April 18, 2025 • 53 mins
Step into the cockpit with us as we navigate the strange skies of TaleSpin, one of Disney's most fascinating animated experiments from the early 1990s. What happens when you take characters from The Jungle Book, put them in cargo planes, and set them in a 1930s-inspired world with sky pirates?
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Spin it, let's begin it.
Bear and grin it when you're init.
Wait, shit, that's fat.
Spin it, let's begin it.
Bear and grin it when you're init.
Oh nice, you can win it in aminute when you spin it.
Spin it, spin it.
Gentlemen, let's broaden ourminds.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Are they in the proper approach pattern for
today?
Negative, all weapons.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Now Charge the lightning field.
We are going to talk todayabout Zabalu.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
It's almost like he should be running from Nazis in
the show.
Well, I mean, he kind of isKind of is Kind of Kind of.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I mean, we can get into a little bit of that.
There's one.
Wow, remind me of that later.
Okay, because there's actuallyone specific Nazi story.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, there was a short story in disney adventures
magazine.
It had a group of dogs Ibelieve they're called the homes
that were distinctly identifiedas german.
They dressed like nazi soldiersfrom the houndland.
Oh boy, they never reprintedthat.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
I couldn't actually find the comic anywhere online,
but I did look for it Disney'sreally good about well, they
used to be really good aboutdisappearing things.
It was really hard to actuallyfind Song of the South for like
a really long time, right yeah.
They can't really do thatanymore with the internet the
way it is, but still they'repretty proficient.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Marvel Disney Adventures, volume two, number
one, with Michael Jordan on thecover.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Oh good, Then it has to be about Nazis.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Tailspin the dogs of war.
Oh boy, welcome back toDispatch Ajax.
This is your friendly bushpilot, jake, and co-pilot for
this flight that you're on today.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Oh, I'm Skip.
I'm the little kid Skip.
Oh, it's little Skipper.
I'm the kid in it, littleSkipper cloud hopper, I mean
close enough.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I mean I didn't want it to go too on the bare nose,
as it were.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Just the bare necessities, nothing.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
I too love that porn that sounds really softcore.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, oh, but here's the thing this isn't actually
technically a mainstreamDispatch Ajax episode.
It is in fact Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Thank God you remembered because I wasn't
going to do it.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
We're going back in time Back in time.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Huey Lewis, get out of here.
Hey, somebody get the broom.
I locked the doors.
How did he get in here?
We are going back to ourchildhoods in the early 90s,
where apparently things couldjust be on TV for like a year,
but yet they will be seared intoyour brain forever.
It's like they have 20 seasons.
Almost every time we go back todo one of these cartoons, it
(02:58):
was like, oh no, it had fourepisodes and it was like I saw
that all the time.
What?
Yeah, I had all episodes andit's like I saw that all the
time.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
What?
Yeah, I had all the toys, butit was only on for three weeks.
It's really crazy.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
It was just a commercial after Bob Vila's home
.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
That's the only way I know about it.
I had so much Captain Powershit.
By the way, we have to doCaptain Power.
You remember Captain Power?
Speaker 1 (03:23):
I have a vague recollection of Captain Power.
Perhaps it would be a learningexperience for myself as well.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Oh, it was a interactive TV show where if you
bought the toy, it would getthe ship and the pilot in it and
then at a certain scene, ifthey would shoot, the enemies
would shoot, it would pop theguy out of the ejector seat of
the ship while you're watchingit.
Huh, no, I don't think I knowabout that.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Well, that sounds like something we're going to
have to cover that, yes.
We definitely have to coverCaptain Power, I mean plus, it
has Sven Ole Thorsen in it, sodone.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
The Sven Ole Thorsen.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
One and only.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
That was a get Played God.
Yeah, it doesn't even pull up.
I don't care, we'll deal withit.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
We'll talk about it later.
We'll do it live, all right?
Yeah, oh God, can we just dothis live Nine hours each?
Speaker 1 (04:10):
episode would be.
Well, we'd have to reallybuckle down, reign it in, yeah,
yeah.
But we're not going to reigntoday in.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Today we're talking about the Disney animated
adventure Tailspin.
And before any of you say, wow,that seems a little mainstream
for the kind of stuff you do,this is a weird one.
It's been sticking in our crawfor decades because of how odd
it is, but not out of theordinary.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
For what dc, dc, what disney was doing at the time
well, yes and no, but I supposewe'll get into that as it comes
up.
So, obviously, tailspinT-A-L-E-S-P-I-N not a tailspin
that a maneuver plane would gointo crashing down.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
It's a reverse American tail with five yes.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Yeah, and you know I put on that song the other day
at work.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
It was a duet right.
My mom used to make me try andlearn it on the piano.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Let's see who originally did Somewhere Out
there.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Well, I know, it's Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Oh, it was James Ingram, Okay yeah, yeah, but
they also had like the littlekids doing it.
Oh yeah, in the actual movie.
I don't think the LindaRonstadt version happens to like
the end credits or whatever,but I could be wrong about that,
because I haven't seen thatfilm in oh I don't know 30 years
.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Oh, at least 30 years .
We're in our 40s, 35 yearsmaybe.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Well, it came out in 1986, so Okay, oh okay.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
So that would have been almost 40 years.
40 years, yeah, yeah, fuck,that's about right.
I've never seen in the theater.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
So yeah, boy, but anyway, this is a weird one it's
a pun on a plane maneuver, butalso it's another pun about
spinning tails or yarns aboutthe adventures in this animal
land, animal land over there,which always says the thing, all
(06:11):
of these anthropomorphicanimated shows.
I was watching an episode.
It might have been one of theones that we're going to cover
here, but they talk about theEaster bunny.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
They talk about other fictional, anthropomorphic One.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
there's always in these anthropomorphic one
there's always in theseanthropomorphic cartoon worlds.
There are animals that walkupright and talk and have a
personality and conscience, butthere are also the lower animals
, where it's like they'll begoing through a jungle, and
there are birds flying over them, you know, or hogs running wild
(06:44):
, it's like well wait, you're abear and you're a raccoon it's
like it's racially stratified orsomething.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, what is the breakdown of that?
It's the goofy pluto conundrum.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
It is yeah, well, literally is actually it drives
me crazy and that's not evengetting into.
Like, if you do easter bunny,well one, it's another
anthropomorphic fictionalizedcreature inside your universe,
but it's also referencingChristianity.
Yeah, jesus.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Well, I mean to be fair.
Easter was a pagan holiday longbefore it was that, so it is
kind of make a case.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I mean, I think we're going to have to take some,
some leaps to get out of theChristian influence in this
culture they've created.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Well, yeah, but you're going to have to take
some leaps talking aboutanthropomorphic animals to walk
up and talk too.
So I mean, you know, so like inthat scenario, especially the
Easter Bunny would be more likeactual Jesus to them.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
ironically, Right, Because it's another animal
Easter Bunny crucified for oursins.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, that poor bunny nailed to a cross.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Would you nail each of his ears as well, to a tiny
little cross?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
All four of them.
It's just got a tinyprotrudence at the top with
another little bar.
A little bar, or maybe a reallywide one, because they have big
ears.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Are you doing like the feet?
Speaker 2 (08:09):
You're just like oh, we ran out of of nails, so we're
just using one for both ears.
Yeah, yes, that's exactly,that's it.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
That's it exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Yep, uh, our long, a long treatise on how we would
crucify the easter bunny, theeaster bunny specifically, but
you don't nail these feetbecause I mean they're very
large, but you know, I justimagine dangling like it's a
stuffed animal.
Yeah, it was already dark, sothis is an unpleasant image in
my mind.
It didn't really go dark, itwas already there, we just kind
of stumbled across it.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Let's punch a spear into the side of that particular
image and move along punch'spilot is like a ferret or
something like.
Let's not get in anymore.
One of the weasels from RogerRabbit, that's what it is, maybe
the hyenas from Lion King.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Hamlet, I mean Lion King, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Don't you mean Kimba the white lion?
That's exactly what I mean.
But this was not based on aJapanese cartoon from decades
before Now.
This was a really interestingkind of adult take on a cartoon
tale that is a reference to theRudyard Kipling Jungle Book and
Second Jungle Book stories frommany, many years before.
(09:13):
It's odd because when they madethe Jungle Book they kind of
took the source material andthen did their own thing,
disney-fied it yes, completelyDisney-fied it to where it's not
even recognizable.
The characters, especially thecharacters that are transported
into the Tailspin story, theybear no resemblance to the
original.
The Disney version of Baloo isessentially created from scratch
(09:36):
.
There is a bear of that name,but he's grave and sober, kind
of a schoolmaster figure In thatstory.
Bagheera is actually thereckless and fun-loving one.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Baloo had to get sober so he could give the gusty
of his kids back.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Baloo has to watch the orphan kids on Christmas
time and they run madcapadventures where they kind of
learn about each other andrealize that— but they're
Kipling.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Kipling got into a lot of the legal procedural
stuff in the divorce.
It's kind of a dry read.
But when they made Junko book.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
They made their own version of the story and it's
that version that is kind oftransported by these creators
into their own version.
So Jim Magon which I'm assumingthat's how you say his name,
because his name is a fuckingfantasy character name it is
J-Y-M-N.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Oh, I was going to mention that.
Yeah, the weirdest way to spellJim possible.
Yeah, what are you doing?
That's such a millennial name.
That's like a.
It's supposed to be Jimen, isthat what?
Um, jimen Hanzo, that's hisname.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Wow, awesome.
I love Jaiman Hanzo.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, but Jim.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Magon.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Magon, destroyer of worlds.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Is he kind of the main man responsible for this
show Like Lobo?
Is Lobo the main manresponsible for the show?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Well, that's his nickname the main man.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Oh is it?
Yeah, that's a shitty thing.
A Bastiche might say.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
So you know that one, but you don't.
But then how can you say I keeppronouncing Bastiche as if he's
classy and sophisticated?
Speaker 1 (11:15):
I imagine Lobo more as like a what's the rapey
Looney Tunes skunk.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Pepe Le Pew, Pepe Le Pew.
I don't see that strangely, Idon't.
I see more of a Wolverineanalog but I like my version
better.
He seems pretentious and smokeshand-rolled cigarettes.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
I like that.
It's all a facade.
Actually, when he closes thedoor he takes off his big wig
and he has slick back Frenchhair and he puts on a nice
smoking jacket.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Do the French have slick back hair?
Is that a stereotype?
Speaker 1 (11:50):
No, but if he is a 1930s Frenchman of high esteem
and wealth, then yeah, that'show I'm going to cast him.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Then he was in the Vichy government.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
He was.
He was settling in Malaysia.
He had a plantation.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Well, I mean Took off his wig and there was a beret
underneath.
He's wearing that black andwhite striped long sleeve shirt
with suspenders.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
I'm a high ranking French Foreign Legion official.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
He's smoking a baguette Smoking a baguette.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
That'll fuck you up, man Dude.
So Jim, again, he's kind of themain creator of Tailspin.
He had been involved in bothcreation of DuckTales and the
Gumi Bars Gumi Bars.
And so Disney wanted to startthe Disney Afternoon block of
programming.
There was a name for this, Ithink it was called Disney
Afternoon block of programming.
There was a name for this, Ithink it was called Disney
Afternoon.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
I read this somewhere there was a name for this that
they were trying to push, but Idon't think it stuck.
I can't remember.
I'll think of it later.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
All I can see is Disney Afternoon when I look for
it.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, it doesn't matter Continue.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
So you had like the Gummy Bears and Duck Tales and
Chippendale Rescue Rangers andDarkwing Duck as part of that,
but getting away from the duckand, I guess, chipmunk based
adventures.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Well, there weren't a lot of those, there was just
the one really.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Well, you know it fits.
It's a genre of its own.
They were looking for otherpitches for that and Magon had
an original idea for a sitcomcalled the B Players.
So this is about one-timeDisney animation stars and
would-be stars trying to win acomeback or first-time roles in
a tune version of Hollywood.
Baloo was conceived of as oneof the leading characters of the
(13:39):
show.
Horace and Clarabelle wouldalso have been regulars.
But when he pitched it therewasn't much interest from Disney
.
They didn't like that idea.
They didn't see it had much ofa future.
It would have been kind of likea Roger Rabbit-y kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
I think that's got some action that might have
played.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
I mean, if anything, it's kind of what the Rescue
Ranger no, not the Rescue Ranger, the Chip and Dale movie from a
couple of years ago did.
Oh okay, when they're kind oflike oh, these are old stars of
animation.
One went through like surgeryto become CGI now.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
It was actually pretty good.
I regret not having seen it.
I've heard it's sort of like onpar with like Detective Pikachu
and stuff, where it'ssurprisingly good.
Yeah, it is.
It's like, oh wow.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I didn't really give this much of a chance, but it's
funny, it's fairly well written,it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I should go back and watch that yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
You don't need to carve out a slice of your life
to see it, but it's a decenttime.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Well, good thing I don't have one.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
No life to carve out.
So when they ixnayed that Maganidea, he dusted off a previous
idea that he had been working onwhen he was working on
DuckTales, because there'd beensome idea to make a Launchpad
McQuack show where he'd be theoperator of an air freight
service and the main characterseries.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
They were obsessed with Launchpad.
He was the only real crossoverbetween DuckTales and Darkwing.
Duck, yeah, I never really gotit what is their thing.
Did they think he was like HanSolo or something?
I mean, what was the?
I mean, he's kind of supposedto be a little bit, but.
But I mean, han is obviouslybased off an old archetype too,
but like that's, why were theyso obsessed with Launchpad?
I don't get it.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
I don't know.
I guess they thought he hadwings.
The character could fly.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
That's why he showed up later in a sitcom around the
same era.
Wings Wasn't Tony Shalhoub inthat he was.
He played a sort of a raciallyinsensitive stereotype of a taxi
driver.
Fantastic, oh yeah.
And that show actually had somedecent actors in it and then a
couple that never did anythingever again.
But you know.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Maybe later in this podcast we're going to wing it
ourselves.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So with Paul.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
McCartney.
No, but we will do the PaulMcCartney cyborg that's been
around since the early 80s, sohe died in the 70s, remember?
Yeah, wasn't replaced with alike a cyborg version.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
It was a clone of Joe Biden, Weirdly one of the Biden
clones, mm.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Hmm, oh, joe Biden.
Weirdly, one of the Bidenclones, joseph.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Robonet, robonet.
Yeah, see, there you go.
They're onto something now.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
I was trying Robonet Biden.
It still sucked.
But at least it was an idea ofa joke.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
No, no, there's something there.
There's a twinkle in your eye.
I can see it.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
But when they'd come up with that idea it didn't
quite go anywhere.
So magnum kind of took theconcept and combined it with his
b players pitch and that wasthe genesis for tailspin now I
have a question.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
So in the b players thing, was the idea that it was
like the second leads in thesedifferent disney properties?
I think so Because that's aninteresting idea actually, If it
was like Baloo and then like Idon't know, the Candelabra from.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yeah, the show was to be set in a Roger Rabbit-esque
world where cartoons and humanscoexist, focusing on Baloo and
his comedic partner, ricky Ratt,who the F is that yeah, fucking
no, as the two attempted tomake their way to cartoon
stardom and encourage their castof side character partners.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
It's kind of like extras in a certain way.
Yeah, yeah, that's interesting.
Actually, there's a lot ofdirections you could go with
that.
I kind of think that would bereally cool.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
The villain was to be an assistant director who was
also a toon jealous of hisincompetent director, jay
Audubon Woodlor.
Who the F is that?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
I feel like this is coming from somebody's real
place, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
What the hell J Audubon Woodlor, father of the
mischievous Humphrey the Bear?
Who the hell's Humphrey theBear?
Speaker 2 (17:39):
I don't know what the hell any of this is.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Humphrey.
The Bear is from the 1950s.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
There's a bear in the goofy cartoon what the wow.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Also, it's a deep cut it's all seems to be deep cut
stuff, but it would be the maincharacter ricky bratt, peter
pointer, poacher spaniel, okaysee, I'm already way more into
this than what we got and whatwe we used to watch all the time
.
Fawn Deer, an airheaded toondeer who starred in toilet paper
(18:11):
ads.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
The more you dig into that, that sounds even cooler.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Timothy Tortoise, Roderick's slow-witted and
lethargic flunky Waldo ZPlatypus, a toon platypus who
specialized in physical comedy,kind of like Gonzo, what these
all have to be real deep cutcharacters, right.
Buck Steed, a pompous and dumbhorse toon who believes he
didn't need a writer to befamous.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
What a tragic character.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Yeah, again an interesting idea, very.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I could see why they would have no idea what the hell
he was talking about.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Oh yeah, no, I think it was maybe a little too high
concept and probably worked toan older audience.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah, but you know what?
That's the kind of show theywould make today, 100% A show
like that would totally playtoday and would have no shot in
hell back then.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
No, I don't think it would.
Although it was coming offRoger Rabbit and like a cool
world and an evil tunes, youwere kind of like doing that
blending of live action, sureTune stuff for an adult audience
.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
But that's just more like the format and setting.
The concept, though, issomething you would totally see
today, yeah, and I think itcould totally work Sounds
awesome actually.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Yeah, I don't know, maybe Well, we'll get to it
later, but they are remakingTailspin.
Yes, I've heard tails.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yes, oh God, I've heard duck tails of this
occurrence.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
That joke was a feather in your cap, I think.
Yeah, they did remake DuckTales.
I didn't see any of that?
Speaker 2 (19:40):
I didn't either.
I heard good things, though,david Tennant.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know,maybe I'll watch it someday, but
I'm not going to rush out tosee it.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, I mean, despite us covering Tailspin, I
wouldn't say either of us.
We're definitely not Disneyadults, we're not magical
kingdom.
Heads out here, no.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Though not to denigrate the demographic.
I know a lot of people that Irespect their opinions of pop
culture, that are obsessed withdisney.
To go to disney world everyyear, you know like, okay, great
, not for me necessarily, but I,I get it okay, yeah, I'm glad
you enjoy.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
It seems like an expensive hobby.
Yeah, no, but uh, you know toeach their own.
But I've just never been thatinto disney.
I kind of stopped watching mostof disney cartoons after I
don't know my teens yeah, well,I, I was more of a warner
brothers guy, anyway I you knowthe great looney tunes versus uh
(20:35):
, disney debate, kind of likeyour marvel versus dc yeah, it
kind of is the same.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
yeah, coke versus pepsi, the whole like weird
dichotomies.
We used to have the duo worldwe used to live in.
You know, bugs Bunny was morelike Groucho Marx and it was
witty and it was funny andMickey was kind of an idiot and
Goofy was slapstick.
Like I would much rather watchsomething funny and witty than
(21:01):
you know then Steamboat Willieor whatever the fuck you know,
just don't give a shit.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Oh you sorry my lady, I have to get back home.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Steamboat Willie is coming on for the 574th time and
I've got to be there, which isnow literally in the public
domain.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Oh yeah, I saw there's the guy who's in
Terrorfire he's in the.
Steamboat Willie horror moviethey're making.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Oh, so it's like the Winnie the Pooh.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Yeah, which is what they're doing with all of these
Screenboat is what they'recalling it.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Whatever I mean, I get the novelty.
I don't dislike the idea ofmaking that kind of movie, but
if they're just going to crankthese out without a lot of
actual conceptual effort, thenwhatever.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
No, I mean, it's the same way Get Cocaine Bear and
then Craccoon and Methigator.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Oh yeah, there's a, there's a shark, one too.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Yeah, I think that was just like Cocaine Shark.
I think it is just CocaineShark actually.
So boring yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, cocaine Bear wasn't even all that good.
No, at least Cocaine Bearwasn't.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
It was a true story.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Wasn't that Elizabeth Banks, didn't she do that one?
I want to say yes, I thinkshe's done a bunch of okay-ish
movies.
That's like her entire.
I'm glad she's directing and Idon't think the direction is
necessarily the problem with anyof the films, because she did
that reboot of Charlie's Angelsand she did.
She was at least in that PowerRangers reboot.
(22:32):
You know, it's just.
Those aren't great movies.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Fact, when Jim Magan was asked about attracting a
more adult audience, hementioned that we've always had
it in the back of our minds thatwe want to do something a
little grittier than, say,ducktales or Rescue Rangers.
And when Tailspin came along wesaid oh boy, this is great Tony
the Tiger jumped into frame.
It definitely has asophistication that a lot of
(22:57):
other TV animation lacks.
He also went on to say well, atthe time and locale of the show
, both suggest those old movieserials of the 30s it was a very
exciting time to be a kid whenthings were still exotic and
mysterious.
So we want to do a Terry and thePirates kind of show.
Also, what appealed to us aboutthe era was the scale of things
(23:18):
.
Today technology hasminiaturized everything, which
isn't visually exciting, but inthat era anything powerful was
really big, which is great for acartoon show.
We've also got atmosphere ofthat time with the nightclubs,
Art Deco and the old cars.
It just gives the show anexciting feel.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, there is still that lens of Western racism
about all of the whole, likeeverything was exotic and
discovering new things whichwere just things that were
already there, that white peopledon't know about.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
When they say discovering, it means white
people found out about them.
That's exactly what they mean.
Yes, Pioneers, Settlers.
I should probably get into alittle bit of what the show was
before we get too into some ofits source material.
Source material Tailspin is.
It's kind of set in this1930s-ish era where there seems
(24:09):
to have been some type of greatwar but yet it's pre-television.
It's really undefined, but it'skind of this 1930s, 1940s
adventure serial vibe.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
It's definitely a pre-World War II, post-World War
I era.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Where Baloo he's kind of the ace cargo pilot making
runs to different islands inkind of a tropical setting.
He's a very carelessbusinessman.
He gets his business and hisplane foreclosed upon.
He loses it to the bank.
And then Rebecca Cunningham.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
We have to address this fact.
You've got Baloo, you've gotShere Khan, you've got Kit
Cloudkicker, you've got DonCarnage, you've got Mad Dog and
then Rebecca Cunningham or Beckyfor short yeah, I one of these
things is not like the otherit's very odd.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Rebecca, and Molly Cunningham too, don't forget,
yes, oh, her small child,because she's a single mother
who has invested her life'sfortune because she wanted to
have her own business and shethinks that she can turn Baloo's
failing cargo pilot biz into acash cow.
There's also a wildcat, whichis their mechanic, who's a tiger
(25:29):
, I think.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
No, no, he's a lion.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Yeah, I think he's a lion.
There's also Kit Cloudkicker,which is kind of, I'll be honest
, he kind of felt like theWesley Crusher of the show.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Oh, he's the Richie.
Yes, this pseudo, pseudo.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
I wouldn't say main character, but there's long-term
main character vibes from thiskid I think he's supposed to be
the one that kids relate to.
This is obviously sort of gearedtoward adults a lot of the
drama comes from real worldadult situations.
But lou couldn't manage hisfinances and he lost his plane
and he just wants to do his joband do it to the best of his
(26:10):
ability and and this this womanhas has bought it and now has
turned him into an employee.
Yeah, it's uh, rebecca fromcheers, which we'll talk about.
Yeah, we'll definitely get intothat here in a minute.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Just from picking, characters from the jungle book
alone.
Like back then, you reallywould only have known that when
you saw it as a kid.
I mean, they had it on vhs butit wasn't like it was like on tv
all the time or anything.
It was very obviously, I think,supposed to tap into the
nostalgia of people of a certainage that watched it when they
were young, and so I think theyput kit in there to like give
(26:42):
you the little kid tie in.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
So the kids would relate to it Because, unlike a
DuckTales where the trio arekind of like your front and
center, this is kind of a storyabout grownups.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Doing adult things with adult concerns.
Yeah, real X-rated, stuff.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Man Baloo had a hell of a hog, and that thing was not
anthropomorphized at all.
She got Balooed, you know whatI mean.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Oh, I know exactly what you mean.
More than once they reference aBaloo job.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
I mean, I don't know how you paint that up for kids
but In a lot of ways it harkenedback to the Karl Barks stories,
you know the Scrooge McDuckkind of thing, A little more
adult-tinged, less kiddy.
It was still very relatable tokids adventure tales, just with
(27:37):
adult versions and concepts atthe underpinning.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
And adult dynamics.
Ducktales that's a little moresimple.
Huey, louie, dewey have a richuncle.
They go on wacky adventures.
This one it's about failure andloss and economic turns and
yeah, blue wants financialfreedom.
And then interpersonal dynamicsthat are way more complicated
than Duck Tales.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Yeah, both main characters want to be good
father and or mother figures tothe small ones in their life.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Yeah, another non-traditional family which is
fascinating, especially forDisney at that time.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah, it's definitely interesting and not of the time
.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
As we go along.
I think we can make someargument about some of the other
things in this weird era forDisney, like Goof Troop for
instance, but I'm sure we'llstumble across that as we go, we
might.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
I mean, if you want to talk about the dynamics of
the blue becky relationship, youknow how it is distinctly based
on cheers as inspiration and alittle bit of moonlighting yeah,
a little moonlighting.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
There's a lot of will , they won't they, which is
really bizarre for a kid'sdisney show, especially like a
like an after-school show in1990.
It definitely has a post dianecheers archetype because that
show is definitely about twodifferent.
Cheers is two different shows.
But the Rebecca era Cheersthing I mean it's right there,
(28:55):
they don't even cover it up.
Her name is Rebecca Cunninghamfor Christ's sake.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yeah, no, I mean they were distinctly going for that
vibe.
Apparently, in the originalversion she's more of more
corporate, you know like shecame with like a suit and she
came from money.
They decided to tone that down,make her a little more working
class, which is actually, Ithink, more complex and more
nuanced.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
as much as it sounds like they're dumbing it down, it
actually, I think, adds anotherlevel of class, commentary and
things, because otherwise it'slike she could have basically
been the villain from MajorLeague.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
But making her a more relatable character with their
own goals.
You had Shere Khan for thatkind of corporate elite class
dynamic.
For her she's just a strugglingbusinessman who's trying to
deal with this lazy a-hole thatshe's kind of stuck with.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
On top of being a single mom.
Yeah, that's really interesting.
I mean there's, yeah, I think,toning the corporate thing down
on paper.
You would think, oh, they madeit more capitalist friendly.
But no, it actually addsanother big layer of the
struggle of making it in theworld with all of these
challenges.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah, you're making kind of a rookie entrepreneur
who's put all of the money shehas into this business.
You know kind of a bad ideareally, but she's just trying to
like get through and make itday to day and try to make this
thing work Same way.
Baloo is the same way, like weall are, as opposed to making
her from money who inherited thebusiness and has put Baloo on
the payroll to do his duty.
There was this burgeoningrelationship that they got into
(30:33):
a little bit as much as a Disneyshow was going to.
Right, they're not taking anylong breaks in the back or
anything.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
There's no disclosure moment.
That happens, yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
So they have this business.
It was originally Baloo's AirService Great name, baloo Nailed
it but then she turned it toHire for Hire it's actually
pretty good, it's a good name.
I had completely forgottenabout that before.
I went and rewatched some ofthese and I was like, oh no,
that's Pretty damn clever,actually Pretty smart.
One of the only other peoplefrom the Jungle Book is the
(31:06):
Louis character.
The orangutan Is that right, heis an orangutan.
He is the proprietor of anisland restaurant, bar, airplane
refueling station, kind of likeRick's in Casablanca.
Anybody can gather there.
It's neutral territory.
Maybe he did some stuff back inthe day, but he's just out
(31:27):
slinging drinks and being theplace to be.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Yeah, I was going to make the Casablanca analogy
earlier with the setting.
I know Casablanca happensduring World War II, but this is
very much in that kind of world, yeah Louis, the Rix or Guinan
kind of vibe.
That's really, reallyinteresting.
I think this actually has a lotof parallels with Casablanca
too.
Actually.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
It does, but perhaps it has the most parallels with
an underseen 1980s TV show thatthe writers and creators spoke
about being an influence, calledTales of the Golden Monkey.
I had never heard of thisbefore we looked into this.
I had never heard of thiseither.
It was a primetime Wednesdaynight ABC show that ran from
(32:11):
September 22nd 1982 untilJanuary 1st 1983.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Okay, so three months Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
It had 22 episodes, that's a full season.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yeah, they got into it.
I'm just shocked.
I'd that's a full season.
Yeah, they got into it.
I'm just shocked, I'd nevereven heard about this.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Yeah, I've seen a lot of TV, completely fallen into
obscurity.
But it is a adventure showreleasing the year after Raiders
of the Lost Ark, so getting alittle bit of those vibes Early
aviation, indigenous locals, alot of action and came from the
mind of Don Bellisario.
When this failed he would go onto use some of the actors and
(32:53):
the Adventures of an Ace Pilotconcept into his 1984 to 86 tech
chopper adventure Airwolf Fuck,yeah, airwolf.
And then did some stuff withMagnum, pi and Jag later on.
But it tells the story of 1938in the South Pacific.
An ex-fighter pilot, jake Cutter.
Now he operates an air cargoservice delivering in the South
(33:17):
Seas the island of Bora Gora.
Okay, he flies the GrummanGoose which is called Cutter's
Goose.
They distinctly took thosenames for the sea duck and
tailspin.
He has a best friend namedCorky who's the pilot, kind of a
drunk and a goof, a lot likeWildcat.
He has a one-eyed Jack RussellTerrier.
(33:38):
In the opening scene of theshow he bets his dog's glass eye
that has like gems in it andwhatnot in this poker game
against Nazis that he loses andso at least in the pilot he's
trying to get enough money tobuy the eye back for his dog,
and the dog also will bark.
(33:59):
He can communicate, so he barks.
Think one bark for no, twobarks for yes.
But then maybe it's theopposite and it's two barks for
no, one bark for yes.
Which is how they have this.
Should I bet your eye orshouldn't I bet your eye?
At the beginning of the showthey did a bit.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
It's actually one of the more enjoyable parts.
It's good dog acting, I willsay that.
So then you have this womanthat comes into the business
Nice.
So then you have this womanthat comes into the business.
She turns out to be a US spy,but she's a singer, dancer,
possible movie star, vibe.
You also have Bonchance Louis,played by Roddy McDowell Wow,
(34:37):
good time, louis, that's awesome.
The owner of the Monkey Bar andthe French magistrate of
Beauregord.
Again, louis runs this barwhere everybody congregates
after the war Gotcha.
Then there's the main villain,japanese princess, who's not
played by a Japanese actress.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Oof.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Even in the mid-80s Wow, yeah, well, early 80s.
You also have this Germanreverend who is preaching the
gospel to the island, but hisgospel is that he will do
special blessings with the youngwomen alone.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Oh, they were early on in this one, huh yeah, his
private prayers.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
In the first episode there's this I don't know, maybe
she's 18, 17, 18, asian actresswho's just like blessing,
blessing, can I have blessing?
And he's like not now, not now,we'll deal with it later.
Oh, God Good thing it's to cometo those who wait.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
The video for like a prayer is playing in the
background.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
But the main bad guy is the money man from Airwolf,
Do you remember?
Oh?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
yeah, with the eyepatch, yes, with the eyepatch
.
Okay, he always wore a whitesuit, fucking ruled.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
No, no, I'm thinking of the wrong guy.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Oh are you thinking about the old British guy?
Yes, no, that was Knight Rider.
Was that Knight Rider?
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Oh shit, William Forsythe's in a couple episodes.
Oh interesting, you totallyrecognize him.
He plays this German officerwho's like one of the main bad
guys.
All right, Branson Richcombe isin some episodes.
Wow, that's something.
But yeah.
So Tales of the Golden Wink wasdefinitely a resource for the
ideas of the show.
Both Magnet and Mark Zasloff,who's the other main creator of
(36:17):
Talespin, both referenced it forsome of the characters,
Balloon's plane and the vibe ofthe show, because it's very much
similar.
The pilot has to go onadventures and discover new
lands.
It's a lot of smuggling.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
I mean it's the same kind of yeah, same trope that
they use for Han Solo yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Yeah, yeah, very similar.
And from what I've seen ofTales of the Golden Monkey it
was like an hour and a halfpilot.
I got mostly through it.
It's weird Opening scene is acouple of German explorers shoot
weird monkey creatures and thenget killed by them.
That's how the show opens.
It got my attention.
(36:59):
Yeah, it felt very like Congo.
Oh, okay, but with much lessmoney.
Well, much less wasted money.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I don't hate Congo, oh okay, but with much less
money.
Well, much less wasted money.
I don't hate Congo.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
You don't hate Congo.
I don't hate Congo.
No, it's terrible, it's reallybad.
We watch much worse things andthere's some positives there.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Of course, yeah, but I mean you see Jurassic Park and
then you see Congo and you'relike, well, you know I can have
my steak and I can have a burger.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
They're not incompatible.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Which is worse?
Speaker 1 (37:30):
I mean I eat at the same time.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
but I double fist them.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
I can't get enough, Put more meat in my mouth.
I got a steak shake.
Get a steak burger.
Baby, You've combined the twothings that could not be
combined.
You didn't stop to ask yourselfshould we do a thing?
You just slapped it on thelunchbox.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Steak finds a way.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
And you sold it.
Put it in a plastic lunchbox.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Oh, we didn't talk about the villains.
No, not at all.
We're really a lot of the samemain setup and premise.
Yet We've got that part but wedon't have the other.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Yeah, so obviously there are things that are going
to get in Baloo and Kit andBecky's way, as it were.
You have Shere Khan, one of thethree characters from the
actual Jungle Book story, but inthis he's a corporate tycoon.
He's Lex Luthor, yeah, alwaysin a suit, looking very suave.
He's the big dick swingingmoney, trying tocut them, put
(38:30):
them out of business.
He has his own crew of pantherpilots.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
He's got minions he's got.
It's a good, uh good.
Look, he's dark and mysteriousand always has plans within
plans, but I mean therepresentation of ruthless
corporate evil, a very 80s trope, a very relevant one.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Yeah, if anything, he'd be kind of like I don't
know, I mean like whatever thewealthy people that were going
against Scrooge McDuck all thetime, I don't even remember.
Well, I didn't read that much.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Scrooge.
Did he ever read Scrooge?
I mean, did he have a wealthyfoidel?
He did, I don't know.
It seems like he did.
I just can't rememberFlintheart Glomgold.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Okay, another wealthy person who was always.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
I mean, we can get into DuckTales at a different
time, because that's alsosomething really interesting.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Yeah, no, he's another ambitious, ruthless,
manipulative businessman.
He's a South African-AmericanPeking duck.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Oh boy does that.
Wow that's a rabbit hole.
Holy shit, there was a rabbithole.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
Yeah, holy shit.
There was also John DRockerduck, of course, of course
they were going to go toRockefeller stuff.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Yeah, those are all stand-ins for, like, carnegie
and Rockefeller.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
The other main bad guy in the show I would say that
consistently popped up was DonCarnage.
Don Carnage, I'd say he'sprobably one of the funnier
elements of the show, sure, buthe's kind of the rakish leader
of a pirate society.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
They're sky pirates, yes, which is a really weird
thing we need to talk about,because being a sky pirate
doesn't seem lucrative oreffective.
Okay, so you have pirates onships and you have boats, and
the boats are steady, they're inthe water, you can go from A to
B or whatever.
A plane being attacked by otherplanes is a really weird
(40:29):
forgive the pun, nebulous idea.
Where you're like, it doesn'tmake sense.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
If you shoot a flying contraption that is thousands
of pounds and it loses controland crashes into something, thus
giving you the opportunity toboard it and take its stuff,
you're going to find it a bigheap of wreckage instead of a
viable source to be mined fromand sold to someone.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Well, it's not like in Mad Max, where you're on the
road and you're chasing somebodyand it's you know you catch up
with them and they're stillthere on the ground.
Or you're in the water andyou're on a boat and you get to
boat and the boat can sink, butmost of the time boats are just
going to float.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
This one you're hanging in the air, flying
around Like the pirate thingdoesn't really make a lot of
sense, I think in the pilot, thefirst time you see them attack
another plane it's one of ShereKhan's planes they put grappling
hooks on each wing yes, they doand then they kind of force it
down, land on the water then, Iguess, steal the plane and or
(41:31):
all of its goods.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
That was the only time I think they kind of
addressed that weird disconnectthere.
Yeah, and they do.
You're right.
They have a whole scene wherethey show how they pirate planes
.
It's just as a general concept.
It doesn't really seem to workvery well.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
You know what I mean?
No, I think it's one of thoserule of cool because it sounds
oh Sky Pirate.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah, sky Pirate, that's awesome.
Yeah, all right, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
It's like an ice pirate, yeah, like an ice pirate
Wow.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
We have to talk about ice pirates, by the way.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
We do need to talk about ice.
There's, the voices of Tailspinwere a mix of what you'd call
like face actors and veteranvoice actors.
They wanted Phil Harris who didthe original voice of Blue in
the Jungle Book cartoon, but atthe time that they were making
(42:24):
Tailspin he was 85.
He had trouble recreating thevoice Plus.
It was like a four, four hourround trip from Palm Springs.
Every time it didn't end upworking out.
So I believe that he was thevoice for, like I think, the
pilot and maybe a coupleepisodes, but then that Harris
had done.
He was your main actor.
For that you had SallyStruthers.
(42:45):
She was doing RebeccaCunningham.
It was hot, let me tell you.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Said no one ever about Sally Struthers.
Sally Struthers says RebeccaCunningham comes in and says do
you want to make more money?
Sure, we all do.
Nobody gets that reference.
Do you not remember thosecommercials?
Uh, no.
So Sally Struthers used to dothese commercials for, like, I
think it was like a DeVry typetrade school where she would
(43:24):
just come on and be like do youwant to make more money?
Sure, we all do and then thewhole, this whole thing, her
delivery and everything was soawful and answering her own
question that it always stuckout to me that's kind of all she
did until this.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Yeah well, coming off doing the voice of Teenage
Pebbles in the Hanna-Barbera.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Pebbles and Bam Bam show.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah, they had that.
I forgot that show existed.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
You had her in All in the Family.
I think she was pretty big inthat.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Yeah, that was her big, thing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Yeah, before her roles in the Gilmore Girls.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Huh, huh.
Oh yeah, she is in the GilmoreGirls.
I was thinking in that like,wow, what had she been doing
between those things After thosecommercials in the 90s?
I don't remember SallyStruthers at all until Gilmore
Girls.
She kind of disappeared.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Well, she was that one episode of Fish Police.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Oh, yes, fish Police.
Yes, the funny thing is, I knowexactly what you're talking
about.
The Simpsons even make a jokeabout that show in one of the
Treehouse of Horror episodes.
She was the mom in Dinosaurs.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Really she was, yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
The mom she was, yeah , she was Charlene Sinclair.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
I did not know that.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
It doesn't sound like her Acting.
She's so well known for hervaried accents and vocal work.
Wait, which one was?
No, I don't think she was themom?
Speaker 1 (44:47):
No, that was actually Jessica Walter, I think From
Arrested Development.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
No that was actually Jessica Walter, I think, from.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Arrested Development oh, that would make sense.
Fran Sinclair, but I don't knowwho.
Charlene Sinclair she says shewas in 64 episodes, which is she
might be the daughter, oh okay,which I guess would make sense
if she was playing Pebblesbefore.
Yeah, you know, Teenage Pebblesmight as well have her.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Teenage Dinosaur is one to one.
It's a logical next step.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
You jump right in.
It's kind of two sides of thesame coin really, yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
It's the next step in evolution.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
And then Kit was voiced by a couple child actors
who had names, but we will movepast those.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Guaranteed they had names.
I guarantee it.
You had Shere Khan played headnames.
I guarantee it, you had sheercon played by tony jay, a
veteran character actor, andthis is one of the few things in
this that I know way too muchabout.
But this is crossover with aphenomenon that sadly is still
going.
Conservative christianorganization focus on the family
(45:46):
, run by james dobson a completeasshole produced kids
programming starting in the Ithink, the late 80s and still
going to this day, a radio dramathat all the kids are into.
You would be shocked at howmany kids know about this and
have heard it growing up,especially evangelical kids.
It's called Adventures inOdyssey.
(46:07):
It's called Adventures inOdyssey and Tony Jay was a
reoccurring voice actor on thatwhere he played, obviously one
of the villains because of hisvoice, because he's got a great
villain voice.
But there were a lot of theseactors who were relatively
mainstream that did do a lot ofcrossover with this just because
(46:28):
it was steady voice actor work.
The guy that was the constablein Young Frankenstein he's in a
ton of that show.
The actor who plays the voiceof Milhouse she's in a ton of
that show.
It's really awful and 100%indoctrinating and brainwashing
kids into evangelicalism and hasreally weird messages about the
(46:50):
deep state, about pro deepstate.
It's really, really a bizarreshow, but there's a lot of
crossover with these rotatingcharacter actors in that too,
and it's all around the same era.
But I mean, hey, it was apaycheck, so you can't really
fault them.
Of course, here in this we'vegot mean.
You'll see guys like FrankWelker come up in Tailspin and
(47:11):
Lorenzo Music, one of the greatvoice actors of all time.
Lorenzo Music played SergeantDunder in seven episodes.
Frank Welker played basicallywhenever they needed somebody to
fill in for 17 episodes he wasin there.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Yeah, he would do a lot of side stuff there.
A lot of side stuff there.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Yeah, well, I mean, he's a guy that's always
available.
He's like Mark Hamill now, orTom Kenny.
You know he's there, he'll doit and he'll crush it every time
.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
The rest of the music played Tummy Gummy on the gummy
hairs Completely coincidentalname oh.
Tummy Gummy.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
He's got a gummy tummy.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
You know.
And then you had Jim Cummingswho was kind of like the MVP of
the show he did Louis DonCarnage and a host of other
guest characters.
Speaker 2 (48:00):
Which is weird because he's only in 42 episodes
.
The show ran 66?
Yes, 66.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Well, it says he's in 48, but that's probably
different characters.
So maybe Louis is in 48, butthat's probably different
characters.
So maybe Louie's in an episodewhen Don Carnage isn't kind of
thing.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
So here's one of the problems with IMDb is that it is
often, oh, I'm sorry, I'mthinking of RJ Williams, I'm
sorry, oh, no, the guy whoplayed Kit.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
One of the guys who played Kit?
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Yeah, one of the guys .
That's why he's only in 42.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Yes, Jim Cummings is in 48.
Yes, he's Don Carnage.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
yes, Jim was Cumming in Tailspin.
He's Cumming in Cumming Ifyou've ever watched Pumping Iron
.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Playing a Sky Pirate.
It's like Jim Cummings.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
It's just like Jim Cummings, over and over again
it's the best feeling in theworld.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Tailspin had a higher standing generally of writing
in its episodes compared toother things like DuckTales.
As Jim Magan was kind of likethe supervising producer
effectively what we'd call ashowrunner today had an effect
of keeping the series' sense ofhumor which is like a little
sharper, much more rapid firethan DuckTales or Rescue Rangers
(49:09):
.
But it also avoided the LooneyTunes-inspired like anything for
a laugh style of humor thatyou'd sometimes get in like a
Darkwing Duck or some laterDuckTales episodes.
Magan Zasloff both wrote abunch of episodes but you also
had Don Rosa wrote a coupleepisodes, one of the guys behind
(49:31):
the, the old carl barks unclescrooge comics.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
he actually wrote some of the tailspin episodes I
used to have some of those oldcomics.
Uh, they were.
I think they were an actualdisney imprint.
It wasn't gold key, I don'tthink.
I think it was an actual disneycomics imprint.
Yeah, I mean they had multiple.
This would have been in likethe 50s and 60s.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Probably one of the more recognizable things,
especially from the memory boxthat we keep Tailspin in, would
be its theme song.
Oh yeah, so Michael and PattySilvershire did the theme song
kind of this Calypso influenceadventure song which I remember
liking as a kid.
But when I heard it rewatchingthese after the first time I was
(50:13):
like no, I do not need to hearthis ever again no sir, I do not
like it.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
I like the breakdown part, you know, and in in the
opening credits it's.
It's this really weird shot ofbaloo from an episode clip from
baloo from an episode dressed ascarmen miranda, an episode
dressed as Carmen Miranda withmaracas, or whatever.
I think that part slaps.
It's obviously just a tiny partof it, but I was thinking about
that from in this era of thesecartoons, between DuckTales,
(50:42):
darkwing Duck and this, this isthe weakest of those songs.
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
DuckTales is by far the song of Disney cartoons.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
I think so.
So I think closely followed byDarkwing Duck, though.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
I don't remember Darkwing Duck at all yeah, pull
it up pull it up, let's hear itoh this was the.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
It was their urban, more urban.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
Inspired when they get to the Darkwing Duck chorus.
I I think that's pretty good.
I don't necessarily care forthe hip-hop influence stuff in
between.
We got that sweet saxophone.
Tailspin is the weakest of allof those.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
I didn't watch Rescue Rangers.
I am aware of it and I've seenepisodes.
I just didn't.
I wasn't a fan of that one, butit had a pretty memorable theme
theme too.
I wonder, looking back now, ifit's better or worse than
Tailspin, because Tailspin's Istill kind of enjoy.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
I just listened to that as well.
Rescue Rangers is better.
I think Rescue Rangers wouldprobably be second in my opinion
.
Really Okay, but stillnothing's beating DuckTales.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
Oh no, DuckTales is a jam.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Yeah, so I'd say that's kind of like my little
breakdown for the idea of theseries, people involved in
creating it, where the show camefrom.
Again, it lasted 66 episodes.
Originally the pilot was afeature-length movie that later
on, when it came to syndication,got broken up into four
separate episodes, but it didget nominated and won an Emmy
(52:11):
for best original animatedfeature.
It was, I think, that year, theonly thing nominated, so it won
by default.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Default.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
But it still counts as a win.
Quickly after its first run itdid go into syndication and then
one of the Disney network hashad different iterations.
Strange enough, it's had lotsof different editing throughout
its run.
There's, like I found, a wholewebsite dedicated to just the
different edits of tailspinepisodes.
Wow, that's fascinating.
It was a lot.
(52:41):
And again, hey, thanks forchecking out the pod.
I'm seeing what we're chattingabout.
Until we get on our own seaduck and fly away collectively,
Skip.
What should they do?
Speaker 2 (52:53):
Well, I think they should probably listen to us
more.
Christ's sake, we need it Forthe sake of the Easter bunny,
please Listen to our show.
Speaker 1 (53:04):
You're crucified for your sins.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
Make sure that you guys out there have cleaned up
after yourselves to some sort ofreasonable degree, that you
have paid your tabs, yourbartenders, your KJs you've left
sizable tips for the hard workthat they do.
Don't forget to support yourlocal comic shops and retailers.
And from Dispatch Ajax we wouldlike to say Godspeed, fair
Wizard.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
Please go away.
Spin it, let's begin it.
Bear and grin it when you're init.
Wait, shit, that's fat.
Spin it, let's begin it.
Bear and grin it when you're init.
Oh nice, you can win it in aminute when you spin it.
Spin it, spin it.
Gentlemen, let's broaden ourminds.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Are they in the proper approach pattern for
today?
Negative, all weapons.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Now Charge the lightning field.
We are going to talk todayabout Zabalu.
Speaker 2 (00:45):
It's almost like he should be running from Nazis in
the show.
Well, I mean, he kind of isKind of is Kind of Kind of.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
I mean, we can get into a little bit of that.
There's one.
Wow, remind me of that later.
Okay, because there's actuallyone specific Nazi story.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Yeah, there was a short story in disney adventures
magazine.
It had a group of dogs Ibelieve they're called the homes
that were distinctly identifiedas german.
They dressed like nazi soldiersfrom the houndland.
Oh boy, they never reprintedthat.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
I couldn't actually find the comic anywhere online,
but I did look for it Disney'sreally good about well, they
used to be really good aboutdisappearing things.
It was really hard to actuallyfind Song of the South for like
a really long time, right yeah.
They can't really do thatanymore with the internet the
way it is, but still they'repretty proficient.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Marvel Disney Adventures, volume two, number
one, with Michael Jordan on thecover.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Oh good, Then it has to be about Nazis.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Tailspin the dogs of war.
Oh boy, welcome back toDispatch Ajax.
This is your friendly bushpilot, jake, and co-pilot for
this flight that you're on today.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
Oh, I'm Skip.
I'm the little kid Skip.
Oh, it's little Skipper.
I'm the kid in it, littleSkipper cloud hopper, I mean
close enough.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
I mean I didn't want it to go too on the bare nose,
as it were.
Speaker 2 (02:09):
Just the bare necessities, nothing.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
I too love that porn that sounds really softcore.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
Yeah, oh, but here's the thing this isn't actually
technically a mainstreamDispatch Ajax episode.
It is in fact Whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Thank God you remembered because I wasn't
going to do it.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
We're going back in time Back in time.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
Huey Lewis, get out of here.
Hey, somebody get the broom.
I locked the doors.
How did he get in here?
We are going back to ourchildhoods in the early 90s,
where apparently things couldjust be on TV for like a year,
but yet they will be seared intoyour brain forever.
It's like they have 20 seasons.
Almost every time we go back todo one of these cartoons, it
(02:58):
was like, oh no, it had fourepisodes and it was like I saw
that all the time.
What?
Yeah, I had all episodes andit's like I saw that all the
time.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
What?
Yeah, I had all the toys, butit was only on for three weeks.
It's really crazy.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
It was just a commercial after Bob Vila's home
.
Speaker 2 (03:12):
That's the only way I know about it.
I had so much Captain Powershit.
By the way, we have to doCaptain Power.
You remember Captain Power?
Speaker 1 (03:23):
I have a vague recollection of Captain Power.
Perhaps it would be a learningexperience for myself as well.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
Oh, it was a interactive TV show where if you
bought the toy, it would getthe ship and the pilot in it and
then at a certain scene, ifthey would shoot, the enemies
would shoot, it would pop theguy out of the ejector seat of
the ship while you're watchingit.
Huh, no, I don't think I knowabout that.
Speaker 1 (03:44):
Well, that sounds like something we're going to
have to cover that, yes.
We definitely have to coverCaptain Power, I mean plus, it
has Sven Ole Thorsen in it, sodone.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
The Sven Ole Thorsen.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
One and only.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
That was a get Played God.
Yeah, it doesn't even pull up.
I don't care, we'll deal withit.
Speaker 2 (04:02):
We'll talk about it later.
We'll do it live, all right?
Yeah, oh God, can we just dothis live Nine hours each?
Speaker 1 (04:10):
episode would be.
Well, we'd have to reallybuckle down, reign it in, yeah,
yeah.
But we're not going to reigntoday in.
Speaker 2 (04:22):
Today we're talking about the Disney animated
adventure Tailspin.
And before any of you say, wow,that seems a little mainstream
for the kind of stuff you do,this is a weird one.
It's been sticking in our crawfor decades because of how odd
it is, but not out of theordinary.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
For what dc, dc, what disney was doing at the time
well, yes and no, but I supposewe'll get into that as it comes
up.
So, obviously, tailspinT-A-L-E-S-P-I-N not a tailspin
that a maneuver plane would gointo crashing down.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
It's a reverse American tail with five yes.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
Yeah, and you know I put on that song the other day
at work.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
It was a duet right.
My mom used to make me try andlearn it on the piano.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
Let's see who originally did Somewhere Out
there.
Speaker 2 (05:11):
Well, I know, it's Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram.
Speaker 1 (05:15):
Oh, it was James Ingram, Okay yeah, yeah, but
they also had like the littlekids doing it.
Oh yeah, in the actual movie.
I don't think the LindaRonstadt version happens to like
the end credits or whatever,but I could be wrong about that,
because I haven't seen thatfilm in oh I don't know 30 years
.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Oh, at least 30 years .
We're in our 40s, 35 yearsmaybe.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Well, it came out in 1986, so Okay, oh okay.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
So that would have been almost 40 years.
40 years, yeah, yeah, fuck,that's about right.
I've never seen in the theater.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
So yeah, boy, but anyway, this is a weird one it's
a pun on a plane maneuver, butalso it's another pun about
spinning tails or yarns aboutthe adventures in this animal
land, animal land over there,which always says the thing, all
(06:11):
of these anthropomorphicanimated shows.
I was watching an episode.
It might have been one of theones that we're going to cover
here, but they talk about theEaster bunny.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
They talk about other fictional, anthropomorphic One.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
there's always in these anthropomorphic one
there's always in theseanthropomorphic cartoon worlds.
There are animals that walkupright and talk and have a
personality and conscience, butthere are also the lower animals
, where it's like they'll begoing through a jungle, and
there are birds flying over them, you know, or hogs running wild
(06:44):
, it's like well wait, you're abear and you're a raccoon it's
like it's racially stratified orsomething.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
Yeah, what is the breakdown of that?
It's the goofy pluto conundrum.
Speaker 1 (06:56):
It is yeah, well, literally is actually it drives
me crazy and that's not evengetting into.
Like, if you do easter bunny,well one, it's another
anthropomorphic fictionalizedcreature inside your universe,
but it's also referencingChristianity.
Yeah, jesus.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Well, I mean to be fair.
Easter was a pagan holiday longbefore it was that, so it is
kind of make a case.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
I mean, I think we're going to have to take some,
some leaps to get out of theChristian influence in this
culture they've created.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
Well, yeah, but you're going to have to take
some leaps talking aboutanthropomorphic animals to walk
up and talk too.
So I mean, you know, so like inthat scenario, especially the
Easter Bunny would be more likeactual Jesus to them.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
ironically, Right, Because it's another animal
Easter Bunny crucified for oursins.
Speaker 2 (07:44):
Yeah, that poor bunny nailed to a cross.
Speaker 1 (07:49):
Would you nail each of his ears as well, to a tiny
little cross?
Speaker 2 (07:52):
All four of them.
It's just got a tinyprotrudence at the top with
another little bar.
A little bar, or maybe a reallywide one, because they have big
ears.
Speaker 1 (08:03):
Are you doing like the feet?
Speaker 2 (08:09):
You're just like oh, we ran out of of nails, so we're
just using one for both ears.
Yeah, yes, that's exactly,that's it.
Speaker 1 (08:12):
That's it exactly.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
Yep, uh, our long, a long treatise on how we would
crucify the easter bunny, theeaster bunny specifically, but
you don't nail these feetbecause I mean they're very
large, but you know, I justimagine dangling like it's a
stuffed animal.
Yeah, it was already dark, sothis is an unpleasant image in
my mind.
It didn't really go dark, itwas already there, we just kind
of stumbled across it.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Let's punch a spear into the side of that particular
image and move along punch'spilot is like a ferret or
something like.
Let's not get in anymore.
One of the weasels from RogerRabbit, that's what it is, maybe
the hyenas from Lion King.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Hamlet, I mean Lion King, yeah.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Don't you mean Kimba the white lion?
That's exactly what I mean.
But this was not based on aJapanese cartoon from decades
before Now.
This was a really interestingkind of adult take on a cartoon
tale that is a reference to theRudyard Kipling Jungle Book and
Second Jungle Book stories frommany, many years before.
(09:13):
It's odd because when they madethe Jungle Book they kind of
took the source material andthen did their own thing,
disney-fied it yes, completelyDisney-fied it to where it's not
even recognizable.
The characters, especially thecharacters that are transported
into the Tailspin story, theybear no resemblance to the
original.
The Disney version of Baloo isessentially created from scratch
(09:36):
.
There is a bear of that name,but he's grave and sober, kind
of a schoolmaster figure In thatstory.
Bagheera is actually thereckless and fun-loving one.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Baloo had to get sober so he could give the gusty
of his kids back.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
Baloo has to watch the orphan kids on Christmas
time and they run madcapadventures where they kind of
learn about each other andrealize that— but they're
Kipling.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Kipling got into a lot of the legal procedural
stuff in the divorce.
It's kind of a dry read.
But when they made Junko book.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
They made their own version of the story and it's
that version that is kind oftransported by these creators
into their own version.
So Jim Magon which I'm assumingthat's how you say his name,
because his name is a fuckingfantasy character name it is
J-Y-M-N.
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Oh, I was going to mention that.
Yeah, the weirdest way to spellJim possible.
Yeah, what are you doing?
That's such a millennial name.
That's like a.
It's supposed to be Jimen, isthat what?
Um, jimen Hanzo, that's hisname.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Wow, awesome.
I love Jaiman Hanzo.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, but Jim.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Magon.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
Magon, destroyer of worlds.
Speaker 1 (10:53):
Is he kind of the main man responsible for this
show Like Lobo?
Is Lobo the main manresponsible for the show?
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Well, that's his nickname the main man.
Speaker 1 (11:01):
Oh is it?
Yeah, that's a shitty thing.
A Bastiche might say.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
So you know that one, but you don't.
But then how can you say I keeppronouncing Bastiche as if he's
classy and sophisticated?
Speaker 1 (11:15):
I imagine Lobo more as like a what's the rapey
Looney Tunes skunk.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Pepe Le Pew, Pepe Le Pew.
I don't see that strangely, Idon't.
I see more of a Wolverineanalog but I like my version
better.
He seems pretentious and smokeshand-rolled cigarettes.
Speaker 1 (11:36):
I like that.
It's all a facade.
Actually, when he closes thedoor he takes off his big wig
and he has slick back Frenchhair and he puts on a nice
smoking jacket.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Do the French have slick back hair?
Is that a stereotype?
Speaker 1 (11:50):
No, but if he is a 1930s Frenchman of high esteem
and wealth, then yeah, that'show I'm going to cast him.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Then he was in the Vichy government.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
He was.
He was settling in Malaysia.
He had a plantation.
Speaker 2 (12:08):
Well, I mean Took off his wig and there was a beret
underneath.
He's wearing that black andwhite striped long sleeve shirt
with suspenders.
Speaker 1 (12:20):
I'm a high ranking French Foreign Legion official.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
He's smoking a baguette Smoking a baguette.
Speaker 1 (12:28):
That'll fuck you up, man Dude.
So Jim, again, he's kind of themain creator of Tailspin.
He had been involved in bothcreation of DuckTales and the
Gumi Bars Gumi Bars.
And so Disney wanted to startthe Disney Afternoon block of
programming.
There was a name for this, Ithink it was called Disney
Afternoon block of programming.
There was a name for this, Ithink it was called Disney
Afternoon.
Speaker 2 (12:50):
I read this somewhere there was a name for this that
they were trying to push, but Idon't think it stuck.
I can't remember.
I'll think of it later.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
All I can see is Disney Afternoon when I look for
it.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, it doesn't matter Continue.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
So you had like the Gummy Bears and Duck Tales and
Chippendale Rescue Rangers andDarkwing Duck as part of that,
but getting away from the duckand, I guess, chipmunk based
adventures.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
Well, there weren't a lot of those, there was just
the one really.
Speaker 1 (13:16):
Well, you know it fits.
It's a genre of its own.
They were looking for otherpitches for that and Magon had
an original idea for a sitcomcalled the B Players.
So this is about one-timeDisney animation stars and
would-be stars trying to win acomeback or first-time roles in
a tune version of Hollywood.
Baloo was conceived of as oneof the leading characters of the
(13:39):
show.
Horace and Clarabelle wouldalso have been regulars.
But when he pitched it therewasn't much interest from Disney
.
They didn't like that idea.
They didn't see it had much ofa future.
It would have been kind of likea Roger Rabbit-y kind of thing.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
I think that's got some action that might have
played.
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
I mean, if anything, it's kind of what the Rescue
Ranger no, not the Rescue Ranger, the Chip and Dale movie from a
couple of years ago did.
Oh okay, when they're kind oflike oh, these are old stars of
animation.
One went through like surgeryto become CGI now.
Speaker 2 (14:15):
It was actually pretty good.
I regret not having seen it.
I've heard it's sort of like onpar with like Detective Pikachu
and stuff, where it'ssurprisingly good.
Yeah, it is.
It's like, oh wow.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
I didn't really give this much of a chance, but it's
funny, it's fairly well written,it's interesting.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
I should go back and watch that yeah.
Speaker 1 (14:31):
You don't need to carve out a slice of your life
to see it, but it's a decenttime.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
Well, good thing I don't have one.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
No life to carve out.
So when they ixnayed that Maganidea, he dusted off a previous
idea that he had been working onwhen he was working on
DuckTales, because there'd beensome idea to make a Launchpad
McQuack show where he'd be theoperator of an air freight
service and the main characterseries.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
They were obsessed with Launchpad.
He was the only real crossoverbetween DuckTales and Darkwing.
Duck, yeah, I never really gotit what is their thing.
Did they think he was like HanSolo or something?
I mean, what was the?
I mean, he's kind of supposedto be a little bit, but.
But I mean, han is obviouslybased off an old archetype too,
but like that's, why were theyso obsessed with Launchpad?
I don't get it.
Speaker 1 (15:19):
I don't know.
I guess they thought he hadwings.
The character could fly.
Speaker 2 (15:23):
That's why he showed up later in a sitcom around the
same era.
Wings Wasn't Tony Shalhoub inthat he was.
He played a sort of a raciallyinsensitive stereotype of a taxi
driver.
Fantastic, oh yeah.
And that show actually had somedecent actors in it and then a
couple that never did anythingever again.
But you know.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Maybe later in this podcast we're going to wing it
ourselves.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
So with Paul.
Speaker 1 (15:47):
McCartney.
No, but we will do the PaulMcCartney cyborg that's been
around since the early 80s, sohe died in the 70s, remember?
Yeah, wasn't replaced with alike a cyborg version.
Speaker 2 (15:59):
It was a clone of Joe Biden, Weirdly one of the Biden
clones, mm.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
Hmm, oh, joe Biden.
Weirdly, one of the Bidenclones, joseph.
Speaker 2 (16:07):
Robonet, robonet.
Yeah, see, there you go.
They're onto something now.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
I was trying Robonet Biden.
It still sucked.
But at least it was an idea ofa joke.
Speaker 2 (16:17):
No, no, there's something there.
There's a twinkle in your eye.
I can see it.
Speaker 1 (16:23):
But when they'd come up with that idea it didn't
quite go anywhere.
So magnum kind of took theconcept and combined it with his
b players pitch and that wasthe genesis for tailspin now I
have a question.
Speaker 2 (16:36):
So in the b players thing, was the idea that it was
like the second leads in thesedifferent disney properties?
I think so Because that's aninteresting idea actually, If it
was like Baloo and then like Idon't know, the Candelabra from.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Yeah, the show was to be set in a Roger Rabbit-esque
world where cartoons and humanscoexist, focusing on Baloo and
his comedic partner, ricky Ratt,who the F is that yeah, fucking
no, as the two attempted tomake their way to cartoon
stardom and encourage their castof side character partners.
Speaker 2 (17:05):
It's kind of like extras in a certain way.
Yeah, yeah, that's interesting.
Actually, there's a lot ofdirections you could go with
that.
I kind of think that would bereally cool.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
The villain was to be an assistant director who was
also a toon jealous of hisincompetent director, jay
Audubon Woodlor.
Who the F is that?
Speaker 2 (17:26):
I feel like this is coming from somebody's real
place, you know.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
What the hell J Audubon Woodlor, father of the
mischievous Humphrey the Bear?
Who the hell's Humphrey theBear?
Speaker 2 (17:39):
I don't know what the hell any of this is.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Humphrey.
The Bear is from the 1950s.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
There's a bear in the goofy cartoon what the wow.
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Also, it's a deep cut it's all seems to be deep cut
stuff, but it would be the maincharacter ricky bratt, peter
pointer, poacher spaniel, okaysee, I'm already way more into
this than what we got and whatwe we used to watch all the time
.
Fawn Deer, an airheaded toondeer who starred in toilet paper
(18:11):
ads.
Speaker 2 (18:12):
The more you dig into that, that sounds even cooler.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Timothy Tortoise, Roderick's slow-witted and
lethargic flunky Waldo ZPlatypus, a toon platypus who
specialized in physical comedy,kind of like Gonzo, what these
all have to be real deep cutcharacters, right.
Buck Steed, a pompous and dumbhorse toon who believes he
didn't need a writer to befamous.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
What a tragic character.
Speaker 1 (18:36):
Yeah, again an interesting idea, very.
Speaker 2 (18:39):
I could see why they would have no idea what the hell
he was talking about.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Oh yeah, no, I think it was maybe a little too high
concept and probably worked toan older audience.
Speaker 2 (18:50):
Yeah, but you know what?
That's the kind of show theywould make today, 100% A show
like that would totally playtoday and would have no shot in
hell back then.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
No, I don't think it would.
Although it was coming offRoger Rabbit and like a cool
world and an evil tunes, youwere kind of like doing that
blending of live action, sureTune stuff for an adult audience
.
Speaker 2 (19:13):
But that's just more like the format and setting.
The concept, though, issomething you would totally see
today, yeah, and I think itcould totally work Sounds
awesome actually.
Speaker 1 (19:23):
Yeah, I don't know, maybe Well, we'll get to it
later, but they are remakingTailspin.
Yes, I've heard tails.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Yes, oh God, I've heard duck tails of this
occurrence.
Speaker 1 (19:36):
That joke was a feather in your cap, I think.
Yeah, they did remake DuckTales.
I didn't see any of that?
Speaker 2 (19:40):
I didn't either.
I heard good things, though,david Tennant.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know,maybe I'll watch it someday, but
I'm not going to rush out tosee it.
Speaker 1 (19:47):
Yeah, I mean, despite us covering Tailspin, I
wouldn't say either of us.
We're definitely not Disneyadults, we're not magical
kingdom.
Heads out here, no.
Speaker 2 (19:57):
Though not to denigrate the demographic.
I know a lot of people that Irespect their opinions of pop
culture, that are obsessed withdisney.
To go to disney world everyyear, you know like, okay, great
, not for me necessarily, but I,I get it okay, yeah, I'm glad
you enjoy.
Speaker 1 (20:13):
It seems like an expensive hobby.
Yeah, no, but uh, you know toeach their own.
But I've just never been thatinto disney.
I kind of stopped watching mostof disney cartoons after I
don't know my teens yeah, well,I, I was more of a warner
brothers guy, anyway I you knowthe great looney tunes versus uh
(20:35):
, disney debate, kind of likeyour marvel versus dc yeah, it
kind of is the same.
Speaker 2 (20:39):
yeah, coke versus pepsi, the whole like weird
dichotomies.
We used to have the duo worldwe used to live in.
You know, bugs Bunny was morelike Groucho Marx and it was
witty and it was funny andMickey was kind of an idiot and
Goofy was slapstick.
Like I would much rather watchsomething funny and witty than
(21:01):
you know then Steamboat Willieor whatever the fuck you know,
just don't give a shit.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Oh you sorry my lady, I have to get back home.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Steamboat Willie is coming on for the 574th time and
I've got to be there, which isnow literally in the public
domain.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
Oh yeah, I saw there's the guy who's in
Terrorfire he's in the.
Steamboat Willie horror moviethey're making.
Speaker 2 (21:27):
Oh, so it's like the Winnie the Pooh.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
Yeah, which is what they're doing with all of these
Screenboat is what they'recalling it.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Whatever I mean, I get the novelty.
I don't dislike the idea ofmaking that kind of movie, but
if they're just going to crankthese out without a lot of
actual conceptual effort, thenwhatever.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
No, I mean, it's the same way Get Cocaine Bear and
then Craccoon and Methigator.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
Oh yeah, there's a, there's a shark, one too.
Speaker 1 (21:58):
Yeah, I think that was just like Cocaine Shark.
I think it is just CocaineShark actually.
So boring yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:05):
Yeah, cocaine Bear wasn't even all that good.
No, at least Cocaine Bearwasn't.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
It was a true story.
Speaker 2 (22:09):
Wasn't that Elizabeth Banks, didn't she do that one?
I want to say yes, I thinkshe's done a bunch of okay-ish
movies.
That's like her entire.
I'm glad she's directing and Idon't think the direction is
necessarily the problem with anyof the films, because she did
that reboot of Charlie's Angelsand she did.
She was at least in that PowerRangers reboot.
(22:32):
You know, it's just.
Those aren't great movies.
Speaker 1 (22:35):
Fact, when Jim Magan was asked about attracting a
more adult audience, hementioned that we've always had
it in the back of our minds thatwe want to do something a
little grittier than, say,ducktales or Rescue Rangers.
And when Tailspin came along wesaid oh boy, this is great Tony
the Tiger jumped into frame.
It definitely has asophistication that a lot of
(22:57):
other TV animation lacks.
He also went on to say well, atthe time and locale of the show
, both suggest those old movieserials of the 30s it was a very
exciting time to be a kid whenthings were still exotic and
mysterious.
So we want to do a Terry and thePirates kind of show.
Also, what appealed to us aboutthe era was the scale of things
(23:18):
.
Today technology hasminiaturized everything, which
isn't visually exciting, but inthat era anything powerful was
really big, which is great for acartoon show.
We've also got atmosphere ofthat time with the nightclubs,
Art Deco and the old cars.
It just gives the show anexciting feel.
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Yeah, there is still that lens of Western racism
about all of the whole, likeeverything was exotic and
discovering new things whichwere just things that were
already there, that white peopledon't know about.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
When they say discovering, it means white
people found out about them.
That's exactly what they mean.
Yes, Pioneers, Settlers.
I should probably get into alittle bit of what the show was
before we get too into some ofits source material.
Source material Tailspin is.
It's kind of set in this1930s-ish era where there seems
(24:09):
to have been some type of greatwar but yet it's pre-television.
It's really undefined, but it'skind of this 1930s, 1940s
adventure serial vibe.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
It's definitely a pre-World War II, post-World War
I era.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
Where Baloo he's kind of the ace cargo pilot making
runs to different islands inkind of a tropical setting.
He's a very carelessbusinessman.
He gets his business and hisplane foreclosed upon.
He loses it to the bank.
And then Rebecca Cunningham.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
We have to address this fact.
You've got Baloo, you've gotShere Khan, you've got Kit
Cloudkicker, you've got DonCarnage, you've got Mad Dog and
then Rebecca Cunningham or Beckyfor short yeah, I one of these
things is not like the otherit's very odd.
Speaker 1 (25:06):
Rebecca, and Molly Cunningham too, don't forget,
yes, oh, her small child,because she's a single mother
who has invested her life'sfortune because she wanted to
have her own business and shethinks that she can turn Baloo's
failing cargo pilot biz into acash cow.
There's also a wildcat, whichis their mechanic, who's a tiger
(25:29):
, I think.
Speaker 2 (25:31):
No, no, he's a lion.
Speaker 1 (25:34):
Yeah, I think he's a lion.
There's also Kit Cloudkicker,which is kind of, I'll be honest
, he kind of felt like theWesley Crusher of the show.
Speaker 2 (25:42):
Oh, he's the Richie.
Yes, this pseudo, pseudo.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
I wouldn't say main character, but there's long-term
main character vibes from thiskid I think he's supposed to be
the one that kids relate to.
This is obviously sort of gearedtoward adults a lot of the
drama comes from real worldadult situations.
But lou couldn't manage hisfinances and he lost his plane
and he just wants to do his joband do it to the best of his
(26:10):
ability and and this this womanhas has bought it and now has
turned him into an employee.
Yeah, it's uh, rebecca fromcheers, which we'll talk about.
Yeah, we'll definitely get intothat here in a minute.
Speaker 2 (26:21):
Just from picking, characters from the jungle book
alone.
Like back then, you reallywould only have known that when
you saw it as a kid.
I mean, they had it on vhs butit wasn't like it was like on tv
all the time or anything.
It was very obviously, I think,supposed to tap into the
nostalgia of people of a certainage that watched it when they
were young, and so I think theyput kit in there to like give
(26:42):
you the little kid tie in.
Speaker 1 (26:44):
So the kids would relate to it Because, unlike a
DuckTales where the trio arekind of like your front and
center, this is kind of a storyabout grownups.
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:55):
Doing adult things with adult concerns.
Yeah, real X-rated, stuff.
Speaker 1 (27:02):
Man Baloo had a hell of a hog, and that thing was not
anthropomorphized at all.
She got Balooed, you know whatI mean.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
Oh, I know exactly what you mean.
More than once they reference aBaloo job.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
I mean, I don't know how you paint that up for kids
but In a lot of ways it harkenedback to the Karl Barks stories,
you know the Scrooge McDuckkind of thing, A little more
adult-tinged, less kiddy.
It was still very relatable tokids adventure tales, just with
(27:37):
adult versions and concepts atthe underpinning.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
And adult dynamics.
Ducktales that's a little moresimple.
Huey, louie, dewey have a richuncle.
They go on wacky adventures.
This one it's about failure andloss and economic turns and
yeah, blue wants financialfreedom.
And then interpersonal dynamicsthat are way more complicated
than Duck Tales.
Speaker 1 (27:59):
Yeah, both main characters want to be good
father and or mother figures tothe small ones in their life.
Speaker 2 (28:04):
Yeah, another non-traditional family which is
fascinating, especially forDisney at that time.
Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah, it's definitely interesting and not of the time
.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
As we go along.
I think we can make someargument about some of the other
things in this weird era forDisney, like Goof Troop for
instance, but I'm sure we'llstumble across that as we go, we
might.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
I mean, if you want to talk about the dynamics of
the blue becky relationship, youknow how it is distinctly based
on cheers as inspiration and alittle bit of moonlighting yeah,
a little moonlighting.
Speaker 2 (28:33):
There's a lot of will , they won't they, which is
really bizarre for a kid'sdisney show, especially like a
like an after-school show in1990.
It definitely has a post dianecheers archetype because that
show is definitely about twodifferent.
Cheers is two different shows.
But the Rebecca era Cheersthing I mean it's right there,
(28:55):
they don't even cover it up.
Her name is Rebecca Cunninghamfor Christ's sake.
Speaker 1 (28:59):
Yeah, no, I mean they were distinctly going for that
vibe.
Apparently, in the originalversion she's more of more
corporate, you know like shecame with like a suit and she
came from money.
They decided to tone that down,make her a little more working
class, which is actually, Ithink, more complex and more
nuanced.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
as much as it sounds like they're dumbing it down, it
actually, I think, adds anotherlevel of class, commentary and
things, because otherwise it'slike she could have basically
been the villain from MajorLeague.
Speaker 1 (29:31):
But making her a more relatable character with their
own goals.
You had Shere Khan for thatkind of corporate elite class
dynamic.
For her she's just a strugglingbusinessman who's trying to
deal with this lazy a-hole thatshe's kind of stuck with.
Speaker 2 (29:48):
On top of being a single mom.
Yeah, that's really interesting.
I mean there's, yeah, I think,toning the corporate thing down
on paper.
You would think, oh, they madeit more capitalist friendly.
But no, it actually addsanother big layer of the
struggle of making it in theworld with all of these
challenges.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Yeah, you're making kind of a rookie entrepreneur
who's put all of the money shehas into this business.
You know kind of a bad ideareally, but she's just trying to
like get through and make itday to day and try to make this
thing work Same way.
Baloo is the same way, like weall are, as opposed to making
her from money who inherited thebusiness and has put Baloo on
the payroll to do his duty.
There was this burgeoningrelationship that they got into
(30:33):
a little bit as much as a Disneyshow was going to.
Right, they're not taking anylong breaks in the back or
anything.
Speaker 2 (30:40):
There's no disclosure moment.
That happens, yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
So they have this business.
It was originally Baloo's AirService Great name, baloo Nailed
it but then she turned it toHire for Hire it's actually
pretty good, it's a good name.
I had completely forgottenabout that before.
I went and rewatched some ofthese and I was like, oh no,
that's Pretty damn clever,actually Pretty smart.
One of the only other peoplefrom the Jungle Book is the
(31:06):
Louis character.
The orangutan Is that right, heis an orangutan.
He is the proprietor of anisland restaurant, bar, airplane
refueling station, kind of likeRick's in Casablanca.
Anybody can gather there.
It's neutral territory.
Maybe he did some stuff back inthe day, but he's just out
(31:27):
slinging drinks and being theplace to be.
Speaker 2 (31:31):
Yeah, I was going to make the Casablanca analogy
earlier with the setting.
I know Casablanca happensduring World War II, but this is
very much in that kind of world, yeah Louis, the Rix or Guinan
kind of vibe.
That's really, reallyinteresting.
I think this actually has a lotof parallels with Casablanca
too.
Actually.
Speaker 1 (31:51):
It does, but perhaps it has the most parallels with
an underseen 1980s TV show thatthe writers and creators spoke
about being an influence, calledTales of the Golden Monkey.
I had never heard of thisbefore we looked into this.
I had never heard of thiseither.
It was a primetime Wednesdaynight ABC show that ran from
(32:11):
September 22nd 1982 untilJanuary 1st 1983.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Okay, so three months Okay.
Speaker 1 (32:23):
It had 22 episodes, that's a full season.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Yeah, they got into it.
I'm just shocked.
I'd that's a full season.
Yeah, they got into it.
I'm just shocked, I'd nevereven heard about this.
Speaker 1 (32:30):
Yeah, I've seen a lot of TV, completely fallen into
obscurity.
But it is a adventure showreleasing the year after Raiders
of the Lost Ark, so getting alittle bit of those vibes Early
aviation, indigenous locals, alot of action and came from the
mind of Don Bellisario.
When this failed he would go onto use some of the actors and
(32:53):
the Adventures of an Ace Pilotconcept into his 1984 to 86 tech
chopper adventure Airwolf Fuck,yeah, airwolf.
And then did some stuff withMagnum, pi and Jag later on.
But it tells the story of 1938in the South Pacific.
An ex-fighter pilot, jake Cutter.
Now he operates an air cargoservice delivering in the South
(33:17):
Seas the island of Bora Gora.
Okay, he flies the GrummanGoose which is called Cutter's
Goose.
They distinctly took thosenames for the sea duck and
tailspin.
He has a best friend namedCorky who's the pilot, kind of a
drunk and a goof, a lot likeWildcat.
He has a one-eyed Jack RussellTerrier.
(33:38):
In the opening scene of theshow he bets his dog's glass eye
that has like gems in it andwhatnot in this poker game
against Nazis that he loses andso at least in the pilot he's
trying to get enough money tobuy the eye back for his dog,
and the dog also will bark.
(33:59):
He can communicate, so he barks.
Think one bark for no, twobarks for yes.
But then maybe it's theopposite and it's two barks for
no, one bark for yes.
Which is how they have this.
Should I bet your eye orshouldn't I bet your eye?
At the beginning of the showthey did a bit.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
It's actually one of the more enjoyable parts.
It's good dog acting, I willsay that.
So then you have this womanthat comes into the business
Nice.
So then you have this womanthat comes into the business.
She turns out to be a US spy,but she's a singer, dancer,
possible movie star, vibe.
You also have Bonchance Louis,played by Roddy McDowell Wow,
(34:37):
good time, louis, that's awesome.
The owner of the Monkey Bar andthe French magistrate of
Beauregord.
Again, louis runs this barwhere everybody congregates
after the war Gotcha.
Then there's the main villain,japanese princess, who's not
played by a Japanese actress.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
Oof.
Speaker 1 (34:58):
Even in the mid-80s Wow, yeah, well, early 80s.
You also have this Germanreverend who is preaching the
gospel to the island, but hisgospel is that he will do
special blessings with the youngwomen alone.
Speaker 2 (35:15):
Oh, they were early on in this one, huh yeah, his
private prayers.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
In the first episode there's this I don't know, maybe
she's 18, 17, 18, asian actresswho's just like blessing,
blessing, can I have blessing?
And he's like not now, not now,we'll deal with it later.
Oh, God Good thing it's to cometo those who wait.
Speaker 2 (35:34):
The video for like a prayer is playing in the
background.
Speaker 1 (35:38):
But the main bad guy is the money man from Airwolf,
Do you remember?
Oh?
Speaker 2 (35:42):
yeah, with the eyepatch, yes, with the eyepatch
.
Okay, he always wore a whitesuit, fucking ruled.
Speaker 1 (35:48):
No, no, I'm thinking of the wrong guy.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
Oh are you thinking about the old British guy?
Yes, no, that was Knight Rider.
Was that Knight Rider?
Speaker 1 (35:55):
Oh shit, William Forsythe's in a couple episodes.
Oh interesting, you totallyrecognize him.
He plays this German officerwho's like one of the main bad
guys.
All right, Branson Richcombe isin some episodes.
Wow, that's something.
But yeah.
So Tales of the Golden Wink wasdefinitely a resource for the
ideas of the show.
Both Magnet and Mark Zasloff,who's the other main creator of
(36:17):
Talespin, both referenced it forsome of the characters,
Balloon's plane and the vibe ofthe show, because it's very much
similar.
The pilot has to go onadventures and discover new
lands.
It's a lot of smuggling.
Speaker 2 (36:31):
I mean it's the same kind of yeah, same trope that
they use for Han Solo yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Yeah, yeah, very similar.
And from what I've seen ofTales of the Golden Monkey it
was like an hour and a halfpilot.
I got mostly through it.
It's weird Opening scene is acouple of German explorers shoot
weird monkey creatures and thenget killed by them.
That's how the show opens.
It got my attention.
(36:59):
Yeah, it felt very like Congo.
Oh, okay, but with much lessmoney.
Well, much less wasted money.
Speaker 2 (37:06):
I don't hate Congo, oh okay, but with much less
money.
Well, much less wasted money.
I don't hate Congo.
Speaker 1 (37:10):
You don't hate Congo.
I don't hate Congo.
No, it's terrible, it's reallybad.
We watch much worse things andthere's some positives there.
Speaker 2 (37:19):
Of course, yeah, but I mean you see Jurassic Park and
then you see Congo and you'relike, well, you know I can have
my steak and I can have a burger.
Speaker 1 (37:27):
They're not incompatible.
Speaker 2 (37:29):
Which is worse?
Speaker 1 (37:30):
I mean I eat at the same time.
Speaker 2 (37:31):
but I double fist them.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
I can't get enough, Put more meat in my mouth.
I got a steak shake.
Get a steak burger.
Baby, You've combined the twothings that could not be
combined.
You didn't stop to ask yourselfshould we do a thing?
You just slapped it on thelunchbox.
Speaker 2 (37:50):
Steak finds a way.
Speaker 1 (37:51):
And you sold it.
Put it in a plastic lunchbox.
Speaker 2 (37:55):
Oh, we didn't talk about the villains.
No, not at all.
We're really a lot of the samemain setup and premise.
Yet We've got that part but wedon't have the other.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Yeah, so obviously there are things that are going
to get in Baloo and Kit andBecky's way, as it were.
You have Shere Khan, one of thethree characters from the
actual Jungle Book story, but inthis he's a corporate tycoon.
He's Lex Luthor, yeah, alwaysin a suit, looking very suave.
He's the big dick swingingmoney, trying tocut them, put
(38:30):
them out of business.
He has his own crew of pantherpilots.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
He's got minions he's got.
It's a good, uh good.
Look, he's dark and mysteriousand always has plans within
plans, but I mean therepresentation of ruthless
corporate evil, a very 80s trope, a very relevant one.
Speaker 1 (38:45):
Yeah, if anything, he'd be kind of like I don't
know, I mean like whatever thewealthy people that were going
against Scrooge McDuck all thetime, I don't even remember.
Well, I didn't read that much.
Speaker 2 (38:56):
Scrooge.
Did he ever read Scrooge?
I mean, did he have a wealthyfoidel?
He did, I don't know.
It seems like he did.
I just can't rememberFlintheart Glomgold.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
Okay, another wealthy person who was always.
Speaker 2 (39:15):
I mean, we can get into DuckTales at a different
time, because that's alsosomething really interesting.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
Yeah, no, he's another ambitious, ruthless,
manipulative businessman.
He's a South African-AmericanPeking duck.
Speaker 2 (39:25):
Oh boy does that.
Wow that's a rabbit hole.
Holy shit, there was a rabbithole.
Speaker 1 (39:32):
Yeah, holy shit.
There was also John DRockerduck, of course, of course
they were going to go toRockefeller stuff.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Yeah, those are all stand-ins for, like, carnegie
and Rockefeller.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
The other main bad guy in the show I would say that
consistently popped up was DonCarnage.
Don Carnage, I'd say he'sprobably one of the funnier
elements of the show, sure, buthe's kind of the rakish leader
of a pirate society.
Speaker 2 (40:04):
They're sky pirates, yes, which is a really weird
thing we need to talk about,because being a sky pirate
doesn't seem lucrative oreffective.
Okay, so you have pirates onships and you have boats, and
the boats are steady, they're inthe water, you can go from A to
B or whatever.
A plane being attacked by otherplanes is a really weird
(40:29):
forgive the pun, nebulous idea.
Where you're like, it doesn'tmake sense.
Speaker 1 (40:35):
If you shoot a flying contraption that is thousands
of pounds and it loses controland crashes into something, thus
giving you the opportunity toboard it and take its stuff,
you're going to find it a bigheap of wreckage instead of a
viable source to be mined fromand sold to someone.
Speaker 2 (40:54):
Well, it's not like in Mad Max, where you're on the
road and you're chasing somebodyand it's you know you catch up
with them and they're stillthere on the ground.
Or you're in the water andyou're on a boat and you get to
boat and the boat can sink, butmost of the time boats are just
going to float.
Speaker 1 (41:10):
This one you're hanging in the air, flying
around Like the pirate thingdoesn't really make a lot of
sense, I think in the pilot, thefirst time you see them attack
another plane it's one of ShereKhan's planes they put grappling
hooks on each wing yes, they doand then they kind of force it
down, land on the water then, Iguess, steal the plane and or
(41:31):
all of its goods.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
That was the only time I think they kind of
addressed that weird disconnectthere.
Yeah, and they do.
You're right.
They have a whole scene wherethey show how they pirate planes
.
It's just as a general concept.
It doesn't really seem to workvery well.
Speaker 1 (41:47):
You know what I mean?
No, I think it's one of thoserule of cool because it sounds
oh Sky Pirate.
Speaker 2 (41:51):
Yeah, sky Pirate, that's awesome.
Yeah, all right, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (41:54):
It's like an ice pirate, yeah, like an ice pirate
Wow.
Speaker 2 (41:57):
We have to talk about ice pirates, by the way.
Speaker 1 (42:04):
We do need to talk about ice.
There's, the voices of Tailspinwere a mix of what you'd call
like face actors and veteranvoice actors.
They wanted Phil Harris who didthe original voice of Blue in
the Jungle Book cartoon, but atthe time that they were making
(42:24):
Tailspin he was 85.
He had trouble recreating thevoice Plus.
It was like a four, four hourround trip from Palm Springs.
Every time it didn't end upworking out.
So I believe that he was thevoice for, like I think, the
pilot and maybe a coupleepisodes, but then that Harris
had done.
He was your main actor.
For that you had SallyStruthers.
(42:45):
She was doing RebeccaCunningham.
It was hot, let me tell you.
Speaker 2 (43:00):
Said no one ever about Sally Struthers.
Sally Struthers says RebeccaCunningham comes in and says do
you want to make more money?
Sure, we all do.
Nobody gets that reference.
Do you not remember thosecommercials?
Uh, no.
So Sally Struthers used to dothese commercials for, like, I
think it was like a DeVry typetrade school where she would
(43:24):
just come on and be like do youwant to make more money?
Sure, we all do and then thewhole, this whole thing, her
delivery and everything was soawful and answering her own
question that it always stuckout to me that's kind of all she
did until this.
Speaker 1 (43:40):
Yeah well, coming off doing the voice of Teenage
Pebbles in the Hanna-Barbera.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Pebbles and Bam Bam show.
Oh, that's right.
Yeah, they had that.
I forgot that show existed.
Speaker 1 (43:49):
You had her in All in the Family.
I think she was pretty big inthat.
Speaker 2 (43:53):
Yeah, that was her big, thing, yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
Yeah, before her roles in the Gilmore Girls.
Speaker 2 (43:58):
Huh, huh.
Oh yeah, she is in the GilmoreGirls.
I was thinking in that like,wow, what had she been doing
between those things After thosecommercials in the 90s?
I don't remember SallyStruthers at all until Gilmore
Girls.
She kind of disappeared.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
Well, she was that one episode of Fish Police.
Speaker 2 (44:17):
Oh, yes, fish Police.
Yes, the funny thing is, I knowexactly what you're talking
about.
The Simpsons even make a jokeabout that show in one of the
Treehouse of Horror episodes.
She was the mom in Dinosaurs.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
Really she was, yeah.
Speaker 2 (44:30):
The mom she was, yeah , she was Charlene Sinclair.
Speaker 1 (44:32):
I did not know that.
Speaker 2 (44:34):
It doesn't sound like her Acting.
She's so well known for hervaried accents and vocal work.
Wait, which one was?
No, I don't think she was themom?
Speaker 1 (44:47):
No, that was actually Jessica Walter, I think From
Arrested Development.
Speaker 2 (44:51):
No that was actually Jessica Walter, I think, from.
Speaker 1 (44:52):
Arrested Development oh, that would make sense.
Fran Sinclair, but I don't knowwho.
Charlene Sinclair she says shewas in 64 episodes, which is she
might be the daughter, oh okay,which I guess would make sense
if she was playing Pebblesbefore.
Yeah, you know, Teenage Pebblesmight as well have her.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
Teenage Dinosaur is one to one.
It's a logical next step.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
You jump right in.
It's kind of two sides of thesame coin really, yeah.
Speaker 2 (45:18):
It's the next step in evolution.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
And then Kit was voiced by a couple child actors
who had names, but we will movepast those.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Guaranteed they had names.
I guarantee it.
You had Shere Khan played headnames.
I guarantee it, you had sheercon played by tony jay, a
veteran character actor, andthis is one of the few things in
this that I know way too muchabout.
But this is crossover with aphenomenon that sadly is still
going.
Conservative christianorganization focus on the family
(45:46):
, run by james dobson a completeasshole produced kids
programming starting in the Ithink, the late 80s and still
going to this day, a radio dramathat all the kids are into.
You would be shocked at howmany kids know about this and
have heard it growing up,especially evangelical kids.
It's called Adventures inOdyssey.
(46:07):
It's called Adventures inOdyssey and Tony Jay was a
reoccurring voice actor on thatwhere he played, obviously one
of the villains because of hisvoice, because he's got a great
villain voice.
But there were a lot of theseactors who were relatively
mainstream that did do a lot ofcrossover with this just because
(46:28):
it was steady voice actor work.
The guy that was the constablein Young Frankenstein he's in a
ton of that show.
The actor who plays the voiceof Milhouse she's in a ton of
that show.
It's really awful and 100%indoctrinating and brainwashing
kids into evangelicalism and hasreally weird messages about the
(46:50):
deep state, about pro deepstate.
It's really, really a bizarreshow, but there's a lot of
crossover with these rotatingcharacter actors in that too,
and it's all around the same era.
But I mean, hey, it was apaycheck, so you can't really
fault them.
Of course, here in this we'vegot mean.
You'll see guys like FrankWelker come up in Tailspin and
(47:11):
Lorenzo Music, one of the greatvoice actors of all time.
Lorenzo Music played SergeantDunder in seven episodes.
Frank Welker played basicallywhenever they needed somebody to
fill in for 17 episodes he wasin there.
Speaker 1 (47:25):
Yeah, he would do a lot of side stuff there.
A lot of side stuff there.
Speaker 2 (47:29):
Yeah, well, I mean, he's a guy that's always
available.
He's like Mark Hamill now, orTom Kenny.
You know he's there, he'll doit and he'll crush it every time
.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
The rest of the music played Tummy Gummy on the gummy
hairs Completely coincidentalname oh.
Tummy Gummy.
Speaker 2 (47:47):
He's got a gummy tummy.
Speaker 1 (47:49):
You know.
And then you had Jim Cummingswho was kind of like the MVP of
the show he did Louis DonCarnage and a host of other
guest characters.
Speaker 2 (48:00):
Which is weird because he's only in 42 episodes
.
The show ran 66?
Yes, 66.
Speaker 1 (48:07):
Well, it says he's in 48, but that's probably
different characters.
So maybe Louis is in 48, butthat's probably different
characters.
So maybe Louie's in an episodewhen Don Carnage isn't kind of
thing.
Speaker 2 (48:15):
So here's one of the problems with IMDb is that it is
often, oh, I'm sorry, I'mthinking of RJ Williams, I'm
sorry, oh, no, the guy whoplayed Kit.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
One of the guys who played Kit?
Speaker 2 (48:27):
Yeah, one of the guys .
That's why he's only in 42.
Speaker 1 (48:34):
Yes, Jim Cummings is in 48.
Yes, he's Don Carnage.
Speaker 2 (48:35):
yes, Jim was Cumming in Tailspin.
He's Cumming in Cumming Ifyou've ever watched Pumping Iron
.
Speaker 1 (48:41):
Playing a Sky Pirate.
It's like Jim Cummings.
Speaker 2 (48:44):
It's just like Jim Cummings, over and over again
it's the best feeling in theworld.
Speaker 1 (48:49):
Tailspin had a higher standing generally of writing
in its episodes compared toother things like DuckTales.
As Jim Magan was kind of likethe supervising producer
effectively what we'd call ashowrunner today had an effect
of keeping the series' sense ofhumor which is like a little
sharper, much more rapid firethan DuckTales or Rescue Rangers
(49:09):
.
But it also avoided the LooneyTunes-inspired like anything for
a laugh style of humor thatyou'd sometimes get in like a
Darkwing Duck or some laterDuckTales episodes.
Magan Zasloff both wrote abunch of episodes but you also
had Don Rosa wrote a coupleepisodes, one of the guys behind
(49:31):
the, the old carl barks unclescrooge comics.
Speaker 2 (49:34):
he actually wrote some of the tailspin episodes I
used to have some of those oldcomics.
Uh, they were.
I think they were an actualdisney imprint.
It wasn't gold key, I don'tthink.
I think it was an actual disneycomics imprint.
Yeah, I mean they had multiple.
This would have been in likethe 50s and 60s.
Speaker 1 (49:50):
Probably one of the more recognizable things,
especially from the memory boxthat we keep Tailspin in, would
be its theme song.
Oh yeah, so Michael and PattySilvershire did the theme song
kind of this Calypso influenceadventure song which I remember
liking as a kid.
But when I heard it rewatchingthese after the first time I was
(50:13):
like no, I do not need to hearthis ever again no sir, I do not
like it.
Speaker 2 (50:18):
I like the breakdown part, you know, and in in the
opening credits it's.
It's this really weird shot ofbaloo from an episode clip from
baloo from an episode dressed ascarmen miranda, an episode
dressed as Carmen Miranda withmaracas, or whatever.
I think that part slaps.
It's obviously just a tiny partof it, but I was thinking about
that from in this era of thesecartoons, between DuckTales,
(50:42):
darkwing Duck and this, this isthe weakest of those songs.
Yeah, I mean.
Speaker 1 (50:46):
DuckTales is by far the song of Disney cartoons.
Speaker 2 (50:50):
I think so.
So I think closely followed byDarkwing Duck, though.
Speaker 1 (50:54):
I don't remember Darkwing Duck at all yeah, pull
it up pull it up, let's hear itoh this was the.
Speaker 2 (51:02):
It was their urban, more urban.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
Inspired when they get to the Darkwing Duck chorus.
I I think that's pretty good.
I don't necessarily care forthe hip-hop influence stuff in
between.
We got that sweet saxophone.
Tailspin is the weakest of allof those.
Speaker 2 (51:20):
I didn't watch Rescue Rangers.
I am aware of it and I've seenepisodes.
I just didn't.
I wasn't a fan of that one, butit had a pretty memorable theme
theme too.
I wonder, looking back now, ifit's better or worse than
Tailspin, because Tailspin's Istill kind of enjoy.
Speaker 1 (51:39):
I just listened to that as well.
Rescue Rangers is better.
I think Rescue Rangers wouldprobably be second in my opinion
.
Really Okay, but stillnothing's beating DuckTales.
Speaker 2 (51:47):
Oh no, DuckTales is a jam.
Speaker 1 (51:49):
Yeah, so I'd say that's kind of like my little
breakdown for the idea of theseries, people involved in
creating it, where the show camefrom.
Again, it lasted 66 episodes.
Originally the pilot was afeature-length movie that later
on, when it came to syndication,got broken up into four
separate episodes, but it didget nominated and won an Emmy
(52:11):
for best original animatedfeature.
It was, I think, that year, theonly thing nominated, so it won
by default.
Speaker 2 (52:21):
Default.
Speaker 1 (52:21):
But it still counts as a win.
Quickly after its first run itdid go into syndication and then
one of the Disney network hashad different iterations.
Strange enough, it's had lotsof different editing throughout
its run.
There's, like I found, a wholewebsite dedicated to just the
different edits of tailspinepisodes.
Wow, that's fascinating.
It was a lot.
(52:41):
And again, hey, thanks forchecking out the pod.
I'm seeing what we're chattingabout.
Until we get on our own seaduck and fly away collectively,
Skip.
What should they do?
Speaker 2 (52:53):
Well, I think they should probably listen to us
more.
Christ's sake, we need it Forthe sake of the Easter bunny,
please Listen to our show.
Speaker 1 (53:04):
You're crucified for your sins.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
Make sure that you guys out there have cleaned up
after yourselves to some sort ofreasonable degree, that you
have paid your tabs, yourbartenders, your KJs you've left
sizable tips for the hard workthat they do.
Don't forget to support yourlocal comic shops and retailers.
And from Dispatch Ajax we wouldlike to say Godspeed, fair
Wizard.
Speaker 1 (53:24):
Please go away.
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