Muppet Babies started a trend

[Mo Frackle]

But here's something I wanted to bring up: Even though the pantheon of characters in the Muppets proper is a cast of thousands, MB consolidated the cast into a core group (Kermit, Piggy, Gonzo, Fozzie, Animal, Scooter, Skeeter, Rowlf), and "guest" characters (such as Bunsen & Beaker, Bean Bunny, Janice, even Robin as a tadpole in a bowl!). However, when I think about the possibility of a "revival" (not that it's ever likely to happen), it should take a cue from Baby Looney Tunes in that it should follow a "two-segments-with-a music-video-intermission" formula, and this is why:

In BLT, the segments utilize the MB "core group and 'guest' characters" concept, while the intermediate music videos (which precede the intermediate commercial break) allowed the producers to show babyfied versions of non-core characters who don't (or don't yet) fit a role within the normal segments' storyline (examples: Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Porky, Roadrunner, Coyote, Foghorn Leghorn, etc.). If a "new" MB series followed BLT's formula, I'm pretty sure we'd be able to see more Muppet Babies than ever (Swedish Chef, the rest of the Electric Mayhem, Link Hogthrob, Pepe, Walter, Clifford, Bobo, Big Mean Carl, Denise, and the list goes on and on...). What do you guys think?

This has been brought up before, but I wouldn't mind seeing someone take the "Yo Yogi" concept of mixing the ages up - the Swedish Chef could be a pizza delivery guy, Sam could be a stern babysitter, etc.

 

[Drtooth]

Haven't seen too much of "Flintstone Kids" or "Tom and Jerry Kids" (though the latter had a pretty catchy theme song). Tom Ruegger has stated in the past that "A Pup Named Scooby-Doo" was never intended to be part of the MB trend. I remember it being pretty fun - lots of meta jokes, Tex Avery style gags, and (believe it or not) full animation.

Oddly, Pup is one of my top favorite renditions of the character. That and Mystery Inc. While Scooby was on when I was a kid in syndication, I think Pup was my first major introduction to the character. Even managed to be an early self-parody of the show, and I swear whoever wrote the live action movies wrote for that version of the characters. Coolsville and Chickenstine were mentioned in the films, so it's not too farfeatched to think that way. Even if it wasn't directly inspired by MB, there's still that connection.

Flintstones Kids isn't bad, actually. It's not great, but it's not as crappy as you'd think it was. I rewatched an episode on the 80's Saturday Morning set, and I was surprised it was one of the highlights of the disk set. Then again, that's not saying much. Tom and Jerry Kids is fine. I think Tom and Jerry tales and Tom and Jerry Show 2014 were the best of the TV T&J's, but T&J Kids had its moments. Plus, their Tex Avery character based cartoons were fair. They tried, anyway. I don't think anyone besides Tex really got Droopy, as the Filmation cartoons painfully pointed out. Bot Flinstomnes Kids and T&J Kids have one volume on DVD if anyone wants to check them out.

"Baby Looney Tunes" felt lazy, as it clearly stole elements from MB. Not to mention it felt very... not-Looney Tunes. I'm surprised the producers didn't toss cutaways of stock footage into scenes.

For all the grief and crap I give Loonatics Unleashed, I have to say that compared to Looney Tunes Babies, it's a not that horrible show. The first season was crap, sure, they actually tried in season 2 with Loonatic-oid versions of Yosemite Sam, Porky Pig, Marvin the Martian, Elmer Fudd, and Sylvester and Tweety guest starring (I sadly have to say that the Porky Pig and Sylvester episodes are...gulp...worth watching). But Baby Looney Tunes is just flat out awful. As backward and detestable as it was to turn the Looney Tunes characters into generic action heroes, there was something there. Baby Looney Tunes shouldn't have been anything beyond consumer products. The personalities were watered down, unlike MB which distilled them and made them more juvenile (except for making Scooter the obligatory nerd character, but he had shades of dorkiness, just not computer geekiness). And it comes off just as a waste of June Foray as Granny, which was the only passable thing in the whole show. yet, you'd be surprised that this show has a fanbase. Just not with LT purists, but they hate everything post 50's.

The less remembered "Yo Yogi!" had some good things going for it - cameos by obscure Hanna-Barbera characters and callbacks to early HB cartoons. And I liked that not all of the characters were intended to be the same age (the main crew are apparently in their late tweens/early teens, Secret Squirrel is a little kid, others are evidently adults). But it tried too hard to be trendy.

Yogi Bear doesn't really have much going for it to screw up. Even the boring movie managed to be exactly what a Yogi Bear movie would have been like, if you take the poor casting of Ranger Smith out of the equation. I once read a Harvey comics reprint of Carlton comics Yogi stories that were unintelligible and brain hurty. But they were still Yogi. There's something about YY! that's painful in it's pathetic attempts to be hip. Snagglepuss looks like that guy from A Different World. That's painfully at the moment. But I am impressed that the recurring antagonists are two of my favorite HB characters, Muttley and Dastardly. And if there's one character that actually worked as an aged down version of themselves, it was pimply, nerdy, jerky Ranger Smith. Too bad the writing seemed to not know if it was embracing its early 90'sness or mocking it. Overall a misfire, but to be truthful, it could have been good if the writing was stronger. And the episode with Snoop and Blabber was pretty good (to Earl Kress's credit).

Then of course, there were the "and their kids" series - "Pink Panther and Sons" and "Popeye and Son" are the only two that come to mind. Would "Goof Troop" count?

PP&S had a catchy 1980s TV theme tune, mixed with the classic Panther theme. But how can you get away with making a Pink Panther series that hardly features the Panther himself? Can't remember much about "Popeye and Son," other than that Maurice LaMarche did a darn good job as Popeye.

PP&S suffers from 1980's gang of kids syndrome. Every character was a stock personality, and not even a deep one. They went on the same adventures any of those gangs of kids could have gone on (you could pretty much swap Get Allong Gang scripts with this show and it wouldn't make a difference). There were short PP segments (some used to air on THIS TV) that were...well...mediocre retreads of the better DePatie Freling cartoons. But better than the rest of the show.

All I know about Popeye and Son is that WB planned a DVD release of a single disk volume, but wisely canned it before it was released. And the fact that... well... there's this weird TV Popeye cartoon from the 60's where they come back from being out at sea and Olive Oyl got fat. It's kinda a lousy cartoon, but Bluto really likes seeing Olive the exact opposite body size she used to be. And you look at Bluto's wife in Popeye and Son and she's...well...fat. So it seems that they unintentionally referenced Bluto's one time fat fetish. Other than that I refuse to watch it, even for irony's sake.

 

[Mo Frackle]

In response to "Yo Yogi," I never understood why Hanna-Barbera made Yogi a mascot. Personally, I would have stuck with Huckleberry Hound.

 

[Drtooth]

In the case of that, Yogi essentially stole the thunder from Huckleberry, and the public responded to the bear on a level that Huck could never compete.

Anyway, to add to the list we also have Baby Felix, a Japanese co-Prodcution series that was promoted all over in the Black and White 90's Felix the cat comics. I never actually found any stations airing the cartoon and several years back only found a few DVD's at Dollar Tree. It's not bad, but it's not something wholly remarkable. It has the classic Felix 50's cartoon villains (most were missing from Twisted Tales) in their original age (even Poindexter), only Felix and his girlfriend were kids. The music, however, was ghastly.

Speaking of cats, there's also Baby Garfield which (thankfully) never amounted to more than a small trickle of garfield.com exclusive merchandise. Also a Popeye Babies that was essentially the same thing, only even skimpier.