This week's Tuesday's Overlooked TV is the 1980 television special The Fantastic Funnies.
Airing on May 15, 1980 on CBS, this hour-long special showcased the most popular newspaper comic strips of the 20th century up to that time, many of them in animated form, some for the first time. The special was hosted by Loni Anderson with a special guest appearance by her WKRP in Cincinati co-star Howard Hessman in character as Dr. Johnny Fever.
I was going to write more at length about this special, but another blogger has already done so, and better than I could have done it (what a shock). Charles Brubaker of the animation blog Cartoon Research wrote a great article about the special, and you can read it here. Great stuff!
I will, however, provide the entire special right here, courtesy of the online Museum of Classic Chicago Television. I remember seeing this special live when it first aired, as I loved both cartoons and comic strips. Enjoy!
3 comments:
I remember watching this when it originally aired. I loved the funnies as we called them. And seeing the characters in animated form was a treat for me at the time. There was a Saturday morning version of this, although I'm not sure if it was a spin-off or otherwise. I don't recall the name (not Archie's TV Funnies, that was earlier. This would have been around 1980).
Tom, you're thinking of The Fabulous Funnies (1978-79, NBC). Similar in format to your aforementioned Archie show, it was produced by the same studio - Filmation - but the segments were used to teach moral lessons and values.
Thanks, James. Glad I'm not the only one that remembers that show. Moral lessons and values? Must be Saturday morning in the late 1970's.
Post a Comment