Favorite show no one knows

[Drtooth]

I still say I have the most obscure tastes of all of y'alls...

To add to my list:

From Japan

Tensai Bakabon and Osomatsu-kun... I've been trying to spread the love of this for some time. These are two very old Animes (Osomatsu first appeared in 1966, Tensai Bakabon was like 1970 or so, but the comic came out a couple years earlier..) Basically Tensai Bakabon is a show almost EXACTLY like the Simpsons, only it came about 20 years earlier. They have the idiot dad, the idiot son (there is one difference, the son is sort of respectful) and they even have the idiot cop... and Osomatsu-Kun... think Dennis the Menace, but there's 6 of them. All identical sextuplets... and instead of grouchy old Mr. Wilson, we get mean, spiteful, and thinks he's better than he really is Iyami.

Yattaman: a series that came out in 1977, and came back as a show as recent as 2008... basically a show that the creators of Pokemon definitely watched... only with giant comedic robots instead of millions of little monster things. But the best part of the show is the villains... the Dorombo trio... and again, they were pretty much stolen for Pokemon as well. And here's a nice fact... the boss of the Dorombo gang (Dokurobe) is voiced by Junpei Takiguchi, who did the Japanese dub voice for Fraggle Rock's Uncle Matt and Philo.

USA:

I dunno... anyone ever hear of a little show called Toonsylvania? I hate that Dreamworks is pretty much just sitting on this great show. It's BEGGING for a DVD release.


Europe (specifically France)

Space Goofs... and Oggy and the Cockroaches. Very stylish, funny cartoons that we actually had on Fox Kids once upon a time in the 90's... apparently both shows had second seasons produced fairly recently. Quite a long wait, if you ask me.

Lucky Luke- I stumbled upon this 2 years ago on the Toonzone as a theaterical trailer of a great movie the US is never going to get. I tracked down these Canadian dub DVD's of the series not too long ago, and they've been a solid favorite of mine since. A tad not PC... especially an episode dealing with Chinese characters (even the Canadian dub was pretty unPC, as one voice actor even does an impersonation of Michael Palin's Chinese accent from Monty Python as one of the accents)... not too flattering to Native Americans either, but they are portayed as good guys. And of course, real historical figures get served. Billy the Kid becomes an obnoxious brat, a baby, that manages to scare everyone but Luke, and Custer becomes a Napoleonic wackjob that absolutely hates the Indians.

 

[The Shoe Fairy]

The Forgotten Toys. Nuff said.

 

[Drtooth]

The Forgotten Toys. Nuff said.

Pretty apropos name, if you ask me.

 

[The Count]

Long time since I posted here. Frankly, I forgot I even posted anything here.

1 Toonsylvania... Sigh, so much potential to just feature Dr. Victor and the Zombie Family segments.
2 Dr. Snuggles and Little Koala and David the Gnome... Sweet childhood memories.
3 Yorick, the blue creature was the Manxmouse. He encountered the ghosts when trying to find his place in the world, which led him to the Manxcat.

Some of mine... Anyone remember:
The Mysterious Cities of Gold.
Spartacus, the series that aired on Nickelodeon.
Kidd Video.
Jana of the Jungle.
Ángel, a Spanish animated series that had the feel of some of the questing series of today but had a sort of more grown-up feel to it, or at least that might've been my perception due to when it aired back in the 80's. The main story was this girl named Ángel and her talking cat companion who had to search the world over for a special seven-petaled flower where each petal was one of the seven different colors of the rainbow and each petal also emitted its own distinct color-coded fragrance.

 

[Drtooth]

Long time since I posted here. Frankly, I forgot I even posted anything here.

1 Toonsylvania... Sigh, so much potential to just feature Dr. Victor and the Zombie Family segments.

I just mentioned that one myself... one of the major reasons I hated how Fox Kids just seemed to milk the heck out of Power Rangers in the 90's. I really wish Dreamworks would just release this thing somewhere already. one of the B-movie segments would have been a good special feature on the Monsters Vs. Aliens DVD. But my absolute favorite monster show. And it must've flew under the radar as far as cartoonish violence goes.

 

[The Count]

Yeah... And to think Power Rangers is now getting the shaft, stripped down to just two episodes a week, shoved over to ABC's lineup.

BTW: Picked up a copy of Mad Monster Party on DVD from amazon for my b'day/Xmas. Hope it arrives soon. That, and the 40 Years set I ordered waaaaaaay back on November 10.

 

[GonzoLeaper]

I dunno... anyone ever hear of a little show called Toonsylvania? I hate that Dreamworks is pretty much just sitting on this great show. It's BEGGING for a DVD release.

I remember Toonsylvania- one of Steve Spielberg's projects from around 1997-8 or so, if I remember correctly. I actually ran across a VHS release of that somewhere at a thrift store recently.

I'm also familiar with The Mysterious Cities of Gold and I definitely recall Kidd Video! I loved that cartoon as a kid! I imagine the rights to all the music videos might definitely hold up any kind of DVD release. (check out www.kvflipside.org) Little Koala and David the Gnome and Dr. Snuggles- yeah, I recall most of those except for Dr. Snuggles- I've only seen that one more recently.
Those are some great '80s cartoons. There's a lot of others that I love too, for that matter.

I'm also familiar with Lucky Luke- he's incredibly famous throughout Europe, as is Asterix and Obelix- and I love those comics and cartoons and such.
And of course, Tintin- love the comics, love the cartoons and can't wait to see Steven Spielberg's movie.

 

[dwmckim]

Two of my fave shows growing up had puppets and were pretty obscure...

The first thankfully is slowly coming out of obscurity, The Hot Fudge Show. This started out as a local Detroit show that soon went into syndication. You could see a Henson influence (especially the band which seemed very Electric Mayhem-ish) but still was pretty original - in fact i would call this the all time coolest kids show that wasn't from Henson or Childrens Television Workshop. Where i lived at the time i had to get up SUPER early on the weekend to watch it which always made it seem even more like a special treat. Arte Johnson was part of the cast during its earliest incarnation but usually it was two guys, a woman and a cast of puppets. One of the coolest things is usually the adults were just as entertaining as the puppets (they did some of the best fake commercials) especially Ron Coden who was a master at physical slapstick and was able to contort his facial expressions in such a way as to resemble a live-action Wile E. Coyote. Every now and then over the years, i'll find someone else who saw and remembers it and the reaction is just about always the same - "Oh wow - that was the COOLEST show - i thought i was the only one who remembers it!" Over the last year a website, facebook page and a youtube channel has popped up giving others the chance to experience some bits of it and others to relive memories but a lot of them focus on the Larry & Seymour songs which were the least interesting bits. Hopefully some of the wackier cooler clips will get put up.

The second show however i have yet to still find ANYBODY else who saw it and google seaches still turn up nothing (actually if you do a google search now, you'll find a webshow someone is doing about Brian Hanson, son of famed puppeteer James Hanson looking over his father's puppets who of course are alive). But the show was called Puppet Tree and was a show that weirdly enough ran on the Christian station! There was a small bit of Christian content but almost minimal (like the least amount they could include to justify being a "Christian show") The show itself was just the coolest thing - hilarious sketches, characters, laugh track...including their own Crazy Harry-esque character named Comma Kazie who instead of blowing up things flew around an airplane disrupting everything, a full bodied alligator puppet named Ollie, and just a wide cast of very cool puppets and laugh out loud funny characters. There was also a panda named Gina who was kind of the lead/host that was the only puppet that was kind of boring and overly sweet. I remember writing in to them and getting a birthday card from them with a picture of Gina on the front. The show often ended with one of the female puppets (don't remember her name) feather dustering a bunch of mannequins as a voiceover announced "Puppet Tree was taped in front of an audience of...DUMMIES" at which point she accidentally tipped one over having a domino effect on the others as they fell over and the puppet was left shaking her head crumpling up her face. I would be SO impressed if i ran into anyone else who not only saw/remembers this but also has clearer memories. Oh yes - one more thing - one time during a musical number, they had the store bought hand puppets of Oscar and Cookie Monster dancing along with their original puppets!

 

[GonzoLeaper]

But the show was called Puppet Tree and was a show that weirdly enough ran on the Christian station! There was a small bit of Christian content but almost minimal (like the least amount they could include to justify being a "Christian show") The show itself was just the coolest thing - hilarious sketches, characters, laugh track...including their own Crazy Harry-esque character named Comma Kazie who instead of blowing up things flew around an airplane disrupting everything, a full bodied alligator puppet named Ollie, and just a wide cast of very cool puppets and laugh out loud funny characters.

Puppet Tree- hmm, sounds pretty cool. It seems there's been a number of Christian shows that have run in various local markets, particularly puppet shows. And it's pretty hard to find info on some of these- but a lot of these type shows seem to get lost to history and wind up being rather obscure. I loved watching Circle Square as a kid and Kids' Jamboree, both of which are Christian-themed shows that are pretty hard to find info on. (Though I finally have been able to dig up some stuff on both shows online- actually found episodes of Circle Square! TBN has also run the show some in the past. I still love watching these shows- timeless truth and fun never gets old.)

 

[dwmckim]

There's quite a bit about Circle Square out there - that show seems to have been a bit more widely circulated (and being Canadian it aired on both American and Canadian stations).

Like Hot Fudge, Puppet Tree most likely originated as a local show but was shown outside its original area (they read birthday greetings on the show and they were from various states)

I haven't even BEGUN to talk about all those great local shows i grew up with that NO ONE would know about unless they also lived in Ohio like Mindy, Superhost and Big Chuck and Little John.