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I was a big fan of Danny Kaye as a kid. He could sing silly songs, do funny faces and make me laugh. Today TCM is showing his movies all day. Hans Christian Anderson just started a few minutes ago. I can hear my children in the next room giggling and laughing to his antics. Danny's brand of humor, his way, transcends generations. I think children a hundred years from now will still be drawn to Danny Kaye.
"Life is a great big canvas; throw all the paint you can at it."
-Danny Kaye
Jonny Quest! Hanna-Barbera were the the ones that introduced limited animation which was a technique to cut corners to meet the budgetary demands of television. HB made oodles of cartoon shows, but The Adventures of Jonny Quest stands out as their best. A show like this simply could not be made today. The bad guys would DIE in this cartoon. Producers wanted this show to be as action packed as a 007 movie. Dr. Quest and his bodyguard killed bad guys with explosives, bazookas, machine guns and lasers. They destroy evil monsters that were pretty scary for us kids back in the day. I remember watching that large mechanical spider on the move for the first time and I had goosebumps!
By the time the early seventies rolled around, some namby-pamby watch group took Jonny Quest edited the shows content for violence, depictions of deadly weapons, scary monsters and tense moments. Gee-Whiz Wally, they took out all the good stuff. Not to worry though, the show still lives on in all it's uncut glory. There are still people out there that believe that the original Jonny Quest is too violent for kids today.
There just hasn't been a show like it before or since. I loved how the The Adventures of Jonny Quest used rich colors and deep shadows. The incredible musical scores, the sound effects and storyline made up for the limited animation. The original Adventures of Jonny Quest was full tilt forward!
Back in the eighties and later in the nineties, Jonny Quest was reincarnated, but they were NOTHING like the classic original. Each episode was a thrilling adventure for my young mind. I loved it back in the day when cartoons weren't politically correct. Here's a show that they'll never do again.
P.S. I enjoy the outro more than the intro to this show. I always loved it when those frogmen in the boat buy it.
The Flintstones is one of my favorite productions of Hanna-Barbera studios. The cartoon was based on the Jackie Gleason situation comedy classic The Honeymooners. Fred Flintstone was based on Jackie's character Ralph Kramden. Barney Rubble was based on Art Carney's Ed Norton. The man of a thousand voices, Mel Blanc did the voice for Barney - a dead on Ed Norton impersonation. There's also a little Life of Riley as well. Life of Riley starred William Bendix, but it was Jackie Gleason that played the Chester A. Riley character the first season on television. So I'm sure Jackie was inspired and lifted traits of Chester Riley for his Ralph Kramdon.
Chester, Ralph and Fred were cut from the same cloth. They were all clumsy working class guys, always trying to figuring on ways to get ahead in life the easy way. Their schemes never seemed to work for them. It was always fun watching them try.
The Flintstones was such a popular show, and so much like The Honeymooners that Jackie Gleason once pondered suing Hanna-Barbera, but didn't want to go down in history as “the guy who yanked Fred Flintstone off the air”.
The Flintstones was the first animated made for prime time television show. It was not aired as a kids show. In fact, it was sponsored by Winston cigarettes. So many cartoons cater to children, on their level. The Flintstones was family entertainment. I didn't watch the show on Friday nights. I discovered it a few years later when it was aired on Saturday mornings for children. The Flintstones came long before The Simpsons or King of the Hill. It was the first of it's kind and a loved American classic.
Once upon a time there were these two kids that loved the movie Toy Story (1995) so much that they decided to remake it, not with computer generated animation, but with real toys. They started back in 2010, using the soundtrack of the original movie and acting it out with toys (on strings) and real people. It's a shot for shot remake of the original movie.
I remember thinking when I first saw Toy Story that it would've been neat if they had used real people to portray the non-toy characters in the story. In Toy Story, the toys looked so real, that I thought it would've been better for the people to be real. Well, this project gave me a taste of what it might've been like.
Along with their YouTube release of Toy Story, they also recreated the touching ending of Toy Story 3.
There was something about drinking a soda from a bottle. I had a particular fondness for Grapico. I drink the diet Grapico from a can these days, but drinking from a can limits the experience that I remember. I liked the bumpiness of the bottle, and the feel of the chill on the bottle. As with most colas, sipping a cold beverage from a bottle makes the treat somehow complete.
If I could go back in time. I'd go to Claytons and draw me an ice cold Grapico from their soda chest. I'd pop that cap and drink it slow. I'd take a little time to browse through the comic book rack. It would be great to go back, just long enough for a taste of it.
