I'm Feeling Really Animated Today!

So sorry, Trekkies Trekkers, if you thought this post would be all about Star Trek: The Animated Series. I'm only using the photo above as a launching point.  I do, though, recall seeing this program as a kid and thinking "WTF?" Why doesn't Lt. Uhura truly look the way I remembered her? And who in the hell are those aliens in uniform? The show, as a matter of fact, despite some rudimentary animation, is pretty well regarded by many fans thanks to its use of adept writers (and the voices of most of the original show's cast.)  As you'll soon see, this was far from the only instance of a popular prime-time series being tweaked into a Saturday morning cartoon. See if you remember these doozies as we work our way through a bushel-full of examples...

Do these people look familiar to you? But for some well-placed freckles on the youngest boy and sausage curls on the girl, there people could be practically anybody!

Debuting in 1972, while the parent show (so to speak!) The Brady Bunch was still airing, The Brady Kids focused solely on those six rascals who were by now working on music in addition to their light family comedy.

Parents Mike and Carol, along with helpful housekeeper Alice, were nowhere to be found. Picking up the slack were a dog called Mop Top and a bird named Marlon, who's also a wizard! (Hello, 1972...) Marlon was voiced by Larry Storch, who also provided most other male guest voices.

With a magician bird in their midst, misadventures were inevitable. Many of the animation elements were closely copied/lifted from a prior Filmation Studios show, The Archie Show, with other bits culled from Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.

The Kids with their cartoon counterparts. For the first 17-episode season, the actual performers voiced their roles on the show. Three of them (Barry Williams, Maureen McCormick & Christopher Knight) balked when asked to extend their contract to 5 more in order to meet the minimum needed for syndication packaging so they were voiced by fill-ins. (Greg and Marcia were voiced by the children of one of Filmation's founders!)

While The Brady Bunch had been a popular enough show in its day, it really was the (endless!) reruns that truly cemented it in the public's consciousness. Syndicated reruns were all the rage in the 1970s (this also helped to make Star Trek even more enduring.) Another show that was in heavy rotation in its day was the 1960s sitcom My Favorite Martian, with Bill Bixby and Ray Walston, seen above.

Thus, 1973 brought a cartoon update, My Favorite Martians. This time, Walston's character had a young nephew with him who only had one antenna and as a result doesn't possess the same level of power as his Martian uncle. An antenna-ed Martian pet, Okey, was also on hand.

The generational (not to mention extraterrestrial), yet unrelated, dynamic between Walston and Bixby was supplanted in the cartoon by an actual uncle and nephew. However, neither of the original stars provided voices on the show. Lost in Space's Jonathan Harris played Martin while Lane Scheimer, the producer's son, took on nephew Andy. 

The original show skewed slightly older in cast, but the cartoon, while keeping Bixby's role, albeit more adult, focused more on teens - adding in a niece for Bixby's old part among other youth (and, of course, a chimp, to boot!) Several stories that had been earmarked for the first show's un-produced fourth season were reworked and used here. 

The folks in this photo could only be unfamiliar to you if you've been living in a cave for the last fifty years. I Dream of Jeannie was a hit TV show that, like many in this post, lived on endlessly in syndicated reruns. Having left the air in 1970, in 1973 it was reintroduced with the sort of changes you're by now expecting...

Jeannie, now inexplicably red-haired (and younger), was not voiced by Barbara Eden. And Larry Hagman was nowhere in sight. Instead, Jeannie "belonged to" a male high school student named Corey Anders. ("Toss out those girlie mags, Corey, you've got the real deal in the palm of your hand, so to speak!")

In this incarnation, the sort of role Bill Daily filled in the parent show was present in Corey's friend Henry Glopp. And Jeannie had a helpmate (who more often fouled things up!) in the form of Babu, voiced by one-time member of The Three Stooges, Joe Besser. Speaking of voices, would it surprise you to know that Corey's voice was supplied by none other than a young Mark Hamill??

Jeannie was devoted to Corey and I can see why...! Unlike the prior shows mentioned, this was not Filmation, but a Hanna-Barbera production. Hamill also sang the show's theme song! This was a very early example of Hamill's voice work, for which he would later become quite noted. 

Emergency! was a very popular nighttime series featuring Randolph Mantooth and Kevin Tighe as young firemen who are a key part of the development of paramedics as an occupation. After the show's first season, they too found themselves giving voice to an animated rendition of their show!

Emergency +4 had the stalwart first responders joined by, you guessed it, four youngsters who had been trained in various lifesaving techniques. These shows, always in search of appeal to kids, rarely failed to include nonhuman sidekicks, so there were also a dog, a bird and a monkey on board.

The animation for this series (outsourced by Universal Television) was a bit less impressive than some other series by more prolific companies.

A reasonable effort was made to depict the firefighters. On the parent show, there were also three other performers (Robert Fuller, Julie London and Bobby Troup), but they were nowhere to be found in this incarnation.

Many fans of The Brady Bunch are also enamored of The Partridge Family, which ran almost concurrently on ABC, with one less year on the front end. Both shows were cancelled in 1974. If you thought it was a bit odd that The Brady Kids were basically on their own with a magic bird, just wait'll I hit you with this...!

Partridge Family 2200 A.D. (!) has the singing family inexplicably living in outer space more than 200 years into the future...!

Though he's seen here at far left, the character of Reuben wasn't on every episode, but when he was, he was voiced by another person. Only the three youngest children were voiced by their predecessors, though Susan Dey did two episodes at the beginning.

Many kids probably didn't think much about it, but some older ones may have wondered "WTF?" Turns out that this project was initially meant to be an updated version of The Jetsons, with older renditions of Elroy and Judy! But it was determined that the Partridges would be installed as the principal characters instead. Elroy's dog Astro was reworked into a robot canine called Orbit.

At least someone had the presence of mind to keep the color-blocking from the old school bus and apply it to the Jetsons-like spacecraft.

Inevitably, the inhabitants of Gilligan's Island were to find themselves depicted in a Saturday morning cartoon show as well.

For this venture, The New Adventures of Gilligan, all of the cast members resumed their roles vocally except for two. Dawn "Mary Ann" Wells was touring in a project and Tina "Ginger" Louise withheld participation (in this and more than a few other things Gilligan-related.)

On the primary series, Ginger had been intended as a Marilyn Monroe-like actress, but red-tressed Tina Louise kept her own look. Somehow, in this show, Ginger (!) was now platinum blonde. As a kid, I found this so off-putting...  LOL  Presumably it was a concession to help viewers realize that it wasn't Louise, who was keen on separating herself from connection to the show.

Generally, the other familiar characters were pretty well represented. Jim Backus, as Thurston Howell, had of course already experienced great success as a voice artist with his classic Mr. Magoo character.

With two seasons produced and with anticipation of a third, the show was cancelled because CBS was frustrated with Filmation, whose show Uncle Croc's Block had been a ratings fiasco. They declined to accept any further projects from the company for a while. But in 1982 they accepted a redo of Gilligan, shown above...

Gilligan's Planet (!) had the castaways barrelling off in a spaceship made by The Professor and landing on a whole other world in outer space!

Thus, the same sort of shenanigans that had occurred on the island now happened amid wildly colored land, skies and foliage. Where the prior show had included a monkey named Stubby, this version included an alien sidekick nicknamed Bumper.

Looks like The Professor was a big man on campus! Ha ha! Tina Louise was still out as Ginger, but Dawn Wells was back to voice Mary Ann and wound up doing the other part, too! She likely had Louise's manner of speaking down by heart after years of working alongside her. 

In jumping from Island to Planet, we can't forget to include The Fonz and the Happy Days Gang, which debuted in 1980. Happy Days was still on the air and would be until 1984.

In it, Fonzie, his dog Mr. Cool, Richie and Ralph are joined by a character named Cupcake from the future. They wind up in her malfunctioning time machine and embark on a series of Quantum Leap-ish and/or Voyagers-like adventure! (Didn't anyone ever want to stay at home - or in their own time period - any more?!)

Remarkably enough, Ron Howard, who was on the verge of directing for a living, still consented to play Richie on the cartoon, along with castmates Henry Winkler and Donny Most. Anson "Potsie" Williams was left out of the mix in this project...

Grease's Didi Conn provided the voice for the time-traveling Cupcake. The show was narrated by Wolfman Jack.

Happy Days is the show that invented the term "Jumping the Shark" so the fact that these 1950s characters are off into the past and future wasn't really so bizarre, I guess...!

Wasn't it just a matter of time then before Happy Days' spin-off Laverne & Shirley found itself in an animated version as well?

A brief story arc on L & S which showed the gals signing up for the armed services inspired the cartoon series Laverne & Shirley in the Army! Cindy Williams and Penny Marshall lent their voices to the show (until Williams departed the prime time version and, thus, also quit this one. A fill-in finished off the run.)

This stark, hyper-realistic account of life in the military was punctuated by the presence of their commanding officer, a pig named Lt. Squeally (voiced by Welcome Back, Kotter's Ron Palillo.)

Seeing as the initial live-action episodes featured Vicki Lawrence as their demanding CO, I can only guess at what she thought of her role being practically fulfilled by a swine! Incidentally, as a matter of trivia, Lawrence went on to star in Mama's Family with Beverly Archer as her pal Iola. Archer later took on a similar role as a no-nonsense commander on Major Dad.

Eventually, these shows morphed into the Mork & Mindy/Laverne & Shirley/Fonz Hour, with Fonzie working as a mechanic in the army's motor pool near L&S. By this time, practically only Joanie Loves Chachi was absent from the lineup!

Yes, you read that right up above. Mork & Mindy were also folded in...! Regardless of the photo inset, Pam Dawber was not replaced with an alien creature. LOL That's Mork's per, Doing.

Animators hewed closely to the general look of the sitcom characters.

One concession to the kiddie market was that in this cartoon, Mork is on Earth to observe teenagers and enrolls in a local school (hence the book he's studying here.)

Seen at far left here is Mindy's father, played on the show by Conrad Janis, who lent his voice to this project along with Robin Williams and Pam Dawber. Clearly, Mork wasn't happy with the attention Mindy was getting from the guy at far right, a character named Hamilton.

We've certainly shared a few photos of these guys over the last 14 years. The Dukes of Hazzard is a show we almost never watched in its glory days (not glitzy enough for my teen gayling palette), but which later caught our eye for it's denim-straining jeans well before stretch denim was a thing!

The Dukes made its debut in 1983, with the familiar characters and actors in place. With an exception...

As this cartoon was going into production, stars John Schneider and Tom Wopat had infamously quit the show in a compensation dispute and were replaced by doppelganger "cousins" Byron Cherry and Christopher Mayer, thus it was Coy and Vance, not Bo and Luke, who starred in season one!

When the dispute was settled and the "real deals" were brought back into the fold, the full, regular cast was in place for the animated show.

One notable episode had Bogg Hogg being shown his past, present and future in a rendition of Dickens' A Christmas Carol.

A lot more care seems to have gone into drawing Wopat and Schneider than when it came to Catherine Bach! (Same way when it came to her wretched Mego action figure as compared to the boys.) Anyway, with a car called The General Lee and the Confederate flag adorning the top of it, I wouldn't wait by the TV to see this airing anytime soon...!

I realize he has his fans, but one show I never, ever saw was the sitcom ALF. (ALF was an acronym for Alien Life Form.)

In 1987, he too was granted another show, this one called ALF: The Animated Series. It was a prequel to the prime-time show and depicted his life at home on the planet Melmac before his coming to Earth.

Episodes of the cartoon were introduced by the ALF everyone knew and "loved" as he recounted events from his past existence in flashback form.

Okay... Last one. This show debuted in 1990 and featured the brash young gal (with the dirty knees!) in the center.

Perhaps, since this isn't exactly a version of Roseanne, I oughtn't to have included it. It's more a take on Roseanne Barr as a tyke than Roseanne Conner.

Still, this never would have seen the light of day had it not been for Barr's mega-hit sitcom Roseanne.

And as it showed Roseanne as a kid, there were elements that correlated to the working class existence of her sitcom characters.

Rosey and her pals Buddy and Tess tackled childhood issues far afield from the more adult scenarios that came to mark her regular show.

The Canadian-made show didn't feature the voice of Barr (which may have been a benefit!) Attempts at award recognition for it don't seem to have panned out.

I hope you got a kick out of these unusual programs. I will close with two more pics, having to do with merchandising:

Somehow this item made me chuckle. Fonzie's positioning and the way the viewer at his crotch level aimed at Ralph's face... Ha ha!

And I wasn't kidding about the Mego Daisy Duke figure. The others all resemble their subjects to some degree, but hers looks like a random fashion doll head, way too big, stuck on a scrawny, stick-like body! Not the look Daisy was aiming for...!