"Hanna-Barbera's All-Star Comedy Ice Revue" (1978)

Nothing surpasses the beauty and elegance of a bad idea.
--Craig Bruce

It has been a longstanding notion of mine that people were very easily entertained in the 1970s, as a majority of the popular culture I've seen from that time was seemingly made to accommodate the lowest of the lowest common denominator. Oh, sure, this was the decade that gave us "Stairway to Heaven", Farrah Fawcett, Fawlty Towers and Star Wars, but on the other end of the spectrum it was also the decade that gave us "Disco Duck", Scrappy Doo, the variety show phenomenon, and one of the most reviled televisual offerings in the history of Farnsworth's box, The Star Wars Holiday Special.

(Of course, other decades had their low points, too - the '80s gave us Saved by the Bell, the '90s inflicted the Backstreet Boys on us, and have yet to recover from the reality TV show craze of the '00s - but the 70s seem to be more remembered as a good decade for bad ideas.)

Talking of Scrappy Doo, the 70s was also the decade where the animation duo of William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, once known for popular characters like Tom and Jerry, Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound, went to crap. This was the decade where the quality of their creations were in flux, recycling everything from characters to show pitches to animation sequences to fill out entire broadcast network Saturday morning schedules before they had The Smurfs to fall back on. Carbon copy groups of teenagers with talking animals who weren't oversized Great Danes going around solving mysteries, a girl band and their entourage travelling haphazardly through space for no apparent reason, all of their characters from the 60s floating around in an ark battling personified social issues like smog and litter and vandalism, the Harlem Globetrotters as superheroes...

They used the wrong spelling of the word "revue". I have SUCH a good feeling about this one...

Hanna-Barbera's All-Star Comedy Ice Revue was another such misfire, first airing on CBS on January 13, 1978, and like other crappy TV specials I can think of, has justifiably not been re-aired since. It was released on videocassette in 1986, but that's about all the attention it got after it aired. Time Warner probably owns it now, and hasn't seen fit to release it on DVD. (Don't strain yourselves, guys!)

Okay, here's the rundown - the special is supposed to be like a Dean Martin celebrity roast or something, only with ice skaters and ballet and stuff like that. Your masters of ceremonies are country singer and Hee Haw host Roy Clark and One Day at a Time star Bonnie Franklin, flanked by a cavalcade of actors dressed as some of Hanna-Barbera's most beloved characters (and the Hair Bear Bunch) to celebrate the 48th birthday of one Fred Flintstone of The Flintstones, the most popular prime-time animated sitcom ever to be accused of ripping off The Honeymooners.

There's only one slight detail - Fred is absent from this whole affair, as he is sitting at home watching the special on TV, thinking he was supposed to be on the next day, and only just realizes that he's supposed to be at the ice arena now, so much of the special is focused on this particular plot point.

To think many of those people had dreams of skating in the Olympics.

Roy and Bonnie are forced to fill up time to wait for Fred, and the guy in the Jabberjaw costume is not making life any easier for them, as he pretends to be Don Rickles, makes several failed attempts at wisecracks at the honoree's expense (this is a roast, remember) and insists that with the man of the hour nowhere to be seen, they should roast HIM instead.

What's Jabberjaw, you ask? Think Scooby Doo with a talking shark set in Al Gore's dystopian vision of the future, or in a world where the bad guy from The Spy Who Loved Me actually succeeded.

To make matters worse...apparently they couldn't get Frank Welker to play Jabberjaw as he did in the TV show, so voice acting duties went to Don Messick. And I have nothing against Don Messick, his voice is legendary--Scooby Doo, Papa Smurf, Hamton on Tiny Toons--but his attempt to sound like a shark who borrows shtick from both Rodney Dangerfield and Curly Howard comes out sounding like--ughh--his Scrappy Doo voice.

In a nutshell, it's Scrappy Doo once again trying to steal the spotlight from a character more popular that he. Only as a talking shark.

Sharks just aren't popular. Once Jaws came out, the market was pretty much oversaturated.

Variety shows aren't necessarily known for their plots, so here are some edited highlights:

Bonnie dresses up as a polar bear and sings "You Are My Lucky Star" while skating girls dance around and sing the completely unrelated "We're in the Money".

Then we're treated to an unusual comedy vignette from a duo named Course & Young, who I can't even find info on Google about. One of them tries to sing a song but gets distracted by the janitor, who keeps hitting him with a mop, knocking things over, then tries to blow him up and bites him in the leg.

I'll be over here crying for those poor baby seals if you need me...

A Jackson Five-ish group called The Silvers, of whom I have also never heard, sing a song titled "Disco Showdown" while all the dancers and costumed animals get day-yown on the ice.

Sashi Kuchiki, a shirtless guy in a badly-made thong, skates and jumps around with flaming torches while some men and women dressed entirely in yellow give us a fitness workout video.

Roy Clark plays the theme from that one movie Love Story whose name escapes me on the guitar while some lady dances in the background.

This aired during the family hour, right?

And also, for the purpose of entertainment and DEFINITELY not to pad out the special's running time, the audience is treated to some live-action vignettes from another recently-produced live-action Hanna-Barbera program, The Skatebirds. The Skatebirds, for those who don't know (i.e. all of you), was a Banana Splits-style supershow-type dealie starring a trio of live-action people in rollerskating bird costumes getting chased around by someone in a live-action rollerskating cat costume (rollerskating in an ICE skating special, go figure). I couldn't tell you anything else about it, apart from the fact that it gave us among other regular segments a cartoon called The Robonic Stooges, which is just...ughhh...oh lord...that'll take you to some dark places.

Why am I always forgetting which one of them is Fleegle?

Finally, the climax is a grand birthday tribute number where all the cartoon-character-costumed actors dance around with chefs for some reason paying their respects to the still-absent Fred. The Hair Bear Bunch trio tell jokes that stopped being funny in the third grade, some ice dancers in Wally Gator costumes dance around for a bit while one of the Bears chases after them with a flyswatter--why, I do not know--and finally a giant birthday cake flanked with dancing girls is brought out onto the ice.

During this whole farce we get animated updates on Fred's travel to the ice arena, as he and Barney watch the whole affair on a portable TV set in the car on the way there.

Okay, special, explain this to me. In the cartoon segments, which are clearly based in Bedrock, the "place right out of history" where The Flintstones takes place, we are clearly in the prehistoric setting, while the live-action ice skating segments were filmed in Bakersfield Civic Auditorium in 1978 A.D. California. How does this work? Did the ice rink suddenly fall through a hole in the time-space continuum and land 65 million years in the past? Did Fred somehow go through a wormhole and end up in the Bedrock of the late 20th century just in time for his 65,000,048th birthday?

Well, as it turns out, Fred doesn't make it after all, because when it seems that he finally arrives on stage, it's actually another actor in perhaps the worst character costume of the bunch. All the other costumes use fur, but Fred having no fur to speak of, has a head obviously made out of plastic. His mouth doesn't even close.

After that, the special ends and the credits roll.

Roy, get off the screen! You're distracting me from the pretty girl!

So...how does Hanna-Barbera's All-Star Comedy Ice Revue stack up?

To answer that question, let's break down its title.

It isn't exactly "all-star", since not only does it include lesser-known characters like Jabberjaw and the Hair Bear Bunch (and of course the Skatebirds, whose show you can't even find episodes of on YouTube), but I've never even heard of ANY of the musical, comedy or ice skating acts in it. I barely even know anything about the hosts, other than that one of them sang country music and the other was on a TV show that starred Valerie Bertinelli.

And it also didn't have anything in the way of comedy, either. None of the gags were funny, Jabberjaw was just annoying, and the laughter, par for the course in a Hanna-Barbera production, obviously came from a can.

In fact, the only thing that Hanna-Barbera's All-Star Comedy Ice Revue promises and actually DELIVERS is...ice. The one thing I can definitely guarantee you is that there is ice in this special. Ice that is both danced and skated upon.

And, honestly, the ice wasn't all that bad.

Fwed Fwintstone wuvs you DIS MUCH.

"The Thanksgiving that Almost Wasn't" (1971)

I do invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States…to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.
--Abraham Lincoln

I bet you didn't know that if it hadn't been for your great-great-great-grandfather Jeremy Squirrel, there never would have been a Thanksgiving.
--the present-day father squirrel in today's special

In 1620, a group of English settlers traveled across the Atlantic on the Mayflower and set foot on Plymouth Rock in Virginia to make new lives for themselves in the New World. After struggling through a cold winter of hardship, they met a tribe of natives who shared their food with them and also taught them how to hunt, catch fish and grow their own vegetables, and that fall the natives and settlers got together and had a big feast to celebrate the first successful harvest.

And thus was the first Thanksgiving.

Or so the history books tell you.

If you go by the 1971 Hanna-Barbera special The Thanksgiving that Almost Wasn't, you may find the history books neglected to mention the talking squirrel.

That's right. If it wasn't for a talking squirrel, we all would not be taking every fourth Thursday of November off to get together as a family and be reminded that there's only one more month until Christmas.

And they're worried about teaching evolution.

Dinner now, then the football game, and then it's off to bed for the early Black Friday sale.

It all began while everybody is getting ready for the big feast, cooking, singing, dancing reusing animation and Thurl Ravenscroft vocalizing.

The talking squirrel in question is named Jeremy, and that autumn afternoon while getting ready for a feast of his own, he finds two children playing in the forest near the village - a pilgrim boy named Johnny Cook and an Indian child named Little Bear - arguing over who is the better turkey hunter, and breaks up their argument to suggest that the two become friends.

"You two shouldn't be fighting! You two should be friends and get along and--"
"HOLY @#&!! IS THAT SQUIRREL TALKING?!?"

After more reused animation of cooking and dancing and whatnot set to the same song, Jeremy notices Johnny and Little Bear chasing small animals in the woods. Incidentally, I think Little Bear would be the better hunter of the two of them--he actually carries a bow and arrow, while Johnny is holding a stick that's made to looks like a rifle. You get them in front of a bear or a wolf and we'll see how Johnny likes to hunt with his little toy. Inevitably, they get lost, and nobody notices they're missing until it's time to sit down and eat. Fearing for their safety, everyone leaves the food to get cold and form a search party to go after them.

Johnny and Little Bear eventually realize they're lost, but they're not fazed. No, not even a near-death experience over a waterfall can, dare I say, dampen their spirits! In fact, after a stern lecture from Jeremy, the boys sing a bright, upbeat song about going home as they march in tune in the direction of the settlement!

In a complete circle.

And now, our interpretation of white man-Indian relations for the next three hundred years.

Finally fed up with with their directional incompetence, Jeremy tells the boys to stay put, and leaving the boys in the capable hands of some other forest animals, goes off to find help. While he's gone, a wolf finds them and chases them. The animals of the forest try to fight it off while of the birds goes after Jeremy, who has just found the search party and was telling them that the boys were safe.

IN SQUIRREL TONGUE.

He's been speaking plain English this whole time and all of a sudden he's squeaking and chittering like a squirrel when it matters the most.

I imagine the writers probably didn't have any dialogue written for this bit, or they could have just kept this scene silent, but this raises a few questions. Does Jeremy talk ONLY to children and other animals and not to fully grown adults? And how can they understand him? Why doesn't he just speak English to them, considering the situation at hand? In this cartoon parallel universe where animals and humans can freely converse with the same tongue, why does Jeremy choose to revert back to squirrel noises when alerting the search party where the boys are?

"Anybody understand what he's saying?"
"I'm still wondering why my kid keeps talking to them."

Anyway, everyone finds the boys as the wolf has them cornered, and Jeremy fights off the lupine beast and...sends him bouncing away on a log seemingly made of rubber.

So the boys are home and safe, and the story finally ends with the first Thanksgiving feast (one day late, so everything's gotten cold) and Jeremy is invited to sit at the head of the table and say grace. Jeremy talks about being thankful for the hard work that went into this feast, and that they have it to eat and share with others. Of course, all the boys sing about is how hungry they are, which kind of insinuates that their experience in the forest has taught then nothing.

And there's The Thanksgiving that Almost Wasn't, which wasn't "almost wasn't" uninteresting. The animation is up to Hanna-Barbera's usual 1970s standards, as in, minimal and reusable. The story is really nothing to write home about - boys get lost, squirrel rescues them, the end. The "first Thanksgiving" backdrop feels kind of superfluous; it feels more like a Lassie episode than a Thanksgiving special. There isn't very much to gain from watching this outside of nitpicking how the Pilgrims and Indians didn't really wear those outfits back then.

But if I've learned anything from this special, it's to be thankful for the squirrels. Especially the ones that talk. If it wasn't for that talking squirrel who saved those two boys so very long ago, we as a nation would take what we have for granted all the time, and not feel fortunate and thankful for all that we have and all that we enjoy every day, and Thanksgiving would be forgotten in the frantic shopping rush between Halloween and Christmas (or more than it already is, anyway).

So when you sit down to that big turkey dinner, remember to thank God for the squirrels who made it all possible.

And to leave an offering of nuts by the tree in your backyard, or else Jeremy's ghost will raid your bird feeder.

"The Super Globetrotters" (1979)

"It was always our plan to trail at the half, thus deepening Earth's eventual humiliation. Also...what game were the refs watching?"

Return with me now to the Dark Ages of these modern times, when the infant children of cavemen more than ten years their senior were all grown up, when beloved icons from days past were reduced to traveling the world doling out PSAs, when everyone solved mysteries or were shot into space who didn't have to, and when talented men in the television industry put out crapshoot after crapshoot under the belief that their audience were so stupid they would watch anything.

Return with me now to the bland, uninspired world of 1970s animated television entertainment.

A recurring motif throughout 1970s cartoons, mystery solving and bad jokes aside, were the famous Harlem Globetrotters of basketball stardom. Their first show with Hanna-Barbera, simply titled The Harlem Globetrotters, debuted in 1970, which incidentally made them the first African-American men to appear in a TV cartoon. After twenty-two episodes, they later made three appearances on The New Scooby Doo Movies in 1972 and 1973. Six years later, they returned to the animation circuit with The Super Globetrotters, which had them become superheroes and battle supervillains.

And, of course, play basketball.

"Have none of you pathetic Earthlings game?"

Banded together from the farthest reaches of the eastern half of the United States, five of the greatest superheroes that the world of athletics-based show business has ever seen!

NATE BRANCH!! Mild-mannered former University of Nebraska basketball player becomes LIQUID MAN!! With the power to transform into any form of water!

GEESE AUSBIE!! Similarly mild-mannered all-star Division II player from Arkansas becomes MULTI MAN!! With the power to self-replicate any number of times to mystify his enemies!

TWIGGY SANDERS!! Just as mild-mannered athlete from Raleigh, North Carolina becomes SPAGHETTI MAN!! With the power to stretch and bend his noodle-like body in a number of amazing ways!

You don't suppose they...borrowed their powers from somewhere, do you?

SWEET LOU DUNBAR!! Equally mild-mannered alum of the University of Houston becomes GIZMO!! With the power to pull conveniently useful items out of his humongous afro!

CURLY NEAL!! Plucky but still mild-mannered ball handler from Charlotte, North Carolina becomes SUPERSPHERE!! With the power to...turn his head into a giant basketball.

Not unlike a certain other Hanna-Barbera cartoon I've covered on this blog, the episodes for this series follow a basic formula: the Globetrotters receive a warning from the Crimeglobe, a floating basketball with an antenna and the monotone vocal stylings and random mouth sounds of Frank Welker, that some evildoing is about to be perpetrated by some generic 1970s cartoon villain, and it's up to our fast-breaking action men to put a stop to it. So they jump into their magic lockers or something to become the SUPER GLOBETROTTERS, champions of truth, justice and zone defense!

That's pretty much all you need to know about this show, as it's a formula that carries over for thirteen episodes with little to no deviation. At least it doesn't have a annoying Pokemon-type creature that looks like a Frankenstein's monster made entirely of Beanie Babies.

What's with his head? Do they make basketball-flavored Gushers or something?

The worst part of this show by far is how most episodes climax with the villain challenging the Globetrotters to a basketball game for the fate of whatever MacGuffin is on the line in that week's episode. The five NORMAL Globetrotters are pitted against a squad of ludicrously mismatched henchmen, and in every game they obviously cheat to gain the upper hand in the first half while the heroes fail to make a single basket. At halftime, the Globetrotters regroup and get the so-crazy-it-just-might-work idea to use their superpowers to stage an amazing come-from-behind victory in the second half. The henchmen are quickly dominated, the Globetrotters win the game, and the villain is marched off to jail, promising to reform after having been shown the error of his ways.

Throughout the show it never occurs to them that they should USE THEIR FRICKING SUPERPOWERS FROM THE START OF THE GAME SINCE THEY WERE OBVIOUSLY OVERPOWERED AS THEIR NORMAL SELVES AND IT'S OBVIOUS THAT THE BAD GUY WOULD TRY AND CHEAT BECAUSE HE'S THE BAD GUY. In fact, you could spot any scene in any episode where the Globetrotters are being chased or in a scrape and they never realize that it could be easily averted if they could USE THEIR FRICKING SUPERPOWERS. How much of a superhero are you if you don't think to use your superpowers when the situation calls for it? It's like if Lois Lane's leg were trapped under an I-beam and Superman chooses to try and pull her out from under it instead of trying to lift or bend the I-beam. What good are superpowers if you never use them? Not to mention, ending every stinking episode on a basketball game which has the exact same outcome shows horrendously lazy writing. Repeating certain things show after show isn't entertaining. Kids aren't stupid. They'll know what's coming and they won't be surprised when it comes.

And the villain just...surrenders and accepts his punishment after losing the basketball game? Is that some cheesy attempt at a moral or something? Ending every stupid episode with the villain saying he's sorry and he'll never do it again not only shows lazy writing but lack of characterization. He's a bad guy! A HUMILIATED bad guy! You don't see Lex Luthor apologizing for sicking General Zod and company on everybody at the end of Superman II, do you?

What universe made shows like this? It fails as a comedy because it's not funny. It fails as an action cartoon because the action is exactly the same in each episode and after watching it you know what to expect. It fails as a superhero cartoon because of the significant lack of competence shown by its lousy writing. But most of all, it fails as entertainment not just for the above reasons, but because not unlike the aforementioned cartoon with the mangled stuffed animal, it's utterly pointless.

And the blandness would continue. One year later, the Globetrotters would return in a TV special titled...wait for it... The Harlem Globetrotters Meet Snow White.

Yeah. That tells you a lot.

"Now every superhero's going to be cracking wise about our mommas."

"Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space" (1972)

Strong Sad:
But why are they in space? There's no reason for them to be in space!
Strong Bad:
On the contrary, my dear Fatson! There's EVERY reason for them to be in space!
--Sbemail #126, "best thing"

Just sit right back and you'll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip...

Josie and the Pussycats.

Long tails. Ears for hats.

Guitars. Sharps and flats.

One of the better known Hanna-Barbera cartoons of the 1970s, a decade which saw more forgettable creations such as The Super Globetrotters, The Robonic Stooges and The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan (never heard of them? don't be surprised), Josie and the Pussycats debuted on CBS' Saturday morning lineup during the 1971-72 season. Retooled from Dan DeCarlo's Archie Comics series to fit the junior-sleuth formula which Scooby Doo proved successful, the show had the all-girl trio, their manager, their manager's sister, their pet cat and a roadie-slash-love-interest touring the world, getting mixed up in strange mysteries and chased around by an assortment of mad scientists and cult leaders and whatnot. Perhaps what people remember most about the cartoon is the music, from its catchy opening theme song to the tunes played during concert and chase scenes--Hanna-Barbera went as far as to put together a girl group based on the cartoon to provide their singing voices.

The following year, the concept was re-retooled into a completely new series...same cast, same predicaments, same music, same basic plot.

One minor detail...for no particular reason, they were now LOST IN SPACE.

Here's the basic story from what the title sequence tells us: Josie and company are being photographed in front of the entrance to a rocket ship for some reason when Alexandra, in a desperate attempt to steal the spotlight from their red-headed leader, accidentally knocks everyone inside the cockpit and then inadvertently pulls a lever on the console which launches the rocket into space with them inside it. Now they must pilot their wayward vessel back to Earth (good thing Valerie is the smart one and therefore knows how to fly this ship), which proves to be difficult as for some unknown reason they veer off course to a different planet every episode and get mixed up in whatever shenanigans are going on with the local inhabitants.

Allow me to describe for you a typical episode:

• Josie and company's ship gets drawn onto an alien planet somehow.
• Shortly after landing, Josie and company explore their new surroundings and eventually meet the baddies of the week.
• Baddies of the week reveal their plans to invade Earth or something, and some or all of the group get captured and thrown into some sort of prison cell.
• All who get captured escape and outwit said baddies, and somewhere along the way we get a song.
• They take off with their course set for Earth until Alexandra screws everything up and they're sent flying off to another random alien planet.

Animate at a $300* budget for thirty minutes and serve lukewarm. Makes sixteen servings. (*Adjusted for inflation from 1972.)

Literally, it's the SAME STORY every episode! Different aliens, different planets, SAME FRICKING STORY! This has to be the least imaginative meddling-kids cartoon in Hanna-Barbera's catalog, and coming from one of many cartoons of its time which had the same formula, that says a mouthful. And the production values are deplorable even by 1970s standards; the animation is horrible and the alien creature designs aren't all that impressive. The villains on the show have distinct human features, and one episode featured a menagerie of "alien creatures" which included A GIANT RABBIT and A GIANT DUCK. This has to be the laziest cartoon ever made.

But wait, IT GETS WORSE! As if Sebastian the cat wasn't already pulling his weight as the token animal mascot, we get a new non-human addition to the main cast--little Bleep, a small Pokemon-Monchichi-Snuggles-mascot like creature who can only speak his own name over and over again (despite which only Melody the resident airhead can understand anything he says). What is the point of this new character, this creature who looks like a Blue Meanie that shrank in the washing machine? He's ugly, he's annoying, and he adds little if anything to the storyline. What was he there for, to sell toys or something? Were there Bleep dolls available in toy stores back in 1972? What is his reason for being?

I have always held a belief that everything in this world has a purpose. Good, bad, or indifferent, pretty, ugly, or nondescript, all things great and small were created with some intention for its being. This cartoon, however, is a notable exception. There is no point to it. There is no point to ANYTHING about it. Why are they in space? Why is every planet they land on inhabited by alien species who want to capture them as Earthling samples or steal their spaceship to launch an invasion of Earth? Why do the aliens who want to invade Earth want to invade Earth? What is the deal with Bleep? What IS Bleep? Why does this show exist? There is no point to ANY OF IT!

I am truly grateful that this travesty only lasted sixteen episodes--most Hanna-Barbera cartoons from the late sixties on never lasted longer than one season, regardless of quality--and yet this feeling is soured by the fact that we are forced to associate it with one of the most memorable nostalgic cartoons of all time.

(BTW: We never do see the gang get back to Earth in the series, but they did have a guest appearance on an episode of The New Scooby Doo Movies in 1973, so at least they did find their way home somehow. Maybe they wised up and tied Alexandra to a chair or something. And Bleep was nowhere to be found, too--they probably ditched him on some far-off planet, or preferably threw him out of an airlock--irritating piece of carpet lint.)