Drawn Or Alive #6: The Addams Family VS The Addams Family VS The Addams Family VS The Addams Family

It's a monster sized edition of Drawn Or Alive as four seperate branches of The Addams Family jostle for rightful inheritance to their creator's legacy! The first live-action adaptation from 1964, and the first screen version to boot, dances a deadly tango with Hanna Barbera's 1973 effort, the dearly beloved movie from 1991 and the second go from ol' HB inspired by that same movie in 1992. It's a family feud like no other; they may all be Addams, but only one gets the seat at the head of the table!

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Drawn Or Alive #3: Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure VS Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures

Joseph Wade crams into our booth to travel to the parallel timelines of the Bill & Ted live-action film franchise and their 1990 animated TV spin-off. Featuring most of the principal cast from the movies and produced under the watchful eye of the man responsible for CatDog, will the lads pass this history test in a most triumphant manner? Or be forever remembered as a most heinous episode? And that's before we even broach the subject of the Bad Live-Action Us-es from 1992! It'll all make sense by the end of the story dudes!

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Show #196: Scooby Doo On Zombie Island

Anthony Askew braves our dread waters on a moonlit Halloween night in search of his faithful old dog who's still got a few tricks left in him! For a direct-to-video movie with no great weight of expectation on it Scooby Doo On Zombie Island sure did push the boat out in terms of doing much more exciting things with the Mystery Inc gang after decades of rehashes had inured audiences to their schtick, and is credited with revitalising the franchise as a whole. Was it the witty self-awareness? The monster butts? Was Terror Time really THAT good of a song? Our investigation proceeds after the link, within which we can also share the Halloween treats of our Post-Podcaste Repaste!

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Show #181: Drawn Or Alive! The Phil Silvers Show VS Top Cat

We've finally got the Let's Go Gang together for their most important case yet! Brian Smith joins us for another new format wherein we examine the transformative nature of live-action titles into animation or vice-versa and discover what is gained, lost or irrevocably changed in the process. To start with we look at one of the more notorious examples of a cartoon "homaging"a popular live sitcom, as Hanna Barbera was often wont to do, when Phil Silvers and his famous Sergeant Bilko persona are pitted against his hand-drawn doppleganger Top Cat. Plots, punchlines and even players are shared between the two but only one will make it out, DRAWN OR ALIVE!

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Show #132: Space Ghost Coast To Coast

It's a star studded spectacular as we are joined by special guests Joseph Wade and Libby Cudmore for a special late night talk show on Space Ghost Coast to Coast!

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While we are saddened by the recent passing of an intregal creative talent to this cult classic, we also take this opportunity to celebrate and appreciate how this cobbled together Frankenstein of a TV show made for the spare change in your back pocket somehow went on to touch the hearts & minds of millions of insomniacs around the globe, not to mention opening the floodgates for Adult Swim and a whole host of other surreally humourous late night cartoons and providing a surprising shared cultural touchstone for our weird adolescences.

Joseph's Twitter

Libby's Twitter

Watch Space Ghost Coast To Coast here!

THE SHORT VERSION

Special guests

Format pioneers

The sublimely ridiculous

Show #121: Jonny Quest (1964)

The warm weather has arrived so you know what that means; a theme we'll actually try and see out to the end as we kick off the Boys of Summer with Jonny Quest!

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Who would have thought Hanna Barbera would be ahead of the curve by producing a primetime animation series that wasn't a straight comedy (now don't that sound familiar?), packaging familiar stories within an appealing and distinctive style. Limited in animation and cultural sensitivity but triumphant in design, atmosphere and soundtrack, the fact it is still both celebrated and satirised to this day is evidence of its impact.

THE SHORT VERSION

Scientific investigations

Cultural portrayals

You said it Bandit!

Show #108: Fish Police

Dredged up from the deep after being fed to the sharks many years ago, we investigate the strange case of Fish Police.

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A pretender to the 90s prime time cartoon throne (held in that era in an iron grip by The Simpsons) Fish Police sounds good on paper, an adaptation of Steve Moncuse's bizarre comic with a prestigious cast including John Ritter, Buddy Hackett and Megan Mulally. The execution is sorely lacking though; too dumb for an older audience with lame humour and stale plotlines and grossly unsuitable for younger viewers, laced with sexual innuendo and other mature content. In attempting to be for everybody it was a show for nobody, only notable now for being a fascinating artifact of animation from the time.

THE SHORT VERSION

Hard-bitten carps

Fish fatales

An all shar(k) cast! (Forgive me...)

Show #107: The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo

That most blessed of holidays is upon us and we get into the Halloween spirit with a most horrifying chapter of a long running franchise, The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo!

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For our first foray into the venerable annals of Scooby Doo we picked a more obscure offering that sounds great on paper; beloved actor Vincent Price is a wizard helping the gang capture some runaway revenants. However the transition to actual ghostbusting does not fit so well for the mystery solving teens, already hamstrung by a roster of repulsive replacements dealing out gags that were stale a decade before the show came out and essentially doing away with most of what makes Scooby Doo work in the first place. Vincent Price deserved a better class of cartoon than this, a terrifying apparition that will curse one with nightmares on these late October evenings!

THE SHORT VERSION

Scooby skits

Too good for this show

Scrappy Doo ver. 2.0

Show #71: I'll Have To Engage PCP Power

Anthony Askew of Dynamite In The Brain is coming up fast to join us for a few laps of the way out Wacky Races!

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Wacky Races has quite the cultural footprint but besides that it's a pretty okay cartoon. It's a Hanna Barbera show so what do you expect? On this viewing we find ourselves siding with supposed villains Dick Dastardly and Muttley and pondering how they wound up in this silly situation. We spin a yarn of Cold War defection, organised crime and corruption that may not actually be true but is still a lot of fun to talk about!

Anthony's Twitter

THE SHORT VERSION

War heroes

Useful gadgets

Dirty rotten cheaters

Show #47: He Is A Sad Clown

 

Brian Smith of Dynamite In The Brain makes his triumphant return to talk about the totally decent Completely Mental Misadventures Of Ed Grimley.

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Springing forth from SCTV and Saturday Night Live comes this cartoon adaptation of the bizarre and ever upbeat character made famous by Martin Short. What it lacks in good animation (courtesy of Hanna Barbera) it makes up for in excellent writing and performances from Short himself and many of his colleagues from the world of comedy, along with a most welcome habit of veering off into strange and frequently hilarious territory. It is quite good, I mean how can you say it's not?

Brian's Twitter

Brian's Website

THE SHORT VERSION

An innocent man

Explaining it all to you

Weekdays at 3!

Show #27: The Gospel Of Mr T

We're back from the grave after yet another spot of bother. Some dastardly crooks (i.e, the dudes who kept not delivering Dwayne's computer charger) were up to no good. Can Mr T and the gang solve the mystery of The Secret Of The Sailor Madness?

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When you ask the guys who made Scooby Doo to create a cartoon for you odds are it's gonna involve mystery solving teens, and sure enough that happens here. But mystery solving teens led by Mr T? That might have legs Joe! Wretched animation and a quickly worn out premise do the show no favours, but getting to watch cartoon Mr T beat up on smugglers / ghost pirates / Panthermen and live action Mr T dispense his worldly wisdom provides some amusing novelty for a little while.

THE SHORT VERSION

Cartoon Mr T ain't nobody to mess with!

A daring escape

A man of the people

Show #24: NO LITTLE ROK

Fighting caveman crime in a not-so-future time, we delve into the exploits of the ridiculously overpowered Hanna Barbera superhero Mighty Mightor!

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What of the good old days? A simpler time when men were men, or Vulturemen or Tigermen or Abominable Snow Men. When cartoon studios could get away with severely restricted animation and recycled plots because them kids don't know any better. Good riddance to those days, but Mightor gets an A for effort from us if only for Alex Toth's design work and the possibilities of these characters and setting in the right hands.

THE SHORT VERSION

Hang in there baby

Discover agriculture already you lazy Vultureman

Sometimes you just gotta be a dick

Show #23: GET ME CHOPPER BACKUP

We're feeling the need, the need for speed this week as we jet off with the heroic aces of Hanna Barbera's Swat Kats: The Radical Squadron!

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Another show on the roster of The Funtastic World of Hanna Barbera (and unfortunately another cartoon sealed within the Warner Archive Collection), we were a bit apprehensive to return to this concentrated shot of 90s animated action. Our luck holds once again though as Swat Kats arrives loaded with great artistry and animation and some stellar performances from the voice cast. Half-remembered images from your youth can come up trumps once in a while!

THE SHORT VERSION

The worst kind of backup.

Collateral Damage

You're alright Cybertron.

Show #21: AT LEAST YOU'D BE ALIVE

A podcast episode cut down in it's prime! Nevertheless we will relay to you the saga of part two of Using Corps Figures As Proxy For Brand Name Toys, aka Sky Commanders!

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In what should have been a joyous occasion we instead mark the consignment of Sky Commanders to the Warner Archives Collection never to be seen again by non-American eyes. But then again were you REALLY after an 80's cartoon about heroic mountaineering experts? If so then this is the podcast for you!

THE SHORT VERSION

In Loving Memory...

Defective Equipment

Behind those shades are the eyes of a killer

Show #4: You Gotta Push The Lasers Birdman!

On this installment we delve into the vaults of Hanna Barbera to bring you the solar powered exploits of that hero, patriot and serial arsonist, the one and only BIRDMAN! We're sorry this post is so late by the way. We were out of the sun for too long!


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More well known for it's parody series Harvey Birdman: Attorney At Law, the original Birdman series is best taken in small doses lest you succumb to the inherent stupidity/insanity of it's plotlines. Nonetheless this cartoon is good for a bit of harmless fun every once in a while and to admire it's often nifty character designs & funky music.

THE SHORT VERSION

                                             Birdman & Avenger, chillin' at the Bird Lair

                                                        Falcon 7, a suave dude

                                         Number One, with the facial hair of leadership