Fun Friday: "Let It Go," 80s-TV Style

Sometimes I wonder who has time on their hands to find clips and edit them into such things, but then I remember the kinds of things I did when I was 14-15. Granted, the internet was much younger then, but I spent hours upon hours building fan pages for Gummi Bears, Labyrinth, and other popular culture topics I can't even remember anymore. Of course, this was all on one of those AOL Hometown pages that bit the dust back in 2008, but, alongside SimTower, it was what I did for fun, backed up on 3.5" disks.

Digression aside, Jim Cliff has posted a video on YouTube with 60+ clips of 80s television shows spliced together to make out the lyrics to Frozen's "Let it Go." (a song which will, apparently, never actually go away.) It's done pretty well, and I laughed at multiple points, so thought you might get a kick out of it, too.
I'm not going to list all of the series I noticed, but keep an eye out for some greatness like Three's Company, Saved by the Bell, Cheers, ALF, Perfect Strangers, the original Beauty and the Beast, Knight Rider, Who's the Boss, The Cosby Show, The Wonder Years, DuckTales, M*A*S*H, Roseanne, and Dallas. Do you have favorite parts in this mash-up?

Throwback: Favorite Cartoons

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

Since Comic-Con officially starts today, I thought that I'd do a throwback that features some of my favorite cartoons. And not just those from childhood, either. I totally watched cartoons through high school, haha.Sure, I still catch them on Netflix every now and then, but I haven't regularly followed any (not counting The Simpsons and South Park, since they're not geared toward children anyway) regularly in years.

My mom tells me that I had a Rainbow Brite obsession as soon as I could discern specific programs on television. I remember renting a few at the video store when I was learning to read, but I honestly can't remember watching the show on regular television. I still love Rainbow Brite, and will be rocking a shirt from the show tomorrow! (Today is my Marvel shirt. of course.)

Now, my very favorite from elementary school: ThunderCats. You better believe that I was the only girl in the first grade rocking a ThunderCats lunchbox and thermos! I loved that show, from how cute Snarf was to how cool it looked when Cheetara ran to the Rober-Berbles and how neat it was to have robot pandas around. Mumm-ra was a pretty scary bad guy, but I thought he was unique.

Next, the cartoons that I watched religiously after school as part of the Disney Afternoon years: Gummi Bears, TaleSpin, and Chip 'n Dale's Rescue Rangers. As I've probably mentioned before, Rescue Rangers was what we talked about at snack time in Kindergarten, so I had to be up the latest adventures of Chip, Dale, Monty, Gadget, and Zipper! FatCat was my favorite villain, though Nimnul ran a close second! I thought that the storyline for Gummi Bears was just fabulous, and the characters were quite lovable. With TaleSpin, it was simply the characters. I thought that Don Carnage was a hilarious bad guy, and the idea of "cloud-kicking" blew my mind. The storylines were a bit outrageous (I wasn't the best at allowing myself to have a willing suspension of disbelief as a child) and wrapped themselves up all too quickly, but how could you not love Wildcat, Baloo, Molly, Kit, and the others?

And, on the weekends as a youngin', Foofur and Punky Brewster were my Saturday Morning Cartoons of choice. As a kid who was deathly afraid of dogs, the idea that a bunch of canines lived together (along with Fencer the cat and a few rats) with no real owner was amusing. The constant hiding from the realtor was funny to me, and I just remember laughing at the show all the time. With Punky, I think it was Glomer who first sucked me in. He seemed like such a cool "pet" and I had a fascination with magical creatures and the world of fun that they could create for someone. Sure, Punky and her friends were cool, but Glomer, he was amazing! 

Middle school was pretty simple for me... Rugrats and Doug. I was new to having Nickelodeon, and those two shows were big hits with me and my siblings. While everything that the rugrats ever did was pretty unbelievable, I adored their ability to teach about other cultures and holidays, and thought that the writing was great. Doug was quite a bit more believable (well, not the fact that people were blue, haha), and I thought that most of the secondary characters were well-written and developed... like Judy, Connie, and Mr. Dink. I'll even admit that I actually liked the Disney episodes of The Brand-Spankin' New Doug, which wasn't a hit with a lot of other people. I thought that aging the kids a year did a lot for the show and the way they handled the situations that were faced.

In high school my favorites included The Weekenders, Teacher's Pet, Recess, and Pepper Ann. The first two were Saturday morning shows, the latter two were afterschool shows (though they began on Saturdays, of course). I've written about a few of these before, but in a nutshell, it was the characters that kept me coming back. In The Weekenders, the cast was pretty small, so it was easy to latch on to each of the four, and understand where they were coming from and what they were doing. With Teacher's Pet, the idea that a dog went to school was pretty intriguing, but the fact that his teacher was also his owner (and she didn't realize who the dog was) baffled me to the point that I just couldn't stop watching, waiting for the day that she discovered the truth. My fourth grade wasn't like Recess in any way (we didn't even have cliques yet), but the storylines were incredibly believable to me, and the roles that the kids took in each scheme just made sense. Similarly, although I couldn't directly relate to Pepper Ann, I just "got" the show and her interactions with other characters was just moving for me. 

My college cartoon was totally As Told by Ginger, which I just thought was written well. There were a bunch of characters, the storylines were more pre-teen/teen-oriented, and the depiction of social life at school was a little more believable than a lot of other shows. Plus, there was a special where they went to camp, and I spent two of my summer during college working at a resident camp, so that held a special place in my heart. 

I know you're dying to share... what have your favorite cartoons been throughout life??

Magic in Television

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

Okay, so I've been sitting on the idea for this one for six months or so. I really enjoy a bit of magic here and there, and there are a bunch of shows with magic in them, to varying degrees. Of course, there are several out there that I've never seen that I understand contain some magic (like Heroes), but today I focus on some of my favorites. And, that's why I only have six in today's list, instead of my typical ten. While I could include things like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, Powerpuff Girls, and The Wizards of Waverly Place, I've never enjoyed those shows at all, so I can't say I've admired their use of magic... only that i know of it. So I am especially interested to hear what your favorite shows that have magic are, since they may very well be some that I'm not covering!

6. I Dream of Jeannie. I actually find this show to be pretty boring, every time I try to give it another chance. I'm not the biggest fan of Jeannie calling Major Nelson "master" and the ongoing romantic tension bothered me. However, Jeannie crossing her arms, nodding head, and blinking her eyes to make things happen was cool, and I enjoyed her genie costume as well.

5. Jonny Quest. Only one magical character on the show, but I enjoyed watching him when I was a kid! Hadji was an eleven-year-old orphan from India who could levitate things, hypnotize people, and charm snakes, among other abilities. His powers come from being the seventh son of a seventh son (I know, The Dark is Rising much?), and he's normally wearing a jeweled turban... which is what I thought gave him powers when I was little, LoL!

4. The Addams Family. The magical powers in this one are a little different. Gomez can do quick complicated math and some acrobatics, Morticia can light candles with her finger, Uncle Fester is electric, Lurch and Wednesday are super-strong, Pugsley is acrobatic, and Thing can teleport. It's a random assortment of powers, but they're certainly magic... or at least supernatural!

3. Gummi Bears. Zummi was the main "wizard" in this show, but the gummiberry juice itself was rather magical, which was a secret recipe that Sonni and Grammi know. It gives the bears bouncing abilities, but gives humans super strength. Zummi's spells help out as often as they backfire, but he works on gaining a greater understanding of the species' collected knowledge. Sometimes other magical beings showed up, too.

2. Sabrina, the Teenage Witch.  I enjoyed this show as a teenager. It kinda lost me in the later years (I wasn't ready to watch shows about college kids for the most part, though it was uber-mature material or anything), but it definitely added to my Friday nights. I love Melissa Joan Hart, and her work as a witch-in-training was great. Her powers sometimes had amusing consequences, but she definitely honed her skill as time went on. There were some great magical moments from other characters as well.

1. Bewitched. I think that an important part of this show is that we see both "good" and "evil" magic. Samantha primarily uses her powers for the greater good, whether it be helping her husband in his career or cleaning the house. Her mother, Endora, however, usually uses her abilities to make an idiot out of Darrin or sabotage mortals in some way.

So, your picks?

Favorite Episodes: Adventures of the Gummi Bears

by Amy K. Bredemeyer

...dashing and daring, courageous and caring. Faithful and friendly with stories to share...

I was a big fan of the whole "Disney Afternoon" concept. Coming home from school and having an hour or two of great cartoons to watch was awesome. And it gave great incentive to finish my homework in 15 minutes so I'd be done when the fun started! Similarly, I also loved Disney's "One Too" when they did this a decade later.

"Disney Afternoon" had several shows on it, and most rotated on and off (like Bonkers wasn't always there, and neither was Darkwing Duck). My two favorites were The Adventures of the Gummi Bears and Chip n Dale's Rescue Rangers, and both were really stapled for many kids my age. In fact, even in Kindergarten my tablemates and I would talk about yesterday's Rescue Rangers or TaleSpin during snacktime.

I just thought Gummi Bears was so clever! What a fantastic world, great adaptations from our time, neat drawings...

It's a little different choosing favorites from this show. See, about half of the "half-hour" shows were actually 2 separate episodes, just 11 minutes or so each. So a favorite short versus a favorite pair becomes an issue. The difference in the number of episodes produced in a specific season also varies widely... from 8 to 20 (not considering doubles). But, I chose single storylines as favorites, if that makes sense...

Season 1: "The Secret of the Juice" (S01E09). Grammi tries to teach Sunni how to make the secret gummiberry juice, but she's not really that interested. As one might expect, Gramm gets kidnapped and the guys go off to rescue her, but they need more juice, so Sunni has to figure it out. Part 1 | Part 2

Season 2: "Up, Up, and Away" (S02E01). Cubbi wants to become a knight. A new gummi, Chummi, shows up, looking for the Great Gummis. He's disappointed they're not there, so he continues on his search. Cubbi, however, wants to go with him so he can do some knight training. He has to decide that he'd rather stay in Gummi Glen.
Part 1 (no part 2 that I could find) Part 3

Season 3: "The Knights of Gummadoon" (S03E07). Cavin and Cubbi are out walking when they decide to snoop on some voices. Everyone else comes looking for Cubbi when it gets really late. They all discover Gummadoon, which only appears once every hundred years. I love the mythology of it (which is covered at the very beginning of the episode), LoL. Oh, and Cavin is imprisoned, plus Duke Egthorn plans to capture the castle. The gummi bears are really busy. :-p The only clips online are in foreign languages, but if you just put in the title of the episode, you can find it in that version if you like.

Season 4: "Girl's Knight Out" (S04E08). King Gregor wants Calla to have a bodyguard. She doesn't think she needs one, so she dresses like a man to enter the competition taking place to see who would be the best bodyguard for her. AND, she does really well and gets to take care of herself. Watch it here.

Season 5: "Road to Ursalia" (S05E02). Gruffi accidentally burns the Great Book of Gummis, and sets out to find another one. He ends up having to help another gummi, Thornberry, save Ursalia from Lady Bane. Watch it here.

Season 6: "Rocking Chair Bear" (S06E16). Lady Bane is getting old. In order to stay eternally young, she steals some of Sunni's hair. This makes Sunni get really old rather quickly, so the gummis help her. Part 1 (middle part missing) Part 3