Supes vs T. Tuxedo

[TELLE]

via Evanier:

http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2007_07_29.html#013774

[MatterEaterLad]

I dig it, and even though Don Adams doesn't seem to voice the commercial.

I loved "Tennessee Tuxedo"...

[TELLE]

I did too.  It was on every day beginning when I was in grade Grade 1 --I found it horrifying, baffling, frustrating, and only occasionally funny: my definition of entertainment!

Did anyone ever really laugh at cartoons as a kid?  Certainly I can't remember belly laughs.  I laugh more NOW when I watch something like the Flintstones than I ever did as a kid.  I think I spent more time processing cartoons as I watched them, learning about the world from them.  When everything is new, how do you know what is new enough to be funny?  I was the oldest in my family so had no guide.

Maybe I just didn't have a sense of humour....

[Super Monkey]

I never laughed at the animation that was created while I was a kid. I did laugh quite a bit at old cartoons (or real cartoons as I called them back then) that were created in the 1930's to 1950's. Things started to crap out during the 1950's and animation turn to a massive pile of boredom during the 1960's to the present, with a few precious exemptions here and there.

[Klar Ken T5477]

Classic Warner bros cartoons= LOL funny esp those by Bob Clampett and Frank Tashlin

Post UPA- Hanna Barbera style Tv toons rarely so....few exceptions being the Jay Ward canon- Rocky & Bullwinkle, Super Chicken etc/

[nightwing]

Well of course when I was growing up in the early 70s, Saturday mornings were pretty much owned by Hanna-Barbera, ie: the opposite of funny.  It didn't help that they added a laugh-track to their junk in that era.    The alternatives were the Syd and Marty Krofft shows, which far from being funny were just creepy and bizarre (and probably drug-induced), though I was mesmerized by them nonetheless.

Pretty much the only funny stuff was classic Warner Brothers (though it was often eviscerated by parent-fearing network nincompoops) and Jay Ward material like Dudley Do-Right and George of the Jungle, which was "dumb" funny; pure slapstick, lowbrow stuff.  I liked Underdog, the Go-Go Gophers, Tennessee Tuxedo and Commander McBragg but it wasn't like they had me howling.  Quite the opposite: Underdog's epic battle with Overcat had me biting my nails!

I tended to respond better to "adventure" cartoons like Jonny Quest or "Young Samson," or toons that walked the line between "funny animal" and superhero, like Mighty Mouse, Atom Ant, Super-Chicken and Quickdraw McGraw.  By and large cartoons were curiosities to me, visually fascinating but not really a source of laughs.  The shows that made me laugh were Laurel and Hardy, The Three Stooges and the Little Rascals.

 

[MatterEaterLad]

I actually think that younger kids have less of an overall sense of humor and that when they grow older and become adults, they see the humor much better. For me, classic Popeye, Hoppity Hooper, or the WB cartoons told good stories and I didn't see the humor until much later.

[nightwing]

MatterEaterLad writes:

I actually think that younger kids have less of an overall sense of humor and that when they grow older and become adults, they see the humor much better. For me, classic Popeye, Hoppity Hooper, or the WB cartoons told good stories and I didn't see the humor until much later.

I'd agree with that.  I remember watching "Wacky Races," for example, and being mostly interested in who won the race (I probably did the whole "Boo!" "Hiss" routine) as opposed to finding it funny.  Similarly, I know lots of kids who are on the edge of their seats watching "Scooby Doo" and no amount of pratfalls or double-takes from Scoob and Shaggy makes the ghosts and monsters less scary for them.

That said, I'd like to think even small kids deserve better than the burp and fart jokes they're usually handed in modern "G" fare.  I'd rather see animators try to draw the kids in with emotionally engaging tales -- even scary ones -- than roll out the usual hour and a half of dogs and cats passing gas.