More from cartoon land as next we dive into Wacky Races.
In the cartoon world, a group of racers of varied professions take part in an automobile race to decide the wackiest racer, everything from Inventors, Cavemen, Pilots, Monsters, Hillbillies, Lumberjacks, Mobsters, Armymen to actual racing drivers and whatever Dick Dastardly was doing before he took up racing. A typical race would feature lots of power ups and Dick Dastardly cheating to win and always failing.
The show is well liked and well remembered but looking back at this late 60s show, it hasn't really aged much but it's easy to point out the realization that Dick Dastardly could've won a lot of races by not cheating mainly because
1. He clearly has the fastest car in the races when you compare what he's up against.
2. He always seems to lead a race at some point in the show.
3. The other racers rarely take him on other than through dumb luck.
Dick puts his cheating down to laws of villainy, but he has the Wile E Coyote law of not being allowed to win no matter what, which is why when he did win, he gets cheated by the race people to make sure he's disqualified.
Overall you can't go wrong with Wacky Races, it's one of the few attempts at a racing cartoon that succeeds where others fail, the next review will explain why.
I've been meaning to do this list for a while as we look at the Top 10 Best Cartoons adapted from films.
10. Godzilla
The most famous monster to ever grace Tokyo has had a few adaptions over the years including some silly ones in the 1970s up to the cartoon based on the 90s American movie of Godzilla which many admit was actually better than the film itself.
9. Men in Black
Remaining faithful to the source material doesn't work for everyone but works wonders with Men in Black that relies on a certain style to maintain it's ice cool exterior.
8. Ace Ventura
The first of three Jim Carrey films on this list, Ace Ventura was probably the weakest of the lot. The idea works in context but without Jim Carrey in the shoes or being real, it loses some charm, it's still pretty good though.
7. Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure
Another idea that works animated and they managed to get hold of the original cast for season 1, pity season 2 didn't follow the same rules. Out of all the ones listed on this top ten, this is the one I want to see return to the small screen.
6. Star Wars Clone Wars the Genndy Tartakovsky Version
A Star Wars adaption told through the artistic direction of Samurai Jack's creator Genndy Tartakovsky works wonders for a franchise who at this point was trying to win back an unsettled audience from the Attack of the Clones film. To remind you of Genndy's style, he lets the action do the talking and keeps dialogue to a bare minimum, there you go improved franchise so why get rid of him CARTOON NETWORK!!!!!????????
5. Attack of the Killer Tomatoes
You wouldn't think this was possible but it actually works animated, an angry scientist makes Killer Tomatoes and you've got yourself Splatoon before it was cool.
4. Beetlejuice
While it kind of switches Beetlejuice's position from Antagonist to friend of human girl Lydia, it stays faithful to it's style and surreal horror humor that so makes the film such an 80s classic. While very much toned down to obviously suit the audience, there were enough talented writers to avoid making this bad.
3. Dumb & Dumber
The fact is Jim Carrey was on to something when he created all these characters, they pretty much act cartoonish so it makes sense to animate them, Dumb & Dumber didn't last long compared to the other two but makes the duo much more likeable than their live action film versions.
2. The Mask
Now the Mask is even more cartoonish and with his slapstick being a cross between the Genie and Animaniacs you have comedy gold and one of the most underrated cartoons of the 90s. Jim Carrey make more of these guys please.
1. The Real Ghostbusters
But for the memories, staying true to your characters, having good voice acting and being insanely awesome, the Ghostbusters win this list outright as it's pretty much the only one on this list to be picture perfect with it's adaption.
Note: So I bet you're wondering what the best Video Game adaption into cartoons is? There's only one Video Game cartoon that rules them all and has never had a bad word said against it, and you'll have to wait til tomorrow to find out.
Sorry for scrapping the barrel today, I promise the next review will be something meatier, but today we look at a shameless Scooby Doo copy, Goober and the Ghost Chasers.
Goober and the Ghost Chasers is about a group of teenagers and their talking dog solving spooky mysteries, the difference between this one and Scooby Doo is that they often meet real Ghosts that help solve the mysteries along with technology many years before Ghostbusters and the gimmick is that Goober can turn invisible when he's scared of ghosts. It didn't run for very long and sort of came and went.
As much as you want to complain about the lack of cartoons in the last 15 years it's nothing compared to what the 70s had to put up with, the strict rules on broadcasting in cartoons meant that very few things were allowed on tv so the 70s were packed full of self indulgent celebrity cartoons, cartoon remakes of popular sitcoms at the time and several different takes on Scooby Doo with Goober and the Ghost Chasers being the most blatant of the shameless copies next to the likes of the Funky Phantom and Inch High Private Eye and you can even argue that Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels along with Josie and the Pussycats relied heavily on the same formula.
Bottom line is, the 00s are gold compared to the 70s so I wouldn't complain.
Now it's time for a history lesson as we move onto a really old and creepy looking cartoon called Clutch Cargo.
Clutch Cargo is about a pilot of the same name, who travels around the world on dangerous assignments alongside a tag-a-long kid named Spinner, a Dachshund dog named Paddlefoot and a scruffy man named Swampy, there isn't much else to work on in terms of plot, it's very much the most basic version of Johnny Quest you're ever going to get, so lets discuss the one thing Clutch Cargo is infamous for which is Syncro-Vox.
Syncro-Vox is a filming method which combines static images with moving images, in terms of animation, lips are super imposed on the character's faces in order to save money on animating full moveable lips. Animation was very expensive in the late 50s with only Disney, Metro Goldwyn Mayer & Warner Bros having the budget for any significant cartoons at the time. Clutch Cargo was developed by a relatively small company and had to cut corners everywhere but weren't savvy enough to use the Hanna Barbara methods of cost cutting or the mostly robot era of anime post the first Astroboy anime released ironically the same year as Clutch Cargo.
The result of this was dodgy looking animation where vocal dialogue scenes were done with still images and looked insanely creepy especially when Spinner & Paddlefoot was voiced by a woman.
What saved this cartoon from failure is that the stories were pretty decent and easily digestible as the episodes were only five minutes long and one story arc would take up all the days in the Weekdays with a full recap at the Weekend.
So despite the obvious flaws in it's production, Clutch Cargo was a surprising success in it's era and at least gave an example to other animators of what can happen when budgets are too tight.
Syncro-Vox still has a small place in today's media as a method used for sketch show shorts and has even found moderate success with webtoon Annoying Orange.
Really? I have to do Quick Draw McGraw? Okay lets get this over with.
Quick Draw is one of Hanna Barbara's many many Anthropomorphic characters with neck wear; this time it's a horse.
Quick Draw is the sheriff of his town often solving problems using many Western themes and references popular at the time of release in the late 50s early 60s, he is joined by a small donkey called Baba Looey who is probably a stereotype these days. Quick Draw joins the likes of Hong Kong Phooey in terms of incompetent as quite frequently he ends up shooting himself in the face with his own gun while drawing it, he also has a Zorro-esque alter ego named El Kabong who usually smacks people on the head with a Spanish Guitar.
Quick Draw is a lot more memorable than some of the other Hanna Barbara characters and has a lot of legacy within America much in the same way as Yogi Bear but it doesn't stop some things from being really bizarre; for example, why does an anthropomorphic horse ride another horse? And why does a sheriff need to mask as a vigilante when he's the law enforcement in town.
As a cartoon it was okay, I never found it anything special, Hanna Barbara's cartoon animal brigade very rarely makes any effort to standout other than voice accents and most productions will have similar plots, although how you get 45 cartoons out of a two joke show is beyond me.
Sorry that Q was lacking in choice, R should make up for it.
