The long running era of the Saturday morning cartoon has officially ended, but no one can stop you from fulfilling your true weekend calling. Cartoons and Saturday mornings were made for each other and no one can tell us otherwise. It is to that end that we maintain vigil, bringing you animated selections each Saturday morning until the internet dies, or until we run out, good thing there’s always reruns.
“TaleSpin” Episode 1.1 “Plunder and Lightning” (7 out of 10) Created by Jymn Magon and Mark Zaslove; Directed by Larry Latham and Robert Taylor; Written by Alan Burnett, Len Uhley, and Mark Zaslove; Starring Charles Adler, Don Karnage, Pat Fraley, Ed Gilbert, Tony Jay, Sally Struthers, R.J. Williams, and Frank Welker; Originally aired September 7, 1990.
The pilot for “TaleSpin” originally aired as a two hour theatrical movie entitled “Plunder and Lightning.” Later it was broken down and aired on television as four half hour episodes, after which the series continued in regular episodic format.
“TaleSpin” takes recognizable characters from the Disney animated classic “Jungle Book” and reimagines them in the more modernized setting of Cape Suzette, a seafront community inhabited by cargo pilots and sky pirates. In addition to familiar characters including Baloo, Louie, and Shere Khan, new characters where created to fill out the cast. The most notable additions are Kit Cloudkicker, an adventurous youth known for his penchant to surf the skies, Rebecca Cunningham, the proprietor of “Higher for Hire” and Baloo’s employer, and finally Don Karnage, the series’ primary villain and, leader of a group of sky pirates and pilot of the Iron Vulture.
“Plunder and Lightning” sets the stage, introducing us to the characters and their relationships. The young Kit infiltrates Don Karnage and liberates a treasure chest before leaping into the air and hitchhiking behind an unsuspecting plane on his boomerang shaped cloud surfer. He then befriends Baloo, which entangles him in Kit’s trouble with Karnage as well as provides a possible solution to Baloo’s own personal problem.
Baloo needs a large sum of money to satisfy the bank or else have his plane, the Sea Duck, repossessed. With his livelihood at risk, Baloo agrees to help Kit keep the treasure out of the hands of Don Karnage unaware Karnage’s plans to use the jewel to power a lightning gun that would allow him to take control of Cape Suzette.
“TaleSpin” had a total of 65 episodes that originally aired from 1990 to 1991, reruns continued to air on The Disney Afternoon through most of 1994. In 1995 “TaleSpin” was moved to Disney’s Block Party along with “Darkwing Duck, DuckTales, and Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers.” Reruns continued to air in some format on Disney with brief hiatuses through 2008.
It’s also responsible for my continued disappointment in the lack of boomerang style expandable cloud surfers. You can watch the first part of “Plunder and Lightning” below.