of the largest in the country, posting a membership of over
200,000. 100,000 calls a week were made to their official hotline. Further,
the group became heavily merchandised with the performers’ likenesses put on
everything from lunch boxes to dolls.
Promo image of the New Kids with their animated counterparts.
The next
logical step was to target the younger fans with an animated series. Starr
turned to the Pangea Corporation, the
entertainment development and creative services company responsible for
bringing Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtlesto the air, to help bring it to life. The series
was developed by Kayte Kuch
and Sheryl Scarborough for DiC Entertainment. It focused on the band getting into wacky misadventures while on tour,
always causing a headache for their management team as those adventures
constantly threatened to make them late for an upcoming concert. Professional
voice actors were used for the band: David Coburn as Donnie, Brian Stokes
Mitchell as Danny, Loren Lester as Jordan, Scott Menville as Joey and Matt E.
Mixer as Jonathan. Dave Fennoy portrayed their manager, Dick Scott, and Dorian
Harewood was Starr. Joining them was another manager reimagined as a bodyguard, Steve “Biscuit” Walker (J.D. Hall), and their on-road tutor, Albert “Einstein” (Josh Keaton).
Also included was Jonathan’s pet dog, Nikko (Coburn).
Jonathan and Joey getting funky.
New Kids
on the Block debuted on ABC on September
9, 1990. Each episode began with an interview with an actual member of the band
interspersed with other footage relating to the theme of that episode’s story and ended with a shot of them performing in concert with some added visual
effects flare. Other shots of the real group with similar enhancements were
peppered throughout the episodes. While they tried to disguise it as being invocative of music videos, in
reality these were used to fill in any animation gaps left by frequent errors
from Wang Film
Productions Co., Ltd. as the tight production schedule meant they often didn't have time to fix them. It was written by John Besmehn, John Schulte, Mark McCorkle, Bob Schooley, Charles M. Howell IV, Gordon Bressack, Janis Diamond, Bruce Faulk, Phil Harnage, Kevin O’Donnell, Mario Piluso,
Chris Weber and Karen Wilson.
The music was provided by Murray
McFadden and Timothy
Mulholland, although each episode made liberal use of the New Kids’ catalog.
An issue of the comics by Harvey.
The series
only lasted one season but managed to generate some of its own merchandise in
the glut of regular New Kids’. Primarily, there was a Colorforms playset
and a lunch box
from Thermos. Between 1990 and 1992, Harvey Comics published several
series of comics
utilizing the New Kids designs. They even had crossovers with their
regular characters Richie
Rich and Wendy,
the Good Little Witch. Sony Music
released six episodes onto
VHS, which were released as a box
set with two bonus music CDs overseas.
Some of the "music video" style seen in an episode.
What goes
up must always come down. In 1992, Gregory McPherson, who worked on Step by
Step, made
a claim that Starr actually sang vocals for the group and that they
lip-synched to pre-recorded tracks on stage. This was while the Milli
Vanilli scandal was still fresh on everyone’s minds. The group admitted
that Starr sometimes sang harmony on background vocals and that they used
backing tracks for live performances, but still performed themselves. Critics
latched onto this, as well as the fact the group often branded themselves as an
“urban act”. Musical tastes also began to shift as grunge and gangsta rap became popular
genres with former New Kids fans.
The final album of the original run.
The group
split from Starr in 1993 and shortened their name to simply NKOTB. They
released their fifth album, Face
the Music, the following year and toured to promote it in much smaller
venues. The album, a departure from their previous sound, failed to match commercial
expectations and its single didn’t chart very high. Suffering from anxiety and
panic attacks, Jonathan left the group. The remaining members decided to
disband shortly after.
The present-day not-quite New not-quite Kids on the Block.
Wood went into a quiet existence
out of the public eye before taking up occasional acting in 2001. Wahlberg
followed his brother into acting. McIntyre and Jordan both recorded solo albums
in 1999. Numerous attempts were made to bring the group back together, but none
were successful. In 2008, the group themselves decided to reunite and recorded
their sixth album, The
Block, which debuted at #1 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart and #2
on the Billboard 200. Their seventh album, 10,
dropped in 2013 while the group continued to tour.
EPISODE GUIDE:
“The New Kids in the Class” (9/8/90) – Joey gets his wish of
being a normal high school student for a day, but it ends up being during the
middle of “Crazy Concert Day”.
“Sheik of My Dreams” (9/15/90) – Just when Jordan meets a
girl that likes him for him, their relationship could end up in an
international incident.
“In Step...Out of Time!” (9/22/90) – The New Kids try to
help a pair of dancing siblings win the big talent competition while making it
to their own concert on time.
“Cowa-BONK-a” (9/29/90) – NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE.
“Kissed, Missed, and Double D’ist” (10/6/90) – Danny,
Jonathan and Nikko end up left behind at a gas station in the middle of
nowhere.
“D’ist Dream Date” (10/13/90) – NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE.
“Hot Dog!” (10/20/90) – NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE.
“Overnight Success” (10/27/90) – The Kids end up having
various misadventures while camping.
“The Legend of the Sandman” (11/3/90) – NO SYNOPSIS
AVAILABLE.
“Homeboys on the Range” (11/10/90) – NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE.
“New Heroes on the Block” (11/17/90) – A long bus ride leads
to the Kids having strange fantasies.
“The New Kids on the Old Block” (11/24/90) – NO SYNOPSIS
AVAILABLE.
“The New Kids off the Wall” (12/1/90) – NO SYNOPSIS
AVAILABLE.
“Rewind Time” (12/8/90) – NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE.
“Christmas Special” (12/14/90) – Donnie finds a homeless kid
that leads the Kids to spread some Christmas joy while Biscuit hunts for the
group to get them home to Boston.
Actress Theresa Saldana died on June 6th. You can read the full story here.
While known more for her live-action roles in movies and television, Saldana did have two Saturday credits on her resume. She was Rosa in New Kids on the Block and guest-starred as a mother in an episode of Batman Beyond.
