Obscure cartoons of the past

[jekylljuice]

I vaguely remember Bump in the Night - it was featured in Sky One's early morning line up back in the late 90s. It was a claymation show, right? About this little green monster who lived under a bed and whose girlfriend was a rag doll? And they always ended every episode with a music video made from clips of previous episodes? I can't say I remember a great deal about the plots, but one which does stand out involved a slice of toast falling behind the microwave and getting mutated into a ravenous monster. Yeah, it was wierd.

Speaking of obscure cartoons, does anyone here remember Avenger Penguins? I thought not.

[Ccook50]

Ah, you did indeed. My bad.

Some live shows from when I was a kid included:
The Magic Land Of Allakazam
The Shari Lewis Show
Video Village Jr. (a kids' edition of CBS's weekday game show)
Shenanigans (revival of Video Village Jr.)
Mr. Mayor (a one-season replacement on Saturdays for Captain Kangaroo)
Lunch With Soupy Sales
Sky King
My Friend Flicka
The Roy Rogers Show

[AerostarMonk]

They had a Schnookums and Meat Marathon on Toon Disney just last month actually.

I'm glad someone else remembers Mad Jack the Pirate. That was one of the funniest shows I've ever seen as a kid. It was filled with a dry humor that just wasn't the thing for kids at the time.

And Bone Chillers, I loved that one season wonder a bunch. It had a cool theme song, and excellent episodes, such as Frankenturkey, where the main characters try to cobble together a replacement turkey so the Thanksgiving mascot won't be slaughtered.

Speaking of old shows, anyone remember Ghostwriter?

[Ccook50]

Originally Posted by jekylljuice

I vaguely remember Bump in the Night - it was featured in Sky One's early morning line up back in the late 90s. It was a claymation show, right? About this little green monster who lived under a bed and whose girlfriend was a rag doll? And they always ended every episode with a music video made from clips of previous episodes? I can't say I remember a great deal about the plots, but one which does stand out involved a slice of toast falling behind the microwave and getting mutated into a ravenous monster. Yeah, it was wierd.

Speaking of obscure cartoons, does anyone here remember Avenger Penguins? I thought not.

Bump In The Night aired here in the States on the ABC network. The characters had been used the year before on ABC's "we'll be right back" bumpers.

The star character was Mr. Bumpy, his pal was Squishington, and the sweet rag doll was Molly Coddle.

[AerostarMonk]

When I think of Bump in the Night I think of that show and a long forgotten Halloween special set in New Orleans. It only aired once back in the 90s, and no one remembers it, I can't find a trace of it. It had this actor that reminded me of Kyle Chandler and was about an evil spirit in the form of a giant green ghost baby running rampant during Mardi Gras. It aired on NBC in either '96 or '97.

[Ccook50]

Originally Posted by Mr. Marshmallow

Schnookums and Meat was a sort of a variety cartoon show, it showed up in the Disney afternoon (and eventually "killed it" due to it's bizarre and more adult style humor). It followed an orange cat and a blue dog that beat the crap out of each other Tom and Jerry style, and had 2 other cartoon shows.

The other was the excellent Pith Possum series following a moronic superhero possum which reminded me of Ren and Stimpy, and Tex Avery a LONG running cowboy show loaded with weird jokes and characters.

Actually, the cowboy figure in this series was Tex Tinstar. Tex Avery in real life was the famous cartoon maker for Warners and MGM; in cartoon form he was the star of DIC's The Wacky World Of Tex Avery in 1997.

[AerostarMonk]

Thanks a lot, Ccook, I almost went the rest of my life without remembering that show. If only there were a way to bury Genghis and Khannie, Pompeii Pete and Power Pooch forever.

[Mr. Marshmallow]

Bump in the night was a fantastically awesome show, I loved it. They had it on ABC and aired it along the likes of Super Human Samurai Syber Squad, Tales from the Crypt keeper, and SATam Sonic the hedgehog. The show also had a super strict robot named Destructo and a Closet monster made out of clothes.

I still have some episodes of it taped, my favorite was "Made in Japan" where Squishington (the blue blob) got a really cute, tiny, robot from a cereal box and it had a heart on its chest. Only every time he turned around or took his eye off the bot, it changed into a super buff scary looking robot that freaked him out.

I actually don't recall the Halloween episode at all but I DO recall their Christmas special "Twas the Night before Bumpy" (which I own on tape still), Mr. Bumpy was traveling around the world to find Santa's sleigh so he could have all the toys for himself. Sorry about mixing up the "Tex" names, Tinstar is the right one.

Bone Chillers I truly loved because it was a comedic horror show that was not aimed to be scary as Goosebumps yet had WAY COOLER monsters and costumes then Goosebumps. Frankenturkey was definitely one of the best, I also loved the first episode with the haunted sketchpad that brought things to life.

Another good one was the episode with Mr. Stump, the plant monster gardener and the buggy lunch lady who grew maggots inside of people through her food. Mad Jack is actually one of the more recent toons that I remember vividly, see when I recall a show I recall EVERYTHING that was on.

Fox at that time was airing Oggy and the cockroaches, Spy Dogs, Godzilla: the series, and the short lived Mr. Potato head show around the same time as Mad Jack. Mad Jack was a much more adult toon, it was similar to Ren and Stimpy where the humor was so weird and yet so smart it worked on many levels.

The dialog was especially genius. I remember this line especially:

"I am your conscience"

"My con what? I'm not good with new words"

"How can you leave that poor soul back there?"

"Well it's very simple really I simply walked out and left, and now i am going back to my ship where I'll turn my crews skulls into attractive candle holders and"

"But he was your friend"

"Fre, fre, I'm sorry, these new words are really throwing me"

[jekylljuice]

I'm curious - does anybody else here remember a Hanna-Barbera cartoon called Monster Tails? I haven't seen a trace of it since the early 90s, but I have fairly vivid memories of this show nonetheless and would positively leap at the opportunity to see it again. I believe that it was originally broadcast as a segment on the early morning variety programme, Wake, Rattle and Roll, alongside Fender Bender 500 (a recycled version of the Wacky Races), but I seem to remember it also being shown independently at one point in the UK. There seems to be very little information available about it online, and I've yet to see anybody post so much a tiny clip from this show over on You Tube. Plus, I'm guessing a DVD release some time in the future would be totally out of the question.

To maybe jog your memories a little, Monster Tails followed the misadventures of a group of domesticated animals who resided in a Transylvanian mansion with Igor's son, Igor Jr, whilst their owners - each a renowned horror icon - were off in Hollywood making movies. Each pet shared in some of the characteristics and monstrous abilities of their masters. Dr. Veenie is obviously my favourite, since he was Dr. Jekyll's dog (and he constantly had to contend with his own psychotic alter ego, Mr. Snyde), and there was also Franken-Mutt, faithful undead companion to Frankenstein's monster (though what very little information there is online seems to be divided as to whether his name was Franken-Mutt or Franken-Hound), Elsa, the Bride of Frankenstein's animal counterpart (who actually consisted of a parrot's brain transplanted into a dog's body, so I'm honestly not certain which species she should be classified as), Catula, Dracula's vampire kitty, high-strung mummified canine Mumfrey, and finally Angel, who was voiced by our own Candi Milo, a phantasmal goldfish belonging to the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

I've no doubt whatsoever that if I ever do get to see it again, it'll inevitably turn out to be one of those shows that isn't nearly as good as I remember it being, but then I really don't care either way. In theory the basic concept will always be awesome, and much of the stuff about who each of the animals was modelled upon went completely over my head at that age, and it's only with hindsight that I've been able to piece most things together. On top of which, I believe that the Veenie-Snyde dynamic was my very first introduction to the spell-binding world of Jekyll and Hyde - I owe it to this cartoon to give it my time if I ever come across it again.

[Subzeroace]

Stickin' Around was awesome, as was Bump in the Night. I remember that even after YTV stoped showing BitN they would still show the X-mas special XD I remember decorating the tree while watching it XD