Muppet Babies started a trend

[Erine81981]

The young Elephant was Colonel Hathey. The dad who had the young elephant from the "Jungle Book." I loved all those old cartoons. Loved everyone of them.

 

[McFraggle]

"Tale Spin" was a unique concept and I liked it quite a bit.

 

[lowercasegods]

The Muppet Babies also helped spawned Popeye and Son, Yo Yogi!, and Baby Popeye. Of course in Yo Yogi, Yogi bear was teenage security guard at Jellystone Mall along with his pals, Boo-Boo, Cindy, Huck & Snaggle Puss.

Thank you! I knew I wasn't imagining a Yogi Bear cartoon where they were kids! Yo, Yogi! I can finally sleep now!
And to add to this rapidly growing list, since the death of Charles Schulz in 2000, there have been several baby Snoopy and Woodstock products, from greeting cards to baby bibs.

 

[redBoobergurl]

I started thinking about this and thought of other shows that spawned cartoons, even if they weren't babies, but still similar to the Muppet Babies concept. Specifically I'm remembering that there was the real Punky Brewster show in the 80's and then there was a Punky cartoon. Does anyone else remember that cartoon? And of course, there was the Fraggle Rock cartoon. I think there may have also been an Alf cartoon, but I'm not sure. Anyway, it's just one more angle to look at the Muppet Babies trend, that it not only spawned shows about baby characters but also cartoon versions of original live action type shows. There's probably more examples of this concept as well, I just can't think of them right now.

 

[lowercasegods]

I do remember the Punky Brewster cartoon. The kids from the original TV show all came back to voice their characters, and Frank Welker voiced a magical little creature called Glomer, and always said, "Ooohhhh, Punky Friend!" Aside from Frank, the cartoon wasn't that great.

 

[GonzoLeaper]

I liked the "It's Punky Brewster" cartoon! In fact, I grew up watching that cartoon and didn't even know a live action version existed until many years later. I still haven't seen the live action version! However, when I get some money I've been wanting to get the Season DVDs for the live action Punky Brewster show, which do come with a few hours worth of the cartoon, by the way.
There definitely was the Fraggle Rock cartoon and there was actually 2 ALF cartoons. There was one just called "ALF", which revolved around Gordon Shumway's adventures of Melmac with his family and Skip and Rhonda before Melmac exploded. There was also a later series called "ALF Tales", which had ALF and family and friends acting out fairy tales. I used to watch both, as well as the original live action ALF series. They're all great.

Live action shows and movies inspiring cartoons could be a whole new category. Here's a few more I can think of off hand. The Back to the Future trilogy of movies brought a really great cartoon series called "Back to the Future". (It ran from about 1991-2 or so and did have live action segments with Christopher Lloyd as Doc and Bill Nye, the Science Guy as his assistant.)
Then there's the Teen Wolf movies and the Teen Wolf cartoon, which I used to catch some of. It's not too bad.
And of course, the 7 Police Academy movies (possibly 8 by next year) had a great Police Academy cartoon series running from about 1988 I think through the early 90s.
Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure inspired both a cartoon and live action series in the early 90s. I never saw the live action version, but I definitely remember watching the cartoon and it was quite good.
Of course, the Ghostbusters movies inspired "The Real Ghostbusters" cartoon. (I have to differentiate because there was a live action Ghostbusters show in the late 70s as well a different Ghostbusters cartoon in the early 80s. Neither one had anything to do with the 2 live action Ghostbusters movies.)

A couple of earlier examples also include "The Planet of the Apes" movies, which inspired both a 1974 live action series and a cartoon series called "Return to the Planet of the Apes" in the late 70s.

And from the Happy Days show and its spinoffs, we have the "Fonz and the Happy Days Gang" cartoon show, "Laverne and Shirley in the Army" cartoon, and a "Mork and Mindy" cartoon.

Gilligan's Island also inspired a cartoon called "Gilligan's Planet"!

I don't know if this exactly counts, but there was a cartoon in the 80s called "Bionic Six", which looks like it might have been inspired by The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman, even though neither character was actually in the cartoon.

You could also say that the Batman cartoons on in the late 60s and the newer one in 1977 were inspired by the success of the 1966-1968 live action Batman show, seeing as how Adam West and Burt Ward voiced the characters.

And of course, the "Droids", "Ewoks", and "Star Wars: Clone Wars" are all cartoons inspired from the Star Wars movies.

In 1973-1974, there was a cartoon version of Star Trek, starring most of the original voices of the original series. The cartoon was an animated version of the original series with Captain Kirk and crew.

Jim Carrey has actually had a few cartoon series inspired by his movies. One of the biggest ones would be "The Mask" cartoon, inspired by the 1994 movie "The Mask". I used to watch this cartoon some. He also had another big hit in 1994 with "Ace Ventura: Pet Detective" and there was an "Ace Ventura" cartoon series as well, right around 1994-1995. In this same time period, he had one other cartoon series made for one of his biggest hits and one of my brother's and my favorite movies, "Dumb and Dumber". The "Dumb and Dumber" cartoon was rather short-lived, but it was around for a while around 1994 and 1995.

Also, coming originally from a trading card series and a 1987 live action movie, there was also a 1988 cartoon series called "Garbage Pail Kids". I used to watch this cartoon as well, and though banned in America, it's actually not nearly as bad as you might think. It was actually quite clean (well, not too clean since they were coming out of the garbage pail and all ) and pretty funny.

I should also mention that there's been both 2 live action movies and a cartoon series of "Men in Black".

And there was also a cartoon at least somewhat inspired by the success of The A-Team. One of the main stars, Mr. T had a cartoon called "Mr. T", which featured Mr. T in live action scenes as well as a cartoon adventure of him and some kids who I think were gymnasts or something. They had lots of adventures, of course. Technically, the "Mr. T" cartoon did not feature the character of B.A. Baracus, so it wasn't a cartoon version of "The A-Team", but the "Mr. T" cartoon only came about because of the huge success of Mr. T on The A-Team.
The only other example I can think of this off hand is the Macaulay Culkin cartoon "Wish Kid", though I'm not sure that Culkin was actually in the cartoon as himself.
And then there's also the "Harlem Globetrotters" cartoon. They also met Scooby Doo three times on The Scooby Doo Movie Mysteries series.


The 1964 live action series The Addams Family also inspired both a late 1970s cartoon (there was also an episode where they met Scooby Doo and the gang on The Scooby Doo Movie Mysteries series). There was also a cartoon series for The Addams Family in the late 80s-early 90s. Somewhere in the early 90s, there was also a cartoon based on the 1988 movie Beetlejuice. There was also a cartoon version of Beethoven, based on the 1992 movie of the same name about the St. Bernard dog.

I'm sure there's probably even more than this that I've forgotten. Like the episode of "The Scooby Doo Movie Mysteries" where he met Jeannie, from "I Dream of Jeannie". I don't know that any cartoon version was done of that show, beyond that one appearance. Okay, well someone else add to the list. I've rambled on long enough now.

 

[McFraggle]

Don't forget about the time he met Batman and the Harlem Globetrotters.

 

[Beauregard]

There was also the James Bond, Jr. cartoon. I'm not sure how good it was, but apparently it was good enough to merit a Nintendo Entertainment System video game.

And there are books of Young James Bond coming out thsi year, with him at Eton.

Also, has anyone heard of Baby Einstin? I wonder if that is related to the Muppet Babies too.

 

[lowercasegods]

To Gonzoleaper: I'm impressed! You've really done your homework! On a related note, the live action Ghostbusters show that was on TV in the 70s was produced by Filmation, who also produced He-Man and She-Ra years later. That show wasn't exactly a hit, and it was mostly forgotten in the preceeding years.

Shoot ahead to 1984: The Bill Murray/Dan Akroyd comedy classic Ghostbusters hits theatres (completely unrelated to the 70s show). As the name hadn't been in use since Filmation employed it in the 70s, it served as the perfect title for this film.

Jump ahead to 1986: DIC (Inspector Gadget) plans to produce a cartoon based on the Bill Murray Ghostbusters. Filmation, whose He-Man franchise is fast losing steam, decide they can turn a buck by cashing in on The SNL Ghostbusters' fame, so they hustle out their own Ghostbusters cartoon, loosely based on their live action 70s show and more than slightly ripping off the SNL Ghostbusters. Somehow Filmation makes it to the finish line with their title before DIC can, forcing DIC to adopt the title, "The REAL Ghostbusters."

Postscript: The Real Ghostbusters ended up being a hit, lasting from '86 to '91, while Filmations' weak-kneed Ghostbusters cartoon lasted from '86 to '87, one lousy little season.

Not surprisingly, DIC is still an active animation studio today, while Filmation, to the best of my knowledge, has been defunct since the late 80s.

 

[GonzoLeaper]

Not surprisingly, DIC is still an active animation studio today, while Filmation, to the best of my knowledge, has been defunct since the late 80s.

That's unfortunate. While I love DIC animation (for providing shows like Inspector Gadget, Dennis the Menace, and The New Archies, if I'm not mistaken), I also love a lot of Filmation shows. And yeah, they did quit around the late 80s. They had some good shows like Blackstar and a bigger hit with its descendent, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe. She-Ra, Princess of Power soon followed. They probably did some other good ones too, but one of my favorites by Filmation was their last one, which was Bravestarr, which ended by 1987. 1988 saw the Bravestarr: The Legend movie (I think this was in theaters) and then that was the end of Filmation.