With a nod of the hat toward past editions of “Saturday Morning Cartoon!” by Neverbot AKA Cassidy Ward, I’ve chosen to go back to the beloved ducks of Disney with “Darkwing Duck”. Cassidy was covering Fantasy Con in Salt Lake City for Big Shiny Robot so I told him I’d go over one of my favorite cartoons from the 90’s.

Neverbot was fully aware of the character of Darkwing Duck from “Duck Tales”. He covered the pilot to “Duck Tales” in a previous “Saturday Morning Cartoon!” you can find here. Well, as we were talking, I said I’d like to talk about the daffy do-gooder because on the “Darkwing Duck” he’d also team up with Launchpad and everyone’s favorite super-hero Iron Duck, Gizmo-duck. Neverbot got a little schooling in the cartoon that got three seasons and a really fun video game. I found the first episode on Youtube and dove in with glee. Re-watching it nearly 20 years later was a fun and nostalgic time. So, with my youth in mind, let’s get to the episode titled “Darkly Dawns the Duck” before I get even older.

The episode starts in the city of St. Canard where Darkwing Duck, the struggling hero, is dropping off a bad guy at the local police station. He is a great hero but he can’t catch the media break he is wanting. This hero has some vanity issues but that’s what makes him so much fun. His alter ego, we will later find out, is Drake Mallard, but not quite yet we won’t.

When he makes his way back to his secret base we find that he tests out his ninja skills while making breakfast. The cartoon is certainly slapstick comedy, but it’s also a bit of the good ol’ silly humor as well because Darkwing Duck wears his mask to bed! As he drifts off to sleep, Darkwing Duck just wants a super-villain he can test his mettle against. 

Queue the big ugly bad guy who is an enormous cartoon bull. His name is Taurus Bulba. Taurus is already in prison but he runs the crime in the city like the Kingpin from Marvel Comics. The bull sends his minions out on a mission and before the warden can get wise to what’s going on, the crime bosses’ elaborate board room turns into a prison cell.

That’s where Darkwing duck comes in as he is foiling a robbery that previous minion is committing. The henchmen are trying to steal some military weaponry and Darkwing Duck aims to stop them. More slapstick ensues with Looney Toons kind of bodily damage. After nearly foiling the robbery, Darkwing Duck meets Launchpad McQuack who just so happens to be a pilot. Launchpad is a huge fan and becomes DW’s defacto sidekick. Launchpad also coins the nickname DW, which will stick for the remainder of the series.

The two aren’t able to quite save the day but they manage to stop the plot long enough for the weapons inventor to end up dying before giving up the secret code that makes the weapon work. That professor has a granddaughter named Gosalyn though, and DW saves her just in the nick of time.

The rest of the episode is worth your time because Darkwing and Gosalyn grow close together. After all, the little duckling is now an orphan and Drake Mallard could use a tech smart sidekick in addition to his goofy and accident prone pilot Launchpad.

What’s more, there is some wonderful voice talent behind the pilot episode and the series as a whole. Jim Cummings voices Darkwing Duck but he’s also been known for work on Winnie the Pooh, and as the Tasmanian Devil. Launchpad is voiced by legendary actor Terry McGovern and the star that steals the show is the voice of the evil Taurus by Tim Curry.

The show is reminiscent of “Duck Tales”, it has episodes with Launchpad and Gizmoduck and it’s the duck version of The Batman combined with a bit of Daredevil for good measure. It’s a laugh riot for the young and a trip down memory lane for the older crowd. It’s perfect for any Saturday morning be it 20 years ago or next week. 

For more nostalgic looks at cartoons from the past, check out last week’s “Saturday Morning Cartoon!” right here. If you have a suggestion for a future cartoon, let Neverbot know on Twitter @CassidyWard.

Image from http://darkwingduckfirstcollectiondvd.blogspot.com/

Today we’re taking a trip to the Neitherworld, a place inhabited by ghouls and ghosts a plenty, including a particular ghost with the most, “Beetlejuice.”

The “Beetlejuice” animated series is based (loosely) on the 1988 film of the same name, though it resembles its inspiration only in aesthetics. The themes and relationships are watered down or changed altogether in order to make the show palatable for kids. In the film, Beetlejuice was an unstable element interested in carnal pleasures. In the series he trades in his more lewd behaviors for harmless insanity and a BFF type relationship with Lydia. The character of Lydia is more bubbly and adventurous than in the film but still remains “strange and unusual.” Together they find adventure each episode either in the Neitherworld or the real.

The pilot episode, “Critter Sitters,” finds Beetlejuice with two main problems. First that it is almost his (totally platonic) anniversary with Lydia and he needs to get her a gift but has no money, the second being that he can’t seem to control his transformations. If he expresses his feelings vocally, he will transform to physically match it. If he says he feels as strong as an ox, then he becomes an ox, etc.

Lydia suggests he get the transformation problem looked at but of course he declines, meanwhile Lydia must return to the real world where she has a job babysitting for two dollars an hour. Beetlejuice sees dollar signs in his future and an opportunity to get a gift for his best friend and decides to babysit as well.

Despite the fact that he has supposedly been alive for hundreds of years, Beetlejuice apparently doesn’t know what babysitting actually is and attempts to literally sit on the children, that is until a giant baby, bigger than house, arrives.

Speaking of the children, isn’t the Neitherworld inhabited entirely by the deceased? Where do these children come from? Are they families that died together? Are they dead babies that are being raised by monsters, or other random dead people? Do they ever grow up? What the Neitherworld is going on here?!

BeetleJ’s experience babysitting his three monstrous babies is juxtaposed against Lydia’s experience with one human baby, needless to say, she is having a better time of it. Bjuice appears to Lydia in a mirror asking for help, Lydia quickly makes her way to the Neitherworld with the neighbors’ human baby in tow… for God knows why.

After a quick explanation as to what babysitting actually entails, Beetlejuice lets out a sigh of relief saying “I feel like a kid again.” *POOF!* baby Beetlejuice. Now Lydia is stuck in the Neitherworld with a human baby, three monster babies (including a giant remember) and an infant version of dead Michael Keaton.

The group ends up at a mall and essentially destroy it, Lydia is occupied making sure the human baby doesn’t suffer some injury that would give it permanent residence in the Neitherworld. After a while Lydia snaps at Beetlejuice asking “Will you grow up?!” baby BJ repeats “Me grow up.” Voila, he’s back to *normal*, just in time for the police to arrive and take him away. His previous record as resident mischief maker he is quickly convicted and sentenced to execution by sandworm, basically because they are just tired of his shit.

Don’t ask me how you execute someone who’s already dead either.

Lydia arrives in the courtroom and comes to Beetlejuice’s defense. A really bad musical number ensues as Beetlejuice tries, and fails, to explain his intentions. With a little help from the babies, he is rescued from the sandworms but not before Arlo, the human baby falls into the sandworm world.

Beetlejuice falls through the hole with Arlo and locks up in the presence of a sandworm, resigned to his fate. Until Lydia calls him on his bullshit and pep talks him until he gets off his ass and decides to not just sit there and let a baby die. This spontaneous act of selflessness wins Beetlejuice his freedom.

Though the series differs from the film significantly, it still allows for exploration of some interesting ideas as the series progresses. All things considered it was a good cartoon, especially at the time of its release. Plus, at least it wasn’t “Beetlejuice Goes Hawaiian.”

Image by OpalLynn on DeviantART (account deactivated)

Today I watched “Legend of the Hawaiian Slammers” written by Jeffrey Scott. There is only one episode (at least that I could find) released in 1994, and it seems to be a vehicle for selling more Pogs. Remember Pogs? If you’re one of our younger readers you may not know, Pogs were little flat cardboard circles and we played a game wherein you used a slammer (a slightly larger/heavier flat circle) to flip the cardboard circles over. Looking back on it I don’t quite understand why I loved it so much but I did. Maybe it was the collecting aspect, or the fact that every other kid was doing it, mass hysteria, government experiments, who knows. Or maybe, Pogs became popular because gods called “Slammers” who had been sealed in a stone chamber inside a volcano have been shifted and are awakening… who’s to say, it could have been anything.

See, the show doesn’t really have anything to do with Pogs. Yes, there are gods called “Slammers” and yes the kid uses some of his sweet Pogs skills to save the day, it all just felt so forced and out of place, but what did I really expect from a one episode cartoon designed specifically to sell paper circles.

A suspicious looking man cuts open an ancient artifact, he finds a metal disk inside and after dropping it (totally incompetent) he awakens the evil Shadow Slammer and goes in search of the other nine Slammers in order to control the world.

After blowing up part of a volcano to get to the second Slammer (more incompetence) the volcano erupts sending the Slammer away. A child stumbles across it, literally, and pries it from the stone. He too accidentally awakens the Slammer (acceptable incompetence considering he’s a child) and they begin their own search to find the others before the big bad guy can get his hands on them.

Will they save the day? Will they find the Slammers before their adversary or will the five Slammers of Light and the five Slammers of Darkness be awakened, sparking another 100 battle over the Earth? Tune in, and find out.

I’m going to go get more Fruity Pebbles. 

I vaguely remember watching Mummies Alive in middle school. It was never something that I was in love with but I would catch it whenever it was on. In the days before Netflix and such widespread internet usage you sort of watched what was on. That being said, my revisit to Mummies Alive was pleasant. Aside from some bad puns (which might be required material for most kids cartoons) it was pretty well done and there wasn’t as much to poke fun at as I expected. So this might be a slight departure from the usual “Neverbot’s Make Fun Of Old Cartoons Hour”.

But only slightly.

Mummies Alive aired for one season starting in 1997, there were 42 episodes, which seems like a lot for one season. But they were asleep for 3500 years and apparently had a lot to say.

Ep. 1 Ra. Ra. Ra.

Nutshell: The big bad guy is Scarab a.k.a. Mr. Stone when he needs to appear human and interact with folks. He moved a few truckloads of Egyptian artifacts including mummies and sarcophagi to a museum in order to attract the reincarnated Prince Rapses. Presley (Rapses) is unwittingly drawn to it as he has no memory of his former life. Scarab shows up to capture him and the mummies awaken to defend the prince. There are four mummies in total; Ja-kal, Rath, Armon, and Nefer-Tina.

Oh and Prince Rapses dead cat. Kahti.

Let’s begin.

The setup: two men arrive at a tomb in Egypt. One is an explorer type, the other seems to be a guide. The explore begins to read a warning inscribed on the tomb. “Woe to him who breaks the seal for he-” He’s cut short when the door opens. He steps inside and see a bunch of markings but they aren’t glyps, they are hash marks. As if someone has been counting days. Was someone imprisoned inside? Yes… yes, they were. Suddenly a nefarious looking character appears, makes some ominous noises and then attacks.

Cut to modern day, two kids (Presley and friend) are skateboarding around town. You know how kids love their skateboards. One of them takes off down the street being reckless and such and the other follows. They arrive outside of a giant Sphinx, the museum where Presley’s mom is working on an Egypt exhibit, hence the giant Sphinx (for the slow).

Mom is busy so Presley goes to find a snack. When he hears an ominous sound strangely reminiscent of the big bad guy in the tomb. Is it the same dude? Again yes, we’re dealing with 90’s kids cartoons. If you think something ties together it most probably does. Herman Melville didn’t write Mummies Alive. Sorry.

The ominous tone is followed soon after by a clear voice saying “come back to me my son”. But don’t be fooled. It’s not Presley’s dead dad from eons past. It’s that jerk with Egyptian OCD.

Presley proceeds to wander through the exhibit alone looking for the voice. Cause that’s what you should do when you discover you’re being watched by persons unknown when ancient artifacts are involved. Didn’t this kid see any move ever?

Presley wanders into a room with many Egyptian artifacts, including mummies and sarcophagi. Suddenly he begins to glow. Radiation poisoning? Nope, ancient magic!

A statue comes to life and attacks him. I just knew this was going to happen. I mean, didn’t you? Presley hides in a sarcophagus but it’s thrown open a moment later and standing above him as that OCD jerk with a Vader-esque breathing problem. Though I suppose three thousand years in a tomb is sufficient reason to have severe asthma.
Scarab grabs the boy and intends to take his revenge for being entombed for 3500 years by the Presley’s father.

WITH THE STRENGTH OF RA!

Four mummies appear, combine with spirits and become kick ass corpse warriors. Each of the mummies combines powers with an Egyptian god and acquires cool armor enhancements. Ja-kal combines with the falcon, Rath with the snake, Armon with the ram, and Nefer takes the power of the cat. To be clear, the power of the cat gives her sharp claws and the ability to rock a whip, not just the ability to lick her own back and be condescending, which is what my cat does. Armon is missing his right arm but when combining with the ram and with the strength of Ra he gets a gold replacement arm which he proceeds to hit things with.

A fight ensues, you guessed it, good guys win, bad guy runs away. Er… rather, flies away through a newly made hole in the roof. Presley insists they have to get out of there as there is no way he can explain any of this to his mother.

The mummies throw the cat through the hole in the ceiling and use a dangling piece of his wrapping as a rope. I’m not sure exactly how much animal spirit armor enhancements weigh so I couldn’t do an exact calculation but I think it’s safe to say that must be some industrial strength toilet paper they used to wrap the cat.

Once the boy is safe outside they transform back into your every day garden variety mummy. You know, to be less suspicious looking. Just kidding that’s not the reason why. They explain that they use magic to beef up but that the magic gets sleepy or something and they have to rest in their sarcophagi to recharge.

At this point they go back to Presley’s house and realize that Nefer is in fact Nefer-tina. They never knew she was a girl. I don’t know how, it was totally obvious. Eyeball decay… maybe.

Mr Stone arrives at the museum and demands that the artifacts be sent back to Egypt. The museum protests but he offers ten million dollars to settle the dispute. This obviously causes a problem for the mummies. With their sarcophagi sent back to Egypt they won’t be able to recharge their magic and will apparently die… again.

Everything is being loaded into a truck and when the mummies and Presley realize the problem they make chase in a horseless chariot (car… that they steal) powered by magic. Nefer-Tina drives… badly. She almost kills a kid. When she swerves to avoid hitting him she tosses the other three mummies out of the car. They run and catch up and everyone learns a valuable lesson about wearing seatbelts. Safety first kids.

The mummies leap out of the car and onto the truck like four dead James Bond’s. Presley gets out of the car and sees Scarab flying after them. The truck gets stopped by the police who turns out to be a dark magic powered crony. Scarab catches up and demands that the truck be destroyed along with everything inside. That’s when Presley catches up.

Scarab attempts to capture Presley, not knowing his protectors are in the truck.

WITH THE STRENGTH OF RA! Again.

“Let’s kick Tut.” They say this. Because Tut rhymes with butt. Get it!

The bad guys focus their energy on destroying the truck. Destroy the truck and you destroy the mummies. One of the mummies attempts to drive the truck away and the fight moves to the trucks rooftop. After a few moments only Presley and Scarab are left on the roof, it seems like Presley is toast but he’s saved by a low hanging overpass. Thank Ra!

Scarab vows to destroy the mummies even if he has to shatter the world to do it. Standard bad guy stuff. The mummies take Presley home and promise to be close by as it is their duty to protect their prince.

You can watch the first episode below or if you’re sucked in, follow the videos to the YouTube channel and it looks like every episode is there. It’s even put into a playlist that plays automatically so you don’t have to stop eating your snacks.

Cheers.

Part One

Part Two

Part Three

Hammer Man ran for thirteen episodes in 1991 and tells the story of Stanley (Hammer Man) saving the day with dance, rap, and magic shoes.

One of my favorite things about terrible eighties and nineties cartoons is their terrible eighties and nineties theme songs. There’s a sort of guilty pleasure in these cartoons and the theme songs have it in concentrated form.

Hammerman, Hammer,
Hammerman, Hammer.
Whenever there’s a crime,
Some crooks are gonna do time.
They all better beware,
‘Cause the Hammerman will be there.

Here’s how it started,
Along time ago.
The legend of the Hammer,
And how it began to grow.

I’m sorry, I couldn’t help myself. Returning you to your regulary schedule theme song lyrics

He was given magical shoes,
From a hip-hop mo-town dude.
Together they had power,
They stood up for what was right.
But Gramps was getting old,
And he couldn’t keep up the fight.
RIGHT!
So Gramps and his granddaughter,
They went out on the road
To find the man they knew could tell
Who was worthy of the load.
They met a guy named Stanley
Who was dancing every night.
He helped the kids play everyday,
His heart was out of sight.
So Gramps opened up the bag,
And took out the magical shoes.
He set them on the ground
And they soon began to groove.
The shoes knew at once,
They had finally found their man,
They hopped right on his feet,
And he became Hammerman,
Hammerman, Hammer,
Hammerman, Hammer,
Hammerman, Hammer,
Hammerman, Hammer.
Oh Yeah!

Let’s not talk about the terrible animation, it’s bad, and get right into the terrible story and writing.

Disclaimer: While it may seem like I’m hating on this cartoon, in truth I’m not. It’s the thing that makes old cartoons so fun, how terrible they are. Looking back, almost nothing holds up. Nothing looks as good as it did through the beer goggles of bad taste and naivety we had as young children. It’s best just to embrace it for what it was and try to recapture a glimpse of the happiness it brought you when you were a kid. If everyone takes a deep breath and calms down for a minute it’s really not that hard, let’s have some fun.

Usually you expect the first episode of something to be an origin of sorts. Hammer Man takes care of that in the theme song and jumps right into the action.

A little girl, her grandpa, and some neighborhood folks are having a dance party in the street. This is the little girl and grandpa mentioned in the theme song. Grandpa clearly has some dancing skills left over from his days as Soul Man, the original wearer and bearer of the shoes power.

A fire engine flies by on it’s way to a burning library, the little girl (Jodie) and Gramps cut their dance party short to help. Jodie provides the concern while Gramps provides quips like “It’s burning hotter than James Brown on opening night!”

It almost immediately feels like it’s trying to hard, but I can’t tell if that’s just a feature of the nineties.

A woman screams for help from within the burning building and climbs out onto a horizontal flag pole in an attempt to escape the flames.

Suddenly two backup dancers appear. They show up several times throughout the episode in matching nineties hip hop outfits. They provide absolutely no help or public service at all. I’m surprised the townsfolk put up with them.

“We need the Hammer. OooOoooOooo look.” they say… and OooOoooOooo look indeed! Hammer Man is here!

Hammer appears atop a building and floats to the rescue using his trademark parachute pants, and the power of music like some kind of hip hop Mary Poppins. He then begins dancing and rapping in the street.

The power of his music animates a water tower which walks toward the library and puts out the fire. The day is saved by Hammer Man! Or so we think. Cue ominous tones.

Cut to- Jodie working on a painting when a pipe bursts, ruining it. She tries to get the attention of several people including Stanley (Hammer Man) but no one has any time because of the leak. She runs away like an overdramatic little girl, which is appropriate because she is indeed an overdramatic little girl.

Jodie runs into a friend of hers spraying “Joker” on a city wall. He offers to let Jodi try. At first she declines but we all know that as powerful as dance is, the real power is in peer pressure. Jodie’s so called friend taunts her and accuses her of being unable to draw. Jodie just can’t abide that kind of insult so she takes the can and begins a painting of some flames.

Underground a sinister looking man watches the events.
He turns to his dimwitted lackey and asks him to start making a batch of Marmisters’s Malicious Multicolored Mayhem Making Paint Potion.

Marmister approaches Jodi and says he’s from the Mayor’s office and they want help beautifying the city with murals. She responds to the positive attention for her painting.

Marmister puts a coat of his Malicious Multicolored Mayhem Making Paint Potion on Jodi’s flame painting and it comes to life. Holy smokes!

Cut to- the shoes playing Go Fish inside a locker.
Stanley arrives to retrieve them and become Hammer Man.
Stanley mixes up his bag with an identical one and misplaces the shoes.
When he reaches for the shoes instead he finds, a sandwich.
Whatever will we do!?

Without his shoes and their powers, Stanley is captured by the evil Marmister and chained to the wall where he begins psychoanalyzing the villain.

“Marmister, you’re just doing this because you had an unhappy childhood. Wanna talk about it?”
But Marmister doesn’t want to talk about it, he likes being bad.

The giant animate flame painting arrives with a remix of Marmisters paint potion and begins spraying Stanley. The potion begins to slowly change him into a painting.

Marmister leaves and sprays every piece of graffiti he can find, creating a living two dimensional army and instructs them to steal, plunder, and make scary noises.

The kids are running out of paint so Jodi goes to find Marmister and get more.
She sees the Joker tag running around in the shape of a dinosaur and knows she was conned by Marmister.
Jodi goes to get Grandpa and they begin to search for Stanley.

They find Stanley and restore him to his normal three dimensional self. Oh thank heavens!

Stanley retrieves his bag, jumps into the shoes and becomes Hammer Man

If you thought you were getting out of this episode without hearing Can’t Touch This… you were wrong. It’s the soundtrack to the entire ending fight sequence.

Marmister kidnaps Jodie and threatens to turn her into a painting. While the villain is monologue-ing Jodie paints a police officer on the wall and brings it to life effectively stopping Marmister.

Let’s not even talk about the wanton disregard for the rights and feelings of the many apparently sentient life forms brought in and out of existence by a villain, a child, and a dancing hero. I’m sure it’s all fine.

Hammer appears at the end with a PSA. He tells the kids that tagging other people’s property is illegal and wrong. So next time you want to make some art, do it on a piece of paper. Who knows, some day you may end up drawing a cartoon like Hammer Man….. And in 20 years I’ll write a piece about how terrible it is, and also how wonderful.

If you want to watch this episode of Hammer Man for yourself you can do so by clicking the videos below from top to bottom. 

Note: The only video I could find is highly annotated. You’ll want to go into settings and turn off annotations, unless you’re into that sort of thing.

Cheers.