MIGHTY MOUSE: THE NEW ADVENTURES

MIGHTY MOUSE: THE NEW ADVENTURES

(CBS, September 19, 1987-October 22, 1988)

Bakshi-Hyde Ventures, Terrytoons

MAIN CAST:

Patrick Pinney – Mighty Mouse/Mike Mouse, Gandy Goose, Petey Pate

Maggie Roswell – Pearl Pureheart, various

Dana Hill – Scrappy Mouse

Charlie Adler – Bat-Bat/Bruce Vein, various

Michael Pataki – The Cow, various

Rodger Bumpass – Narrator

            In April of 1987, producer Ralph Bakshi set up a meeting with CBS’ Saturday morning head Judy Price to pitch her several ideas for programs. Price ended up rejecting every single one he prepared, including one featuring John Kricfalusi’s Ren & Stimpy characters. She asked if he had anything else, and he quickly lied and told her he had the rights to Mighty Mouse. This piqued her interest and she agreed to purchase a series based around the character. When Bakshi looked into who actually had the rights, he discovered that CBS itself had purchased the Terrytoons library back in 1955 and had forgotten about it. They even brought the character to television for the first time that year with Mighty Mouse Playhouse. A team led by Kricfalusi came up with the outlines for 13 episodes within the week and pitched the show to Price, and it was greenlit for production.

Mighty Mouse and Pearl Pureheart.

By the following week, Kricfalusi hired a team of veteran animators comprised of Tom Minton, Eddie Fitzgerald (both of whom worked on Filmation’s earlier revival with Kricfalusi), Lynne Naylor, Jim Smith, Bruce Timm, Libby Simon, Vicky Jensen and Bob Jaques. He purposefully sought out creators who were tired of the formulaic cartoons they had been working on for other studios. To round out the team, he and Minton visited CalArts to find the best talent from the latest batch of graduates which included Jeff Pidgeon, Rich Moore, Carole Holliday, Andrew Stanton and Ethan Kanfer. Additionally, Doug Moench and Jim Reardon were hired as writers.

New sidekick, the orphaned Scrappy.

            Set to debut that September, the production crew was split into four teams led by Kricfalusi, Fitzgerald, Steve Gordon and Bruce Woodside. Each team worked independently of the other on a handful of episodes overseen by each director. It was a return to the system originally used in the production of theatrical shorts, rather than the rigid assembly line nature of the current animation industry. Although story concepts and ideas had to be approved by CBS, artists were encouraged to add visual gags as they went along as well use their own unique style in the episodes they handled. As a result, it featured some of the best television animation to come from a studio not named Disney during that time period.

Mighty Mouse vs. his new arch-nemsis, The Cow.

            Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures debuted on CBS on September 19, 1987. The theme was composed by Jonathan L. Segal (paying homage to the original theme by Marshall Barer and Philip Scheib), with the rest of the music done by Score Productions. There was a loose episode structure which allowed for a variety of storytelling formats, from straightforward superhero comedy to full parodies of movies and television. For the first time, Mighty Mouse (Patrick Pinney) was given the secret identity of Mike Mouse. His operatic singing was eliminated save for his catchphrase: “Here I come to save the day!” His love interest, Pearl Pureheart (Maggie Roswell), bucked tradition and didn’t serve as a constant damsel in distress (although she had her moments). She was also Mike’s boss at her factory. A new sidekick character, orphan Scrappy Mouse (Dana Hill), was introduced. Other new characters included heroic allies that were parodies of Justice League characters, and foes that included Petey Pate (Pinney), Big Murray, Madame Marsupial and The Cow (Michael Pataki). Older versions of Bakshi’s original creations from the first Mighty Mouse show, the Mighty Heroes, also appeared in an episode.

A cavalcade of Terrytoons stars.

Mighty Mouse made full use of the Terrytoons library, bringing back characters such as his old foe Oil Can Harry and unrelated characters Gandy Goose (Pinney) and Sourpuss (Joe Alaskey). There were also appearances by Deputy Dawg and Mighty’s previous co-stars, Heckle and Jeckle. Clips from original Mighty Mouse shorts were also used to keep the budget down so that most of the production could remain in-house instead of being shipped overseas. However, the actual episode animation was farmed out to Wang Film Productions’ Cuckoo’s Nest Studios, Hanho Heung-Up Company, and Shanghai Animation Film Studio.

Mighty Mouse teaming up with Bat-Bat.

The show proved successful and was renewed for a second season. However, some changes took place behind the scenes. Kricfalusi was asked by the family of Bob Clampett to helm ABC’s attempted revival of his Beany and Cecil characters, resulting in his leaving the show. With him went Timm, Fitzgerald, Smith, Naylor, Simon and Moore. Kent Butterworth was put in charge of overseeing the production of the second season.

The offending instance of Mighty Mouse sniffing a crushed flower.

             It wasn’t long before controversy found the revival. In June of 1988, Donald Wildmon from the American Family Association was alerted to and made a subsequent stink over the episode “The Littlest Tramp”; specifically, a scene where Mighty seemingly inhales the powdered remains of a flower he was given earlier. Wildmon alleged that it was depicting cocaine use. A similar concern was raised by series editor and producer Tom Klein during the episode’s production, but Kricfalusi convinced Bakshi to let the sequence remain. The AFA further cited Bakshi’s previous adult-oriented work--specifically Fritz the Cat--as justification for their claims. Bakshi defended the scene, saying that smelling the flower was meant to invoke a memory of the little girl that sold it to him and make him happy, and that he despised drugs. CBS ultimately ordered Klein to remove the sequence from the master broadcast footage, which Wildmon took as an affirmation of his claims and further demanded the removal of Bakshi. CBS instead defended and supported Bakshi.  The second season couldn’t avoid controversy either as “Mighty’s Wedlock Whimsy” hinted at the fact that Gandy Goose and Sourpuss showered together. It was also alluded to that Pearl had a baby with The Cow. Further, in “A Star is Milked”, the series poked fun at the incident where Michael Jackson’s hair caught fire while filming a Pepsi commercial.

Madame Marsupial was electrifying!

            However, it wasn’t these controversies that led to CBS deciding to cancel the series after the abbreviated second season. The problem was that while The New Adventures was drawing in the adult fans of the character from yesteryear, they were losing their target audience to the programs it was scheduled against. Despite its short run, its revolutionary approach to production and humor, coupled with the success of Who Framed Roger Rabbit in 1988, inspired a new wave of zany comedy in cartoons. It also created a “creator-driven revolution” in the industry that perpetuated throughout the next decade. Mighty Mouse served as the springboard for the prolific careers of many of the people who worked on it. For example, Kricfalusi found success with The Ren and Stimpy Show on Nickelodeon; Timm went on to produce Batman: The Animated Series; Minton and Fitzgerald took part in the Warner Bros. Animation renaissance; Naylor also worked on Batman before finding steady work on Cartoon Network programs; Moore directed Futurama and The Simpsons, as well as the Wreck-It Ralph films and Zootopia; Stanton would become a Pixar director; and Reardon would find himself working for Warner Bros., Disney and FOX. The series was also nominated for a Daytime Emmy award for “Outstanding Achievement in Music Direction and Composition”.

A page from the Mighty Mouse comic.

            In 1989, Wendy’s offered a set of 6 toys with their kids’ meals. They were figurines of the primary characters mounted on suction cups and came with bio sheets. Marvel Comics published a 10-issue series set after the events of the animated series between 1990 and 1991—over a year after the show was cancelled. Like the series, it dealt heavily with parodies, particularly inspired by Marvel’s own comics. In 2010, CBS Home Entertainment through Paramount released the complete series to DVD. “The Littlest Tramp” was restored to its original presentation, however “Mighty’s Wedlock Whimsy” ended up including an animatic of a shot where animator Ed Bell was featured. The completed scene appeared in the documentary included in the special features. The set also included three original Mighty Mouse shorts, making them the first official Terrytoons released onto DVD. To date, this has been the last attempt at a Mighty Mouse show, although he was a part of the failed Terrytoons revamp anthology series called Curbside that was pitched to Nickelodeon.

EPISODE GUIDE:

Season 1:

“Night on Bald Pate / Mouse from Another House” (9/19/87) – Shunned for his bad scalp, Petey Pate becomes a villain and kidnaps Pearl. / Pearl tells Scrappy about Mighty Mouse’s beginnings.

“Me-Yowww! / Witch Tricks” (9/26/87) – Rejected from mouse society, Durf heads to Cat Town and makes a new friend. / Mighty saves Scrappy and a sick tooth fairy from a wicked witch.

“Night of the Bat-Bat / Scrap-Happy” (10/3/87) – Bat-Bat and Tick fill in for a vacationing Mighty as the Cow changes the city’s dairy products. / Scrappy joins a gang that ends up being sold to the carnival.

“Catastrophe Cat / Scrappy’s Field Day” (10/10/87) – A hiccupping cat causes chaos around the city. / Mighty takes Scrappy on a tour of prehistoric times.

“The Bagmouse / The First Deadly Cheese” (10/17/87) – Mr. Maxie captures Scrappy and intends to use him to make mouse burgers. / The Cow uses cosmic cheese to defeat Mighty.

“The Island Mouseville / Mighty’s Musical Classics” (10/24/87) – An alien cat appears and conquers Mouseville. / Classic Terrytoons footage set to “The Loco-Motion” and “Why Do Fools Fall in Love”.

“The Littlest Tramp / Puffy Goes Berserk” (10/31/87) – Polly Pineblossom refuses Mighty’s help, so he does so secretly until he finds out the cause of her trouble. / A giant mutated kitten attacks Mouseville.

“The League of Super-Rodents / Scrappy’s Playhouse” (11/7/87) – The Cow sets out to defeat the League of Super-Rodents in order to impress Madame Marsupial. / The Shady Gang sneaks into the theater and combine old Terrytoon footage together.

“All You Need is Glove / It’s Scrappy’s Birthday” (11/14/87) – Scrappy heads off to find the Glove’s brother to rescue Mike and Pearl. / Thinking everyone forgot his birthday, Scrappy runs away with a hobo.

“Aqua-Guppy / Animation Concerto” (11/21/87) – A. Crab kidnaps Pearl, believing her to be his fiancé. / Old Terrytoons play to a jazz song about Mighty.

“The Ice Goose Cometh / Pirates with Dirty Faces” (11/28/87) – Gandy Goose thaws out and causes trouble without Sour Puss. / The Shady Gang end up abducted by pirates and take over the ship in a mutiny.

“Mighty’s Benefit Plan / See You in the Funny Papers” (12/5/87) – Mighty takes Scrappy to a concert where he must save the orphan’s benefit. / Mouseville suffers an alien invasion while Mighty is busy fighting comicbook characters.

“Heroes and Zeroes / Stress for Success” (12/12/87) – Big Murray’s scheme backfires, leaving Mighty and the Mighty Heroes to round up rampaging numbers. / Mighty needs some time to relax, but old Terrytoons aren’t helping any.

Season 2:

“Day of the Mice / Still Oily After All These Years” (9/17/88) – Mighty has to save the cats from Petey and his rebellion. / The Cow frees Oil Can Harry who promptly resumes his pursuit of Pearl.

“Mighty’s Wedlock Whimsy / Anatomy of a Milquetoast” (9/24/88) – Gandy Goose and Sour Puss try to get Mighty and Pearl married. / When Scrappy disappears, Mighty ends up on trial for negligence.

“Bat with a Golden Tongue / Mundane Voyage” (10/1/88) – Mighty helps Bat-Bat put a stop to Ski Nose’s theft of golden awards. / Mighty and Pearl go inside the President’s body to help cure his ailment.

“Snow White & the Motor City Dwarfs / Don’t Touch that Dial!” (10/8/88) – Mighty relays his version of Snow White. / Mighty ends up stuck in different shows as a little boy keeps changing the channel.

“Mouse and Supermouse / The Bride of Mighty Mouse” (10/15/88) – Petey attempts to replace Mighty with his Supermouse robots, but they all end up malfunctioning. / 20 years later, Mighty finds himself a family mouse running a hotel that’s threatened by a rival one.

“A Star is Milked / Mighty’s Tone Poem” (10/22/88) – The Cow attempts to spoil Mighty’s rise to stardom. / Mighty sits his villains down to watch previous episodes of the series.

THE HECKLE AND JECKLE CARTOON SHOW

THE HECKLE AND JECKLE CARTOON SHOW

(CBS, October 14, 1956-September 24, 1960, September 25, 1965-September 3, 1966

NBC, September 6, 1969-September 4, 1971)

Terrytoons, CBS Television

            Heckle and Jeckle (Sid Raymond, Ned Sparks, Dayton Allen and Roy Halee) were a pair of mischievous talking magpies created by Paul Terry. Initially, the pair began as a married couple meant to be antagonists for his farmer Al Falfa character in the 1946 theatrical short The Talking Magpies. However, as the birds became a hit with audiences, the pair left Al Falfa behind to become the stars of their own shorts. They were retooled from a married couple into a pair of best friends, named “Jeckle” after Robert Louis Stevenson’s novella The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and “Heckle” based on their frequent method of antagonization. While the pair were often indistinguishable on sight and rarely called each other by name, they became identifiable when Heckle was given a Brooklyn accent and Jeckle an English one.

The mischievous magpies.

            Heckle and Jeckle would appear in numerous shorts over the next 20 years; being the most popular Terrytoon series next to Mighty Mouse. The shorts would find the pair either messing with someone for fun (typically one of two dogs, Dimwit and Clancy) or serving as comedic heroes helping someone and giving a villain his comeuppance. They were also self-aware, knowing full-well they were cartoon characters which allowed them to pull off impossible feats.

Theatrical advertisement for the Terrytoon library.

In 1955, Terry retired and sold his studio and characters to CBS. CBS began airing Heckle and Jeckle shorts on television in 1956 as part of CBS Cartoon Theater, hosted by Dick Van Dyke. A month after the show’s cancellation, Heckle and Jeckle were spun off into The Heckle and Jeckle Cartoon Show, which aired three Heckle and Jeckle shorts with another starring a different Terrytoon character. The show aired until 1960 before returning to the network on Saturday morning for a year in 1965. It would return one more time on NBC from 1969-71.

MIGHTY MOUSE PLAYHOUSE

MIGHTY MOUSE PLAYHOUSE/

MIGHTY MOUSE AND THE MIGHTY HEROES

(CBS, December 10, 1955-September 2, 1967)

Terrytoons, CBS Films

MAIN CAST:

Roy Halee, Sr. & Allen Swift – Mighty Mouse (shorts)

Tom Morrison – Mighty Mouse (shorts & new content), Oil Can Harry (shorts)

Herschel Bernardi – Strong Man, Diaper Man, Tornado Man

Lionel G. Wilson – Cuckoo Man, Rope Man

            In 1942, Terrytoons writer Izzy Klein became fascinated by the Fleischer Studios Superman theatrical shorts and decided to create a parody starring an insignificant animal with similar powers. He proposed “Super Fly” at a Terrytoons story conference, but boss Paul Terry nixed the idea. Instead, he wanted to the idea to feature his go-to animal: a mouse.

Super Mouse and his original damsel, Mitzi.

            “Super Mouse” made his debut in theaters on October 16, 1942 in The Mouse of Tomorrow (a play on a nickname often attributed to Superman, “the man of tomorrow”) released by 20^th Century Fox. In it, the city of Mouseville was under constant siege by cats until one mouse went to a supermarket, bathed in super soap and ate super celery and cheese that gave him the powers to fight back and save the populace. Among the standard powers of flight, super strength and invulnerability, he was also shown to have x-ray vision, psychokinesis, time-manipulation abilities and could even use the red contrail he left when he flew as a band of solid, flexible matter.

Poster showing the new name over the original colors.

Super Mouse (Roy Halee, Sr., Tom Morrison & Allen Swift at various points in the series) appeared in six subsequent shorts between 1942 and 1943 when Terry learned of the existence of another Supermouse appearing in the pages of Nedor Publishing Co.’s comic, Coo Coo Comics, who made his debut just before the first short was released. Not wanting to promote another company’s creation, Terry renamed his character “Mighty Mouse” and later altered the color of his uniform from blue and red to yellow and red. The newly christened Mighty Mouse made his debut in 1944’s The Wreck of the Hesperus. The original shorts were later altered to reflect the new name.

Mighty Mouse's new supporting characters.

Although Mighty Mouse never reached the heights of popularity as other theatrical cartoon stars, he became Terrytoons’ most popular character; often appearing on promotional material for other Terrytoon projects and in Terrytoon Comics, published by Timely Comics (precursor to Marvel). In 1945, Terrytoons decided to change the format of the series. Until that point, Mighty Mouse would only appear in the last third of his shorts for a last-minute rescue. It was decided to give him a new rival in old Terrytoon villain Oil Can Harry (Morrison), remade a cat that always had evil intentions towards Mighty Mouse’s new main squeeze, Pearl Pureheart. Their adventures were done completely in mock opera beginning with Mighty Mouse and the Pirates, similar to how they were presented in Harry’s original theatrical outings in the Fanny Zilch series. 1947’s A Fight to the Finish began the plot device of starting each short off with Mighty Mouse and Pearl in peril as if a continuation from a previous chapter’s cliffhanger ending. It was during this period that Mighty Mouse’s catchphrase “Here I come to save the day!” debuted.

By the 1950s, theatrical shorts began to fall out of fashion due to the loss of audiences in favor of the growing medium of television and the popular and financially beneficial low-budget, stylized, limited animation techniques presented there. In 1955, Terry retired and sold his studio to CBS; however, Fox retained the theatrical distribution rights. CBS decided to take the existing Mighty Mouse library and broadcast them on television. On December 10, 1955, they launched Mighty Mouse Playhouse, which was comprised entirely of the 80 theatrical shorts produced during Terrytoons’ run. The only new content were commercial bumpers and Colgate commercials with Morrrison reprising his role, as well as a half-hour 1961 cartoon made in cooperation with UNICEF. The show’s theme was the theatrical theme written by Marshall Barer and composed by Philip Scheib, was originally credited to The Terrytooners with Mitch Miller and orchestra, but in later years it was revealed it was actually done by a group called The Sandpipers (not to be confused with the more well-known band of the same name).

The Mighty Heroes: Diaper Man, Cuckoo Man, Strong Man, Rope Man and Tornado Man.

The show ran for an impressive 11 seasons pulling in respectable ratings. However, as the 1960s rolled on, networks began producing more and more new content for Saturday mornings that began to overshadow and edge out the increasingly dated animation presented in the low-budget Terrytoons shorts. CBS decided to compliment the show with a new feature and eventually settled on Ralph Bakshi’s The Mighty Heroes.

The Mighty Heroes was a play on the growing superhero genre, particularly the successful premiere of the live-action Batman earlier in the year, with the most goofy and impractical heroes imaginable protecting the city of Goodhaven. The team was comprised of Strong Man, a farm boy-turned-big city mechanic with super strength; Tornado Man, a weather forecaster who could create tornadoes by spinning very fast; Diaper Man, a fully articulate baby that led the team and could use his bottle as a bludgeon weapon or to fire high-pressure streams of liquid (all Herschel Bernardi); Rope Man, a British sailor that could turn into an unlimited length of rope (and often got tangled into knots); and Cuckoo Man, a bird-shop owner with avian powers that changed into costume by jumping up into a cuckoo clock and popping out its little door (both Lionel G. Wilson). All of the heroes could fly, but a running gag had the rest of the team emitting jet sounds while Cuckoo Man would always lag behind with jalopy sounds.

Only 20 episodes of The Mighty Heroes were produced before Bakshi left Terrytoons. The show alternated between showing two Heroes episodes around a Mighty Mouse short, and breaking up a singular episode to bookend two shorts. The series was also renamed Mighty Mouse and the Mighty Heroes. Unfortunately, the show went up against DePatie-Freleng’s similar, and more popular, series, The Super 6, and little was done to ease the declining ratings. CBS removed the show from the schedule the following season and allowed it to enter syndicated reruns; both together and with the two different shows separated (Mighty Mouse ran considerably longer than the Heroes). The Heroes did get a brief second life as the first ten episodes were released as theatrical shorts by Fox between 1969 and 1970. They made one additional appearance with Mighty Mouse in an episode of the Bakshi-produced Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures.

An issue of the Dell series.

In 1967, Dell Comics produced a four-issue Heroes comic series. They returned to comics in a one-shot produced by Spotlight Comics in 1987. In 1998, Marvel published another one-shot that explored the untold origin of the Heroes as part of their Paramount Comics imprint. In 1989, Anchor Bay Entertainment released two VHS collections containing 6 Heroes episodes.

EPISODE GUIDE (The Mighty Heroes):

“The Plastic Blaster” – The Raven uses the Plastic Blaster to terrorize Goodhaven.

“The Frog” – The Frog plans to flood Goodhaven with water from the swamp.

“The Junker” – The Junker’s robot dogs eat anything metal, and he sets them loose on Goodhaven.

“The Shrinker” – The Shrinker shrinks the Goodhaven bank in order to steal it.

“The Ghost Monster” – The Heroes face the Ghost Monster that terrorizes the city every century.

“The Stretcher” – The Stretcher’s robots steal everything made of rubber in town.

“The Monsterizer” – The Monsterizer uses his machine to change the Mayor and Police Chief into monsters.

“The Drifter” – The Drifter uses his anti-gravity gun to lift Goodhaven up and hold it for ranom.

“The Shocker” – The Shocker attempts to steal Goodhaven’s power supply.

“The Enlarger” – The Enlarger calls out the Heroes by unleashing giant bugs on the city.

“The Toy Man” – The Toy Man’s toys come to life at night and rob their owners blind.

“The Dusters” – The Shrinker’s new sidekicks sprinkle dust that makes the citizens fall asleep or laugh hysterically.

“The Big Freeze” – A mad scientist uses his genius to freeze all the citizens of Goodhaven.

“The Timekeeper” – NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE.

“The Scarecrow” – A lightning bolt brings a scarecrow to life and he’s determined to spread fear throughout Goodhaven.

“The Time Eraser” – NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE.

“The Return of the Monsterizer”

“The Paper Monster” – NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE.

“The Raven” – NO SYNOPSIS AVAILABLE.

“The Bigger Digger” – The Frog return and uses his Bigger Digger to cut away pieces of land in order to replace it with swamp water.


Original post 2017. Updated in 2020.