Yes, I’ve been on mini-vacation and abandoned you for a while without so much as one post letting you know I’d be away, or a note to call your Aunt Vicki if you needed anything. Knowing your parents, you’re used to this kind of thing. So, like my cats when they’ve hit the box instead of the carpet, you’re going to get a special fish flavored treat. You remember Harmony Heart, don’t you? Of course you do. He’s the Worst Cartoon Robot Host of All Time [He's out of work now, and in the coming weeks we'll be seeing just what he's up to]. But first, lets harken back to a time when we was hosting a video featuring trashy, thrown-together public domain cartoons (much like the one for sale to your immediate right! Have one, won’t you?). Apparently, the creators of this video enjoy their weed more than, say, the ins-and-outs of their editing machine. Like Bill O’Reilly, they just “do it live.” Which is a littler harder to do when animation is involved. So, instead of re-recording Harmony Heart’s lines when he utterly botches them, they just let the tape roll, man. Because they’re free spirits. Free, unyielding and beautiful spirits sandwiched between the giddy high-high-HIGHS of “Brake Free” and the mildly-offensive, Sunday Morning Coming Down strains of “Music to Learn About People” (or, “Year of the Cock”, if you’re a keen video observer). Dig it, man.

Is it just me, or is Harmony Heart kind of like Joel Hodgson’s loveable cousin?

Hey, what’s more embarrassing than The Wonder Twins? It’s Willie Tyler & Lester—the less funny pre-cursor to Jeff Dunham—trying to pronounce the word “Superman” as part of ABC Saturday Morning Preview Show. As far as I’m concerned, Superfriends owes all its success to this perfectly executed comedy bit.

I can’t get over his Ms. Pac-Man joke, either. “How do you tell Ms. Pac-Man apart from Pac-Man? Ms. Pac-Man has a bow on her head and earrings! BOP BOP BOP BOP BOP!” Wait a minute…isn’t that just a fact and not a punchline? If it’s not, I’ve got a joke for you: “How do you tell the difference between Pinky and Clyde, the Pac-Man ghosts? Clyde is Orange! BOP BOP BOP BOP BOP BOP!”

And whatever you do, DO NOT, miss the “Superman Pac-Man Song” at the end, in which Lester becomes terrified on the spot and attempts to improvise a song, but ends up just spouting off the TV Guide listings for that morning and then adds AMERICAN BANDSTANDDDDD at the end. This must have pissed everyone at ABC off because Bandstand (Band-stannnd) has absolutely nothing to do with this Saturday Morning Preview Special. Willie clearly just adds it to the end because they’re on the American Bandstand set, because ABC was to cheap to get this show its own set.

I never realized how truly bad the name for the Laverne and Shirley and Fonz Hour Cartoon was until a puppet tried to sing it in a song.

Got my favorite comment this week under one of the many Dick Clark posts:

Stupid. Not funny, just boringly stupid. Not really having a good time around here, so I’m moving on. -Bored To Tears

Yeah, well the jerkstore called and they’re runnin’ outta YOU! I’m intrigued by the man/woman/cretin who “hangs around” a website like a bar that’s closed hours ago and won’t leave, and apparently doesn’t understand the concept of “surfing” the internet (but rather camps in one spot), but now that the dickweeds have wandered off, I can share with the cool kids table another clip from the Dick Clark Saturday Morning Bore-a-Rama. This one simply has Shaggy giving Scooby the Scooby Shocker. His real prize is ending up with his head directly up the Great Dane’s butt. INCONVENIENT! 

Boringly stupid, indeed

First things first: Why don’t you celebrate Cinco De Mayo the way Jesus intended.

SOOO…Jeff Sparkman, the kind fellow who sent me this little gold mine we call The Pac-Man Saturday Morning Preview, pretty much sums up the following clip in one of his posts:

“While watching the Mork and Mindy cartoon, my 5-year-old got up, and told me, ‘This isn’t very good,’ and walked away.”

Once again, Dick Clark offers up a couple of clues but before he can lambaste the children for guessing incorrectly, Orson—the booming voice from Mork & Mindy, a television program these children are all very well versed in—lays the smackdown on Dick. That’s Ralph James, bitch—the recognizable voiceover artist also behind the eighties Spider-Man’s Dr. Doom, and several other things I don’t feel like IMDB-ing.

It’s such a hilarious and interesting bit, that Orson is allowed to just prattle on while poor Dick and the children have nothing to do. One child decides to hand Dick Clark his popcorn, and then immediately takes it back. This unscripted move by this rogue, outside-the-box-method-acting-Johnny seems to tick Dick Clark off, because he doesn’t so much as mouth a “thank you” before gripping the popcorn coldly and looking away as if something that f—ing weird didn’t just happen.

After 1:15 seconds, when the cartoon starts, you’re on your own. These are waters even a doe-eyed 5-year-old won’t dip her toes into. The minute Mork begins yelling at a bowl of fruit and dishing out onion puns, my eyeballs dripped out of my head like runny egg whites.

Also, IMDB claims Robin Williams actually did the voice for this cartoon. I’m not convinced. But I’m not strong enough to give it a good, critical listen. Perhaps you should let me know in the comments section.

[PS: The Winners of the Freak-Out Friday Contest have been decided! Your prizes are being boxed up, and winners will be announced t'morrow!]

If you were to have a swine flu fever-dream in 1983, it might look something like the following clip.

First of all, Dick Clark somehow can’t NOT be a douche no matter how hard he tries. It’s bad enough that these kids have to go along with this awful charade of pretending they know who Laverne and Shirley are, and are expected to muster the energy (spoiler: they don’t) to shout out the name of a cartoon show based on these two past-their-prime sitcom characters. Get to the Snorks, Dick.

And then Dick has the balls to put down an audience member who has the gall to mention Santa Claus as a potential Laverne and Shirley guest star. He almost seems insulted, or like he’s dealing with a heckler at the Funny Bone. “No..that’s just…you’re wrong. REAL wrong. effin’kids i oughta effin’ beat you with those cue cards…” I mean, what in the hell were they supposed to say? Is it outside the realm of possibility that on a desperate and sad cartoon like Laverne and Shirley that Santa Claus wouldn’t show up?

The next deer-in-the-headlines victim of Dick’s constant prodding gets it close by saying “Squealy,” probably meaning Squiggy—which is a great guess for a girl who has never heard of Laverne and Shirley—and Dick Clark mercillously sweeps the leg and goes in for the kill. In Dick Clark’s defense, there is a slight difference between Squiggy and Squealy.

Luckily, someone had the forethought to tape over the next couple seconds of the Pac-Man Saturday Morning Preview with something called SUPER TV, which—sadly—runs its course and is out of my life before i have time to pick up the phone and order what appeared to be the greatest thing I have ever f—king seen in my life. “I can get ‘On Golden Pond’ AND perm porn? Surely, this Super TV can’t be for real!!!”

Then it’s back to the Fonz, wishing he were sticking his head in an active volcano right.

Check out this bored-to-tears moppet, the female Froggy from Our Gang, staring into the void and dutifully answering Dick’s asinine question lest she get put right in her goddamned place by theageless man with the microphone. Oh, how I love her. She speaks for all of us…she seems to be saying, “Kill me…kill me…kill me…kill me…”