Saturday Supercade: Donkey Kong, "How Much Is That Gorilla in the Window"

The Super Mario Brothers Movie is majorly cleaning up at box offices worldwide. It's been the number one movie for three weeks in a row and has quickly become one of the biggest animated movies of all time. But this isn't the first time Mario has appeared in animated form. Far from it! His first animated appearance was 40 years ago!

Saturday Supercade was a Saturday morning cartoon show that appeared on CBS from the fall of 1983 to the spring of 1985. The program consisted of several animated shorts featuring various popular video game characters. Donkey Kong led off each hour, and like the video game, featured the gorilla Donkey Kong racing off with Mario's girlfriend Pauline, with Mario himself in hot pursuit.

In honor of the new movie, I present the OG animated Mario for historical purposes. Please note that these cartoons weren't actually good, but I feature it today anyway just to show how far Mario has come.

Enjoy!

Adventures of Superman First Two Radio Episodes

 

Welcome back!

Today has been the 85th anniversary of the release of Action Comics #1, the very first Superman comic! In honor of Big Blue's big anniversary, I present the first two episodes of The Adventures of Superman, the radio series that really made Superman a part of American pop culture.

The era of old time radio is getting farther and farther away from the present more and more, and I believe reminding people of this era of entertainment and mass media is important, as it affected American culture long before TV did. And the importance of the Superman radio show to the character's methos can't be understated. The show was huge! So much so that two significant parts of Superman's legend, Jimmy Olsen and kryptonite, originated not in the comics, but on radio.

Here I present the first two episodes of the series. Surprisingly, as much as I love both superheroes and old time radio, I've listened to very little of this series. I hope this article inspires me to listen to more. I hope it inspires you too.

Enjoy!

Will Vinton's Claymation Easter (1990)

Hello! I hope everyone is enjoying Spring so far, and if you celebrate Passover or Easter, have a happy and blessed one!

I'm keeping it quick with my presenation of the 1990 animated special Will Vinton's Claymation Easter. I've posted other Vinton specials before, but this was unknown to me until a week or so ago. Thanks to my Twitter friend Sammy Hain for the heads-up!

Enjoy!