Hanna-Barbera

There’s really no better way to describe the Plastic Man cartoon from 1979 than to give a brief plot synopsis of one particularly memorable scene` :

Plastic Man and his two completely hapless, powerless sidekicks are launched out of torpedo tubes into the undersea depths by a hyperintelligent pirate scallop who calls himself ‘The Clam’ (because scallops were more fun to draw, I guess), and are immediately caught by a giant squid. Because Plastic Man had just been sprayed by a plastic hardening spray, he is powerless – though all three characters can talk freely underwater and seem to be in no danger of drowning. Suddenly, the blonde girl remembers that she has a bottle of hot sauce in her shoe, which she extends Inspector Gadget-style to Plastic Man, who then drinks it with a straw (still underwater). This somehow negates the effects of the hardening spray completely and they are all rescued.

When you get this wacky, you’re not even talking about charming Silver Age weirdness anymore. You’re talking about writers who threw darts at index cards and grocery fliers and just wrote what stuck. Hanna Barbera is guilty of producing some exceptionally schizophrenic cartoons during their lifetime, but this is probably the most egregious I’ve ever witnessed – and I recall watching this at 6 AM when I was 5 years old and a very early riser.

To the best of my knowledge, Plastic Man’s criminal history or source of his powers isn’t explored, nor is his connection to the rest to the DC Comics universe. Instead, he’s saddled with a girl named Penny who is constantly fawning over him (who he later has a baby with), and a Hawaiian guy named Hula-Hula who can’t make a single statement without throwing the word ‘pineapple’ into it at random. Honestly, it’s borderline racist, but the whole cartoon is an amazing surrealist package of what-the-hell.

The villains are hilariously bizarre, even though they’re rarely funny themselves. Disco Mummy, Half-Ape (who is half man, half ape split perfectly down the middle), and a gang of tiny gangsters are just a few of the insane bad guys that Plastic Man battles against, and which would be perfect fodder for a modern revisitation of the series.

But wait : they produced a pilot for just such a thing in 2006. It’s completely ‘Freakazoid’ meets ‘Ren and Stimpy’, and just the kind of kinetic action that Plastic Man needs. It’s included here, but it’s obvious why it fell flat, despite the even more obvious potential for being something greater. Note that the bonus features are on discs one and two, and not all on disc four as the DVD notes describe.

It’s absolutely a nice set, but calling it ‘complete’ is a misnomer, as there are plenty of later episodes with the Plastic Man family that are left out. If you know your late-70s Hanna Barbera cartoons, you know what to expect – gaping plot holes, fuzzy animation, and general nonsense. And that’s probably exactly why you like them to begin with. The set can be purchased for around $30.

With the vast number of different Justice League cartoons that have been created since the 1960s, it’s easy to get ‘em all mixed up – Super Friends, Challenge of the Super Friends, DC Super Heroes, The Super Powers Team, The Legendary Super Powers Show, Newhart – but the clearest distinction can be made with The All New Super Friends Hour, because this is the show that everyone remembers. Maybe because it was the most ridiculous, and maybe because this was the first appearance of the Wonder Twins, Zan and Jayna.

It’s hard to ignore a couple of teenagers in purple spandex who have a spring-loaded monkey. As hard as you might try. Man, we tried.

This is the second volume of this ‘All New’ version of the show, as created by Hanna Barbera in 1977. In true Barbera style, the animation is charmingly recycled to a very noticeable degree, and bombastic music is used in the background of every scene, creating an atmosphere of pure action and adventure. Since the cartoons aired before I was born, I can’t claim any nostalgic value, but of all of the cartoons of the 1970s, this one seems to have the most cultural relevance today.

In my teen years, this was the show that was parodied more than anything else, when Cartoon Network was defining itself and got permission to recycle the entire library of old Hanna Barbera animation into new shows and shorts. From that, we got Space Ghost Coast to Coast, Sealab 2021, some aspects of Harvey Birdman : Attorney At Law, and effectively, the whole [adult swim] block of cartoons – the part of the animation renaissance that I quietly obsess over.

Best of all, the very first episode in this set includes two things that I immediately recognize as an avid cartoon watcher in the 90s. First, the infamous Wonder Twins ‘Gopher Moat’ episode, which is a testament to how completely absurd the whole cartoon was in general. You can watch the parody on YouTube, but the original episode wasn’t too much different – which is amazing in its own respect. Additionally, the first episode also includes ‘Coming of the Arthropods’, which includes an army of bugs that look suspiciously like Space Ghost’s Zorak. Hannah Barbera didn’t limit their animation recycling to within the same shows, clearly.

It’s also interesting that Jayna can just say ‘form of a space insect!’ and become one. I mean, I’d just turn into an all-purpose Razor-Fisted Deathosaurus, but I guess that those Wonder Twins weren’t too bright. For proof, please see ‘Gopher Moat’ – and the 12-minute special feature on disc two that details both how horrible and how awesome these guys are.

The DVD includes eight episodes over 366 minutes – each episode divided into four team-up episodes, and interspersed with safety tips and secret code segments, as well as the ‘coming up next’ previews, which were left in tact. Seeing all of the original stuff in context, all of the slips and scratches together in one place, is neat. And of course, an essential part of your superhero or animation collections. It’s all packaged together in a slim cardboard slipcase, so it doesn’t even take up any real space – and it’s definitely good for a well-natured laugh.

Aquaman getting half-eaten by an invisible shark should be required viewing anyhow.

Scooby-Doo Collection

About 12 years ago I got a Great Dane puppy. I named him Saltheart Foamfollower after the gentle giant in Stephen R. Donaldson’s books; but he was called “Salty” for short. Like most dog owners in love with their dog’s breed, I began to gobble up Great Dane collectibles. Being the parent of a then-six-year-old, I also had to include Scooby-Doo things. That is how & why I began collecting Scooby-Doo items.

Great Danes, like many giant dog breeds, are called “heart-breakers” because they live very short lives. After just six years, Salty went on to doggy heaven leaving me too heartbroken to get anything else with a Great Dane on it. That is how I stopped buying Scooby-Doo items.

Grandma’s bought the kids Scooby things, but in six years, I’ve not bought anything with another Dane on it. The clothing, all but one denim shirt with Scooby embroidered on the pocket, are all long gone — wash worn, faded, or if the kid out-grew it but it was still in great shape, donated to another child with a love of Scooby-Doo. There’s also one watch which, like the shirt, I still cannot bear to wear. But mostly what remains of my Scooby-Doo collection are the decorative and kitchen items, like the vase, milk jug, soap dispenser, and Wilton cake pan. Sometimes they still are hard for me to see & use. Boy, I miss my dog.

1999 Scooby-Doo Cookie Jar

You might have noticed that the ceramic Scooby-Doo cookie jar is damaged; he’s missing one of his ears. As a collectible he would seem to have little-to-no value, right? But in this case it’s just the opposite. That missing ear is the very reason I love that cookie jar.

As any Dane owner will tell you about the breed, Salty was a gentle giant like his namesake. But, as any pet owner will tell you, Salty also had his own personality. One of this dog’s quirks was that he had a thing — a hatred — for images of Great Danes with cropped ears.

At first it seemed coincidental when he chewed all the upright ears off the rubber Scooby-Doo dog toys. They are the parts which stick off the toy and are easily chewed away, right? But then Salty learned to flip his toys into my other Scooby-Doo collectibles, eventually, after much loss of other ceramic & glass items, developing a remarkable knack for hitting them just right to remove one ear at a time. I have to say, for the record, that the dog never broke anything but Scooby items, and always the cropped ears. As fascinating as his statement on the cropping of dog’s ears was, it became too expensive to keep those anyplace other than in a cupboard or on top of them, way out of sight.

Now, whenever I see the one-eared cookie jar with lolling tongue goofily peering at me from atop the refrigerator, I smile a sad, wistful smile for the dog who left the cookie jar thus. It’s like the dog is still speaking to me through that cookie jar.

While it’s true the cookie jar has no value as a collectible, I’m sure my eldest child will want it. She remembers the day that ear was swiftly removed from the cookie jar; she remembers the sweet, goofy, giant dog who hated cropped ears on Danes.

1997 Scooby-Doo Drinking Glass

I’m still not ready to get another Great Dane — yet. But, enough time has passed, my heart has healed enough to now consider getting more Great Dane and Scooby-Doo items.

I think I’ll need to start by replacing the Scooby-Doo drinking glasses; twelve years of use and washing has left them rather faded and with the image worn-off in spots.

I know they don’t make the same ones anymore — in fact, Scooby’s popularity as defined by availability in merchandise offerings seems to have waned quite a bit since the late 90’s. So I’ll have to really search for them. But it’s time I started being happy looking for those goofy gentle giants again.

Yesterday saw the much-anticipated DVD release of the first season of Cartoon Network’s ‘The Venture Brothers‘. I gotta tell you, it was one of those mornings where I woke up super-early in anticipation, like the excitement of Christmas but without your grandma telling you to open your presents slower and save the paper while the dog chokes on tinsel behind the tree and someone knocks the antique ornament that’s been in the family for 75 years onto the mantelpiece.

The Venture Brothers was 2003’s addition to Cartoon Network’s late night block of adult-themed cartoons that are aired under the banner of ‘Adult Swim‘, which is an entity that forever changed my life. Coming together in a small dorm room, crowding around a TV to watch cartoon characters curse and engage in adult situations, all done smartly, is part of my better college memories. It almost drowns out the memories of that roommate who left actual, mysterious slime trails all over the floor and gave me fake phone messages, and even my questionable relationship with that girl with the speech impediment and aversion to showering. The Adult Swim block of ‘toons saw its infancy back in my high school days when ‘Space Ghost : Coast to Coast‘ was born, taking recycled animation from the 60s (which was now owned by Time-Warner) and repurposing it, making intergalactic hero Space Ghost a horribly inept and inattentive talk show host with live-action, bewildered guests. Cartoon Network has expanded upon the elder crowd’s appreciation of animation ever since.

For those of you who’ve not seen The Venture Brothers, it’s ostensibly a parody of the old Hanna-Barbera Jonny Quest cartoon. You have a scientist, his strapping manservant and a couple of kids going on adventures. Beyond that superficial understanding are many hilarious strata of parody, referencing everything from The Fantastic Four to Hajime Sorayama’s explicitly sexual fem-bots, and it’s genius. I said it. It blows my mind for 15 stellar episodes with rarely a mis-step.

So, why does one bother to go out and tightly clasp a DVD set of things that one can easily turn on the TV and see on any given night? That’s a question that I often ask myself when I’m purchasing TV shows on DVD, and I think that the answer is that I collect these Adult Swim DVDs (eighteen sets so far) so that I might share them with people, bring a little hilarious light into their lives that they might not have otherwise had the time to pick up on. And not have to wait until 11 PM on weeknights (and 10 PM on Sundays for new episodes) to show the stuff off, too. I want to take this DVD set, sit on a couch for hours on end and see someone else laugh with me.

But I guess that’s not entirely true. Many of these TV shows on DVD come with a plethora of extras, from bonus episodes to deleted scenes and making-of featurettes, and the Venture Brothers DVD is no exception. While hardcore fans might be disappointed with the fact that the DVD doesn’t contain any actual behind-the-scenes stuff besides six creator commentary tracks, it actually does contain a ton of great misinformation. Voice actors performing live-action mockumentary style interviews, in costume, was certainly a highlight of the extras, plus the pilot episode and a rarely-shown Christmas episode top it off. The ‘deleted scenes’ are all sketchy animatics, and usually aren’t entire scenes at all, disappointingly – just an extra line of dialogue in the middle of a scene that leaves it pretty much unaffected. What the DVD set does come with, though, is internal box art by legendary illustrator Bill Sienkiewicz, and that in itself with worth the $20 to $30 dollar price.

You can tell that the show is a labor of loving geeks, who both produce and act within the shows. Venture Brothers stands out from the general Adult Swim lineup in that it uses high-quality animation, while most of the AS shows rely on minimal animation and clever dialogue and absurdity. It also is a sequential show, situations in one episode reflecting upon future episodes, which is another thing that not many cartoons address. Not knowing if they were going to be picked up for a second season (as really intelligent shows are often canceled while shows like ‘Will and Grace’ are virtually and painfully interminable), the final episode of season can be seen as pretty darned final, but after a struggle, the show will begin airing season 2’s episodes in late June of this year, still on Cartoon Network.

So far, anything with the [Adult Swim] logo comes bearing my approval, which is probably a gleeful approval given in a fit of wet-myself laughter.