CARTOON-O-RAMA Presents:

SPIN-OFF CARTOONS!

Although most of the shows spotlighted here in CARTOON-O-RAMA are from what most people consider the Golden Age of TV Cartoons (the 1950s and 1960s), I have always been fascinated with extremely odd cartoons, including ones that fall into the "so bad they're good" category. This definately applies to the animated cartoons of the 1970s and the early '80s and the odd phenomenon of cartoons spun-off from other sources, such as TVs and comic books. Unlike the straight-forward cartoon adaptions in the '60s (like Hanna-Barbera's Abbot & Costello or Laurel & Hardy), the cartoon spin-offs of the '70s and '80s insisted on throwing in totally unrelated elements.

Here’s ten of the strangest cartoons adapted from other sources:

1. Will The Real Jerry Lewis Please Sit Down? ABC, September 1970 - September 1972. This Filmation show featured an animated Jerry working various odd jobs that often had him reliving roles from films like The Errand Boy, The Caddie, and The Nutty Proffessor. Although the real-life Jerry created this show, the Jerry character’s voice was provided by David Lander who years later became famous as Squiggy on Laverne And Shirley.

2. The New Shmoo NBC, September 1979 - December 1979. Al Capp’s loveable Shmoo, who was famous in the Lil’ Abner comic strip as a creature whose only redeeming quality was being loveable, was given the ability to change his shape into almost anything in this Hanna Barbera cartoon. Like most HB cartoons of the ‘70s, the Shmoo was given a supporting cast of teenagers that he solved crimes with. Think Scooby Doo as a friendly shape-shifting blob.

3. Fred & Barney Meet The Thing/Fred & Barney Meet The Shmoo NBC, September 1979 - November 1980. Try to follow the logic of the producers here: "Let's licence a popular Marvel Comics character, the kid's love them! We'll get The Thing, that big orange rock guy from The Fantastic Four, but instead of using the super hero formula that everybody loves him in, we'll make him a teenager with a magic ring. And we'll let add a bunch of wacky teenagers, kind of like the supporting cast on Pebbles And Bamm-Bamm. And don't forget a cute dog! And we'll add the Thing as a segment on our new Flintstones show! The kids'll love it!" Unfortunately the kids didn't love and the genius producers pulled the Thing segments and replaced them with THE SHMOO!!! (See above).

4. Three Robonic Stooges CBS, January 1978 - September 1981. In the early ‘60s Cambria Studios (the world famous creators of Clutch Cargo) had moderate success with a cartoon version of The 3 Stooges. In the early ‘70s the much bigger Hanna-Barbera Productions acquired the animation rights to the Stooges, but were unsure what to do with them. After a couple of guest appearances on the Scooby-Doo Movies, HB finally hit on a concept to use the Stooges characters in. The Stooges were now super heroes/secret agents (ala Steve Austin) with telescoping mechanical limbs who fought various dastardly villians. Moe Howard’s son-in-law, Norman Mauer, wrote the scripts.

5. Giligan’s Planet CBS, September 1982 - September 1983. For three years of the primetime sitcom, the Castaways tried and tried to find a way off their island prison. In this ‘80s cartoon they finally succeeded. The Professor builds a rocket-ship(!) out of bamboo and seaweed that lets the Castaways leave the island (if he could build a rocket, why couldn't he repair The Minnow?), but of course the bumbling antics of Giligan lands the group on a distant planet. The original sitcom cast returns to provide the voices (with the exception of Ginger, whose voice is provided by Dawn “Mary Ann” Wells, since Tina Louise was too stuck-up for Saturday mornings).

6. Partridge Family: 2200 A.D. CBS, September 1974 - March 1975. Hanna-Barbera acquired the rights to the Partridges during the sitcom’s final season in 1973-74. First HB tested the Partridges in a Scooby-type format by having them guest star on one of their Scooby-clone shows, Goober And The Ghost Chasers. Not satisfied with that, HB decide to borrow from one of their other classic shows instead. Thus this unlikely combination of The Jetsons and The Partridge Family was born. All the original cast members except David Cassidy and Shirley Jones provided their own voices (including Laugh-In vet Dave Madden as Ruben Kincaid).

7. The Dukes CBS, February 1983 - October 1983. Hanna-Barbera provides yet another goofy TV adaption. In this one, The Dukes of Hazzard is combined with HB classic Wacky Races, as the Duke boys race around the world againest their arch-nemesis, Boss Hogg, and the weasely Sherrif Roscoe. The stars of the primetime show provided their own voices.

8. The Brady Kids CBS, September 1972 - August 1974. The loveable Brady children are abandoned by Carol and Mike, form a rock group, and are forced to live in a treehouse with a talking witchcraft-practicing minah-bird named Marlon and two Panda bears from outer space (isn’t Saturday Morning great!). The actual Brady Kids provided the voices for their characters (although Barry Williams dropped out in the second season). Notable episodes include a guest appearance by Superman and Lois Lane (!) and a spin-off of Marlon’s mentor, Miss Tickle, into her own cartoon, Mission Magic, which featured the first appearance of Australian rocker/actor Rick Springfield.

9. The ABC Saturday Superstar Movies ABC, September 1972 - August 1974. This show featured a weekly cavalcade of Spin-Off Cartoons (in fact The Brady Kids show first debuted here, as well as an HB entry, Yogi's Gang, which featured Yogi, Huck, Quickdraw, and other HB favorites fighting pollution). Some of the most memorable segments included Nanny & The Professor And The Phantom Of The Circus, a Lost In Space cartoon, Tabitha & Adam Meet The Clown Family (featuring the kids from Bewitched), Gidget Makes A Wrong Connection, The Mini-Munsters, and of course the classic That Girl In Wonderland.

10. Fonz & The Happy Days Gang/Laverne & Shirley In The Army/Laverne & Shirley With The Fonz ABC November 1980 - September 1983. Happy Days and its sitcom spin-offs were some of the most popular shows of the '70s and '80s, so of course ABC couldn't resist making Saturday morning spin-offs. First came Fonz & The Happy Days Gang which featured the voices of Henry Winkler, Ron Howard, and Donnie Most as Fonz, Richie, and Ralph. In the cartoon version, the three Happy Days characters travel through time and space with an alien named Cupcake(!) and Fonz's dog, Mr. Cool. The Laverne & Shirley spin-off owed more to Private Benjamin, with Penny Marshall and Cindy Williams providing the voices as their characters joined the US Army. Ron Palillo, Horshack of Kotter fame provided the voice of Mr. Squeely, the sergeant's pet pig (Hey! Why was there never a Kotter cartoon? The Sweathogs could have become a superhero team or solved crimes with a goofy animal or something). In September, 1982, the two shows were combined into one as Fonz and Mr. Cool became mechanics for Laverne and Shirley's Army unit. At about the same time Hanna-Barbera in association with Ruby-Spears also created a Mork And Mindy cartoon whose premise was that Mork was now a high school student.

Return To CARTOON-O-RAMA!

Updated June 27, 1998

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page