Wayback Weekend: A Random Mix
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Socialists Charles Schulz and Al Vermeer, Walt Kelly and Jim Henson – Pogo and Muppets, Al Brodax animates The Beatles for TV, Wild Takes Animated by Tex Avery and others, and The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles – the comic strip.
Peanuts, Priscilla’s Pop Push Progressivist Propaganda
George Boardman, PhD, was telling the world that there was a problem with socialist propaganda on America’s funnies page, and he had not one but two examples to prove it. The first example?
Take a look at this line: “Where else can a little kid like me just walk in and for absolutely nothing be allowed to borrow a book like this one about Sam Snead?” The final balloon encloses this. “You’re right. Libraries are wonderful”.
You may recognize this. I sure did. That’s the April 25, 1963 Peanuts strip. That’s life-long Republican Charles Schulz they’re slamming that propagandist label on. The big Socialist evil being promoted on our comics page? It’s not legendary golfer Sam Snead. It’s libraries.
Nat Gertler stumbled upon a 1963 syndicated column by George Boardman accusing comic strips with a socialist agenda, with explicit references to comic strips by Charles M. Schulz and Al Vermeer.
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Jim Henson’s Muppets cover a Walt Kelly song.
Joseph Nebus digs up a Muppets Show segment featuring a cover from the Songs Of The Pogo:
The collection Songs Of The Pogo was released on CD in the early part of this century. So you can hear his circa 1960 vision for how these songs would go. I’m looking particularly at “Don’t Sugar Me”, a breakup song that appeared a couple times in the strip or as spot art pages in collections.
These depictions usually showed a mouse in a teacup, likely for the cuteness of it. And that cuteness was picked up on by Jim Henson’s team when they made The Muppet Show.
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More animated music –
The Story of The Beatles Cartoons & Why You Can Only Get them as Bootlegs
Broadcast for three seasons between 1965 and 1968, The Beatles cartoons entertained a generation of kids who grew up on Saturday morning cartoons in The States. Although never shown in the UK, it was not only made by a UK animation studio but was also voiced by one of Britain’s best known comedy actors of the 1960s. In this video, we’ll trace its history from concept to cancellation and find out why you can’t watch it today.
Andrew at Parlogram tells the history of the groundbreaking animated series The Beatles of the mid-1960s and why it is not available as an authorized video collection.
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A Thrilling Tour Through The History Of Wild Takes In Animation
Get ready to have your eyes pop out of your skull, because today we’re taking a look at some of the great wild takes throughout animation history.
First, some context: a ‘take’ refers to a character in a film visibly reacting to something. There are several variations on this, including the double-take (where a character has a delayed reaction) and the spit-take (where a character spits out their drink). The wild take, on the other hand, goes beyond reality by having characters’ eyes inflate like balloons, their jaws stretch out like rubber, or any other extraordinary visual concept the animator can devise.
Vincent Alexander at Cartoon Brew gives us an animated look at The Cartoon Take, featuring Disney, Walter Lantz, Hanna & Barbera, Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones, Jim Tyer, Ralph Bakshi, Richard Williams, and others including, of course, Tex Avery.
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The Story of the TMNT Comic Strip
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles have had countless comic books over the years, with their published adventures and adventures in general beginning exactly 40 years ago. This led to the creation of a popular 1987 cartoon, which cemented the terrapin quartet as a pop culture phenomenon. It also spawned several divergent continuities and spinoffs, including a comic strip.
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic strip was indicative of the era. It portrays the four turtles as being too cool for school while eating pizza and beating the Foot Clan. Running as a daily strip for years showcases just how popular the TMNT had gotten in less than a decade. Though it’s now long forgotten and hard to come by, this comic strip bore several similarities to other, far more prominent versions of the property.
Timothy Blake Donohoo at CBR relates the comic strip history of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
While the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic strip was popular enough to last for nearly seven years, the series has yet to be collected in its entirety. This isn’t necessarily uncommon for comic strips, especially ones from several years ago.
If the He-Man comic strip can be collected, why not the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic strip?
And when are we going to get a complete collection and creator index of The Simpsons comic strip?
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