SORRY SCRAPPY-DOO, BUT I THINK I HATE YOU

This week's assignment for members of the League of Extraordinary Bloggers - "What piece of pop culture did you HATE as a kid? Hmm...I usually stick to the positive side of things here on the blog, but I'll try to give in to the dark side and explore some pop culture hatred from my childhood.  

PUPPY POWER!!! Whenever I hear those two words, a shiver goes up my spine. "Puppy power," was one of Scrappy-Doo's annoying battle cries. This little pipsqueak of a pup, introduced in 1979 on the Scooby-Doo and Scrappy-Doo show, was so annoying he caused my young brain to split!  

TV Guide ad from September 22, 1979

Scrappy was co-created by Joseph Barbera and Mark Evanier. Say what? How could these two amazing talents create such an abomination like Scrappy? Click here to read Mark Evanier's six-part post about Scrappy's creation. Sure, I get the whole "let's keep things fresh with a new character" strategy. But for me, as a nine year old, I wasn't buying Scrappy-Doo one bit!   

Scrappy simply ruined everything that was fun about Scooby and the gang. Instead of new Scooby adventures with Scrappy, I would have been just as content watching the same reruns of Scooby-Doo Where Are You! and The New Scooby-Doo Movies over and over. The hatred of Scrappy was discussed many times around the water fountain back in my elementary school. I didn't know anyone who actually liked the pungent pup. All of us felt sorry for poor Scooby stuck with such an annoying nephew. No wonder Scooby's sister Ruby-Doo didn't want to care for the demon dog. So many cartoons suffer from overtly cutesy sidekicks that come from the planet ForcedHumor. Scrappy was one of the worst and he should have been scrapped a long time ago.  

Scrappy wasn't the first annoying cutesy character to ruin a Saturday morning TV show. There are so many of them they could start a League of Extra-annoying Toons. The roll-call would be Scrappy-Doo, Bat-Mite, The Great Gazoo, Mr. Cool, Orbitty, Baby Plas, 7-Zark-7, Uni, Orko, Brainy Smurf. H.E.R.B.I.E., Snarf, Godzooky and all Snorks.  

Okay, now I need to go watch some old Scooby-Doo Where Are You! episodes to cleanse my eyes of Scrappy-Doo.

Check out some of the hate from other LOEB members.

pop rewind hates cereal mascots who had their cereal revoked 

shezcrafti hates Zoobilee Zoo

adventures of a geeky vixen hates My Little Pony

Toyriffic hates G.I. Joe

DON BLUTH DRAWS DIRK THE DARING FROM DRAGON’S LAIR

Below you’ll find an excellent video from one of Don Bluth’s weekly animation seminars. He gives a great lesson on characterization and we get to see the animation wizard draw Dirk the Daring. Watch the embedded video after my short meet and greet post.

The video reminded me of the time I met Don at the 2000 San Diego Comic-Con.


Yep, the pale faced one is me and of course the other guy is Don. (It must have been wear your baseball tee day at the con!)

I’ve always been a Don Bluth fan ever since The Secret of Nimh, but especially after Dragon’s Lair. I spent many half bucks (it was one of the first fifty-cent games) trying to master the coin-op video game back when it ruled the arcades.

It’s always a big trill to meet anyone who inspired you during childhood and Don fit that bill for me. Such a super nice guy with so many great stories! He was there promoting his new animation magazine Toon Talk and was selling a no-brainer of a special deal. Purchase a one year magazine subscription and get a free sketch from Don.


I snapped at the offer and he drew this awesome sketch of Dirk!


Besides owning an original Bluth sketch, the cool thing was watching him draw. Here’s a photo of Don drawing my sketch.


Now you can watch him draw Dirk in the video below. Lead on adventurer... your quest awaits!

Be sure to visit Don Bluth.com where you’ll find information about Don’s animation tutorials along with tons of other great stuff.

HARNESS A "JACK-IN-THE-BOX"

Forget the modern safe and secure car child seats. Back in the day, kids were just strapped down in the front seat if they were strapped down at all. I scanned a bunch of mag ads last year and just ran across this fun 1963 ad for Irwin Auto Safety Harness. This ad has a lot going for it.


You might want to click on the ad for a closer look.

Nice to know that the Irwin Auto Safety Harness was designed by parachute engineers. That’s great if you accidently drive off a cliff!

Just look how carefree mom is. Her child can easily jump around and play in the front seat while the car is blazing down the freeway. Look, this kid is having the time of his life with his trusty six-shooter. He’s probably taking aim at the police car behind them.




Hey kid, didn’t your mom tell you never to stick a gun in your mouth?

The ad says, it has an Exclusive Scientific Design. Well, I don’t know about that, but I like the swell Hanna-Barbera box. Nice that Irwin offered a choice of character - Yogi or Huckleberry. I wonder which one I would’ve picked if I was a kid during the 1960's? Hmm... team Huckleberry all the way!

DONALD DUCK RICE BOX

FLEA MARKET FRIDAYS #49


This was a nice find! The box is probably from the 1940's and you can see that it was made by Producers Rice Mill in Stuttgart, Arkansas. A perfect match since the town is the Rice and Duck Capital of the World!

SCOOBY-DOO, WHERE ARE YOU?

That's my nephew in a 1970's time warp wearing a vintage Scooby-Doo Halloween costume and holding a vintage Hanna-Barbera trick or treat bag. I took the photo just a few weeks ago.

SCOOBY-DOO LUNCH BOX WITH THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN

I always enjoy the fun desktop wallpapers that Kirk from Secret Fun Spot makes up. He has a nice selection and he just shared a magician one recently on his blog. So this time I decided to make my own from the above Scooby-Doo lunch box.

Click on one of the images below with the first one for normal screen users and the second for the snazzy widescreen users. All you have to do once you click on the image is right click and save it to your computer. Now you can have the Headless Horseman for Halloween!

1960's HANNA-BARBERA TV GUIDE ADS

KYTV Channel 3 broadcasts from Springfield, Missouri.

KOMU Channel 8 broadcasts from Columbia, Missouri

KOAM Channel 7 broadcasts for the Pittsburg, Kansas/Joplin, Missouri market.

As an extra bonus - a two page article on the great Daws Butler from the Feb. 24, 1962 issue of TV Guide. Click on the scan to read it.

FUNNY FACE DRINK-MIX CHARACTERS TO BE RESURRECTED

I almost spit out my Kool-Aid when I read some good news!

Thanks to this good news I might have a chance to spit out some Funny Face in the near future if Renegade Animation is able to sell a pilot featuring our old fruit flavored friends of Funny Face. That’s right according to Cartoon Brew Renegade has snagged the rights to the Funny Face characters who were popular during the 60's and 70's as a fruit flavored drink-mix made by Pillsbury.

Hopefully this will be picked up and become a popular weekly cartoon. Besides seeing the Funny Face gang in an animated series it would be very cool to see it come back as a drink-mix again. Heck, if it’s big-time popular maybe the characters will have their own cereal and Pez dispensers and ice cream bars and action figures and sneakers and bed sheets and. . . Ok, I’m getting ahead of myself, but all this would be very cool!

To wet your whistle for Funny Face check out these amazing Funny Face collections from Jim Rash - his flickr and his website. Also check out Dan Goodsell's collection at his website.

Here's some fun old commercials -





Thanks goes to Brandon and Dan for the heads up on this important breaking news!

1958 RONALD SEARLE - ENERGETICALLY YOURS ARTICLE

From the June 1958 issue of Locomotive Engineers Journal is this one page article about Standard Oil's industrial film Energetically Yours by Ronald Searle. Click on the article page for a closer view.

YOGI BEAR IN YELLOWSTONE ARTICLE

Here's a fun Yogi Bear article from the June 1968 issue of All Outdoors. Be sure to click on the image to read the article.

HANGING AROUND WITH YOGI BEAR

I bet this snapshot was taken just a few moments before the kids had to leave for trick or treat!

DISNEY'S OSWALD THE LUCKY RABBIT 1927 AD

I just unearthed this September 3, 1927 issue of Moving Picture World from a tub of magazines that I forgot I had. This tub hasn’t been opened for almost ten years. So I was especially happy to find this issue that has a great advertisement for Walt Disney's Oswald the Lucky Rabbit!

This ad does have me baffled as I've read that Oswald first premiered in 1927 and according to Don Markstein's Toonpedia Oswald's first officially released cartoon Trolley Troubles was released September 5, 1927. As you can see, the date on the ad is September 3. Maybe this ad was before the official release and it was used to hype the character. I wonder if Oswald premiered at the Criterion?

Also, 26 shorts were produced between 1927 and 1928, but in the fine print we see that it says "26 of them -one reel each.” I guess they're talking about other non-Oswald shorts.

The last thing is that Oswald doesn't look like himself as he's all white instead of black and he's missing his shorts. Maybe this is how he looked in his first cartoon Poor Papa that wasn't released until the next year because Universal thought he needed to be jazzed up. I haven't seen Poor Papa and I can only assume the cartoon was retooled to look like the past year’s cartoons when it was finally released in 1928.

I'm looking forward to the Disney Treasures Oswald DVD coming out this December!

Excellent article at Disney.go.com with a photo of a German poster with this version of Oswald.

Oswald at Wikipedia
Trolley Troubles on YouTube

POST CEREALS MIGHTY MOUSE MYSTERY COLOR PICTURE CARDS

FLEA MARKET FRIDAYS #19

From 1957, Post Cereals Mighty Mouse Mystery Color Picture Cards.

BANANA SPLITS WINDOW CLINGS

Here's Fleegle and Bingo from The Banana Splits in the form of rubber window clings. They have a small suction cup on the back.


I've never seen these before and my guess is that they're out of a cereal box probably from Canada.

IT'S VALENTINE'S DAY, CHARLIE BROWN

FROM JOSH & FROM STEPHANIE

The answer to the first card is, "Roger! Happy Valentine's Day!" and the rest of the second card is, "...to forget to wish you a Happy Valentine's Day!"

M–I–C–K–E–Y WHY? BECAUSE YOU’RE MY VALENTINE

FROM BETTY & VIVIAN FROM CANDY

The Mickey Mouse card was from our school’s two janitors, Betty & Vivian. My school was the classic little red brick school house with only seven classrooms (k-6) and these two ladies kept our school spotless.

I think they were sisters who were both widowed and were as sweet as could be. Everybody loved them and many times they would stand at the front door greeting all the kids every morning.

They were much more than just plain janitors, as they acted like Grandmothers for a bunch of elementary kids. Even during the times when they had to clean up spilled lunch tray food, puke on a desk, scrubbing crayon off the walls, and dealing with the bathrooms they always had a big smile on their face for us kids!

Happy Valentine’s Day to Betty and Vivian!!!

JELLYSTONE PARK EUREKA MO

Back in late September we made a quick tour of Jellystone Park Resort & Campground located in Eureka, Missouri and next door to Six Flags. Of course everyone knows that Jellystone is the home to our favorite picnic basket thief Yogi Bear!

Enjoy the photos from this fun easy going place that seems to be stuck in a more simple time.









Also for a great post on the history of the Jellystone parks and scans of the old brochures check out a sampler of things.

HANNA-BARBERA CHEAP TRICK OR TREAT BAG

If you were a trick or treater from the late 60's into the 80's you probably carried a cheap plastic trick or treat bag on a few or more outings. This Hanna-Barbera bag is from 1975 and made by Ben Cooper, the costume king. It’s nice that on one side Fred, Scooby and Yogi got to tag along with you on your candy quest and on the other side is more of a 70's style generic design.


I remember every year at school our local bank would give each kid one of these cheap bags that had their logo and Halloween graphics plastered all over it. Of course they had a few goodies tucked inside to get us started before the big night. I never used buckets, pillow cases or pumpkin heads for my treats, just these cheap plastic bags. They did hold a lot of loot and I liked how the little handle would snap back and forth. You did need to be careful with these bags since they would rip really easy and you’d leave a trail of Pixie Stix and mini Krackel candy bars behind.