Let's Watch This: An Episode of "The Get Along Gang"

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.

Somebody requested that I review The Get Along Gang, and I am nothing if not a people-pleaser. Unless that person who wants to be pleased is someone who likes Jellystone!, then they're just gonna have to put up with me.

The titular Get Along Gang consisted of six anthropomorphic animal kids: Montgomery Moose (voiced by Sparky Marcus), Dotty Dog (voiced by Bettina "Rainbow Brite" Bush), Bingo Beaver (voiced by a young Scott Menville), Zipper Cat (voiced by Robbie Lee), Woolma Lamb (voiced by Georgi Irene), and Portia Porcupine (voiced by Sherry Lynn). They were first created in 1983 by Tony Byrd, Tom Jacobs, Ralph Shaffer, Linda Edwards, Muriel Fahrion, and Mark Spangler for a series of greeting cards by American Greetings. Loosely inspired by the Our Gang short films, the cards sold well enough for Nelvana to produce a pilot for a cartoon show starring the characters, which aired on Nickelodeon in May 1984. After the pilot, production of the show was handed over to DiC, and the show began airing on CBS. Only thirteen episodes, each one consisting of two segments (making for a total of twenty-six segments in total), were produced before the show was canned and greeting card sales started to decline. Attempts at relaunching the franchise since then have been washes. Sorry, Get Along Gang... we can't all be the Care Bears.

This show was made during that time period in the 1980s when cartoons had to focus mostly on learning valuable life lessons about getting along, working together, group harmony, and things like that. Garfield and Friends writer Mark Evanier talked about this sort of thing on his blog in a post talking about his time working on the Dungeons and Dragons cartoon that premiered a year before (note to self: review that cartoon at some point). Specifically, he said, "There are those our there who attempt to influence the content of childrens' television. We call them 'parents groups', although many are not comprised of parents, or at least not of folks whose primary interest is as parents. Study them and you'll find a wide array of agendum at work... and I suspect that, in some cases, their stated goals are far away from their real goals. Nevertheless, they all seek to make kidvid more enriching and redeeming, at least by their definitions, and at the time, they had enough clout to cause the networks to yield. Consultants were brought in and we, the folks who were writing cartoons, were ordered to include certain 'pro-social' morals in our shows. At the time, the dominant 'pro-social' moral was as follows: the group is always right... the complainer is always wrong. This was the message of way too many eighties' cartoon shows. If all your friends want to go get pizza and you want a burger, you should bow to the will of the majority and go get pizza with them. There was even a show for one season on CBS called The Get-Along Gang, which was dedicated unabashedly to this principle. Each week, whichever member of the gang didn't get along with the gang learned the error of his or her ways." This was what led to the creation of the Buddy Bears in Garfield and Friends, although Mark said that while he did cross swords with Standards and Practices and argued a lot "with one particular lady at ABC", none of this actually inspired the Buddy Bears. "Sometimes when you're a writer and you have strong feelings about something, you just find yourself writing about it," he explained.

So, why is The Get Along Gang so infamous? Why don't we watch an episode of the show and find out? Specifically, we'll be watching the second episode, which consists of the segments "Caboose on the Loose" and "Montgomery's Mechanical Marvel". This is The Get Along Gang.

We start off with Portia and Bingo playing marbles, with Bingo doing some sort of "special super-shot" that sends a marble flying into Zipper's mouth. For some reason, this leads to Zipper nagging Bingo about how betting is "for suckers" - apparently one of Bingo's character traits is that he has a betting problem. Better keep this kid out of Vegas, then.

After that, Montgomery, Dotty, and Woolma show up with some great news: they're having a rowboat race in the park tomorrow, and Montgomery signed up!

It really annoys me that they gave the moose a dog/bear nose. What, a moose can't
be cute if it just has its usual big nose? I believe Disney proved that is false.

Bingo is so sure that Montgomery will win, he tells him that he's gonna get a big surprise ready for after the race. Dotty claims that Montgomery won't win unless he trains, and then Bingo is subjected to WHACKY SHENANIGANS!

"Bingo, what are you doing?"
"Oh, y'know, just hanging around?"
"Boooooooo!"

"How's about you help by not helping, okay, Bungo?" Zipper snaps. Jeez, what is this cat's problem? He's done nothing but chew out Bingo for the smallest of things since the episode started. I know cats in cartoons more often than not have a bad attitude, but Zipper's really starting to annoy me.

We then cut to the show's antagonists, Leland Lizard (Nicky Katt) and Catchum Crocodile (Timothy Gibbs). Catchum is your typical 1980s cartoon bully, the kind who probably would've been the one selling drugs if this show had a "drugs are bad for you" episode. Leland is his wimpy, milquetoast sidekick. You'll notice that they, the bad guys, are reptiles whereas the Get Along Gang, the good guys, consist entirely of mammals. This is because, at this point in the animation industry, reptiles weren't considered cute like mammals are. Unless they were turtles, that is.

I know it's kind of silly to bring realism into a show with talking animals, but why is the
lizard almost as big as the crocodile?

I figured the majority of the episode would be focused on Montgomery training for the race, but instead, we promptly cut to the next day, just as the race is about to begin. Catchum's in the race, too, and because he's a two-dimensional cartoon bully, he's decided that the only way he can win is by cheating - he hides in the water and takes a saw to Montgomery's oar. And believe it or not, he wins the race. I thought cheaters never prospered. Wacky Races lied to me!

And how come nobody noticed Catchum get out of his boat and jump into the water, or the saw sticking out of the water cutting away at Montgomery's oar?

Incidentally, I wrote this review on August 14th - which is World Lizard Day. I swear it's
just a coincidence that I chose to write a review of a cartoon with a lizard in it.

Later, the kids are sitting in their clubhouse moping when Catchum barges in and declares that he's taking over their clubhouse. How does winning a rowboat race give you the right to steal somebody's clubhouse? Well, Bingo made a bet with him that if Montgomery won the race, Catchum would give him ten gallons of "chocolate woodchip ice cream"... but if Montgomery DIDN'T win, Catchum would get their clubhouse.

I think this calls for that clip of multiple people slapping their foreheads in unison...

"Bingo had no right to bet the clubhouse without asking all of us first!" Dotty complains. Can't they just, I don't know, refuse to give Catchum their clubhouse? Somehow, I doubt Catchum would've actually given Bingo the ten gallons of ice cream if Montgomery had won. But according to Montgomery, Bingo's word is the club's word, and so long as there wasn't any cheating, it's a fair bet. "You heard him, Get Along Gang! So GET ALONG!" Catchum snaps.

After the Get Along Gang leaves, Catchum whips out a birthday cake and party hats. I didn't know it was his birthday. Or maybe it isn't and he doesn't know that you're only supposed to put candles on a cake when it's somebody's birthday. Oh, wait, it could be his UNbirthday. In that case, it's fine.

"A very merry unbirthday to me!"

Zipper finds Bingo moping at the dock and points out to him how stupid it was for him to bet the clubhouse. He also reveals that he found Montgomery's oar floating in the water, and Bingo notices that it's been sawed through. Clearly, this must mean that Catchum cheated. Uh, small problem, guys... while we, the audience, know that Catchum is a cheating cheater from Cheatanooga, you don't have any proof that he's the one who sawed through the oar yet. How do you know it wasn't, say, a mischevious trout?

Bingo runs back to the clubhouse and confronts Catchum, who promptly throws the cake at his head... way to waste food, Catchum. Bingo ducks, so the cake hits Leland instead, sending him flying over to the caboose's steering wheel. This somehow causes the caboose to start rolling downhill. Cartoon logic, just go with it...

Meanwhile, Zipper finds Montgomery, Portia, Woolma, and Dotty at the ice cream shop and tells them that Catchum tricked them. That means they have the clubhouse back! That is, if they can stop it from rolling down the track.

"I don't know how, but something tells me this is Bingo's fault..."

The caboose eventually flies off the track and onto a conveniently-placed raft, which travels down the river towards a waterfall - remember, rivers in animation ALWAYS lead to waterfalls. Montgomery manages to polevault aboard, and Catchum tells him that he can have the clubhouse back if he just saves them... then does a 180 and decides to jump off via pogostick. Long story short, the other members of the Get Along Gang manage to save Montgomery and Bingo with a rope.

Now, how will they get the caboose out of the water? Easy - the tracks aren't far, Montgomery points out, so they can just push it there. So, we're supposed to believe that these kids can lift a caboose off a raft and onto dry land, then push it all the way back to the train tracks? Unless all six of these kids are on steroids, I'm calling shenanigans. Especially since the segment ends before we can even see them attempt it.

"Montgomery's Mechanical Marvel" begins with the Bingo, Zipper, Dotty, Woolma, and Portia waiting to see Montgomery's creation for the science fair - apparently, he wins the science fair every year.

"In hindsight, maybe we shouldn't have mounted Montgomery's head to the outside of
the clubhouse."
"But he looks so good up there!"

So what does Montgomery's project turn out to be? A robot. Yes, he actually managed to build a robot. Usually, in cartoons, kids who enter science fairs make paper-mache volcanoes and small stuff like that. This young moose somehow managed to build a ROBOT. A robot who even seems to have artificial intelligence. Forget winning the science fair, Montgomery should be getting a Nobel Prize or something!

He also named the robot "Hermey", presumably after his favorite Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer character.

If he's named Hermey, shouldn't he have an "H" on his sweater instead of an "M"?

Everyone is very impressed by Montgomery's robot. Unbeknownst to them, who should be slithering over to take a peek at his project but Catchum and Leland. Yes, Catchum is entering the science fair too, and once again he's going to cheat. Clearly he learned nothing from the events of the previous segment.

Catchum and Leland spot the Get Along Gang playing baseball with Hermey, and upon discovering that Montgomery built, y'know, a ROBOT, Catchum gets an idea: he'll disguise Leland as a robot. Apparently he's hoping that the judges at the science fair either need glasses or are very, very stupid.

"Doro armigoto, Mr. Roboto!"

Meanwhile, the Get Along Gang take their mechanical marvel into town to get some ice cream, but upon seeing it, an old lady rabbit panics and calls up Officer Growler (Don Messick) about the strange "monster" walking around. He doesn't see Hermey, but he DOES see Leland in his robot costume and thinks that HE'S the monster he was called about. And then he... does nothing about it? Uh, okay then...

We then cut to the science fair. Portia talks to Woolma about all the funny inventions on display there, but we don't actually get to see any of them because I guess there just wasn't enough time in the episode for that. The judges announce that they've narrowed it down to Hermey and Catchum's "robot". Portia and Dotty recognize Leland in that metal getup because, unlike the judges, they're not idiots. But just to make sure he wins, Catchum sneaks backstage and starts sabotaging Hermey, pulling wires out of his back. It's futile, Dotty manages to make Leland sneeze, revealing to everyone that he is not, in fact, a robot. And here's something else that might surprise you: the White House is painted WHITE.

The judges apparently didn't see this, or Catchum and Leland promptly running off. Wow, these guys are even dumber than Bingo. Instead, they just say they'll see Hermey perform first. Since Catchum sabotaged Hermey, this results in WHACKY SHENANIGANS!

Insert reference to that scene from The Exorcist here.

"Hermey's circuits are overloading! There's no telling WHAT he might do!" Montgomery exclaims. Eventually, Hermey starts chasing after Catchum and Leland, cornering them in the ice cream shop, but the Get Along Gang manage to catch him in a snare trap. Portia presses the red button in Hermey's back, shutting the robot off. The day is saved, and Catchum and Leland are punished by being forced to clean up the town. Huzzah.

What's the Verdict?

Y'know, I've said this before, but the hardest reviews to write are the ones of things that are mediocre. It's difficult to make saying "this isn't the worst thing ever but it's not particularly good either" funny.

This is one of those examples. If I could sum up The Get Along Gang in one sentence, I would say this: it doesn't stand out at all. There's nothing here we haven't seen in other 1980s cartoons. Cute animals? Lotta other cartoons starring cute animals from the 1980s. A gang of kids learning life lessons? Potato Head Kids might not have been anything spectacular but it was at least slightly more interesting than this. The characters are dull, the animation is fine but nothing to write home about, and the jokes aren't funny at all. I wouldn't say this show is awful, but unless you're under the age of seven, I would not recommend watching it. There are better cartoons worth your time.

I will say this, though... I didn't notice any of the "complainer is always wrong" thing people say this show was obsessed with in this episode at all. The closest they came was Montgomery saying that the gang would fix whatever problem they had by "working together" or whatever in both segments. Granted, this was an early episode, so maybe it got more prominent as the show went on...