Let's Watch This: An Episode of "The Smokey Bear Show"

NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.

NOTE #2: No disrespect is meant towards anyone who worked on the show I am reviewing today. I'm sure they are all very nice and talented people.

NOTE #3: If you like this show, that is great. Go ahead and like it. I'm not judging you.

Do I really need to tell you who Smokey Bear is?

This bear is one of the most iconic bears in the history of advertising mascots, right up there with the Charmin bears and the Coca-Cola polar bears. And the Icee polar bear. And the Snuggle bear. And Sugar Bear. And the A&W bear... wow, there's a LOT of bear advertising mascots. First created in August 1944, Smokey's mission has always been to remind us that only we can prevent forest fires. Have YOU prevented a forest fire recently? Or ever? I know I haven't. In my defense, I don't spend a lot of time in forests in general...

Smokey is still around (he's got a pretty active Instagram account for one thing), but you don't see much of him on TV nowadays. Apparently, it's far more important to have ten ads for medicine with a thousand side effects than to remind people about doing our part to prevent forests from going up in flames. But during the 1960s, Smokey was so popular that the good folks at Rankin-Bass did a TV special about him. That special, The Ballad of Smokey the Bear, aired on NBC in 1966. Apparently it did well enough in ratings that Rankin-Bass got the go ahead to make an entire cartoon show about Smokey.

While The Ballad of Smokey the Bear was animated in Rankin-Bass' iconic "Animagic" stop-motion, the show was done in traditional cel animation outsourced to Toei Animation. It premiered on ABC on September 6th, 1969. Seventeen episodes, each one consisting of three segments, were produced - the show's not getting very high ratings put the brakes on more episodes being produced, so for the 1970-1971 season it went into reruns.

The show's theme song gives us a look at Smokey's backstory. He was saved from a forest fire in New Mexico by a forest ranger (this part was based on an actual bear cub also saved from a forest fire in New Mexico, who was named "Smokey" after the character). Then he went to Washington D.C. and became a ranger (the aforementioned actual bear cub also went to Washington D.C., but he wound up in the National Zoo, not as a forest ranger). Smokey (voiced by Jackson Weaver) was joined in his cartoon adventures by a bunch of new characters, such as his deputies Benny the rabbit (voiced by Paul Soles) and Gabby the mountain lion (voiced by Carl "WHY WEREN'T YOOOOOOOOOOOOOU AT ELF PRACTICE?!" Banas). Only four episodes of the show have been made publicly avaliable - you'll have to go to YouTube or the Internet Archive to find them.

Is The Smokey Bear Show any good? We're going to watch the second episode of the show today and find out. Our first segment is called "The Silliest Show on Earth"...

This segment takes place back in the days when Smokey was just a cub. He had a baseball cap instead of his usual ranger's cap, the voice of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (Billie Mae Richards), and still couldn't be bothered to put on a shirt. He's hanging out in the forest with Benny and another friend of theirs, a skunk named Freddy Fume (also Carl Banas). Smokey suggests that they help out the charity drive for the orphanage, but Freddy reminds him that they don't have much money. They ARE animals, after all.

"Be honest, do you guys think I use too much eyeliner?"

To make some money, Smokey suggests that they put on a circus. They enlist the help of all their other anthropomorphic animal friends. Benny's gonna do a trapeze act, Bessie Boar (also Billie Mae Richards) is gonna be the world's most graceful ballerina (almost), I assume they're not gonna have a lion tamer because that'd be pretty awkward in a world where all the animals talk and wear clothes. But as they're setting up, they have no idea that they're being spied on.

These two buzzards (I actually wasn't sure what kind of bird they were at first, but Wikipedia calls them buzzards so that's what I'm gonna say they are), if I had to guess, are the show's recurring bad guys. I appreciate that, for once, we have a pair of cartoon buzzards that look like actual buzzards as opposed to vultures. One of them suggests that they start a fire, because apparently that's what they consider fun, but the other one has a better idea: they'll sabotage the circus! Why do they want to prevent Smokey from contributing to the charity drive? I don't know. Maybe he said they looked like dorks or something. Or maybe they're just generic two-dimensional cartoon villains. I'm guessing the latter.

Also, one of the buzzards is named Beaky. Why they weren't sued by Warner Bros. over it, I don't know.

So they do such diabolical deeds as spreading butter on the stage to make it slippery, cut the strings holding up the trapeze, and glue the dumbbell that Smokey's cousin Grizzly (Paul Soles) is going to lift to the top of a tree stump. The fiends!

And now it's time for a rousing game of "What Kind of Animal Are Some of These
Characters Supposed to Be". Obviously there's a horse, a pig, a mountain lion, a dog, and
I think a turtle, but what, for example, is that greyish animal with the blue shorts
and balck shoes? Some type of bird?

Because of the glue, Grizzly isn't able to lift the dumbbell - that is, without uprooting the entire tree stump. Well, looks like the buzzards' plan backfired. Grizzly still managed to prove that he is incredibly strong... in fact, this worked out a lot better than him just lifting a dumbbell. Then Bessie does her ballerina act, but slips on the butter before she can do any impressive pirouettes or whatever. Benny's trapeze act winds up being a failure too. At least he lands in the net... y'know, instead of going KER-SPLAT on the ground below like a cotton-tailed pancake.

After that, Freddy spins some plates on sticks... is that a circus act? Seems like more of a street magician's thing. Well, anyway, the buzzards sabotage THAT too. The audience laughs, and then Smokey sees the buzzards holding large saws. They are punished for their diabolical actions by being forced to clean up the circus tent and stuff. The end.

Okay, next segment...

Now, I know what you're thinking: "how can this show make a reference to Mission: Impossible if the first movie came out long after the show aired?". Good question. In actuality, the Mission: Impossible movies are based on a TV show of the same name that first aired in 1966. Of course, there's a fifty percent chance you already knew that. But I didn't until I looked it up while writing this review, so...

The segment starts off with Benny and Grizzly helping Gabby practice for the Wacky Races.

Hey, Gabby, Lazy Luke and Blubber Bear called. They want the Arkansas Chuggabug back.

Smokey shows up after the car is totalled, and Grizzly explains that they were test-driving their new fire engine... yeah, that vehicle was supposed to be a fire engine. I suppose the red paint job on the bottom half should've clued me in. Smokey tells them that he's got a job for them - the forest is in a dry spell, and now the whole forest is basically kindling. One campfire not put out and it could go up in flames. So while Smokey is going on an inspection tour, he wants Benny, Gabby, and Grizzly to keep an eye on their neck of the woods and stay alert. Even though Benny, Gabby, and Grizzly are clearly a few sodas short of a six-pack, I have faith in them not screwing this up.

Of course, if they DIDN'T screw this up, the episode would likely be pretty boring. After Smokey leaves, Benny gets an idea: the nearby swamp is full of water, so what if they got Mike Mole and his kin to dig a tunnel from the swamp to the forest? If a fire starts, they'll simply drain the water from the swamp, and presto: one underground sprinkler system!

"Kiss me, you fool!"

"But we haven't been properly introduced!"

So they enlist the help of the moles, who start digging the tunnels... now that I think of it, why doesn't Benny just dig the tunnels himself? Rabbits are burrowing creatures, after all. Problem is, instead of some sort of underground sprinkler system that they can turn on and off, they wind up creating a GEYSER. Not just that, but water is spouting out of every nook and cranny in town, flooding it.

I gotta ask: how have Benny and Gabby survived as Smokey's deputies for so long if they're this incompetent?

On the bright side, one member of town DID benefit from this: the guy that runs the
boat rental place. Until today, NOBOY bought a boat from his shop.

And on top of THAT, there's a trail of dark smoke emerging from the swamp. Dang it, boys, you had ONE JOB! Fortunately, Smokey shows up in a canoe. "Hop aboard, fellas! We've got work to do over in the swamp!" he tells Benny and Gabby. They put out the fire, but how are they going to get the water out of town and back in the swamp? The answer: by taking it back one bucketful at a time. Why isn't Grizzly helping them? Heck, where IS Grizzly? He just vanished from the episode after the town got flooded.

Our third segment is...

Freddy is woken up one morning by the town mayor, an owl (Carl Banas), as well as Bessie and a fox named Floyd (Carl Banas). The town council has decided that Freddy is a "shiftless lout". So Floyd says that he'll have to get a job. "Floyd, you've got no business to talk dirty, what with Bessie being a lady and all!" Freddy declares.

I know this show predates it, but Sitting Ducks did this joke a lot better:

After they explain it a bit more, Freddy agrees to get a job - but he's not very good at job-hunting, so they'll have to find one for him. After some discussion, they name him "Commissioner of Public Works". Smokey isn't so sure that's such a good idea, and neither am I considering that Freddy doesn't seem super-bright and we learned in the previous segment that leaving idiots in charge of important things is a bad idea (see also Donald Trump being president).

Hey, look, they literally put lipstick on a pig.

The first thing Freddy does is have a bridge built. Half of it falls apart almost immediately after it's completed, which makes the mayor, Bessie, and Floyd realize that maybe this isn't working out. So they make him the WATER Commissioner instead. His first act of business in THAT department is making the beavers build some kind of irrigation system. So how long until the town is flooded again?

A-yup. The irrigation system falls apart and that's exactly what happens. I'm honestly starting to wonder if this is because of Freddy's incompetince or if the beavers just aren't very good at building things that aren't dams.

Once again, sales at the boat rental place skyrocket.

Next the mayor, Bessie, and Floyd make him superintendent of the school - because clearly an animal who has about as much I.Q. as a rock is the one qualified to be in charge of a place where kids go to learn, right? He announces that he's got a plan to fix the problem they're having with crowded classrooms: 365 school holidays a year!

Sounds like a good idea to ME, though personally I've always loathed school. Well, preschool wasn't so bad, but after that? No thank you. Smokey, the mayor, Bessie, and Floyd don't agree with me, though, and Smokey suggests that they give Freddy the job of Official Custodian of the town's cannon. In other words, he's getting paid to sleep in front of the cannon, which is what he was doing at the beginning of the episode. Are you sure leaving this guy in charge of a cannon - y'know, a WEAPON - is a smart move? I sure hope there isn't any ammo in it...

What's this? We're getting FOUR segments in this episode?

This segment is another look at Smokey's youth. He and his pals are playing a game of football. Their opponents? The buzzards from the first segment, now joined by at least five more. Between Benny's incompetence (he scores a touchdown at his own goalpost), the buzzards' playing rough, and the absense of the team's best player Grizzly, the good guys are getting clobbered. Coach Gabby and Bessie go to Grizzly's cave and find him asleep.

I don't think necks are supposed to bend that way, Gabby.

Gabby decides what Grizzly needs is a quick burst of energy, so he tricks him into getting stung in the behind by bees. Gabby's a sadist, it would seem. But it does the trick - Grizzly runs onto the field, grabs the ball, and makes a touchdown. Two of 'em, in fact!

The show wraps up with Smokey telling the audience to give whatever matches they find to their mom or dad. Playing with matches is dangerous. It's not even that much fun. But you know what IS fun? Playing with pool noodles. Especially when you're actually IN a pool. Playing with modeling clay is fun, too. You can build all sorts of neat things with it. But don't play with matches, okay?

What's the Verdict?

I think I've said this before, but the hardest cartoons to review are the ones that aren't really good or really bad. It's really hard to make funny jokes about something that isn't giving you enough to work with. Case in point, The Smokey Bear Show is another cartoon that I'm going to have to put in the "mediocre" category, and that, it seems, made for a mediocre review. Then again, aren't ALL of my reviews mediocre?

The characters created for the show are very dull and uninteresting. The animation is mediocre - about on par with Rankin-Bass' usual 2D output, particularly when the characters move. The jokes aren't funny, and the plotlines are generic. There wasn't even much of a reason for the show to star Smokey at all, he basically feels like an afterthought in each segment (as does the subject of fire safety, which only appears in the second segment and that's about it). All this really has going for it is the voice acting, everyone's doing their best but it doesn't save the show from being very blah. There are far better cartoons worth your time.

Rating: Two and a half lazy skunks out of five. Not much of substance.

Perhaps the moral of today's story is that characters who star in advertisements and PSAs just can't carry their own show. Remember when they tried to make a show about the GEICO cavemen? It got even less episodes than THIS SHOW did! Honestly, maybe it's a good thing that Chester Cheetah show they wanted to make in the 1990s didn't get off the ground...

A Basic Guide to Cartoon Species Identification

Most cartoon characters are a recognizable species. Chances are they won't be super realistic, but it's still going to be clear what species they are. Usually, to make it clearer, their species will also be their surname, or even their FIRST name. We all know that Simba is a lion, Mickey is a mouse, Nemo is a clownfish, Felix is a cat, and Magilla is a gorilla.

However, there are some cartoon characters clearly not intended to be an actual species from this planet at all. Sometimes they'll at least be, for example, a bird or a bear, but not a particular KIND of bird or bear that you can see in nature. I'm sure these characters have piqued your curiosity and made you want to learn more about their behavior, natural habitats, and favorite pizza toppings. Okay, maybe not that third one...

Today, I'm going to be channeling the Kratt Brothers and letting you know everything there is to know about the strange species that inhabit animated movies, TV shows, comic strips, and ads. Why? Easy - because SOMEBODY has to do it. Put on your pith helmet and get out your binoculars, 'cause we're going on safari!

The Warner

Scientific name: Cartoonus characterus (thanks, Tom Ruegger!)

Appears in: Animaniacs

The Warner is a very strange creature similar in appearance to a puppy dog with mostly black fur, aside from the fur on their faces and feet, which is white. It practically weaponizes cartoon physics, particularly when up against someone who's really, really asking for it - an obnoxious candy store owner, a con artist bear running a garage sale, an abrasive guy sitting next to them on a plane, etc. Can usually be found running amok on the Warner Bros. studio lot, making pop culture references. Approach with caution if it's carrying a mallet.

The Gurgi

Scientific name: Furryous Gollumus

Appears in: The Black Cauldron

Is it a primate? Some type of otter? Perhaps the missing link between humans and gophers? Nobody knows for sure. Its natural habitat is the kingdom of Prydain. Very cowardly, but reliable. Often searching for "munchings and crunchings" - it particularly loves apples. Can talk, but speaks in the third person. This is a very rare species. Don't expect to see it the next time you're at Disneyland, as the film it appeared in was a box office bomb and therefore not something Disney wants to promote.

The Schulz Yellow Bird

Scientific name: Canaria perhapsa

Appears in: Peanuts and its various animated adaptations

Identifiable by its yellow feathers and its round, very large beak. Generally flock together, as birds of a feather are known to do, though they also frequently hang out with beagles. They enjoy camping, and the females are for some reason obsessed with angel food cake with seven-minute frosting. This bird also has the unique ability to fly upside-down. However, they can not fly very high, lest they get beak bleeds.

The All-Purpose Animal

Scientific name: Anythingus intheworldus

Appears in: Twice Upon a Time

An odd mishmash of species, the All-Purpose Animal has the head of a koala bear, orange fur, wings, a curly tail, and four legs. It can shapeshift into any sort of animal it wants, but can have difficulty controlling this ability. Has a voice extremely similar to Garfield's. You'll have to go to the Land of Frivoli to find one.

The Gummi Bear

Scientific name: Ursus candyus

Appears in: Adventures of the Gummi Bears

A Gummi Bear can usually be told apart from a brown bear or a black bear by its odd fur color - males can be blue, purple, pink, or an orange-y brown, whereas females can be yellow or a slightly more orange-y shade of yellow. The population of Gummi Bears used to be far bigger, but they were persecuted by humans, and as a result many of the remaining bears fled overseas. Their name comes from a potion they have created called "gummiberry juice", which allows them to bounce around like a rubber ball - if a human drinks it, on the other hand, they gain super-strength. Generally friendly, but don't appreciate being mistaken for Care Bears.

The Backson

Scientific name: Milneus busyus

Appears in: Winnie the Pooh (2011)

This is a giant creature with a tail, two sharp horns atop its head (which are used to put holes in your socks) between a mop of red hair, black toes, and blue fur similar to a shaggy rug. What does a Backson do? No one quite knows for sure. Rumor has it that its hobbies include scribbling in library books, tangling up the hooks while you're decorating your Christmas tree, spoiling milk, muddying up your tidy house, making you feel as small as a mouse, spilling your tea, making you lose your train of thought, swiping Tiggers' stripes, clogging your pipes, digging up your garden, eating your snacks, and chipping your tooth. Also known for being very busy. However, most of these claims come from an owl who clearly doesn't have all of his marbles (he also thinks "Skull" is spelled "S-C-H-O-O-L" - everyone knows that "Skull" has another Y in it!), so take them with a grain of salt.

The Dronkey

Scientific name: Equus firebreathingus

Appears in: The Shrek sequels

What happens when a donkey and a dragon reproduce. Don't ask how that's possible, I subscribe to the theory that the stork brought them their kids (it's a fairy tale world, after all). Mostly donkey-like in appearance, but have dragon wings and can fly and breathe fire. Full of energy, Dronkeys can be destructive but they never mean any harm. They also get along very well with ogre children.

The Chowder

Scientific name: Gluttonous bottomlesspitus

Appears in: Chowder

A cross between a cat, a bear, and a rabbit (don't ask how THAT'S possible either). Males are purple-furred, females are pink and look more like a rabbit with some cat bits than the males do. Males are also known to eat just about anything - the only things they will not eat are mevilled eggs. They can also hold things in their stomachs and dislodge them when they are needed. Alas, the Chowder usually becomes dumber and more unhinged as time goes on - they start out as merely naive and by the thirteenth episode are so stupid that they don't even remember why they walked into the bathroom. Not an exaggeration.

The Wubbzy

Scientific name: Wowwowus wubbzus

Appears in: Wow! Wow! Wubbzy!

A yellow gerbil-like creature who lives in a tree and loves to play, play, play. It has a prehensile, highly-flexible tail and it likes it that way. Enjoys chasing flutterflies, eating ice cream cones and Doodleberries, and playing games of kickety-kick ball and hippity-hopscotch. Does not like brussel sporuts. It claimed in an interview that is it not an animal, but it is clearly not a human, a vegetable, or a mineral either, so what else COULD it be?

The Fraggle

Scientific name: Frithus livesundergoundus

Appears in: the animated Fraggle Rock (and the live action one it spawned from, of course)

Fraggles are lizardlike in appearance, but unlike lizards, they have hair: some on their heads and a tuft on their tails. They are knee-high to a human being (who they believe are called "silly creatures" - not exactly an unfitting name for us, is it?). Also, they come in a variety of colors. A Fraggle can usually be found making music, dancing its cares away, doing laundry, wembling, or reading postcards from their uncle who's exploring outer space. Their favorite food? Radishes, with Doozer sticks (made from radishes) as a close second. How Fraggles reproduce is unknown, and quite frankly it's none of our business anyway. To find a Fraggle, search for a Fraggle hole in your house. But make sure it's not a mouse hole as opposed to a Fraggle hole before sticking your hand in - Fraggles don't bite, but mice probably do.

The Grinch

Scientific name: Greenus grouchus

Appears in: How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

Usually found in snowy areas, such as mountains overlooking microscopic towns located on a speck of dust. A Grinch, recognizable by its green fur and angry expression, is as cuddly as a cactus and as charming as an eel. Its heart is full of unwashed socks, its brain is full of spiders, its soul is an appalling dump heap full of garlic and gunk, and its smile is full of termites (ewwwwww). It has all the tender sweetness of a seasick crocodile. I wouldn't recommend touching one with a thirty-nine-and-a-half-foot pole. The three words that best describe this species are as follows, and I quote: "stink", "stank", and "stunk".

The Beast

Scientific name: Royalus Painus

Appears in: Beauty and the Beast

A creature with the head structure and horns of a buffalo, the arms and body of a bear, the eyebrows of a gorilla, the jaws, teeth and mane of a lion, the tusks and nose bridge of a wild boar, and the legs and tail of a wolf. A beast, found mainly in foreboding-looking castles in the spookiest forests located in France, is known for its explosive temper - you don't want to make one angry. However, most beasts are actually just princes who've been cursed by an enchantress who they've slighted. You'd probably be a sourpuss too if YOU'D been turned into a rejected Monsters Inc. character.

The Paradise Falls Giant Snipe

Scientific name: Bigus birdus

Appears in: Up

Think of this handsome fella as the halfway point between an ostrich and a parrot. Known for its colorful plumage and impressive height, the Paradise Falls Giant Snipe is often hunted by crazy explorers and their packs of talking dogs, but it is incredibly difficult to capture. They are very fast. Their favorite food is chocolate, but they also like eating the walkers of senior citizens. They usually build their nests in labyrinths, or on the roofs of floating houses. Despite their goofy appearance, the Paradise Falls Giant Snipe will attack if provoked... or at least take a dump on your car, which considering how large they are is more than a minor inconvenience.

The Wild Mike

Scientific name: Partyus animalus

Appears in: Barnyard

Presumably a mammal, but I don't know for sure. It has two legs and two arms, but it's hard to tell if it has a head but no body or a body but no head - we have no idea WHAT exactly is under all that hair. Don't try to keep this thing as a pet, it's impossible to control and probably very difficult to house-train. If there's one thing this creature loves, it's dancing. Its very presence can force ANYONE to dance, even a male cow with udders. They also make for great protection against coyotes.

The Sea Bear

Scientific name: Ursus arctos underwateris

Appears in: SpongeBob SquarePants

The underwater equivalent of a grizzly bear, Sea Bears are thought by many to be a myth. Those people are wrong. Sea Bears exist. And there are multiple, multiple ways to attract them: playing the clarinet badly, waving one's flashlight back and forth really fast (flashlights are their natural prey), eating cubed cheese (sliced is fine), stomping around (they take that as a challenge), wearing a hoop skirt, clown shoes, or a sombrero in a goofy fashion, and screeching like a chimpanzee. And if you DO attract a Sea Bear, you should also avoid running, limping, crawling, or being Squidward Tentacles, which are all things that they hate. Fortunately, you should be protected from a Sea Bear by drawing an Anti-Sea Bear circle in the dirt. It has to be a circle, though. Ovals don't work.

The Uniqua

Scientific name: Pinkus polkadottus

Appears in: The Backyardigans

The antennae suggests a giant bug, but most of her looks mammalian. Sort of. Very cheery, with a large imagination. Often hangs out with moose, hippopotamuses, penguins, and kangaroos... despite none of those animals sharing a natural habitat. Can usually be found in backyards, where they've got the whole wide world to explore and always find things they've never seen before. That's why every day, they're back for more.

The Keswick

Scientific name: Geekus nerdus

Appears in: T.U.F.F. Puppy

This one might actually be an alien, we're not one hundred percent sure. Despite looking like some sort of rodent, the Keswick has gills, a pouch, webbed feet, and can lay eggs. Their life cycle adds to the confusion - among other things, there's a "platypus phase" where they shoot toxic quills when they hiccup. They are also highly intelligent, if a bit on the scatterbrained side, and tend to sound a lot like Jerry Lewis.

The Woggle Bird

Scientific name: Dancingus Avianus

Appears in: Hanna-Barbera's Jack and the Beanstalk

The Woggle-Bird resembles a vulture with green feathers. Most birds leave the ground, but most birds, we've found, aren't too profound. What does a Woggle-Bird do? May we oblige with a clue? Well, if a frog frogs, and a bark barks, and a fog fogs, and a clock clocks, then it follows, we say, as night follows day, a Woggle-Bird wogs. They're fantastic dancers, and really good singers too. Harmless, but have a habit of pulling you into bombastic musical numbers.

Something That Doesn't Exist

Scientific name: Whatus theheckus

Appears in: Phineas and Ferb

Honestly, I think this one speaks for itself.

We hope you've found this guide to cartoon species identification helpful. If you ever see one of these animals out in the wild, there's a fifty-percent chance you're hallucinating. To learn more about animals - REAL animals, of course - visit your local library. Or watch Animal Planet or National Geographic. Either or.

Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Beverly Hills Teens"

NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.

NOTE #2: No disrespect is meant towards anyone who worked on the show I am reviewing today. I'm sure they are all very nice and talented people.

NOTE #3: If you like this show, that is great. Go ahead and like it. I'm not judging you.

I've never been to Beverly Hills, and I am not nor have I ever been rich, so a cartoon about a bunch of rich kids living in Beverly Hills is something I likely would never watch if it weren't for my doing a blog about little-known cartoons. Of course, I'm not a sea sponge who lives in a pineapple or works as a fry cook either but that never stopped me from enjoying SpongeBob SquarePants.

Beverly Hills Teens was the creation of Jack Olesker, Michael Maliani and Barry O'Brien, and a co-production between DIC Enterprises, Access Syndication, and Coca-Cola Telecommunications. It first aired in syndication on September 21st, 1987. One season consisting of sixty-five episodes were produced. After its initial run, the show was made part of a package with two other shows called Maxie's World and It's Punky Brewster. Why does the show exist? Apparently, the producers were bothered by the "neo-materialistic, boy-toy animation" that dominated 1980s television like SilverHawks and ThunderCats. The president of Access Syndicate, Ritch Colbert, asked, "Where are the Tom and Jerrys, the Flintstones, the rich characters for children to nurture and identify with?"

Uh, have kids EVER identified with Tom and Jerry? I feel like everyone was too busy laughing at them beating the crap out of each other than they were seeing themselves in the characters.

Well, anyway, the show focuses on a bunch of teenagers Richie Rich-ing it up in Beverly Hills. All sixty-five episodes were eventually released on DVD in 2013, and you can also find episodes of the show on YouTube. Is Beverly Hills Teens worth watching? Let's find out. We're going to watch the second episode of the show, "The Dog Ate My Homework".

Here's a question: has any student in the history of school ever actually told their teacher that a dog ate their homework? Somehow, I doubt anyone is dumb enough that. Unless they couldn't find a sheet of paper so they wrote their homework assignment down on a T-Bone steak.

The episode starts off with one of the show's main characters, Larke Tanner (voiced by Mary Long). She's a part-time model, a straight-A student, good at everything, and drives a pink Ferrari who she might or might not have gotten from Barbie. I'm sure all the part-time model straight-A student kids at home are going to identify with HER!

Doc Brown soon regretted allowing Penelope Pitstop to give his DeLorean a paint job.

She is talking on her video-phone to Troy Jeffries (Jonathan Potts), her boyfriend and the most popular boy in Beverly Hills. They talk about how excited they are for the Midnight Ball that night - especially since Troy has been chosen to be prince of the Midnight Ball. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think having a school dance at midnight is a good idea. Isn't midnight when the Fairy Godmother's magic spell wears off and the girls' coaches turn back into pumpkins?

Then we cut to the show's main antagonist, Bianca (Terri Hawkes). She's described on TV Tropes as being Veronica from the Archie comics without any redeeming qualities. She is accompanied by her chauffer, Wilshire (Michael Beattie), who looks like a giant Cabbage Patch Kid, and a pink poodle named Empress.

And she rides around in a pink limousine, too. There's a lot of that color in this show.

She goes to a dress shop to find a gown for the ball, and when she sees the dress that aspiring actress Nikki Darling (Corrine Koslo) is wearing, she announces that she's going to buy it right off her back. "All's fair in love and shopping, you know," she claims. Then Wilshire accidentally spills Moroccan grape juice on the dress, creating a stain that the French-accented clerk claims will never come out (not even with OxiClean? It's tough on stains!), and Bianca changes her mind.

It's just as well, Nikki. Gold ballgowns won't be "in" this season until Beauty and the Beast
comes out in 1991.

Eventually, Bianca finds a gown that she must, MUST have, but the clerk tells her that Larke has already paid for it. This makes Bianca MAD! She storms out, telling the clerk that she wants every other gown in the store delivered to her house by tonight. Larke shows up just as she's leaving the store, and WHACKY SHENANIGANS ensue as Bianca's poodle chases after her cat.

Later on, at Larke's house... jeez, there's way too much pink in this screencap. It's like she lives in a bottle of Pepto-Bismol.

Who was her interior decorator, the Pink Panther?

Larke is talking to Troy about how she needs to finish her homework. She sits down at her extremely dated-looking 1980s computer and starts typing. At HER house, Bianca gets an idea. An awful idea. Bianca gets a wonderful, AWFUL idea. You see, there's a rule that if you don't complete your homework, you don't get to go to the Midnight Ball. For some reason. And since Bianca wants to be named the princess of the Midnight Ball but knows that Larke is more likely to get it, she has her poodle go inside the house and chew up Larke's computer disks that features her homework assignment (what exactly that assignment IS, they don't say)... after a lengthy sequence where the poodle chases the cat again.

Where are Larke's parents? Why aren't THEY doing anything about the crazy dog running around their house making a mess of things while trying to eat their cat? Anyway, apparently NOT hearing the dog's barking, Larke thinks that her cat chewed up the disk. Now she won't be able to go to the Midnight Ball! Oh, Bianca, how could you be so cruel?

Word about Larke's homework assignment being chewed up apparently travels fast, as it quickly reaches the ear of this girl named Jett (Karen Bernstein). I know this was the 1980s, but take a look at this girl's hair. She looks like a member of Jem and the Holograms. It's like what head lice would think Nirvana is.

It's probably even harder to find a needle in THAT thing than it would be in a
haystack.

And to make matters worse, Larke will have to do the homework assignment in... cue the dramatic music... DETENTION HALL! "Oh, how GRODY! Gag me with a silver spoon!" Jett whines, in case you forgot that this show was made in the 1980s. Well, at least she has a butler to keep her company.

So... are they gonna tell us what the homework assignment actually IS?

Larke has to tell Troy that she probably won't be finished in time for the ball - in fact, she'll be stuck in there all weekend. Wait, her teacher gave the class homework on a FRIDAY? The fiend! Fortunately, hope arrives not in the form of a Fairy Godmother but rather in a ten-year-old genius. Say hello to Chester McTech (Sean Roberge), a bespectacled boy who always wears a labcoat and comes up with bizarre inventions. He overhears Larke's sobs and thinks that they're doing horrible things to her in Detention Hall, so he attempts to break down the doors... which just swing open, so either he's incredibly strong for a A) presumably-ten-year-old and B) a nerd or they just weren't locked.

Refreshingly, the show DOESN'T have a lot of "LOL he's such a nerd" jokes at his expense.

Chester takes out a magnifying glass to see just how bad the damage to Larke's disk really is. He identifies that the bite marks are actually from canine inscisors. That's pretty impressive - I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference between bite marks from a cat and bite marks from a dog. Larke puts two and two together and realizes that Bianca's dog is to blame, and then Chester says that he might be able to retrieve her homework. He creates an "un-chew" program on his computer to "un-erase" her homework. It works. Scientifically accurate? Doubtful. But it's a cartoon, so who cares?

It's 10:00, but the Midnight Ball is already in full swing... which raises the question of why it's called the MIDNIGHT Ball if it starts BEFORE midnight, but eh... after they deliver Larke's homework assignment, she and Chester head off to pick up her gown. But, oh no! The dress shop is closed! Fortunately, Chester has some sort of invention that can unlock any lock in the world. Word of advice, Chester - make sure that doesn't fall into the wrong hands. A lot of bank robbers would have a field day with it.

"And if you press this button, a laser shoots out and fries Bianca's head!"

"Chester, you can't just break in like that!" Larke points out. "It's against the law!" Chester says that since she already paid for the gown, it technically isn't stealing, but Larke still isn't comfortable with it. If only there were some mice around to whip up a dress for her (why am I making so many Cinderella jokes in this review?). But then Chester gets another idea: if Larke could make a sketch of that ballgown in the window, he could reproduce the dress with his giant sewing machine. I like Chester, but at this point I feel like they should've just named him "Mr. Deus Ex Machina".

A male sewing dresses? Chester is defying gender stereotypes, too!

Faster than you can say "take a chill pill", Larke has a completed dress. But it's 11:50, and she has to get to the ball ASAP. But the universe isn't done making things difficult for Larke - her gown is too big for her to fit in her Ferrari. Fortunately, Chester has the solution once again.

...aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand all those Cinderella jokes I made in this review have just been rendered redundant.

So off they go in Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater's car - Chester's driving, by the way, I didn't know ten-year-olds could get a driver's license - and arrive at the dance just in time for them to announce the ball princess. With eighty-two votes, Larke is dubbed the princess. Bianca, of course, is furious, and chases after Wilshire with the intent of beating him up for not voting for HER (not that it would've made much of a difference).

His name is Troy, so I suppose I should make some sort of High School Musical joke.
Alas, I can't think of anything funny.

What's the Verdict?

I probably would've liked this more if I were a sixteen-year-old girl in the 1980s. I am not. It's not a bad show, the animation is fine and the voice actors all do a good job, but I really don't find the characters engaging or relatable, nor do I relate to all this stuff about school dances and dates. There is one thing I do like about it, however, and that's Chester. Sure, he's pretty much a walking Deus Ex Machina, but I tend to like "adorkable" cartoon kids, and Chester's presence sure made the second half of the episode better than the first.

Aside from Chester, though, I didn't care much for Beverly Hills Teens. At best it's a guilty pleasure (a lot of the other episodes can get pretty out there). Still, I suppose it's a good thing that there was a cartoon about teens where they didn't fight crime or solve mysteries or whatever. Teens need cartoon characters they can relate to, after all.

Rating: Two and a half expensive gowns out of five. Fun to mock, at least.

By the way, I also watched the episode of the show where Chester creates a robotic seventeen-year-old girl to be his date to the dance. Yes, it's just as creepy as it sounds.

Let's Watch This: An Episode of "Speed Buggy"

NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.

It's been too long since I've reviewed a Hanna-Barbera cartoon. Let's fix that, shall we?

Speed Buggy is another cartoon that owes its existence to Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?. As we've established, that show's popularity led to many, many other cartoons about at least three teenagers and something out of the ordinary - a talking dog, a talking shark, a ghost - solving mysteries. This time, the Fred, Daphne, and Shaggy clones were teamed up with a talking car voiced by Mel Blanc. Other inspirations for the show were Disney's 1968 film The Love Bug and Speed Racer.

The show was created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and premiered on CBS in September 1973. One season, consisting of sixteen episodes, was produced. Like most of the Scooby-Doo cash-grabs made during this time period, it didn't reach that show's level of success (though critics apparently liked it). Over the years, it's rerun on channels like Cartoon Network and Boomerang, and Speed Buggy has made cameos in other shows like Johnny Bravo, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, and Futurama.

Our main characters: Speed Buggy, Mark, Debbie, and Tinker.

I've watched most of the Scooby-Doo cash-grabs for this blog. As a rule of thumb, the more similar to Scooby-Doo they are, the lousier they are too. Fangface was mediocre at best, and Goober and the Ghost Chasers had nothing going for it. On the flip side, I thought The Funky Phantom was worth a watch, mostly for the Funky Phantom himself. Jabberjaw was okay. I've actually watched several episodes of Speed Buggy before doing this review, and I think it's probably the best of the Scooby-Doo clones. Of course, there are still a lot more that I need to review (I'm sure I'll do Clue Club at some point). Why do I say that? Well, let's watch the eleventh episode of the show, "The Ringmaster", and I'll go into more detail on why Speed Buggy is better than you might think...

The episode starts off with Speed Buggy and his pals Mark (voiced by Michael Bell), Tinker (Phil Luther Jr.) and Debbie (Arlene Golonka) racing in the Bayou 500. You'd think a race in the bayou would involve boats as opposed to cars, what with most of the bayou being water. Of course, Speed Buggy is not an ordinary car. Even aside from the whole "he can talk" thing, Tinker has outfitted him with all sorts of gadgets and abilities. See, he's TOTALLY different from Shaggy - Shaggy isn't a mechanic!

As for Mark and Debbie, yeah, they're pretty much just Fred and Daphne 5.0, but there's one thing worth noting... Debbie is the leader of the team, not Mark. I think there's still ONE episode where she gets captured by the bad guy, but that's it. To be fair, though, Daphne didn't get captured that much in the original show either.

Sure, the Mystery Machine is more iconic, but can it DRIVE ON WATER?

"Keeping us on course in this swamp is like looking for a needle in a wet haystack!" Debbie groans, looking at the map. Then we cut to... a circus tent? Set up in the middle of a swamp? Who are the Ringling Brothers expecting to come see the show, Shrek?

From out of the tent emerges the titular Ringmaster. He plays a pan flute and some animals emerge from smaller tents in front of him: an elephant, a giraffe, a zebra, a gorilla, a cheetah, and a crocodile. The giraffe has a video camera on its head and makes sounds like an injured bird. Y'know, as giraffes often do.

That's an awfully small crocodile. Maybe it's actually a caiman?

The giraffe's video camera, it seems, is there to alert the Ringmaster of anyone approaching his island. And when he sees that Speed Buggy and his compadres are on their way, he is not pleased. You'd think he'd be happier to see what could just be paying customers - I mean, obviously this guy is up to something EEEEEEEEE-VIL, but they have no way of knowing that yet. Paranoid much, Ringmaster?

"Ugh. I've always liked Captain Caveman better."

To prevent the kids' arriving on his island, the Ringmaster raises the drawbridge... which only goes up AFTER Speed Buggy and his friends drive over it. I'm not sure if it's still cool to say "EPIC FAIL", but that's the perfect way of describing what just occured. They drive right up to the guy and he demands to know in his weird accent I can't figure out (I want to say British, but I genuinely have no idea) what they're doing on his island.

Sir Topham Hatt does not approve.

"Don't get uptight, Napoleon! Just give us some directions and we'll leave your precious island!" Debbie declares. Dang, that's a pretty gutsy thing to say. I guess now we know why Debbie's the one who wears the pants in this quartet. Although I'm not sure "Napoleon" is the wittiest thing to call this guy, seeing as he's much taller (unless he's wearing stilts under those pants. That's a distinct possibility).

"You can't leave! You've seen too much!" the Ringmaster snaps. What do you mean they've "seen too much"? They haven't seen anything outside of you. They just got there! They haven't given you any indication that they've noticed the tents, or the animals, or your trapeze artists and clowns assuming you even have them. Speed Buggy tries to drive away, but the Ringmaster orders the animals to stop them, which they accomplish rather easily.

Take a look at the elephant's face. That expression manages to be both disturbing and hilarious at the same time.

"Smile! You're on Giraffe Camera!"

The Ringmaster traps Speed, Mark, Debbie, and Tinker in a cage and dubs himself the best animal trainer and ringmaster the world has ever known. But he doesn't actually run a circus, which explains the lack of clowns, trapeze artists and cotton candy vendors. No, no - his animals are a prototype of an entire animal army that he's going to use to take over the world.

He demonstrates how he'll do it. He's built a set meant to represent any government building in the world. First, he'll have the giraffe spy on the folks inside the building with his video camera.

"We have incriminating evidence against Richard Nixon! 'I am not a crook'
my spotted rear end!"

The video camera is hooked up to some sort of monitor, showing the Ringmaster that the office is empty. When he points this out to the good guys, Mark says, "Yeah, just like your head!" as opposed to "Of course it's empty, you mook, it's not a real government building."

Next, the Ringmaster sends in the gorilla and the crocodile to sneak into the building, and then the zebra to break down the door... which seems kind of pointless if the gorilla and crocodile have snuck in already, but what do I know, I'm not a supervillain. Then, when the gorilla and crocodile wheel out a safe, he has the elephant jump up and down on top of it to get it open. Uh, one small problem with this: elephants can't jump. No, really. Look it up. 

I know it's stupid to bring realism into a cartoon with a sentient talking car, just thought
I'd bring it up.

Then the cheetah will steal the contents of the safe - top-secret papers - and bring it to the Ringmaster. He boasts that his animal army will be unstoppable. Unless the government brings in a big game hunter, I suppose.

That night, Debbie attempts to bend the bars of the cage they're in, but fails at it for the obvious reason that she is not Hercules or a cartoon gorilla. "Don't just stand there, give me a hand!" she tells Mark and Tinker... to which they start clapping, a genuinely very funny joke.

I like to think that they actually knew what she meant, they're just trolling her. In fact,
that might have been the indication.

Then Tinker gets an idea. He removes Speed's back tires - which Speed comments makes him feel naked, another genuinely funny joke - so that Speed can use them to cut through the floor of the cage like a buzzsaw.

So, do the good guys have a plan to foil the Ringmaster's plot to use animals to take over the world? Nope, they're just going to make a run for it. Can't say I blame them. I mean, they'd be going up against a gorilla, a cheetah, a crocodile, and an elephant. The Ringmaster could just order the elephant to sit on them and they'd be flattened into pancakes. Or he could have the crocodile eat them.

Well, he could have the crocodile eat Mark, Tinker, and Debbie anyway. I don't think it's
possible for a crocodile to eat a car.

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Monopoly's evil twin is not pleased to discover that Speed Buggy and his amigos have escaped. He orders his animals to make sure they do not get off the island, but by this point they're back in the bayou so I guess that ship has sailed. He has the zebra put a giant rock in their path, but Speedy manages to drive on top of the rock and turn the tables on the black and white horse. Good guys: 1, Ringmaster: zilch.

"Suddenly, I feel like Indiana Jones!"

Next, the Ringmaster has the elephant jump off a hill onto Speed and his chums (even though, again, elephants can't jump), only for the elephant to wind up landing on top of the crocodile instead. It's a good thing Speed lives up to his name, otherwise he and his pals would've been stickers on a pachyderm's portly posterior.

"OH, GOD, MY SPINE! I'M IN SO MUCH PAIN RIGHT NOW!"

The Ringmaster sends the giraffe out after that, and by this point Speedy is starting to get tired. So they get the idea to hide under the giraffe's stomach. It doesn't work.

"Hey, that's a private area!"

They make it to the bridge... so I guess they're not off the island yet after all? Anyhow, the bridge is still up, but Speed has the ability to inflate his tires by holding his breath, allowing him to drive on water. "This looks like a job for my frog man!" the Ringmaster declares. Disappointingly, he doesn't mean an actual half-frog/half-human hybrid monster, which would've been pretty cool. He means the crocodile. Which is still cool, but "frog man" seems like a strange thing to call a crocodile.

The crocodile chases them back onto the island, and they decide to hide out in the circus tent... only for the giraffe to spot them anyway. The animals surround them inside, but Debbie gets another idea. If they can steal the Ringmaster's piccolo, maybe THEY can control the animals. But first, it's time for a chase scene with WHACKY SHENANIGANS!

As I've said before, walking across a tightrope is one thing I think you'd have to be crazy
to do. At least without a net or a million fluffy pillows underneath it.

Mark eventually manages to steal the flute... and promptly drops it. Speed Buggy drives over it, which somehow removes its ability to control the animals, as the Ringmaster discovers. Or at least it removes the RINGMASTER's ability to control the animals - Debbie is able to use it to control the elephant. Somehow. I have no idea how that thing works.

"We're fed up with working for peanuts! We demand a raise in pay or we'll maul you like
the wild animals we are!"

After he is subjected to more WHACKY SHENANIGANS, they manage to defeat the Ringmaster. And they even have enough time to finish the race! I guess the other racers were just standing around waiting for them to return to continue. How nice of them.

They manage to win the race, but it wasn't easy for Speedy - he had to tow all those circus wagons behind him. Inside those wagons are the Ringmaster, who's going to jail, and the animals, who are going to the zoo.

I like how nobody in the crowd seems at all confused by this.

What's the Verdict?

Speed Buggy is a fun show. Like most of Hanna-Barbera's work, it's so unapologetically goofy that it's hard not to enjoy it. And as far as Scooby-Doo clones go, it manages to stand on its own the most. Likely because instead of ghosts and monsters, the characters go up against crazy supervillains. Of the characters, it's Speed Buggy himself who I like the most, followed by Debbie. Mark and Tinker are good too, but the Fred and Shaggy similarities are pretty blatant. Debbie feels distinct enough from Daphne in a way that, say, April from The Funky Phantom doesn't. And she has a lot of great lines. But let's be honest, it's Speedy who we came to watch, and it's hard not to love him. He may very well be the cutest cartoon car I've ever seen. Plus, he's voiced by Mel Blanc, so he has that going for him too.

Of course, the show isn't flawless (what is?). The animation has several errors, but I've seen far worse. But as a whole, I think Speed Buggy is better than the internet gives it credit for and deserves better than to just get lumped in with other examples of Hanna-Barbera copying itself when the internet feels like taking the studio down a peg. And, honestly, even if a show was made to cash in on the success of another, extremely popular show, does that automatically make it bad? I mean, The Owl House was clearly greenlit to cash in on the success of Gravity Falls but a lot of people really like THAT show*!

If you'd like to watch Speed Buggy for yourself, you'll need either MeTV Toons or the show's DVD release. There aren't any full episodes on YouTube or the Internet Archive, and the only streaming services it's on are ones that I don't have.

Rating: Four needles in a wet haystack out of five. One of Hanna-Barbera's better 1970s cartoons.

* Please note that I consider The Owl House okay myself (I'm not a huge fan of it, but it's fine for what it is), but you can't deny that it was another show greenlit by Disney to cash in on the success of Gravity Falls. Granted, the shows themselves probably aren't THAT similar, but the whole "mysterious goings-on and magic stuff" premise, the wacky and quirky female lead, and the presence of Alex Hirsch as a character are certainly eyebrow-raising.