The Biden administration is not the only great new thing in 2021. MeTV has revived the tradition of Saturday morning cartoons with a three-hour block of Popeye, Tom and Jerry, and Bugs Bunny. The nostalgic network also has a Monday-through-Friday one hour show called Toon In with Me featuring animated shorts from all three buckets spanning several decades. There's a host (Bill the cartoon curator) and a puppet (Toonie the Tuna) as well as two supporting players performing bits in between the cartoons.
The series evoked memories of my childhood Saturday mornings when the three broadcast networks ran cartoon programming from 7AM to 1PM. Of course, we watched every moment in our pajamas starting with Bugs Bunny reruns on ABC until the horrible Kukla, Fran and Ollie live-action foreign film festival on CBS at about 1PM. Then we had to do our homework or get out of the house, one or the other. This was in the late 1960s. The shows and their schedules have overlapped in my memory, but the clearest ones were the super-heroes. This was the era of the cultural dominance of the prime-time Batman series so there were a slew of super-powered good guys, often satirically portrayed. Here's a rundown of my favorite shows of this genre:
Frankenstein Jr and The Impossibles
I've written about this series in previous blogs, but it still remains a favorite. Combining the superhero craze of the late 60s with the pop-rock fad, the Impossibles were a mop-top teen singing trio who are also secretly super-heroes--Fluid Man, Multi Man and Coil Man. Though how they acquired their powers and their real identities are never explained, it hardly matters. Every episode featured the guys at a gig being interrupted by their chief, Big D, giving them a crimefighting assignment. The main joy was the insane super villains they encountered each week such as Mother Gruesome, Televisitron, The Twister, The Spinner, Smogula, Dr. Futuro, Crunella Critch the Creepy Witch, etc.
I've written about this series in previous blogs, but it still remains a favorite. Combining the superhero craze of the late 60s with the pop-rock fad, the Impossibles were a mop-top teen singing trio who are also secretly super-heroes--Fluid Man, Multi Man and Coil Man. Though how they acquired their powers and their real identities are never explained, it hardly matters. Every episode featured the guys at a gig being interrupted by their chief, Big D, giving them a crimefighting assignment. The main joy was the insane super villains they encountered each week such as Mother Gruesome, Televisitron, The Twister, The Spinner, Smogula, Dr. Futuro, Crunella Critch the Creepy Witch, etc.
Frankenstein Jr. was a giant robot invented by annoyingly precocious boy scientist Buzz Conroy. Together the duo faced a similar slew of diabolical law breakers. I always preferred the Impossibles who got two episodes per week to Frankie and Buzz's one. But I have grown to appreciate the futuristic background of the latter series.
The Mighty Heroes
A quintet of goofball superheroes who served as part of the Mighty Mouse series. StrongMan, 
TornadoMan, RopeMan, DiaperMan (a baby who sounded like Popeye), and CuckooMan (it was not entirely clear what this klutz could do other than flap his arms to fly) would meet a different villain each week, trip over themselves, go into a cliffhanger type trap, pull together at the last minute, and then defeat the crook who usually had a name with a verb and an -er attached the end. Examples included the Shrinker, the Drifter, the Junker, the Enlarger, etc. The quintet showed up many years later on Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, a satiric reboot by Ralph Bakshi. In this 1990s edition, the Mighty Heroes are accountants, corralling a herd of renegade digits.
TornadoMan, RopeMan, DiaperMan (a baby who sounded like Popeye), and CuckooMan (it was not entirely clear what this klutz could do other than flap his arms to fly) would meet a different villain each week, trip over themselves, go into a cliffhanger type trap, pull together at the last minute, and then defeat the crook who usually had a name with a verb and an -er attached the end. Examples included the Shrinker, the Drifter, the Junker, the Enlarger, etc. The quintet showed up many years later on Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, a satiric reboot by Ralph Bakshi. In this 1990s edition, the Mighty Heroes are accountants, corralling a herd of renegade digits.
Super Six
Another comedy skewering of the long-underwear crowd. The premise involved a Superhero employment agency housed in what looks like a fleabag hotel atop a mountain of neon, sending out its employees on 
various missions dispensed by a cigar chomping dispatcher. The main character is Super Bwoing, an apprentice superhero who rides his guitar like a flying surfboard and speaks like Rich Little doing a Jimmy Stewart impression. The other segment starred a rotating cast of the other five, more competent protagonists--Super Scuba (voiced by Arte Johnson sounding like Dean Martin), Magneto Man (Cary Grant), Granite Man (a living statue), Elevator Man (like Elasti-Girl, he can grow to the size of a giant or shrink like the Atom), and Capt. Whammo. Sandwiched in between was a weird comedy segment featuring the Brothers Matzoriley, a three-headed character, each representing a different stereotype (Brooklyn hothouse, whimpering weakling and thick-accented Asian). The main distinction was the theme song warbled by Gary Lewis (Jerry's son) and his group The Playboys.
various missions dispensed by a cigar chomping dispatcher. The main character is Super Bwoing, an apprentice superhero who rides his guitar like a flying surfboard and speaks like Rich Little doing a Jimmy Stewart impression. The other segment starred a rotating cast of the other five, more competent protagonists--Super Scuba (voiced by Arte Johnson sounding like Dean Martin), Magneto Man (Cary Grant), Granite Man (a living statue), Elevator Man (like Elasti-Girl, he can grow to the size of a giant or shrink like the Atom), and Capt. Whammo. Sandwiched in between was a weird comedy segment featuring the Brothers Matzoriley, a three-headed character, each representing a different stereotype (Brooklyn hothouse, whimpering weakling and thick-accented Asian). The main distinction was the theme song warbled by Gary Lewis (Jerry's son) and his group The Playboys.
Birdman and the Galaxy Trio
A few years ago I bought the DVD of this complete series at a used book store in Philly for $7. I wrote a blog about the show at the time and recently dug the DVD up for a second look. (Link to the old blog) NBC ran this Hanna Barbera series featuring an avian superhero with sun-fueled superpowers and a trio of intergalactic law enforcers. Birdman and his pet hawk Avenger fought evil at the behest of Falcon 7, a suave spy chief sporting an eye patch (maybe he was pals with Big D). The Galaxy Trio, consisting of Meteor Man, Gravity Girl and Vapor Man, righted wrongs in a futuristic outer-space milieu. Star Trek was on then and probably served as an inspiration. Meteor Man (the voice of Ted Cassidy, Lurch from the Addams Family) had pointed ears like Spock, need I say more. And speaking of voices, Birdman's voice was so deep, manly and sexy I thought James Earl Jones had provided it. But it turns out the actor supplying Birdman's pipes was Keith Andes, a Broadway singer with a muscular frame who appeared shirtless on Star Trek as a primitive alien and as a swoon-worthy neighbor to Lucy Carmichael on the Lucy Show. He had co-starred with Lucy in her Broadway musical Wildcat.
Superchicken
One of three recurring segments from the hilarious George of the Jungle series from Jay Ward Studios which was also responsible for such animation comedy legends as Rocky and Bullwinkle, Hoppity Hooper, and commercials for Cap'n Crunch, Quisp and Quake. Here's a link to an earlier blog on that show. (Sidenote: I have been obsessing about these cereals lately, probably because I've been trying to lose weight gained during the pandemic and crave the sugary breakfast treats of my childhood. Maybe I will do a separate blog on cereals.) Super Chicken was the funniest superhero parody cartoon of all time in my humble opinion. The titular fowl is secretly Henry Cabot Henhouse III who, after consuming his Super Sauce in a martini glass, becomes a super-powered chicken. With his faithful companion Fred, a lion in a red sweatshirt with no pants, Super Chicken fights a never ending battle against such villains as the Muscle, the Geezer, Merlin Brando (who lives on the Isle of Lucy), and a giant raging toupee. The other segments were George of the Jungle, muscular clumsy goofball, and Tom Slick, race car driver and all-around good guy. This series had an adult sensibility, didn't talk down to its kiddie audience, and thus holds up today.
More to come in Part II
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