Country singer Ray Stevens has issued several limited animation music videos down through the years. His initial step into that sort of product came along with the release of a project called Cartoon Video Collection which features 8 music videos where live-action Ray is shown with an animated back-drop. Several years later Ray began issuing music videos that were completely animated...including animated versions of his own image on screen. The results shown up on a couple of DVD releases in 2006.
Those music videos, coupled with brand new additions and some other previously released videos, shown up on Cartoon Carnival, Volume One, a DVD release of 10 animated music videos. That DVD collection was released along side Cartoon Carnival, Volume Two. Keep in mind the years that these individual music videos were released doesn't necessarily reflect the year they were originally recorded. Ray has made a lot of music videos, both live action and animation, of previous recordings that otherwise had no music video counterpart.
The 20 limited animation music videos that a person gets on the two Cartoon Carnival DVD's are as follows...
The Moonlight Special (2009)
Gone For Good (2003)
Along Came Jones (2006)
Barbeque (2006)
Smokey Mountain Rattlesnake Retreat (2009)
The Ballad Of Cactus Pete And Lefty (2006)
Power Tools (2003)
Can He Love You Half As Much As I (2006)
Deerslayer (2003)
Gourmet Restaurant (2006)
Hugo, The Human Cannonball (2009)
Hang Up And Drive (2003)
This Ain’t Exactly What I Had In Mind (2006)
Teenage Mutant Kung Fu Chickens (2006)
Bridget The Midget the Queen of the Blues (2003)
The Camping Trip (2009)
Harry The Hairy Ape (2006)
Erik The Awful (2003)
Jeremiah Peabody's Green and Purple Pills (2006)
Misty (2006)
I highlighted the four exclusive music videos that were added to the collection. This was one of the last projects released by Ray Stevens prior to his change in direction to releasing topical/politically-humorous music videos...which have been seen by millions on You Tube.
Sunday, March 13, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
Superfriends...The Classic Era...
Somewhere along the line there seems to have been an unwritten rule come along in which it's become popular(?) to make fun of the classic era of the Superfriends. I love the classic era. I've got most of the DVD collections of this series...the only collection's that I don't have, as of now, are the first season releases from last year. Like a lot of fans I'm waiting on news to come along that the 1979 episodes, titled World's Greatest Superfriends, are coming to DVD as well as the short episodes from 1980-1982. Commentary on-line suggests that the 1979 episodes won't be released due to the copyright issues of the literary works that were borrowed for the series...it was in the 1979 episodes where the Superfriends were placed in the land of Oz, for example, as well as battling foes in Camelot (referred to as Camelon in the series). There are other episodes from the 1979 series that were conventional episodes such as "Lex Luthor Strikes Back" where Lex and his bumbling assistant disguise themselves as various Superfriends with the help of a projector ray. The assistant, of course, is based on Ned Beatty's Otis character in the Superman movie a year earlier. However, in spite of the belief that copyright problems may prevent the 1979 episodes from being re-released on DVD it should be noted that the DVD collection of the 1978 episodes features an installment called "Attack of the Vampire" which uses the actual name, Count Dracula, and then there are installments, also from 1978, titled "The Time Trap" and "Fairy Tales of Doom". In each episode the Superfriends come face to face with literary characters. Julius Caesar appears in "The Time Trap" while King Arthur is mentioned in the same episode. In the Fairy Tales episode Toyman sends several of the Superfriends into the books of fairy-tales: Gulliver's Travels, Alice in Wonderland, as well as Jack and the Beanstalk. I think if there's a serious push for the 1979 episodes to get released on DVD there'd be a compromise or deal struck in some fashion or another.
The desire from fans is to have all remaining episodes of the series released on DVD.
Of the 7 DVD collections that I own I find myself watching Challenge of the Superfriends the most and second to that is the 1983 Lost Episodes release from 2009. Lately I've been watching more of 1984's The Legendary Super Powers Show but I've watched each of the collections a lot...so there's not any specific release that I'd consider an absolute favorite. It simply depends on my mood...if I want to see episodes with Darkseid I'll pull out the 1984 episodes. If I want to see the hour long episodes I'll watch one of the two volumes of The All-New Superfriends Hour from 1977.
There have been 9 DVD collections released of the Superfriends over the course of the last several years. I don't have the 2 volume set of the first season episodes but I have all the other collections. It was in the first season where Ted Knight played the role of the narrator and the Hall of Justice was referred to as the Hall of the Justice League. Ted Knight was chosen as narrator, I assume, because of his history with voicing cartoon characters in the 1960's super-hero cartoons. A lot of people forget that Knight was the voice of The Riddler, The Joker, Mr. Freeze, Black Manta, Torpedo Man, Tusky, and Imp during the late '60s in the Filmation produced cartoons. Knight was the narrator of the 1967-1968 Superman/Aquaman Hour of Adventure as well as the 1968-1969 series, The Superman-Batman Adventures, and he voiced a lot of the villains. Knight's narration in the first season of Superfriends wasn't that out of place at all if you know his history with the franchise. Yes...before anyone can ask...it's the same Ted Knight who appeared on the Mary Tyler Moore Show, Too Close for Comfort, and the Caddyshack movies. You can find episodes of these late '60s super-hero cartoons with Ted Knight's involvement on You Tube. Those familiar with William Woodson's narration (1977-1984) and unfamiliar with Ted Knight's, of course, will find it odd to hear someone other than Woodson deliver the narration. I'm including this video of a 1967 Aquaman cartoon because it demonstrates Knight's vocal abilities as Black Manta. In the clip you'll hear Knight as the narrator, too... For those who stumble onto this and don't own any of the DVD collections available here is a list of the officially released Superfriends collections...
1. Challenge of the Superfriends; 2004 (1978)
2. Superfriends, Volume Two; 2005 (1978)**
3. Superfriends: The Legendary Super Powers Show; 2007 (1984)
4. Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians; 2007 (1985)
5. The All-New Superfriends Hour, Volume One; 2008 (1977)
6. The All-New Superfriends Hour, Volume Two; 2009 (1977)
7. Superfriends: The Lost Episodes; 2009 (1983)
8. Superfriends, Season One, Volume One; 2010 (1973)
9. Superfriends, Season One, Volume Two; 2010 (1973)
(**)- in the 1978 hour-long series, Challenge of the Superfriends, the program was broken into two parts. In the first half hour the episodes revolved around the Superfriends and the Wonder Twins battling an array of small-scale villains, scientists gone mad, alien monsters, and local crooks bent on controlling the world or unleashing mayhem all over the world. In the second half hour the episodes revolved around the Superfriends, minus the Wonder Twins and with an increase of super-heroes, battling super-villains led by Lex Luthor. The villains resided in the Hall of Doom and they collectively went by the name of The Legion of Doom. When the DVD's were being released the company decided to release the 32 half-hour 1978 episodes in two separate DVD's consisting of 16 episodes per collection. Superfriends, Volume Two features the 16 episodes with the Wonder Twins as part of the line-up while the first collection released, Challenge of the Superfriends, features the 16 episodes with a line-up of 11 Superfriends battling the 13 member Legion of Doom.
The super-heroes in the episodes with the Legion of Doom include: Superman, Batman and Robin, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, Green Lantern, Flash, Hawkman, Samurai, Black Vulcan, and Apache Chief. The last three heroes were created for the 1977 series and hadn't appeared in any comic book or other animated series beforehand. They were included in the Challenge series, too, in an effort to offer more story opportunities.
The Legion of Doom members include: Lex Luthor, Black Manta, Grodd, Toyman, Sinestro, Brainiac, Bizarro, Captain Cold, The Riddler, Scarecrow, Solomon Grundy, Cheetah, and Giganta.
Monday, January 17, 2011
Hee-Haw: 1969-1992, Part Seven...
Sunday night's episode of Hee-Haw on RFD-TV featured Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, and Cincinnati Reds catcher, Johnny Bench. This particular episode was among those issued on DVD from Time Life back in 2005. Waylon performed "Good Hearted Woman", "Me and Bobby McGee", and with Jessie he sang "I Ain't the One". Jessi performed "I'm Not Lisa". There were several performances from Roy Clark as well as Buck Owens...in addition to The Hagers. Lisa Todd even performed a song in this episode. Johnny Bench would pop-up in various, quick comedy exchanges with individual cast-members. As is the custom when athlete's show up the punchlines that they deliver or the jokes that they set up are typically sports oriented. Bench appeared on Hee-Haw several times.
In this seventh installment of the Hee-Haw retrospective I felt it a change of pace to ponder a question that's been on the minds of a lot of fans for years: Could Hee-Haw ever make it if brought back in first-run syndication? I don't necessarily have a definitive answer for that question but I'd guess and say there's plenty of people who would automatically say 'yes' and some that would quickly answer 'no'. Television syndication is an incredibly competitive business nowadays. It's actually been highly competitive since the dawn of the 1990's but with so many cable-TV channels and many productions working on off-network programs and the seemingly dominate grip on the 7-8pm time-slot by local stations through the week it leads to an ever increasing diagnosis of doom when it comes to trying to make it in television syndication in 2011 as opposed to 1991.
It's been almost 20 years since the Hee-Haw we all recognize went off the air. The final rural version of the program aired on February 23, 1991 and the guest stars on that last program were Tammy Wynette and Steve Wariner. The show went into a prolonged rerun period which lasted through the rest of 1991. It was also during this rerun cycle that the local TV station in my area stopped carrying the show altogether and as I've mentioned before I was never able to watch the 1992 episodes.
Anyway, the new version of Hee-Haw hit the air on January 4, 1992. Barbara Mandrell, Vern Gosdin, and Joe Diffie were the first guests of 1992.
This urbanized twist of the show went off the air in May 1992 and since that point in time there's never been any newly produced episodes of the program to see the light of day. The question of would a show like Hee-Haw work in 2011 remains up in the air for a lot of people. We all like to think the show, if brought back with new episodes in the rural version we all love, would be able to attract an audience of some kind and be successful.
The success of the Time Life DVD's, in addition to all the ratings successes that the reruns have enjoyed every time a channel airs them, is proof enough that the show is remarkably popular after all this time. Attempting to revive the show would be an undertaking to put it mildly.
I kind of get the sense that every so often talk starts up about a possible revival of the show in some form or another and this causes nostalgic feelings for the show to surface...eventually leading to nostalgic and emotional remembrances about the cast-members of the program, etc. etc.
In the most ironic of circumstances plans of reviving the show almost always get pushed onto the back burner because of the idea of reviving a program that's so beloved by it's fans that one false move in the production or casting can lead to severe backlash. Hee-Haw ended on a controversial note, after all. It's long-time fans were not pleased with the new look in the 1992 episodes. The main set, a cornfield, was replaced according to things I've read by a city street. Oh, in the course of the last 18 and a half years since the program's final episode in 1992 it's become even more of a treasured program in the eye's of it's fans...so the controversy over the 1992 episodes didn't necessarily damage the feelings for the show as a whole. This is why I feel if new episodes were to ever be made that the smartest move to make is to have the scenery rural...bringing back the cornfield and other elements of the show. If the program were ever revived it would clearly need to remain purposely corny and showcase a lot of music, too. I guess what I'm saying is a revival of the show would need to have the spirit of the classic Hee-Haw...not necessarily the same exact sketches or cast-members...but if it were done in a faithful way it could work.
Earlier I remarked that reviving the show would be an undertaking...and I assume it would be...but once a revival becomes officially cast, and the scenery and writing becomes intentionally reminiscent of it's early years, and the rapid editing style and showing of bloopers is inserted I think long-time fans of the show would absolutely love a revival of Hee-Haw.
In all my talks about the show I seldom mention the absolute fact that it wasn't the fans of the show that caused it to go out of production in 1992. Affiliate television stations by 1990/1991 were dropping the show...and obviously this will lead to a decline in audience. Well, due to television programmers dropping the show it caused a lot of fans to innocently assume the show was no longer on the air. I'll bet millions of people didn't see the 1990-1992 episodes due to the syndication practices of the era. In 1992 the show went out of production amidst the controversy of the urban Hee-Haw.
I find it ironic, though, that a year and a half after the show ended production in May of 1992 that it became one of the highest rated programs on The Nashville Network beginning in early 1994 when the reruns started airing on Saturday nights. Reruns of the show remained on TNN on a fairly consistent basis through 1997 but the time-slot was often being played around with. For the most part the reruns aired on Saturday nights at 10pm and would re-air at 1am. Later on the reruns were pushed back to 7pm and they'd re-air again at 10pm. TNN's prime-time line-up would always repeat itself for those who didn't catch the early airings. The reruns on TNN were publicized in a couple issues of Country Weekly magazine in 1994 and revitalized interest led to an outdoor stage show, Hee-Haw Live, at the Opryland complex.
The reruns eventually stopped airing on TNN and then came an ill-fated association with CMT who aired reruns of the show inconsistently. CMT apparently didn't want the ratings that Hee-Haw could bring in and so they eventually stopped airing the show altogether...the CMT era was launched on July 29, 2006 when the channel aired a marathon of episodes with the promise that reruns would air on a weekly basis...but this didn't pan out.
Around this same time, the mid 2000's, reruns of the show began appearing on DVD from the Time Life company. No doubt the success of those DVD's increased the belief that the show had remained popular after all these years...and now the reruns are airing on RFD-TV in a much more faithful way. In fact, they're airing in chronological order. Enjoy this beloved program as it airs each Sunday at 8pm Eastern.
In this seventh installment of the Hee-Haw retrospective I felt it a change of pace to ponder a question that's been on the minds of a lot of fans for years: Could Hee-Haw ever make it if brought back in first-run syndication? I don't necessarily have a definitive answer for that question but I'd guess and say there's plenty of people who would automatically say 'yes' and some that would quickly answer 'no'. Television syndication is an incredibly competitive business nowadays. It's actually been highly competitive since the dawn of the 1990's but with so many cable-TV channels and many productions working on off-network programs and the seemingly dominate grip on the 7-8pm time-slot by local stations through the week it leads to an ever increasing diagnosis of doom when it comes to trying to make it in television syndication in 2011 as opposed to 1991.
It's been almost 20 years since the Hee-Haw we all recognize went off the air. The final rural version of the program aired on February 23, 1991 and the guest stars on that last program were Tammy Wynette and Steve Wariner. The show went into a prolonged rerun period which lasted through the rest of 1991. It was also during this rerun cycle that the local TV station in my area stopped carrying the show altogether and as I've mentioned before I was never able to watch the 1992 episodes.
Anyway, the new version of Hee-Haw hit the air on January 4, 1992. Barbara Mandrell, Vern Gosdin, and Joe Diffie were the first guests of 1992.
This urbanized twist of the show went off the air in May 1992 and since that point in time there's never been any newly produced episodes of the program to see the light of day. The question of would a show like Hee-Haw work in 2011 remains up in the air for a lot of people. We all like to think the show, if brought back with new episodes in the rural version we all love, would be able to attract an audience of some kind and be successful.
The success of the Time Life DVD's, in addition to all the ratings successes that the reruns have enjoyed every time a channel airs them, is proof enough that the show is remarkably popular after all this time. Attempting to revive the show would be an undertaking to put it mildly.
I kind of get the sense that every so often talk starts up about a possible revival of the show in some form or another and this causes nostalgic feelings for the show to surface...eventually leading to nostalgic and emotional remembrances about the cast-members of the program, etc. etc.
In the most ironic of circumstances plans of reviving the show almost always get pushed onto the back burner because of the idea of reviving a program that's so beloved by it's fans that one false move in the production or casting can lead to severe backlash. Hee-Haw ended on a controversial note, after all. It's long-time fans were not pleased with the new look in the 1992 episodes. The main set, a cornfield, was replaced according to things I've read by a city street. Oh, in the course of the last 18 and a half years since the program's final episode in 1992 it's become even more of a treasured program in the eye's of it's fans...so the controversy over the 1992 episodes didn't necessarily damage the feelings for the show as a whole. This is why I feel if new episodes were to ever be made that the smartest move to make is to have the scenery rural...bringing back the cornfield and other elements of the show. If the program were ever revived it would clearly need to remain purposely corny and showcase a lot of music, too. I guess what I'm saying is a revival of the show would need to have the spirit of the classic Hee-Haw...not necessarily the same exact sketches or cast-members...but if it were done in a faithful way it could work.
Earlier I remarked that reviving the show would be an undertaking...and I assume it would be...but once a revival becomes officially cast, and the scenery and writing becomes intentionally reminiscent of it's early years, and the rapid editing style and showing of bloopers is inserted I think long-time fans of the show would absolutely love a revival of Hee-Haw.
In all my talks about the show I seldom mention the absolute fact that it wasn't the fans of the show that caused it to go out of production in 1992. Affiliate television stations by 1990/1991 were dropping the show...and obviously this will lead to a decline in audience. Well, due to television programmers dropping the show it caused a lot of fans to innocently assume the show was no longer on the air. I'll bet millions of people didn't see the 1990-1992 episodes due to the syndication practices of the era. In 1992 the show went out of production amidst the controversy of the urban Hee-Haw.
I find it ironic, though, that a year and a half after the show ended production in May of 1992 that it became one of the highest rated programs on The Nashville Network beginning in early 1994 when the reruns started airing on Saturday nights. Reruns of the show remained on TNN on a fairly consistent basis through 1997 but the time-slot was often being played around with. For the most part the reruns aired on Saturday nights at 10pm and would re-air at 1am. Later on the reruns were pushed back to 7pm and they'd re-air again at 10pm. TNN's prime-time line-up would always repeat itself for those who didn't catch the early airings. The reruns on TNN were publicized in a couple issues of Country Weekly magazine in 1994 and revitalized interest led to an outdoor stage show, Hee-Haw Live, at the Opryland complex.
The reruns eventually stopped airing on TNN and then came an ill-fated association with CMT who aired reruns of the show inconsistently. CMT apparently didn't want the ratings that Hee-Haw could bring in and so they eventually stopped airing the show altogether...the CMT era was launched on July 29, 2006 when the channel aired a marathon of episodes with the promise that reruns would air on a weekly basis...but this didn't pan out.
Around this same time, the mid 2000's, reruns of the show began appearing on DVD from the Time Life company. No doubt the success of those DVD's increased the belief that the show had remained popular after all these years...and now the reruns are airing on RFD-TV in a much more faithful way. In fact, they're airing in chronological order. Enjoy this beloved program as it airs each Sunday at 8pm Eastern.
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