Anthonynotes
04-21-2004, 10:34 AM
1972: Richard Nixon was president (and wins re-election in a landslide against George McGovern, the Democratic candidate who was heavily believed, much like today's Howard Dean was pre-Iowa, to be the guy to send "Tricky Dick" into retirement); Hank Aaron makes it big in baseball; Mary Tyler Moore enjoys popularity on the nation's television airwaves; and U.S. involvement in Vietnam finally begins to wind down.
<Worthless comic trivia>
This year's JLA-JSA Equal Rights Amendment campaign (I know, I'm getting more obtuse/obscure with these "teamup" synonyms) involved, for the 100th issue of the (original) JLA comic, the now-famed "Seven Soldiers of Victory" saga. To wit, the SSoV were a team of non-superpowered characters in DC's 1940's comics... sort of a poor man's Justice Society. Its members included DC lesser lights such as the Crimson Avenger; Stripesy ; the Shining Knight (a knight from King Arthur's time-era living in the 20th century); the Golden Age versions of Green Arrow and Speedy (the versions who appeared in the 40's and early 50's comics, not the more familiar-to-us George Carlin-ish guy making time with Black Canary); the Vigilante; and the Star-Spangled Kid.
Anyway, it was revealed that during some fight in the early 50's, they got time-tossed into various different historical eras, and no one apparently knew of it until their old enemy, the "Hand" made a comeback in present, now calling himself the "Iron Hand" and with plans to crush the Earth (or Earth-Two in this tale's case) with some sort of giant mechanical hand if he isn't named head honcho of the world. Thus, the JLA and JSA members split up and went back in time to retrieve these long-forgotten heroes from the various eras they wound up in, since they were the only ones who could stop the Iron Hand. All this, and a still de-powered Wonder Woman (in "Diana Rigg" mode) to boot.
(THE BRAIN: Hmm... taking over the world with a giant mechanical hand... [scratches down possible plans for such a device] Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?!
PINKY: I think so, Brain, but Paul McCartney naming his group "Feathers" doesn't have the same ring to it...)
Re: Saturday mornings:
1972---more mild-mannered nonviolent programming. Filmation and Sid & Marty Krofft continue to grow in influence.
Today's shows:
"The Roman Holidays"
"Funky Phantom"
"Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan"
Look up previous weeks' notes for detailed comments on these shows, but to summarize this weekend's episodes:
Funky Phantom
Today's episode:
The gang help out a farmer who's trying to be forced off his land by the mysterious "Raven."
Comments:
One of the earliest Scooby Doo ripoffs---with the featured sidekick being the ghost of a guy who got trapped in a grandfather clock in colonial times, IIRC. Also with him is the ghost of his cat..
More dune buggies----H-B apparently thought they were the end-all and be-all of cool vehicles for teens to tool around in---never mind that I'd figure by this point, the famed 70's "muscle cars" would've been considered "cooler" than a beach-related vehicle...
The Phantom refers to Delaware---which was the first U.S. state to ratify the Constitution, and also one of our smallest.
Ghosts can drive... who knew?
The Roman Holidays
Today's episode:
Gus has difficulties with getting his boss' new racing chariot to a race on time, including dealing with two crooks from the opposing racing team.
Comments:
As noted before, "The Roman Holidays" was created to play on the Flintstones/Jetsons motif of a 20th century style family living in another time era, this time in the Roman Empire around 64 AD (when Nero would've been emperor). As similar to the Flintsotnes/Jetsons, architect Gus Holiday and his family---wife Laurie, teenage son Happius ("Happy"), preteen daughter Precocia, and pet lion Brutus--- had various misadventures around Rome, enjoying "Ancient Rome"-style 20th century gadgets (TV's, phones---though they used chariots/horses instead of cars) and had stupid "Roman" puns (vs. stupid "rock"/"space" puns) for everything (names that ended in "-us" or the like, such as their annoying, money-grubbing landlord "Mr. Evictus" and Gus' annoying, money-grubbing boss, "Mr. Tycoonius"). And of course, everyone apparently spoke English (and made really bad use of Roman numerals---obviously someone at Hanna-Barbera slacked off in math classes in their school days)...
I'd make the argument that this show probably represents the "future" of the Flintstones' world, given their similar motifs (thus taking place chronologically (well) after what's probably chronologically the "last" Flintstones adventure, "A Flintstone Family Christmas"). There is an episode of the original Flintstones series where the Flintstones and Rubbles, via a time machine at the Bedrock World's Fair, travel into various spots in their future, first making a stop in ancient Rome. There, they made a few remarks on the clothes everyone was wearing, the guys had to deal with being thrown to the lions at the Coliseum, and then were whisked away further into the future (for the record, they visited: Columbus' voyage in 1492, Ben Franklin's kite-flying experiment in 1752, and a 20th century World's Fair). Since the Roman Empire lasted for centuries, the Flintstones and Rubbles wouldn't necessarily have visited the same year/point in time as the Holidays (unless they mentioned Nero in that episode, which I don't think they did)...
Actually regarding today's episode:
The window washer's "no place like Rome" song, of course, refers to the old song/expression "there's no place like home." (Ten seconds in, and we've already seen the first stupid "Roman" pun, folks ;-) ). Bugs Bunny, in a "Looney Tunes" cartoon, also once sang a song about "no place like Rome", along with a few lyrics about Nero and matches. :-)
"Ferrarium", of course, is yet another "Roman" pun, referring to sports car maker Ferrari.
Typical nasty cartoon boss... though there doesn't seem to be any other kind, unfortunately (yeah, the "greedy, nasty boss who treats their employees like cr*p and the employee never thinks of quitting and finding a better job or something" is a TV cliche---and pet peeve of mine...but *anyway*...).
Mercury was the ancient Roman messenger god(?), who was noted for having what would now be dubbed super-speed---hence his image being used a few thousand years later to create the Flash in the 1940's (and the FTD Florists logo :-) ). His Greek name (who the Romans "borrowed" him from) is Hermes.
Ostriches (in real life, anyway) wouldn't particularly make for an animal strong enough to carry a human and a heavy chariot---Roman police (or the equivalent thereof), like everyone else, would've used horses, as well. (The cat as siren bit was used on the Flintstones...)
Nero, as noted above, was emperor of Rome circa 65 A.D., also the approximate time Rome had a large fire (as the probably-untrue expression goes, "Nero fiddled while Rome burned"...which still gets used today to refer to someone important, such as a politician, failing to do anything while an important crisis/problem rages...).
"Naderius Ralphium"---apparently (within the Flintstones-Roman Holidays-Jetsons universe, at least) the Roman ancestor of famed consumer safety advocate Ralph Nader, who in the early 60's rose to fame for being the first to spearhead serious efforts into establishing car safety standards we now take for granted (he famously proclaimed the Chevy Corvair as a car being "unsafe at any speed"). In more recent years, of course, Nader's gained support from some leftists unsatisfied with the current state of the Democratic Party (among others) as a third party presidential candidate for the Green Party, including his famous 2000 election bid (and got blamed, probably falsely, of costing Gore the election---never mind that Gore couldn't even win his own home state of Tennessee, not to mention the hijinks in Florida...). Recently, Nader has stated he wishes to run again in the 2004 election---which has garnered criticism from various liberals, including even those who supported him in 2000, many citing that this year's election is too close to deal with the potential threat of a third party swiping votes from the Democrats' candidate...
Of course, this also means that this show was throwing in a joke obviously aimed at adults, and not children (unless kids of the early 70's were up on consumer safety issues)... something generally avoided by TV animation of this era. Wonder if the writers got chewed out for this one:
SOME HEAD HONCHO [to writers]: Listen, all of you---what's up with this Ralph Nader pun? Kids don't even know who that *is*! Heck, they probably won't even know who *Nero* is, now that I think of it... let alone whatever this "Rome on fire" stuff is about...
WRITER: Well, the other writers and I figured that as long as we're throwing in a ton of puns, it won't hurt to have a bit of fun with them. Besides, if kids are really curious, they can always ask their parents who Ralph Nader, or "Naderius Ralphium," really is... or who Nero is, for that matter, or about the "Rome on fire stuff", as you put it... you see, during Nero's reign in Rome, Rome suffered a great fire, which historians---
SOME HEAD HONCHO: *Feh.* Save me the history lesson, Mr. Peabody. Bad enough there's all these flippin' historical-reference-joke-thingamajigs in these scripts, but throwing a reference to *Nader* in... (shudders) Besides, it doesn't matter---for next season, you're all being reassigned to work on a few new shows featuring teenagers and their talking sidekicks solving mysteries and stopping world-conquering villains. (Muttering) I *knew* management greenlighting a show about ancient Rome that *didn't* have any of those elements in it was a bad idea...
WRITER: Hmph. (Starts scribbling on a piece of paper to try to come up with ideas) Maybe a show about teens and, I dunno, their sidekick a talking (glances at a "Car and Driver: Upcoming 1973 Models Reviewed")... car, or something? (The other writers nod their heads in agreement; writer starts flipping through said magazine to find a car to base on this idea...)
SOME HEAD HONCHO: Good thinking---but make it a dune buggy; kids *dig* dune buggies. (Writer starts to point to a magazine article on the newest muscle cars to prove otherwise, but decides it’s not worth arguing the point, and sighs) Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go help sort out the new primetime ad deals with Ford, Chrysler, GM, and AMC...
;-)
Back on track...
Atilla the Hun was a brutal warrior who, with his fellow Huns, invaded the already-crumbling/crumbled remains of Rome (and the Roman Empire) sometime in the 400's A.D. Thus, not someone usually associated with the Roman Empire at its high point---more of one of the many people who helped usher in the Dark Ages of Europe...
"Caesar's salad"... "when in Rome, do as the Romans do." Two "Roman" puns at once! *Plus* they worked in a reference to the theme song... Re: Precocia wishing they were Greek, since the Roman Empire encompassed Greece, including swiping much of its culture (including its gods), not sure how much of a difference there'd be...
The city of Chicago has a suburb named Cicero; not sure what the historical origin of the name is...
"Ecologus", the garbage collector, presumably refers to "ecology"; "ecology" was a fairly new word/concept still in the early 70's, as the modern environmental movement was just taking off (including such newfangled notions as "recycling," endangered species laws, and, later on in the decade with the fuel crisis, energy efficiency).
"Ben Him", of course, is a parody of the main character of author Lew Wallace's novel of the same name, Ben Hur. A lot of fictional depictions of ancient Rome seem to throw in references to Hur, as seen in the 1959 film of the same name (which in itself was a remake of a 1926 silent film epic). The "wheels grinding against each other" bit in this episode (like in other Ben Hur parodies, such as those on “The Simpsons”) also comes from the movie...
The race's stadium looks like the famed Coliseum of Rome, where many contests (gladiator fights, etc.) were held.
More bad use of Roman numerals--- "500" in Roman numerals is “D”, not "VC".
Superman's old expression---"it's a bird, it's a plane, it's Superman"---gets played upon here. Of course, the ancient Roman god Hercules (Greek name: Heracles) served as much of the basis for the Man of Steel’s creation (among other elements).
The music closing out the final scene is directly swiped from the closing scenes music heard on this show's predecessor, "The Flintstones."
The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan
Comments:
Probably the first Sat. morning show to feature Asians in a lead role---unfortunately, the characters are pretty stereotypical.
Charlie Chan was originally a detective character who starred in a series of 30's and 40's movie serials---said character being played by a Caucasian actor. The "Harvey Birdman" episode that featured Chan (and his "Clan") was mistaken about Chan's nationality---Chan was Chinese, *not* Japanese (Chan IIRC isn't even a Japanese name...).
---
Next week:
1973--- featuring “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids,” “Yogi's Gang,” and the unseen-by-me-before “Goober and the Ghost Chasers.” Yep, I'll have plenty of material to lay into these shows next week, folks. :-)
<Worthless comic trivia>
This year's JLA-JSA Equal Rights Amendment campaign (I know, I'm getting more obtuse/obscure with these "teamup" synonyms) involved, for the 100th issue of the (original) JLA comic, the now-famed "Seven Soldiers of Victory" saga. To wit, the SSoV were a team of non-superpowered characters in DC's 1940's comics... sort of a poor man's Justice Society. Its members included DC lesser lights such as the Crimson Avenger; Stripesy ; the Shining Knight (a knight from King Arthur's time-era living in the 20th century); the Golden Age versions of Green Arrow and Speedy (the versions who appeared in the 40's and early 50's comics, not the more familiar-to-us George Carlin-ish guy making time with Black Canary); the Vigilante; and the Star-Spangled Kid.
Anyway, it was revealed that during some fight in the early 50's, they got time-tossed into various different historical eras, and no one apparently knew of it until their old enemy, the "Hand" made a comeback in present, now calling himself the "Iron Hand" and with plans to crush the Earth (or Earth-Two in this tale's case) with some sort of giant mechanical hand if he isn't named head honcho of the world. Thus, the JLA and JSA members split up and went back in time to retrieve these long-forgotten heroes from the various eras they wound up in, since they were the only ones who could stop the Iron Hand. All this, and a still de-powered Wonder Woman (in "Diana Rigg" mode) to boot.
(THE BRAIN: Hmm... taking over the world with a giant mechanical hand... [scratches down possible plans for such a device] Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering?!
PINKY: I think so, Brain, but Paul McCartney naming his group "Feathers" doesn't have the same ring to it...)
Re: Saturday mornings:
1972---more mild-mannered nonviolent programming. Filmation and Sid & Marty Krofft continue to grow in influence.
Today's shows:
"The Roman Holidays"
"Funky Phantom"
"Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan"
Look up previous weeks' notes for detailed comments on these shows, but to summarize this weekend's episodes:
Funky Phantom
Today's episode:
The gang help out a farmer who's trying to be forced off his land by the mysterious "Raven."
Comments:
One of the earliest Scooby Doo ripoffs---with the featured sidekick being the ghost of a guy who got trapped in a grandfather clock in colonial times, IIRC. Also with him is the ghost of his cat..
More dune buggies----H-B apparently thought they were the end-all and be-all of cool vehicles for teens to tool around in---never mind that I'd figure by this point, the famed 70's "muscle cars" would've been considered "cooler" than a beach-related vehicle...
The Phantom refers to Delaware---which was the first U.S. state to ratify the Constitution, and also one of our smallest.
Ghosts can drive... who knew?
The Roman Holidays
Today's episode:
Gus has difficulties with getting his boss' new racing chariot to a race on time, including dealing with two crooks from the opposing racing team.
Comments:
As noted before, "The Roman Holidays" was created to play on the Flintstones/Jetsons motif of a 20th century style family living in another time era, this time in the Roman Empire around 64 AD (when Nero would've been emperor). As similar to the Flintsotnes/Jetsons, architect Gus Holiday and his family---wife Laurie, teenage son Happius ("Happy"), preteen daughter Precocia, and pet lion Brutus--- had various misadventures around Rome, enjoying "Ancient Rome"-style 20th century gadgets (TV's, phones---though they used chariots/horses instead of cars) and had stupid "Roman" puns (vs. stupid "rock"/"space" puns) for everything (names that ended in "-us" or the like, such as their annoying, money-grubbing landlord "Mr. Evictus" and Gus' annoying, money-grubbing boss, "Mr. Tycoonius"). And of course, everyone apparently spoke English (and made really bad use of Roman numerals---obviously someone at Hanna-Barbera slacked off in math classes in their school days)...
I'd make the argument that this show probably represents the "future" of the Flintstones' world, given their similar motifs (thus taking place chronologically (well) after what's probably chronologically the "last" Flintstones adventure, "A Flintstone Family Christmas"). There is an episode of the original Flintstones series where the Flintstones and Rubbles, via a time machine at the Bedrock World's Fair, travel into various spots in their future, first making a stop in ancient Rome. There, they made a few remarks on the clothes everyone was wearing, the guys had to deal with being thrown to the lions at the Coliseum, and then were whisked away further into the future (for the record, they visited: Columbus' voyage in 1492, Ben Franklin's kite-flying experiment in 1752, and a 20th century World's Fair). Since the Roman Empire lasted for centuries, the Flintstones and Rubbles wouldn't necessarily have visited the same year/point in time as the Holidays (unless they mentioned Nero in that episode, which I don't think they did)...
Actually regarding today's episode:
The window washer's "no place like Rome" song, of course, refers to the old song/expression "there's no place like home." (Ten seconds in, and we've already seen the first stupid "Roman" pun, folks ;-) ). Bugs Bunny, in a "Looney Tunes" cartoon, also once sang a song about "no place like Rome", along with a few lyrics about Nero and matches. :-)
"Ferrarium", of course, is yet another "Roman" pun, referring to sports car maker Ferrari.
Typical nasty cartoon boss... though there doesn't seem to be any other kind, unfortunately (yeah, the "greedy, nasty boss who treats their employees like cr*p and the employee never thinks of quitting and finding a better job or something" is a TV cliche---and pet peeve of mine...but *anyway*...).
Mercury was the ancient Roman messenger god(?), who was noted for having what would now be dubbed super-speed---hence his image being used a few thousand years later to create the Flash in the 1940's (and the FTD Florists logo :-) ). His Greek name (who the Romans "borrowed" him from) is Hermes.
Ostriches (in real life, anyway) wouldn't particularly make for an animal strong enough to carry a human and a heavy chariot---Roman police (or the equivalent thereof), like everyone else, would've used horses, as well. (The cat as siren bit was used on the Flintstones...)
Nero, as noted above, was emperor of Rome circa 65 A.D., also the approximate time Rome had a large fire (as the probably-untrue expression goes, "Nero fiddled while Rome burned"...which still gets used today to refer to someone important, such as a politician, failing to do anything while an important crisis/problem rages...).
"Naderius Ralphium"---apparently (within the Flintstones-Roman Holidays-Jetsons universe, at least) the Roman ancestor of famed consumer safety advocate Ralph Nader, who in the early 60's rose to fame for being the first to spearhead serious efforts into establishing car safety standards we now take for granted (he famously proclaimed the Chevy Corvair as a car being "unsafe at any speed"). In more recent years, of course, Nader's gained support from some leftists unsatisfied with the current state of the Democratic Party (among others) as a third party presidential candidate for the Green Party, including his famous 2000 election bid (and got blamed, probably falsely, of costing Gore the election---never mind that Gore couldn't even win his own home state of Tennessee, not to mention the hijinks in Florida...). Recently, Nader has stated he wishes to run again in the 2004 election---which has garnered criticism from various liberals, including even those who supported him in 2000, many citing that this year's election is too close to deal with the potential threat of a third party swiping votes from the Democrats' candidate...
Of course, this also means that this show was throwing in a joke obviously aimed at adults, and not children (unless kids of the early 70's were up on consumer safety issues)... something generally avoided by TV animation of this era. Wonder if the writers got chewed out for this one:
SOME HEAD HONCHO [to writers]: Listen, all of you---what's up with this Ralph Nader pun? Kids don't even know who that *is*! Heck, they probably won't even know who *Nero* is, now that I think of it... let alone whatever this "Rome on fire" stuff is about...
WRITER: Well, the other writers and I figured that as long as we're throwing in a ton of puns, it won't hurt to have a bit of fun with them. Besides, if kids are really curious, they can always ask their parents who Ralph Nader, or "Naderius Ralphium," really is... or who Nero is, for that matter, or about the "Rome on fire stuff", as you put it... you see, during Nero's reign in Rome, Rome suffered a great fire, which historians---
SOME HEAD HONCHO: *Feh.* Save me the history lesson, Mr. Peabody. Bad enough there's all these flippin' historical-reference-joke-thingamajigs in these scripts, but throwing a reference to *Nader* in... (shudders) Besides, it doesn't matter---for next season, you're all being reassigned to work on a few new shows featuring teenagers and their talking sidekicks solving mysteries and stopping world-conquering villains. (Muttering) I *knew* management greenlighting a show about ancient Rome that *didn't* have any of those elements in it was a bad idea...
WRITER: Hmph. (Starts scribbling on a piece of paper to try to come up with ideas) Maybe a show about teens and, I dunno, their sidekick a talking (glances at a "Car and Driver: Upcoming 1973 Models Reviewed")... car, or something? (The other writers nod their heads in agreement; writer starts flipping through said magazine to find a car to base on this idea...)
SOME HEAD HONCHO: Good thinking---but make it a dune buggy; kids *dig* dune buggies. (Writer starts to point to a magazine article on the newest muscle cars to prove otherwise, but decides it’s not worth arguing the point, and sighs) Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go help sort out the new primetime ad deals with Ford, Chrysler, GM, and AMC...
;-)
Back on track...
Atilla the Hun was a brutal warrior who, with his fellow Huns, invaded the already-crumbling/crumbled remains of Rome (and the Roman Empire) sometime in the 400's A.D. Thus, not someone usually associated with the Roman Empire at its high point---more of one of the many people who helped usher in the Dark Ages of Europe...
"Caesar's salad"... "when in Rome, do as the Romans do." Two "Roman" puns at once! *Plus* they worked in a reference to the theme song... Re: Precocia wishing they were Greek, since the Roman Empire encompassed Greece, including swiping much of its culture (including its gods), not sure how much of a difference there'd be...
The city of Chicago has a suburb named Cicero; not sure what the historical origin of the name is...
"Ecologus", the garbage collector, presumably refers to "ecology"; "ecology" was a fairly new word/concept still in the early 70's, as the modern environmental movement was just taking off (including such newfangled notions as "recycling," endangered species laws, and, later on in the decade with the fuel crisis, energy efficiency).
"Ben Him", of course, is a parody of the main character of author Lew Wallace's novel of the same name, Ben Hur. A lot of fictional depictions of ancient Rome seem to throw in references to Hur, as seen in the 1959 film of the same name (which in itself was a remake of a 1926 silent film epic). The "wheels grinding against each other" bit in this episode (like in other Ben Hur parodies, such as those on “The Simpsons”) also comes from the movie...
The race's stadium looks like the famed Coliseum of Rome, where many contests (gladiator fights, etc.) were held.
More bad use of Roman numerals--- "500" in Roman numerals is “D”, not "VC".
Superman's old expression---"it's a bird, it's a plane, it's Superman"---gets played upon here. Of course, the ancient Roman god Hercules (Greek name: Heracles) served as much of the basis for the Man of Steel’s creation (among other elements).
The music closing out the final scene is directly swiped from the closing scenes music heard on this show's predecessor, "The Flintstones."
The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan
Comments:
Probably the first Sat. morning show to feature Asians in a lead role---unfortunately, the characters are pretty stereotypical.
Charlie Chan was originally a detective character who starred in a series of 30's and 40's movie serials---said character being played by a Caucasian actor. The "Harvey Birdman" episode that featured Chan (and his "Clan") was mistaken about Chan's nationality---Chan was Chinese, *not* Japanese (Chan IIRC isn't even a Japanese name...).
---
Next week:
1973--- featuring “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids,” “Yogi's Gang,” and the unseen-by-me-before “Goober and the Ghost Chasers.” Yep, I'll have plenty of material to lay into these shows next week, folks. :-)