Joseph Barbera and William Hanna had captured '80s and '90s the -X generation kids' minds through this very educational and very joyful cartoon series. Their cartoons from '60s and '70s gained much more attention from the TV-channel operators by means of Laff-A-Lympics featuring the most popular leading characters of the various of cartoon franchisees including Yogi Bear(my favourite), Scooby-Doo and their very own evil friends such as Frank Frankenstone and Cavemouse from Flintstones, Dread Baron from Yogi Bear Show and such.
My favourite team was Yogi Bear's team named Yogi Yahooeys. In their 3-team competition, forming up with 10-15 players with only 1 to race each game(2 for pairwise races) there were Scooby-Doobies and Really Rottens, as well; which they compete with each other through several Olympic games all over the world and all over the seasons of the year endlessly. That was good to see the most spectacular places on earth in cartoon view, and for a child that's also good to learn political geography by the way. They have gone to Pyramids in Egypt to start up a race in the desert, they went to Moscow-Russia near Kremlin Palace to find a threatful KGB agent, they went to Hawaii to jet-ski, climbed to mount.Everest, did bungee-jumping in New Zealand, dived in Madagascar, raced with Kangoroos in Australia and so much more. 4 different locations and 4 different races each episode with hard to guess who's going to win each race, who's going to break an Olympics record and for the best moment with the sum of all tournament points for the same episode: Who's gonna get golden medal, bronze medal and silver medal. I was at the age of 12-13 while watching, following and even taking notes to my notebook of the Laff-A-Lympics' Olympics records. The whole seasons of the Olympics have ended up with the top records from Yogi Yahooeys', with the most collected golden medals from Scooby-Doobies' and with the most collected bad reputation from Really Rottens in the final.
Among the whole cartoon character basis, my personal favourite is Snagglepuss, the announcer and the critic of the tournaments. I always wanted to be like him. Snagglepuss is also my personal superhero among the whole worldwide cartoons and comics ever since Disney. I copied his cool, smart, witty, cold-blooded, impressionist, dare-devilish and argumentatively judicial character to my own character. He made me laugh till I caught to cheek-stroke when he climbed to the top of the mount Everest to announce the start of the climbing race telling to the viewers that he'll be waiting with the photo-finish results to see whoever will come to the top first. Then at the finish when no one was able to climb to the top of the mountain he said to the camera, "You're lucky fellas our game is cancelled, our competitors will be racing one extra game today. But guess who the winner is? I am. I climbed here before they even started to climb". After this speech of him, my smile stayed frozen like a stroke on my cheeks at least a week. In every person's life there is a hero, an unusual hero which is easy to become like him. Snagglepuss was mine. Thanks to Daws Butler, the voice of Snagglepuss and actually thanks to his Turkish voice-over; and whoever has created him.
Laff-A-Lympics had educational value so much effectively that every time when the tournament came to its end and the show to the curtains down, he used to say things like "Don't forget to drink your milk fellas in your breakfast this morning" ./.. "Cheating is good, if no one sees you doing" ./... (Staring at the Hawaiian beach beauties)"Know the real use of sun-glasses? You can catch the best outstanding views and choose the most beautiful one on the first hand" ./.... (Before the scuba-diving contest)"Take a deep breath, it irritates fishes if they hear you breath underwater".
That was surely a top classic of the all-time cartoons. All along the year 1994-95 in Turkey, every Saturday and Sunday mornings; there was a reason to find the joy of being a secondary-school kid, increasing the volume of the telly, jumping and bouncing with the breathtaking activities and simulating whatever our cartoon heroes do.
