Saturday Morning Cartoons - Archie's Funhouse (1970)

I must have been really desperate to watch this show!

Archie's Funhouse (in 1970) was on Channel 15 (CBS) at 11 a.m. Now in all honesty, this wasn't something I watched regularly. By this time, I was usually outside, playing with my friends. On rainy Saturdays or Saturdays when I was sick and stuck inside, this is one of the shows I would turn to.


From my favorite wikipedia:

Archie's Funhouse (1970) (expanded version of the previous season's "Funhouse" format, now featuring an audience of live-action kids and the "Giant Jukebox" a music-heavy incarnation of the series, originally padded to one hour with repeats of The Archie Show segments)

From a fan:

Archie's Funhouse featuring the Giant Jukebox was the third version of Archie to appear on CBS. Blending seamlessly animation with live-action, Archie was the host of the hour long show filmed with a live children's audience. The audience children were often shown reacting to the jokes and gags.

According to Animation by Filmation authors Darryl Swannigan and McNeil, the skits were modeled on Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, and Filmation even hired Laugh-In writers for the segments.

There were mini segements such as Big Ethel's How to Catch a Man, Thunderbolt Theatre, The Giant Jukebox, Betty's Diary, and Sideshow.

Here's what I remember.

* I was in awe! How could I be a kid in the audience?! They looked like they were having SO MUCH fun!

* How could they see the cartoon archies? Oooooh...it must be magic!

* That Betty - she is SOOOOOO stupid...(used this against my sister - who was blonde - all of the time).

Looking back now...

* All sorts of "groups" would be all over this show for its reinforcement of stereotypes (dumb blonde, stupid jock, unattractive nerd).

* This is the first time I remember seeing a bunch of characters de-aged into the child versions of themselves. I wonder if they were the originals for this concept?

* It was a pretty fast-paced, mish-mash of segments which undoubtedly, contributed to much ADHD in this country ;).

* It must have held my attention because of all of the music. I was certainly too young to get many of the jokes.

Saturday Morning Cartoons - Speed Buggy (1973)

It's Saturday Morning. The one morning of the week which defied all kid logic. You wanted to get up as early as possible.

How come?

There were cartoons to watch! And as we all know - with only three real television stations (ABC=21, CBS=15, NBC=33) - we only had about four hours of real cartoon-watchin' time!

In honor of Saturday mornings, I pledge to feature here weekly - on Child of the Fort - one of those cartoons that we all used to watch back in the day.



First up - Speed Buggy. Note: Information from wikipedia

Speed Buggy was a Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions from September 8, 1973 to August 30, 1975 on CBS.

Similar in style to Hanna-Barbera's successful Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Speed Buggy followed the adventures of an anthropomorphic, fiberglass Dune Buggy, Speed Buggy (voiced by Mel Blanc), his driver Tinker (voiced by Phil Luther, Jr.), and Tinker's friends, Mark (voiced by Michael Bell) and Debbie (voiced by Arlene Golonka). The three young adults and their car traveled from race to race, often encountering spy capers and mysteries along the way. Speed Buggy's trademark quotes were always "Roger-Dodger!" and "Vroom-a-zoom-zoom!"

Though Speed Buggy (nicknamed Speedy by his friends) had a mind of his own (which was based on Disney's Herbie the Love Bug), he was vulnerable to commands given through a communicator/remote control device made by Tinker when he first built Speed Buggy. Speedy's friends rarely used the device to control his actions, using it mainly for its communication function, but criminals and other ne'er-do-wells would sometimes steal or duplicate the device and manipulate Speedy for their own purposes.

Sixteen 30-minute installments of Speed Buggy were produced in 1973. The show was a such a huge success that it aired on all three major networks (CBS, NBC and ABC) until 1979, then was picked up for syndication until 1983.

Most likely due to the shows inspiration, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, the character Tinker shares many visual likenesses to Scooby's beatnik best friend, Norville "Shaggy" Rogers. Also, there are some similar character traits between Mark and Fred Jones, and Debbie appears to be very similar to Daphne in multiple ways.

Kristina's thoughts: Well duh!

Captain Kangaroo - Good Morning Captain!

When: Weekday Mornings - 7 or 8 a.m. (changed with the seasons)
What: Captain Kangaroo
Where: CBS (WANE TV, Channel 15)

I have never been a morning person. One show I wouldn't mind waking up for though, was Captain Kangaroo.

I loved Mr. Green Jeans...I love when Mr. Moose would tell a knock knock joke and the punch line would lead to ping pong balls falling on top of the captain. I loved my dancing bear, I loved the town clown.

sign

I loved this opening which ran in the late 60's and early 70's (it never failed to amuse me).

When they 'sexied' up the intro song, I was even okay with that.



Mr. Moose & a knock knock joke



This is a clip with Mr. Green Jeans - from 1978 - but hey - what would a posting about Captain Kangaroo be without a glimpse of Mr. Green Jeans?



The Dancing Bear!!!



Remember the Town Clown?