Shirt Tales

Unfortunately, there is not much I remember of this cartoon. I had the lunchbox and it served me well. I talk to my friends about the cartoon, and they seem to only remember their favorite character. Mine was the raccoon, but I don't really remember anyone else. However, this doesn't mean that I didn't care about the show because I did have the lunchbox. I find it unfortunately fitting that this show, along with the many others (Pac-man, kidd video, the smurfs, real ghostbusters,et al) that I am forgetting, represent my quietly fading childhood.

Sweet Jesus! I cannot believe that no one has already commented on this spectacle of modern entertainment; a cartoon about the crazy adventures of a troupe of zany animals that wear "magical" shirts. The details of the show are still really sketchy, since I haven't seen this epic masterpiece since I was about twelve. I remember that the supposed "leader" of the gang is a stupid tiger, who always gets sidelined by the REAL stars of the show: Digger the Mole and the Bogey the Monkey, who was a simian representation of Humphrey Bogart (complete with cigar!!!! Not really; it was a banana...). For the sake of animal rights, I will also mention Rick the Raccoon. The stupid tiger had a female counterpart, Pammy Panda. Again, I can't remember certain things, like the rest of the animals, but I do remember that they were really into "S&M"........I can't back that up. The premise of the show was simple: they live in a tree in the middle of a park and a laugh riot would always ensue! When trouble, usually in the form of velociraptors appeared, the group would "activate" their shirts, a la "Care Bear stare". This act would call the legions of Jedi, namely Luke "I Gotta' Robot Hand" Skywalker. His entrance always involved the Millenium Falcon swooping down with Luke hanging on to the giant bird's tail-feathers. Then he got totally wicked on the army of Decepticons with his trusty Sword of Omens. I know what you're thinkin': "Why did they cancel this show!?", right? Well, we live in a very cruel world, my friend. Oh, I almost forgot about the totally boss intro where Ponch and John are riding their motorbikes side-by-side down the Los Angeles freeway!

A cruel world indeed.

Starting out as a series of greeting cards, the Shirt Tales would be popular enough to get a TV series from Hanna-Barbera. In this, the Shirt Tales, Rick Raccoon, Tyg Tiger, Pammy Panda, Digger Mole and Bogey Orangutan, are five little animals living in Oak Tree Park in Mid City. Unknown to their caretaker, Mr. Dinkel, and everyone else, the Shirt Tales are local heroes, as they are called by the commissioner when something strange is going down in their city.

So, basically, this show is a neat one. The Shirt Tales are good (Bogey is my favorite due to the fact he is based on Humphrey Bogart, as his name is a version of Bogart and he speaks like the legendary actor), and the stories all vary. And Mr. Dinkle is basically the Shirt Tales' take on characters like Ranger Smith and Sarge from Hong Kong Phooey, as he keeps watch in Oak Tree Park like Ranger Smith does for Jellystone Park, but like Sarge is clueless about Penry being Hong Kong Phooey, he is also clueless that the five animals he has to work in the park are the Shirt Tales that are in the news for busting crime. As the greeting cards have the character wearing shirts with message (hence the name), the characters also wear shirts that sometimes flash messages (how their shirts can do that is never explained), and each episode has two short adventures where the five take on villains like the video game-themed Game Master, Mesmo the evil hypnotist, or even helping animals in their plight.

However, it is not perfect, as some of the plots feel like they were repeats of older H-B show (one short has the gang taking on a ghost in a museum, which sounds like a Scooby-Doo plot). Also, the second season takes a huge drop when it comes to continuity, as Tyg replaces Rick as the leader (while the latter gets little to no time to shine like he did first season), and giving the team the power to activate Shirt Tale Time (which seems to do nothing more than turn shirts a matching red with no added powers), and a member named Kip, who is added in to give another female to the group (but is only there to be the kid of the group, effectively making the poor girl the Shirt Tales' Scrappy as well as a new character to make new toys of), with both the red shirts and Kip being added in without any explanation of how Kip came to be or how the Shirt Tales got their ability to change their shirts red (which is a major problem with most cartoons made by Hanna-Barbera, as most of these older cartoons have no origin story for the heroes or characters, or even a way to explain characters or abilities added in a new season). Yeah, I recommend watching for the first season, as it is the better season., but this is a good show and a neat 80's cartoon from an animation legend.

Truly an entertaining series. Cutting-edge in its day (with its pop-culture savvy humor, it might be considered a forerunner to THE SIMPSONS, and Nancy Cartwright has voiced characters on both!) and with very cute and colorful animal characters (Rick Raccoon was my buddy). My parents bought the action figures for me and I played with them all the time; poor Digger's pointed mole nose suffered serious erosion! But the T-shirts were what "sold" the show for me; I didn't like "naked" animals as a kid and always preferred them to be wearing hats, ties and/or shoes at the least (and to be bipedal, of course).

A shining star in its era, and well worth treasuring and celebrating. Shirts off!

I love shirt tales but I think you should make it free so other kids can watch it.