Tag: Pink Panther

Musical Spine

George 2007George Of The Jungle is a cartoon show about a man wearing animal skins swinging around the jungle. The newest iteration, launched in 2007, has pulled in high enough ratings that they’ve been allowed more than one season, but the original, launched in 1967, ran only seventeen episodes.

So what?

Well, I have a theory. George, frankly, isn’t very good. It’s too ridiculous for older children, and is entirely devoid of the educational content that assuages parental guilt about letting a small child watch TV. Both versions of the show strike me as perfect examples of mediocre television, run only to fill time for kids being babysat by the glass teat.

Old George

One of the truly weird aspects of its continued existence is the fact that this generation isn’t even really all that familiar with Tarzan, which the series is a direct spoof of – there hasn’t been a major iteration of the ape man in over a decade, although I suppose they may be familiar with the Phil Collins-filled Disney version.

So why is it still on?

My theory is that it’s the theme song. The theme song is also what got the 1997 movie, starring Brendan Frasier, made.

How could a theme song have reached out from 37 years previous to get a major motion picture put together?

Well, it was this remake, as done by Weird Al in 1985. My belief is that Al, looking for material, reached back into his childhood years and pulled out the one redeeming item that had stuck with him from the original cartoon, the music.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJDmkCDqzFU]

Maybe it was a young go-getter, maybe it was a studio exec with a kid constantly playing Weird Al, but at some point the licensing must have crossed some listener’s desk, and the spark of resurrection was born.

I realize it may sound crazy, but: how many people can honestly say they’ve seen Saturday Night Fever? How many people are familiar with it because of Stayin’ Alive (the song, not the sequel film)?

Staying Alive

The original Shaft is another great example. A lot of folks know who is the man that would risk his neck for his brother man, but, when pressed on the details, they’ve got little info. Still, Samuel L. Jackson shafted us all out of admission fees in 2000.

Eye Of The Tiger got three or four more Rocky movies made, and the catchy Pink Panther theme launched an entire franchise separate from the Peter Sellers character.

I’m sure there are many missing examples, please feel free to chastise me with their titles in the comments.

Laugh Tracks & Late Night

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y94584UUw1Q]

Pink Panther, probably because of the lack of dialogue, animation, or sensical jokes, always had a laugh track that stood out.

No one uses canned laugh tracks anymore of course, but until recently I’d forgotten how many cartoons used to have one.

A recent viewing of teletoon retro – with a micro-midget in the crook of my arm – brought up some odd memories: as a kid huffing Scooby Doo it wasn’t long before I realized that not only were the laughers repeating themselves, they were also apparently heading over to Josie and the Pussycats and laughing at those jokes in pretty much the same way.

It was only once I’d asked wikipedia that I realized how prevalent the problem was:

Critics took note of the inferior sounding laugh track permeating Hanna-Barbera’s Saturday morning fare. The same prerecorded laugh can be heard after nearly every punchline, which does not go unnoticed by the astute viewer. The fact that the treble was mixed far too high for the soundtrack it accompanies only drew attention to the falsity of the practice. Several shows that are victim of the abridged laugh track are The New Scooby-Doo Movies, Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show, Dynomutt, Dog Wonder, Jabberjaw,Hong Kong Phooey, Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, The Flintstone Comedy Hour andHelp!… It’s the Hair Bear Bunch!. – Wikipedia

I think the modern/adult version of this is, unfortunately, the Letterman audience. I sometimes wonder if the crowd handlers are dressed like lion tamers with high voltage stun sticks.

I greatly enjoy the first half hour of The Late Show, but every quirky tick gets measured applause, every half-gag elicits a short homogeneous laugh – the quality of a joke can be judged by length, but not by intensity, there seems to be no exuberance or extremity permitted by the electro-rod carriers. It may not be the tinny guffawing of Scooby Doo, but the crowd response is so predictable I find it difficult to understand the difference.