August 30, 2022 • 42 mins
Morning Funnies was a neat idea for a breakfast cereal, but it doesn't seem that anyone thought ANY further than that when producing it. Listen to the crew bemoan this fact, but first hear what Olivia thought about the latest in the Little Debbie line of cereals. THEN, the main event, PEE WEE'S PLAYHOUSE!!! Does this show hold up to a more "mature" audience? Only one way to find out!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:07):
It's time to PLoP down in frontof the TV and the Way Back Machine
with the bowl of your favorite cerealto relive the cartoons that made it worth
waking up early on the weekend.It's the Saturday Morning Supercast. Good morning,
(00:32):
and welcome to the Saturday Morning Supercast, where it's always Saturday morning and
the cereal bowl is always full.I'm Jeff, I'm Cory, and I'm
Olivia, and folks we got.I'm actually kept pretty excited about the show,
not that I'm not always excited aboutour shows. But the show we're
going to be discussing a bit lateris Pee Wee's Playhouse. We're gonna keep
on our live action kick as wetalked about Going Bananas last time, but
(00:53):
I think we probably had quite adifferent experience with Pee Wee's Playhouse and we
did with Going Bananas. But beforewe talk about that, we're going to
talk about a cereal that was onstore shelves at the same time called Morning
Funnies that I have no memory of, so this will be interesting. But
before that, even Olivia has areview for us of a cereal I believe,
don't you, Olivia. I do, like so many cereal purchases between
(01:15):
the three of us. I wasrolling my cart through the store and came
upon the new Kelloggs and Little Debbiebecause that's who you go to, by
the way for breakfast cereal is LittleDebbie of course. If yeah, the
new cosmic brownie cereal not just browniescosmic brownies. What made these brownies cosmic?
(01:41):
Cosmic brownies get their name from themulti colored sprinkle elements placed on top
of them. I believe this wasalso in response to the original Little Debbie
classic of the fudge brownie that hadI think it was walnuts yep on the
top. My friend, my friendBrian and who we know is as Turtle.
(02:02):
Olivia knows mis Tortuga would always usefudge nut brownies as an expletive instead
of saying what he really wanted tosay. I like that. I like
that. So I think cosmic brownieswere a modification based on so many kids
having a peanut tree nut allergies.But anyway, so cosmic brownies have I'm
(02:27):
gonna sound like Jeff for just ahot second. Cosmic Brownie has really nice
box art. You have a reallypretty combination of like a rainbow. You've
got little Debbie on there with hersun bonnet and her gang. Um,
there is a picture of a originalcosmic brownie with the sprinkles and that little
(02:50):
perforation line down the center. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you have a
bowl of cosmic brown knees and uhmy box. Also included on the bowl
was like also a kind of arainbow omber to it, and then the
pieces with like actively splashing milk.Uh. It's really nice box art.
(03:16):
Yeah, I wait for the hammerto druble this on one, this is
not going to be the rest ofthe experience is not going to be as
positive as the box. The boxart, Yeah about that. Um so
here's here's what happens. First ofall, but maybe this is just me,
(03:37):
but when I cracked open the box, I will admit that I had
a really specific like scent experience thatactually did remind me of opening up the
little clear plastic wrapper on a cosmicbrownie, Like I got that same kind
of smell. Okay, so thatwas a couraging. The cereal self is
(04:01):
shaped like a puffed square and itdoes have little like candy or sugar sprinkle
multi colored bits on it. Iwould say visually, the shape itself is
fine. Personally, I think itwould be kind of cute if the piece
(04:25):
was a little bit smaller rectangle andthey could actually recreate that perforation down the
middle. I would have found thatamusing. I think it visually could have
used more of the multi colored sprinkles, and the multi colored sprinkles, by
the way, didn't really add anythingto the flavor. It was really just
(04:46):
more of a visual element at Yeah, I did try some dry A lot
of people in other reviews complained ofthe typical kind of mouth irritation exfoliation that
we've talked about with so many othercereals. I personally didn't have that experience.
(05:09):
I did find it very crispy,though, and I did notice that
when you pour the milk in,it does retain a lot of it's crispiness.
I noted that the milk had tosit in the bowl with the cereal
for really a pretty good chunk oftime, much longer than an average kid
or adult would let cereals sit beforethey got around to eating it without it,
(05:34):
you know, before it finally lostsome significant crispiness. Do you have
any fairies answer on it. Ithink it probably has a crunching hanswer.
It's semipermeable, it's not cosmotic.What it does is it coats seals.
It prevents the milk from penetrating.Yeah. Nice, Okay, So folks
(05:55):
Olivia gets five dollars every time shegets me to say that that's why she
always does it, and I losefive years off my life. So here's
the nail in the coffin. Flavorwise, it really does kind of suffer.
If we were judging just based ondoes it seem chocolatey, there are
(06:16):
other cereals that you can go tothen have a better, stronger, more
chocolatey taste. I've really felt likethe chocolate flavor with this was kind of
lackluster. Add to this the Achillesheel that we've discussed with other cereals where
baked goods, even if it's apackaged lunchbox item like a little Debbie Brownie,
(06:41):
we'll still put that in that category. Baked goods just don't seem to
translate well into breakfast cereals, especiallysomething like those Little Debbie Brownies, which
historically have a very kind of dense, rich fudgie taste to them, and
you just don't they just don't,you know, capture this in a dry
(07:01):
breakfast cereal. Right, So Iwould say, if you if you want
a chocolate, a good chocolate cereal, stick with um, stick with cocoa
pebbles, yeah, or youah,cocoa pebbles, cocoa cocoa puffs, even
cocoa puffs are always winter coke crispies. Don't. Don't go for the frosty
(07:25):
cereal. That's not chocolated enough.Right, right, we talked about that
pretty well. I can't say thatI'm surprised. That's about That's about what
I expected from this. Were yousurprised, Olivia, or was it sort
of what you were expecting as well? I had kind of set myself up
for this. Um, I wouldhave maybe been more impressed if I at
(07:45):
least got some of the effect oflike, oh you get trench or milk
chocolate, or if it had astronger Papa flavor. I think I would
have been much more impressed. Asit is, h the box, I'm
pretty sure it's still sitting over onmy kitchen counter, and I'm gonna have
(08:05):
to I'm too cheap to like justthrow it away so it gets too stale
to eat and say, oh,well, it's too stale to eat.
Now, I guess we have tothrow it away. Just suck it up
and make myself finish it. Yeah, well, good luck with that.
Life is short. Life is tooshort to eat bad cereal. That's my
fos. That's a good all right. So all right, well, let's
(08:26):
talk about another cereal that was aboutas well received as Olivia's reception of the
Cosmic Brownie Little Debbie cereal. Let'stalk about Morning Funnies. Morning Funnies was
on store shelves from nineteen eighty eightto nineteen eighty nine, which is late
enough in our lives for us allto have remembered it. And the box.
(08:46):
Speaking of box art, it wasliterally art because it had comic strips
on the front. Was very strikingand memorable. Do either of you remember
this cereal at all? Not abit, No, no me either.
Okay. So when I was doingresearch trying to find a cereal to pair
with our show today, I was, you know, always trying to find
cereals that were on store shelves thatat the same time as the show was
(09:07):
on the air, and I hiton this one, and I thought,
this will make for an interesting discussionbecause We've talked a lot about branded cereals
recently, and this was probably themost, if I could say, generically
branded cereal that we've gotten so far. But it's also an idea that it
seems to have been not not reallygetting past the brainstorming session before they put
it into production. So for anybodyelse who's like us, who has no
(09:30):
idea what we're talking about, MorningFunnies was a fruit flavored breakfast cereal produced
by Rawlston Cereals from nineteen eighty eightto nineteen eighty nine, and the name
of the cereal was based on anassortment of newspaper comic strips featured on the
box. They called them the funnypapers, you know, seeing the funny
papers, A Sunday Funnies, theMorning Funnies whatever. I always heard them
called Sunday Funny. He's not MorningFunnies, but whatever. The difference here
is that the packaging was sort ofinnovated. The backflap of the box opened
(09:54):
up to reveal a full page ofcomic strips, so it read like a
newspaper. There were there were comicstrips on the back of it. Then
you open it up to reveal basicallytwo more pages of comic strips, and
I believe they said you got wasit eight total comic strips per and um
it it's interesting to me because thecereal itself was really heavily sweetened. In
(10:16):
fact, at the time it wasthe second had the second highest sugar content
of any cereal on store shelves,with the exception of coming in second only
to Sugar Smacks. That's pretty impressive. Yeah, fourteen grams were sugar.
Yeah, that's that's wild. Yeah. Fully half of it was sugar,
(10:37):
so uh yeah. The cereal itself, like I said, it was kind
of fruit flavored. They I alwayssaid it tasted sort of like tricks a
little bit um And in fact,a consumer panel said that the cereals large
size made it a great snack toeat dry. But the panel moderator said,
and I love this. He says, if you prefer a good taste
to gimmicks, you might want tostay away from this technicolor treat. That's
(10:58):
that's a right line. Yeah,that's pretty good. Um, I'm gonna
sorry. It was honey Smacks.It was honey Smacks at the time,
not sugar Smacks. They changed thename to honey Smacks to fool everybody,
but so there wasn't. The cerealitself was just sort of generic fruity cereal.
The comics on the back included Dennisthe Menace, Beatle Bailey, Hagar,
The Horrible High and Lois the Family, Circus Tiger, which I'm not
(11:22):
familiar with, lou Anne Marvin FunkyWinkerbean, and What a Guy, which
is another one I'm not familiar with. Most of these were not in the
Paris News when I was growing up. I would always see them when I
saw, like thee Sulfur Springs Newswhen we were at my aunt's house and
there were there were nine there wereten ten boxes planned and only nine were
(11:43):
ever produced, So over the courseof the year and a half that it
was on store shelves, there werenine different boxes produced. In each one
there was a thing at the topthat said, you know, a first
edition, third edit, second thirdor volume whatever, third volume whatever,
so you'd know if you were gettinga new box with new comics. Right.
So, are you guys as confusedby this as me? What does
(12:05):
this makes sense? Not a bit? M hmm. It's one of those
many things that we've discussed before.That's that's kind of a cool idea,
and I love the innovation of havingthis like fold out piece. Um,
that's all really cool. UM.I could also probably count on maybe two
(12:28):
fingers the number of times that I'veever sat down and with true interest read
High and Lois or Funky winker Bean. Uh, there's or lou Ann.
There's a couple on here that Ihonestly don't even think I've ever seen.
(12:48):
I don't think I'm familiar at allwith Tiger or what a guy? Um.
And then, on top of that, like lackluster cereal flavor that really
can just be described as sweet,with not much else to say about it
except that it was painfully bright.That's the way my teachers always describe me
(13:09):
when I was in school, painfullybright. It's true, really accent on
the painfully. But no, Iagree with you. Now. I used
to sit and read the back ofthe cereal box, so this would have
been perfect for me. However,you read everything in one sitting, and
then the next time you're going toreread it. I don't know. This
seems like something that could have beenapplied to a pre existing cereal a sort
(13:30):
of a fun little experiment or afun little bonus, like, hey,
you know and this month's Captain Crunchboxes. You've got all these these cartoons,
these comic strips you're going to read. That could have been a lot of
fun. But this really strikes meas somebody saying, you know, what
would be a great idea this.Okay, yes, let's put it into
production. Let's rush it into production, and let's put no other thought in
it, into it whatsoever other thangetting the licensing from I think it was
(13:52):
Keen's feature syndicate. I know waytoo much about comic comic strip licensing.
Yeah, but yeah, um so, I just yeah it. I wanted
to bring it up because this,you know, we're going to talk about
Pee's playoffs when in his use ofof public domain cartoons. So this sort
of this sort of reeks of thesame thing to me. It's sort of
(14:16):
I don't know, it's it's likeI said, it's like it's like a
generic branding, right, Yeah,very much so. And if you're trying
to reach little kids, is okay. So at what age did you guys
start reading comic strips in the newspaper? Do you even remember? No,
I don't, but I'm sure fairlyearly on and I was reading pretty solidly
(14:41):
early, so I would say,yeah, by by the time I was
probably five six years old, Iwould I would pull out, especially on
the Sunday once because that was fullcolor. That was exciting right right and
well, and of the comic stripwe were talking about, you know,
Olivia, I kind of talked about, you know, High and Lois or
(15:03):
Funky Winker being I don't know,a lot of these seemed like they were
aimed at more at an older audience. Dennis Minutes obviously aimed at kids.
Beetle Bailey's sort of Beatle Bailly andHagar the Horrible always felt a little more
I don't know advance to me.Same with High and Lowis. But I
don't know this just do you guyskind of agree with what I'm saying,
(15:24):
Like it sounds like somebody had anidea and they didn't think it through and
just kind of put it into production. I agree with you. I think
they just kind of pushed it upbecause it's like, hey, kids like
comic strips. They're gonna love this, especially if we plaster comic strips all
over the front of it. Lovessee what happens, And I think they
did see what happens, and Ithink you're right. Um, I think
you're right. I think it wassort of like just you know, what's
(15:46):
the worst could happen? They couldhappen. You know, if we sell
them all, we sell them all. If we don't, I assume it
was the licensing was probably the mostexpensive part of producing this, because clearly
they didn't put any thought into thecereal itself. No, absolutely not.
And yeah, I don't know.There's what I thought was funny is if
you go to, um, there'sa there's a blog called Saturday Mornings Forever
(16:07):
dot com and uh, he said, uh, I believe it was that
one. He said, Um,he talks about the fact that the cereal
was super sweet, and as anadult, um, you don't appreciate that.
But cereals aimed at kids, SoI'm not going to review it as
an adult, basically just refusing,refusing the premise that he was an adult
or the person who wrote it wasan adult. Um. And yeah,
(16:27):
the the cereal itself was sort ofcreepy. They were like these these rounds,
smiley face looking things. They didn'teven look like the characters themselves.
So the ceial of self would havecreep me out. Um. So yeah,
this is very much style over substance. I feel like so, um,
Corey, this seems like something saysto now, you have a cereal
(16:49):
box collection of sorts? Um?Yes, would these be the sort of
boxes you would collect if you could, if you could find someone you would
like since they're only nine, isthat something you would be interested and adding
to your collection? No, becausemost of the collection was just something that
you know, it had nostalgia Ghostbustersand c three bo. I don't see
(17:10):
a nostalgia for any of those comicstrips if it was maybe like one that
had Pogo on it or something likethat, possibly, but not for the
not for the ones that they showcase. Now, Okay, yeah, I
can see that, especially if itis you know, more about more about
nostalgia for you. I could seecollecting this if you also were a collector
of like, you know, comicstrip art or something, this would be
(17:33):
something like an interesting thing on offyou to have with that. But other
than that, I yeah, Ican't imagine. So this just seems This
just seems weird. So I guesswe're all in agreeing with it. This
is just odd, right yep.Really ill advised. Yes, it's it's
kind of a cool concept, butthey didn't put enough thought into the comics
(17:53):
appearing on the box and maintaining children'sinterest, the enough sufficient additions to keep
kids wanting to reach for the box, and then that little, tiny,
minor detail of terrible flavor. Right, I feel like the best thing to
do would have been to have putthese on the back of, like I
(18:15):
said, a pre existing cereals.Like, you know, one month they're
on Captain Crunch and the next month, if you want volume two, it's
on this other cereal box. Soyou're you're selling your pre existing brands and
you're sort of cross cross up promotingthem. I guess that would have made
more sense to me, So yeah, I agree. Well that's why the
people in the eighties didn't didn't haveas much success. They didn't they didn't
(18:36):
ask us our opinion. Someone elsewho never asked our opinion on something was
Pee Wee Herman. So we'll beback in a couple of minutes to discuss
Peewee playhouse. Yo, and weare back. Okay, we're going to
talk about Pee Wee's playhouse, butbefore that, I just want to ask
both of you. I'm a hugefan of Peewe's Playhouse, even more so
(18:59):
as an adult than I was asa kid. What about you, two,
Corey, I'm assuming you're a hugefan. Yeah. I mean I've
got that full back piece of Terrythe Pterodactyl. So I had to say,
so, oh you do? No, No, I wish I actually
probably would do something like that becauseTerry was my favorite. But yes,
I'm an absolutely massive fan of Peewee'sPlayhouse. Olivia about me there for a
(19:22):
second, I wanted to see picturesof that. I know, me too,
I know. Uh yeah, yeah, absolutely, this had a prominent
position in the Saturday Morning rotation.Absolutely, and I watched the Pee' Playhouse
Christmas Special every year in December.Oh yeah, it's one of my one
of my favorite things to do everyIt's it's the one thing that it makes
(19:42):
that's sort of what makes me feelthe starts my Christmas season. When I
finally watched that, I'm like,Okay, Christmas has started, which is
odd because you think it would bethe Grinch. Since I watched that,
I'm like, you know, Thanksgivingnight, but but whatever. Sorry.
Yeah, So Peewee's Playhouse for anyonewho doesn't know. It was a television
series starring Paul Rubens as a childlike pee Wee Herman that ran from nineteen
(20:03):
eighty six to nineteen ninety on Saturdaymornings on CBS, and eredin reruns until
July of nineteen ninety one. Andwe'll talk about why they stopped three runs
in a bit. It was developedfrom Ruben's popular stage show and the TV
special The pee Wee Herman Show,which was produced for HBO, which was
similar in style but featured much moreadult humor. Now I've not seen it,
and he did. They did anew version of it several years ago.
(20:25):
Have either one of you seen eitherof those? Yes? I oh,
okay, how adult? How Rrated? Was it? Corey?
It wasn't. That's so confusing aboutthat statements. I didn't find it any
more provocative or anything like that thanthe original run. I don't know,
man, all right, Well,I need to need to check it out
and see. In two thousand andfour and two thousand and seven, Pee's
(20:48):
Playhouse Peewee's Playhouse was ranked number tenat number twelve on TV GUIDs topped Cult
shows ever respectively. I'm not surewhy they did one three years, did
the same thing three years apart.But whatever. So the little bit of
background, as I said, itwas developed. Uh. He developed a
live show a title of The PeeHerman Show in nineteen eighty after a failed
audition for Saturday Night Live, andit was very well received, and he
(21:12):
teamed up in nineteen eighty five withTim Burton to make the comedy film Pee's
Big Adventure. And that's what reallybroke Peewee Herman huge to the world at
large. And one of the lastthings that I got to do before COVID
nineteen shut the country down was Pamand I went to see a screening of
Pewee's Big Adventure that was hosted byPaul Rubens. It was a tour they
(21:33):
were doing. It was like thethirty I guess it was coming up on
the thirty fifth anniversary and they didthe screen Actually it was it was twenty
twenty, so it was the thirtyfifth anniversary. So there was a screening
and then Paul Rubens came out andyou know, he's he's getting a little
older, so he sat down.I think he was having some back trouble,
so he sat for his presentation.But then he read some some correspondence
from around that time and some reviewsof the film and and everything, so
(21:56):
it was it was really a lotof fun. He was very engaging and
just really yeah, it was reallya lot of fun. That became one
of the year's surprise hits, costingsix million dollars in, grossing more than
forty million at the box office fortyfive million at the box office, rather,
and that was back when forty fivemillion was really a lot of money.
Oh, those are the days,right, And so after that,
CBS approached him to create a cartoonseries, and he said, no,
(22:19):
what I want to do is somethingmore along the lines of Captain Kangaroo or
how do you do do things likethat? And so they gave him a
budget of three hundred and twenty fivethousand dollars per episode, which is comparable
to a half hour primetime sitcom,much more than you would get for an
animated show, and full creative control, although CBS did request a few minor
changes. The first season was filmedin a loft in New York City on
(22:41):
Broadway, and that was the seasonthat featured Phil Hartman. He was not
in the second season because they movedto Los Angeles due to Hollywood in the
second season, so he was obviouslywas you know, on Saturday Night Live.
So it didn't didn't work out right. The creative design of the show
was concocted by a troop of artistsincluding Wayne White, Gary Panter, Craig
(23:02):
Bartlett, Nick Park, Richard Glazowski, Gregory Harrison, Rick Heitzman, and
Phil Trumbo. And the show isum it's it's a visual feast again if
you're not, if you haven't seenit, I don't. I don't know
what to tell you. It's availableon what I think it was, is
it to be? Did I say? Or okay? Hoopla hoopla as well?
(23:25):
It was on Netflix for a while, but not anymore. I so
pile of it on YouTube honestly,Oh sure, yeah. I didn't have
any luck when I was looking atI could only find the like the title
sequences and stuff. So apparently Ijust wasn't losing the right uh the right
search functions. But each episode alsofeatured stop motion animation Clay claymation. Uh
you even they even showed it.The Kam cartoons would show up and they
(23:47):
would show as we mentioned before,public domain older you know, animated cartoons
as opposed to nine animated cartoons.I don't know. So you know,
you've got you've got just a littlebit of everything here. And it was
designed to be educational as well asin her training and Peewee or Rubens.
I believe that children liked the Playhousebecause it was fast paced, colorful,
and never talked down to them,while parents liked it because it reminded them
(24:08):
of the past. Because he wantedit to be very nostalgic, so that
parents who grew up in the fiftiesand sixties would remember that sort of thing,
right, And he also said atone point that he really wanted it
to be a show about just beingyourself. He said, you know,
it's it's okay to be different.It's not better, not worse. It's
not good, it's not bad,it's just okay. It's just one way
(24:29):
to be I and I I thinkthat's probably why we all every kid is
drawn to it, and you know, for one reason or another. So
we we talked about some of wetalked about some of the artists. Let's
talk about some of the actors whoappeared on the show. Some of these
a lot of people already know about. Of course. Lawrence Fishburne was Cowboy
Curtis. Phil Hartman was Cowboy Carlin the first season. Lynn Marie Stewart
(24:52):
was Miss Vaughan. Spatha Murkerson wasReba the Male Lady, and she's gone
on to a huge career on television. Um Gilbert Lewis was a King of
Cartoons for the first season, andWilliam H. Marshall was a King of
Cartoons for the second season. AndCorey, you know who William H.
Marshall is, don't you? Yes, sir, tell us who William H.
Marshall is? Hang on, Iwas actually just looking up Phil Hartman
(25:15):
as John b. No, PhilHartman was not John By. He was
on the show. Yeah yeah,oh well, since qual Corey's looking at
that, folks. William H.Marshall was Blackula. Yes, I think
that's so cool that he played Blackulathen played the King of Cartoons in this
children's show. It cracks me upand still commanded everyone's attention because of the
(25:38):
presence that he has. Absolutely absolutelyhe was. He was the King the
Playhouse Gang in the first two seasons, where a group of three kids who
interacted with Peewee the first season,one of them was Natasha Leone. Oh
really yep okay, And in thesecond season one of them was Alison Porter
who you might know as um mygirl. She was she was the main
(26:00):
actress and my girl. I knowsome of s arey Curly Sue, I
get that wrong. Curly Sue,not my girl, Curly Sue. Not
the one that that that scarred usall. But the one with Jim Belushi
probably still start he does his classes. Yeah. No. John b as
Corey mentioned, was played by PhilHartman in the touring show, but was
played by John Paragon on the onthe television show and he passed away.
(26:22):
Uh the last week or last yearor so, Alison Mork performed Cherry and
Magic screen h Terry the Terranto Donwhich Corey was talking about was was voiced
by John Paragon and seasons one,three, and five and George McGrath in
season two. Uh, Mister Windowwas Rick Heightsman Clock he was Kevin Carlson.
Conky two thousand was Gregory Harrison inseason one and that is the same
(26:45):
Gregory Harrison who was Gonzo Gates onTrapper John MD I had no idea and
Kevin Carlson. In all subsequent seasons, Globe was George George McGrath. The
puppet band was Wayne White, RickHisman and Alison mork uh. Bill Boloney
was voiced by Paul Rubins, andhe was sort of slightly resembled Randy,
who was voiced by Wayne White,and Randy was always kind of the troublemaker.
(27:06):
And then you know, they hadthese the everybody did double triple,
quadruple duty. So as soon asit first aired, Peewe's Playhouse fascinated media
theorists and commentators, many of whomchampion the show as a postmodernist hodgepodge of
characters and situations that appeared to thumbits nose at the racist and sexist presumptions
of dominant culture, which I thinkis hilarious because I doubt that much thought
(27:26):
went into it. Probably Bob KeishanCaptain Kangaroo himself, held the show's awesome
production values and added, with thepossible exception of the Muppets, you can't
find such creativity anywhere on TV.Yeah, and against all Rubens said,
even I'm sorry, go ahead,no good. I think that's an amazing
endorsement right there. Oh, absolutelythat's yeah. Yeah, that's that's like,
(27:48):
that's like mel Brooks telling you you'refunny. Oh, as far as
I'm concerned. Yeah, And PaulRubens again was quoted as saying, I'm
just trying to illustrate that it's okayto be different, that it's good,
not that it's bad, but thatit's all right. Trying to kill tell
kids to have a good time andto encourage them to be creative and to
question things. So I think that'sthat's important. And it won a ton
of Emmy's UM mostly for you know, technical things, production design, art
(28:11):
direction things like that. UM gottenthat for Best Song. Oh yes,
and you mentioned that the theme songwas actually sung by Cindy Lauper. Yea
she and I believe she used.She used to nod. Yeah, she's
a different name, lue and whatever. I don't know what you would call
(28:33):
that, yeah, um, butyeah, I can't remember the name.
But the Martin Mother's Ball actually wrotethe theme song okay from Devo. He
wrote the opening and closing theme.And I was reading an article where he
said, Um, they would sendhim the shows like on a Tuesday,
he would write all day he wouldwatch it Tuesday write all day Wednesday,
send them the tracks on Thursday.They would cut it into the show on
Friday, and then the show whatair on Saturday. Yeah, that's crazy.
(28:56):
He said, I was banking basicallyan album's worth of music every week
because he was on a hiatus fromDevo. And he said it was it
was the most one of the mostfulfilling creative times in my life. That's
that's really cool, which is wild. Yeah, and it's probably opened the
intense production schedule. I mean,yeah, when you think about South Park,
they produced their shows in six days, the whole show. It's yeah,
(29:18):
it's run on It's exactly that's exactlywhat I was going to get to
like it. That is that levelof like quick turnaround intensity how many years
before and yeah, and the SouthPark guys are only able to do it
because they literally created their own animationsoftware to processes to make that even possible,
(29:45):
right exactly. You think about today, how much easier it would be.
You would just drop box it tohim or something, but they were
probably messaging stuff. Yeah, andthis isn't like live action production. That's
crazy. And it opened again openedthe door for him to probably to do
work on you know, Rugrats andall the other stuff that he's done.
He did, you know, hedid what he did the music for Thor
Ragner Rogumen. Yeah. Yeah,so yeah, so this this show was
(30:07):
a lot of fun, obviously theshow. After the final season, M.
Paul Rubens decided they agreed. Afterthe fifth season, he agreed with
CBS. They decided that it wastime to bring it to a close.
They were still airing it in rerunswhen he got arrested in an adult movie
theater, which we all remember that, I'm sure, yeah, And that
(30:30):
was the reason that it got pulledout of reruns. The production had already
ceased, but it was still beingaired and they all got pulled at that
point. And I'm glad that it'scome back around and people have sort of
moved on from that at least forthe most part, and have allowed the
show to carry on its legacy,because I think it is a show that
if you watch it today, it'sstill it still feels fresh to me.
Yeah, absolutely, it does.I think it's because it was kind of
(30:52):
timeless. I think it was interestingtoo, like all of the backlash that
existed around that arrest and the fewother incidents of the of the nine Oh
the hard drive, Yeah that theyfound Yeah, that too. Um,
those incidents in particular, it makesme chuckle because as much as as current
(31:21):
um speak and current culture, youknow, bemoan of cancel culture and we
why can't we appreciate somebody's output ofcreation and art. Maybe there they have,
you know, some some troubled thingsin their in their personal lives,
but we can still respect their contribution. Um, you know, here's twenty
(31:47):
something years before here's an example ofthis huge media outcry and everybody wanting to
basically burn him at the stake,and and yeah, yet he manages to
just kind of pull him up byhimself, up by the bootstraps and work
(32:08):
through that. Did it take adecade? Probably? Yeah? But I
respect the fact that the dude continuedmoving forward well and he did it right
because the next thing anybody knew fromhim was this was ninety one, and
I think it was ninety two whenthe Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie came out,
right, Corey, Uh, yeah, it was ninety two with Christy
(32:30):
Swanson and he is easily the bestthing about that movie. Yeah, i'd
agree. And if you're listening andyou haven't seen it, Go watch it.
It's it's not as good as theTV show, but it's great and
it's worth watching just for his deathscene alone. Yeah, there's a lot
of good stuff that there is whereit was the the precursor to the series,
(32:50):
and you can see where Joss wasgoing with it. I'm glad they
changed it around, but it's afun movie and a fun snapshot. It
really is. And again, hisdeath is honestly one of the funniest things
I've ever seen put on film.To me, it really is so and
so okay. So one of thething I wanted to mention is the penny
cartoon. One of the segments wasa penny cartoon, which was a claimation
(33:12):
segment that would start out there wouldbe two pennies on the screen and then
this this character of Penny, thislittle girl would appear and she would tell
this really sort of free form storythat a lot of times didn't you know,
would jump from point A to pointQ and then back to point B.
Very disjointed, but was done byArdaman student Nick Ardman and Ardman Studios,
who were famous now for Wallace andGromit. So I just again,
(33:36):
this show just kind of gave alot of people exposure that they ordinarily wouldn't
have had. So I'll ask youboth and you may not have an answer,
and that's okay. But did youhave a favorite segment on the show.
I don't know that I've ever hada favorite one. I think just
the whole she Biggel was what Ienjoyed, especially that they were always going
(33:59):
to be certain characters that he touchedbass with in each episode, so you
knew that he was going to getto at some point a discussion with Cherry
and Conky, and that at somepoint you were going to hear him say
(34:20):
Randy. Those things always amused me. I had a great nostalgic moment as
I watched Missy Vaughn and Cowboy Curtiscome on screen. UM. I also
really enjoyed the fact that there waslike a snack segment. UM. I
(34:43):
watched probably the better part of fourrandom episodes scattered throughout the run, and
folks, I just want to wantto, I just want to. I
just want to remind you, uh, it's it's it's rare for us to
get through more than two episodes ofanything that we watched for this podcast,
So the fact that we're all ableto get through so many of these episodes
shows that they hold up. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. So
(35:06):
I liked the snack segment because itwas usually easy things that kids could prepare
themselves. They didn't need to necessarilycook. In one of the episodes that
I watched, the snack was literallywater. Yeah why not. It was
the really quick, tight three sentencesabout Water's great. You should be drinking
(35:30):
water. It's important to stay hydrated, it's refreshing, drink water. Done,
and that was That was always oneof my favorite segments as well,
just because again I was a fatkid, so anything to do with food
always got my attention. Um,I was always I always loved, I
always hated. I'll tell you whatI always hated was the King of Cartoons
segment because those old cartoons always creepme out, and they still do to
(35:51):
this day. Yeah, there weresome pretty funky ones, right, It's
like the early Bugs Bunny cartoons wherehe's got the longer face and everything.
It just kind of kind of ropsme out. I don't know, but
I always like the Penny cartoons.And like Olivia said, I like the
food segment, but my favorite partof the whole show was always just a
production design, even as a kid, just the way the playhouse was set
(36:12):
up and the fact that everything talked, although it did kind of worry me
that they were walking on Floory whocould was apparently alive, and I wondered
if he could feel I think justthat one section was alive. Oh okay,
that's what I told myself when Iwas a kid at least. Yeah,
yeah, okay, thank you,thank you for reassuring me there,
Corey, I appreciate that. Yeah. On the flip side, if I
(36:32):
had the lodge of criticism, andthis is pretty small really, in the
opening, you had both a claimationand then the segment, and then you
also had the theme song with thelive action clips of him running around this
set and interacting with everybody, andthat averaged a solid what two thirty two
(36:57):
forty in the run probably to it. Yeah, yeah, um. By
episode three of my rewatching and revisiting, that was all getting kind of old.
Not necessarily the claimation by itself,not necessarily the theme song, because
it's fun and clever and and Iadult me enjoyed knowing that that was Cindy
(37:22):
Laubert, just having those back toback. Was that sits a little much?
Yeah, if you're gonna binge it, you definitely need the skip intro
button at the ready. Yeah.I suppose I didn't mind it, well,
and I and I wouldn't. Youwouldn't mind it on a weekly basis,
once a week, I imagine youwouldn't. I think you know.
When I was a kid, It'sfunny. When I was a kid,
(37:43):
I liked the show. Now thatI'm an adult, I love the show.
I think I appreciate it more nowas an adult than even I did
as a kid. Do you,Corey, do you find that to be
the case or do you just getit for a different reason. I still
love it. I think I stilllove it for the whimsy of it.
I still love it for the ingenuityof the puppets and everything. I don't
(38:04):
think that I appreciate it on adifferent level now that I'm an adult,
but it definitely it makes me veryhappy on the estalishc level. Did you
ever show it to X when hewas a kid. Oh yeah, quite
a few times. Did he likeit? No? Oh? Yeah,
man, listen, I can onlydo so much. It's it was worth
a shot. Yeah, I respectyou trying it actually kind of surprises it
(38:25):
kind of surprises me. But Iguess I don't know if going back and
watch it now, this is onethat is hard for me to separate seeing
it as a kid as opposed toseeing it now. So I can't decide
if the pacing of it is slowor not. It doesn't seem slow,
but it may just be because Iknow what's coming. Yeah. Possibly,
But Olivia, what about you?Is your experience of it today pretty much
(38:46):
what it wasn't you were a kid? Or is it? Is it informed
a bit? I do think it'sa little bit more informed. I got
it. I've lived a little lifesince that. Um, I do think
I do appreciate it in different ways. I see a little bit more of
(39:09):
the double layered humor. Obviously now, I have not watched any of the
Peewee movies in I'm being to guessa solid twenty years. I had not
seen Peee's Big Adventure in about adecade, and I went to see it
(39:30):
a couple of years ago, andI caught so many other things that I
just would would wash over me beforethat are so absurd to be as to
be hilarious, so I would givingit another watch. Yeah, I think
I need to go back and revisitthose because I was right in a great
(39:52):
age window for Peewee's Playhouse. Iwas perhaps a little bit on the young
side for the film Big Adventure,and yeah, yeah, and so yeah,
I think I need to I thinkI need to go back and dust
those off, especially since I justsaid twenty years and it's surprising that it
(40:14):
has been that long and more rightsince those came out. Well, and
Big Top Peewee, if I remembercorrectly, is a bit darker than Peee's
Big Adventure, right, Yes,very much. It's sort of like the
Babe Pig in the City of thePeewee movies. Yeah, and you can
also find one of the Broadway showson YouTube as well, well, Broadway
(40:35):
performances. Oh cool, I'll haveto go check that Out'll go find that
and see, Yeah, that's cool. So so I'm guessing that we're all
recommending if anybody hasn't seen Peewee playoffs, we're recommending them to go check it
out because as an adult, yourmileage may vary, but if you didn't
watch it as a kid, you'regonna probably find something to like. As
an adult, right, yeah,absolutely yeah, and if you watch it
as a kid, I think we'reall saying it it holds up pretty well.
(40:58):
And Olivia, sounds like you hada good time with us this time,
right, yeah, so much morethan so much of the other schlock
that we've watched lately. You're tellingme this is better than going bananas?
Yeah, Jeff, Yeah, I'mshocked, shocked, I tell you.
All. Right, Well, good, so we've got we've got a no
recommend on the Little Debby Cereal,we've got no recommends on The Morning Funny
(41:22):
Cereal, but we got three heartyhearty hearty recommends on Peewee's Playhouse. That's
that's encouraging. Good. It's alwaysalways fun to enjoy the talk and then
to just have to get through it. So, folks, we'd love to
hear your thoughts on it, Soahead to the Facebook page and let us
know what you think. That willdo it for this edition of the Saturday
Morning Supercast. So until next time, I'm Jeff, I'm Corey, and
(41:43):
I'm Olivia, and it is timefor college sports, which means it's time
to turn off the TV and scene. Thank you for listening, and don't
forget to Follow the show on FacebookIt's Saturday Morning super Cast and follow at
Marvin Dog Media On Twitter, itburrow, borrow bot, borrow borrow
It's time to PLoP down in frontof the TV and the Way Back Machine
with the bowl of your favorite cerealto relive the cartoons that made it worth
waking up early on the weekend.It's the Saturday Morning Supercast. Good morning,
(00:32):
and welcome to the Saturday Morning Supercast, where it's always Saturday morning and
the cereal bowl is always full.I'm Jeff, I'm Cory, and I'm
Olivia, and folks we got.I'm actually kept pretty excited about the show,
not that I'm not always excited aboutour shows. But the show we're
going to be discussing a bit lateris Pee Wee's Playhouse. We're gonna keep
on our live action kick as wetalked about Going Bananas last time, but
(00:53):
I think we probably had quite adifferent experience with Pee Wee's Playhouse and we
did with Going Bananas. But beforewe talk about that, we're going to
talk about a cereal that was onstore shelves at the same time called Morning
Funnies that I have no memory of, so this will be interesting. But
before that, even Olivia has areview for us of a cereal I believe,
don't you, Olivia. I do, like so many cereal purchases between
(01:15):
the three of us. I wasrolling my cart through the store and came
upon the new Kelloggs and Little Debbiebecause that's who you go to, by
the way for breakfast cereal is LittleDebbie of course. If yeah, the
new cosmic brownie cereal not just browniescosmic brownies. What made these brownies cosmic?
(01:41):
Cosmic brownies get their name from themulti colored sprinkle elements placed on top
of them. I believe this wasalso in response to the original Little Debbie
classic of the fudge brownie that hadI think it was walnuts yep on the
top. My friend, my friendBrian and who we know is as Turtle.
(02:02):
Olivia knows mis Tortuga would always usefudge nut brownies as an expletive instead
of saying what he really wanted tosay. I like that. I like
that. So I think cosmic brownieswere a modification based on so many kids
having a peanut tree nut allergies.But anyway, so cosmic brownies have I'm
(02:27):
gonna sound like Jeff for just ahot second. Cosmic Brownie has really nice
box art. You have a reallypretty combination of like a rainbow. You've
got little Debbie on there with hersun bonnet and her gang. Um,
there is a picture of a originalcosmic brownie with the sprinkles and that little
(02:50):
perforation line down the center. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you have a
bowl of cosmic brown knees and uhmy box. Also included on the bowl
was like also a kind of arainbow omber to it, and then the
pieces with like actively splashing milk.Uh. It's really nice box art.
(03:16):
Yeah, I wait for the hammerto druble this on one, this is
not going to be the rest ofthe experience is not going to be as
positive as the box. The boxart, Yeah about that. Um so
here's here's what happens. First ofall, but maybe this is just me,
(03:37):
but when I cracked open the box, I will admit that I had
a really specific like scent experience thatactually did remind me of opening up the
little clear plastic wrapper on a cosmicbrownie, Like I got that same kind
of smell. Okay, so thatwas a couraging. The cereal self is
(04:01):
shaped like a puffed square and itdoes have little like candy or sugar sprinkle
multi colored bits on it. Iwould say visually, the shape itself is
fine. Personally, I think itwould be kind of cute if the piece
(04:25):
was a little bit smaller rectangle andthey could actually recreate that perforation down the
middle. I would have found thatamusing. I think it visually could have
used more of the multi colored sprinkles, and the multi colored sprinkles, by
the way, didn't really add anythingto the flavor. It was really just
(04:46):
more of a visual element at Yeah, I did try some dry A lot
of people in other reviews complained ofthe typical kind of mouth irritation exfoliation that
we've talked about with so many othercereals. I personally didn't have that experience.
(05:09):
I did find it very crispy,though, and I did notice that
when you pour the milk in,it does retain a lot of it's crispiness.
I noted that the milk had tosit in the bowl with the cereal
for really a pretty good chunk oftime, much longer than an average kid
or adult would let cereals sit beforethey got around to eating it without it,
(05:34):
you know, before it finally lostsome significant crispiness. Do you have
any fairies answer on it. Ithink it probably has a crunching hanswer.
It's semipermeable, it's not cosmotic.What it does is it coats seals.
It prevents the milk from penetrating.Yeah. Nice, Okay, So folks
(05:55):
Olivia gets five dollars every time shegets me to say that that's why she
always does it, and I losefive years off my life. So here's
the nail in the coffin. Flavorwise, it really does kind of suffer.
If we were judging just based ondoes it seem chocolatey, there are
(06:16):
other cereals that you can go tothen have a better, stronger, more
chocolatey taste. I've really felt likethe chocolate flavor with this was kind of
lackluster. Add to this the Achillesheel that we've discussed with other cereals where
baked goods, even if it's apackaged lunchbox item like a little Debbie Brownie,
(06:41):
we'll still put that in that category. Baked goods just don't seem to
translate well into breakfast cereals, especiallysomething like those Little Debbie Brownies, which
historically have a very kind of dense, rich fudgie taste to them, and
you just don't they just don't,you know, capture this in a dry
(07:01):
breakfast cereal. Right, So Iwould say, if you if you want
a chocolate, a good chocolate cereal, stick with um, stick with cocoa
pebbles, yeah, or youah,cocoa pebbles, cocoa cocoa puffs, even
cocoa puffs are always winter coke crispies. Don't. Don't go for the frosty
(07:25):
cereal. That's not chocolated enough.Right, right, we talked about that
pretty well. I can't say thatI'm surprised. That's about That's about what
I expected from this. Were yousurprised, Olivia, or was it sort
of what you were expecting as well? I had kind of set myself up
for this. Um, I wouldhave maybe been more impressed if I at
(07:45):
least got some of the effect oflike, oh you get trench or milk
chocolate, or if it had astronger Papa flavor. I think I would
have been much more impressed. Asit is, h the box, I'm
pretty sure it's still sitting over onmy kitchen counter, and I'm gonna have
(08:05):
to I'm too cheap to like justthrow it away so it gets too stale
to eat and say, oh,well, it's too stale to eat.
Now, I guess we have tothrow it away. Just suck it up
and make myself finish it. Yeah, well, good luck with that.
Life is short. Life is tooshort to eat bad cereal. That's my
fos. That's a good all right. So all right, well, let's
(08:26):
talk about another cereal that was aboutas well received as Olivia's reception of the
Cosmic Brownie Little Debbie cereal. Let'stalk about Morning Funnies. Morning Funnies was
on store shelves from nineteen eighty eightto nineteen eighty nine, which is late
enough in our lives for us allto have remembered it. And the box.
(08:46):
Speaking of box art, it wasliterally art because it had comic strips
on the front. Was very strikingand memorable. Do either of you remember
this cereal at all? Not abit, No, no me either.
Okay. So when I was doingresearch trying to find a cereal to pair
with our show today, I was, you know, always trying to find
cereals that were on store shelves thatat the same time as the show was
(09:07):
on the air, and I hiton this one, and I thought,
this will make for an interesting discussionbecause We've talked a lot about branded cereals
recently, and this was probably themost, if I could say, generically
branded cereal that we've gotten so far. But it's also an idea that it
seems to have been not not reallygetting past the brainstorming session before they put
it into production. So for anybodyelse who's like us, who has no
(09:30):
idea what we're talking about, MorningFunnies was a fruit flavored breakfast cereal produced
by Rawlston Cereals from nineteen eighty eightto nineteen eighty nine, and the name
of the cereal was based on anassortment of newspaper comic strips featured on the
box. They called them the funnypapers, you know, seeing the funny
papers, A Sunday Funnies, theMorning Funnies whatever. I always heard them
called Sunday Funny. He's not MorningFunnies, but whatever. The difference here
is that the packaging was sort ofinnovated. The backflap of the box opened
(09:54):
up to reveal a full page ofcomic strips, so it read like a
newspaper. There were there were comicstrips on the back of it. Then
you open it up to reveal basicallytwo more pages of comic strips, and
I believe they said you got wasit eight total comic strips per and um
it it's interesting to me because thecereal itself was really heavily sweetened. In
(10:16):
fact, at the time it wasthe second had the second highest sugar content
of any cereal on store shelves,with the exception of coming in second only
to Sugar Smacks. That's pretty impressive. Yeah, fourteen grams were sugar.
Yeah, that's that's wild. Yeah. Fully half of it was sugar,
(10:37):
so uh yeah. The cereal itself, like I said, it was kind
of fruit flavored. They I alwayssaid it tasted sort of like tricks a
little bit um And in fact,a consumer panel said that the cereals large
size made it a great snack toeat dry. But the panel moderator said,
and I love this. He says, if you prefer a good taste
to gimmicks, you might want tostay away from this technicolor treat. That's
(10:58):
that's a right line. Yeah,that's pretty good. Um, I'm gonna
sorry. It was honey Smacks.It was honey Smacks at the time,
not sugar Smacks. They changed thename to honey Smacks to fool everybody,
but so there wasn't. The cerealitself was just sort of generic fruity cereal.
The comics on the back included Dennisthe Menace, Beatle Bailey, Hagar,
The Horrible High and Lois the Family, Circus Tiger, which I'm not
(11:22):
familiar with, lou Anne Marvin FunkyWinkerbean, and What a Guy, which
is another one I'm not familiar with. Most of these were not in the
Paris News when I was growing up. I would always see them when I
saw, like thee Sulfur Springs Newswhen we were at my aunt's house and
there were there were nine there wereten ten boxes planned and only nine were
(11:43):
ever produced, So over the courseof the year and a half that it
was on store shelves, there werenine different boxes produced. In each one
there was a thing at the topthat said, you know, a first
edition, third edit, second thirdor volume whatever, third volume whatever,
so you'd know if you were gettinga new box with new comics. Right.
So, are you guys as confusedby this as me? What does
(12:05):
this makes sense? Not a bit? M hmm. It's one of those
many things that we've discussed before.That's that's kind of a cool idea,
and I love the innovation of havingthis like fold out piece. Um,
that's all really cool. UM.I could also probably count on maybe two
(12:28):
fingers the number of times that I'veever sat down and with true interest read
High and Lois or Funky winker Bean. Uh, there's or lou Ann.
There's a couple on here that Ihonestly don't even think I've ever seen.
(12:48):
I don't think I'm familiar at allwith Tiger or what a guy? Um.
And then, on top of that, like lackluster cereal flavor that really
can just be described as sweet,with not much else to say about it
except that it was painfully bright.That's the way my teachers always describe me
(13:09):
when I was in school, painfullybright. It's true, really accent on
the painfully. But no, Iagree with you. Now. I used
to sit and read the back ofthe cereal box, so this would have
been perfect for me. However,you read everything in one sitting, and
then the next time you're going toreread it. I don't know. This
seems like something that could have beenapplied to a pre existing cereal a sort
(13:30):
of a fun little experiment or afun little bonus, like, hey,
you know and this month's Captain Crunchboxes. You've got all these these cartoons,
these comic strips you're going to read. That could have been a lot of
fun. But this really strikes meas somebody saying, you know, what
would be a great idea this.Okay, yes, let's put it into
production. Let's rush it into production, and let's put no other thought in
it, into it whatsoever other thangetting the licensing from I think it was
(13:52):
Keen's feature syndicate. I know waytoo much about comic comic strip licensing.
Yeah, but yeah, um so, I just yeah it. I wanted
to bring it up because this,you know, we're going to talk about
Pee's playoffs when in his use ofof public domain cartoons. So this sort
of this sort of reeks of thesame thing to me. It's sort of
(14:16):
I don't know, it's it's likeI said, it's like it's like a
generic branding, right, Yeah,very much so. And if you're trying
to reach little kids, is okay. So at what age did you guys
start reading comic strips in the newspaper? Do you even remember? No,
I don't, but I'm sure fairlyearly on and I was reading pretty solidly
(14:41):
early, so I would say,yeah, by by the time I was
probably five six years old, Iwould I would pull out, especially on
the Sunday once because that was fullcolor. That was exciting right right and
well, and of the comic stripwe were talking about, you know,
Olivia, I kind of talked about, you know, High and Lois or
(15:03):
Funky Winker being I don't know,a lot of these seemed like they were
aimed at more at an older audience. Dennis Minutes obviously aimed at kids.
Beetle Bailey's sort of Beatle Bailly andHagar the Horrible always felt a little more
I don't know advance to me.Same with High and Lowis. But I
don't know this just do you guyskind of agree with what I'm saying,
(15:24):
Like it sounds like somebody had anidea and they didn't think it through and
just kind of put it into production. I agree with you. I think
they just kind of pushed it upbecause it's like, hey, kids like
comic strips. They're gonna love this, especially if we plaster comic strips all
over the front of it. Lovessee what happens, And I think they
did see what happens, and Ithink you're right. Um, I think
you're right. I think it wassort of like just you know, what's
(15:46):
the worst could happen? They couldhappen. You know, if we sell
them all, we sell them all. If we don't, I assume it
was the licensing was probably the mostexpensive part of producing this, because clearly
they didn't put any thought into thecereal itself. No, absolutely not.
And yeah, I don't know.There's what I thought was funny is if
you go to, um, there'sa there's a blog called Saturday Mornings Forever
(16:07):
dot com and uh, he said, uh, I believe it was that
one. He said, Um,he talks about the fact that the cereal
was super sweet, and as anadult, um, you don't appreciate that.
But cereals aimed at kids, SoI'm not going to review it as
an adult, basically just refusing,refusing the premise that he was an adult
or the person who wrote it wasan adult. Um. And yeah,
(16:27):
the the cereal itself was sort ofcreepy. They were like these these rounds,
smiley face looking things. They didn'teven look like the characters themselves.
So the ceial of self would havecreep me out. Um. So yeah,
this is very much style over substance. I feel like so, um,
Corey, this seems like something saysto now, you have a cereal
(16:49):
box collection of sorts? Um?Yes, would these be the sort of
boxes you would collect if you could, if you could find someone you would
like since they're only nine, isthat something you would be interested and adding
to your collection? No, becausemost of the collection was just something that
you know, it had nostalgia Ghostbustersand c three bo. I don't see
(17:10):
a nostalgia for any of those comicstrips if it was maybe like one that
had Pogo on it or something likethat, possibly, but not for the
not for the ones that they showcase. Now, Okay, yeah, I
can see that, especially if itis you know, more about more about
nostalgia for you. I could seecollecting this if you also were a collector
of like, you know, comicstrip art or something, this would be
(17:33):
something like an interesting thing on offyou to have with that. But other
than that, I yeah, Ican't imagine. So this just seems This
just seems weird. So I guesswe're all in agreeing with it. This
is just odd, right yep.Really ill advised. Yes, it's it's
kind of a cool concept, butthey didn't put enough thought into the comics
(17:53):
appearing on the box and maintaining children'sinterest, the enough sufficient additions to keep
kids wanting to reach for the box, and then that little, tiny,
minor detail of terrible flavor. Right, I feel like the best thing to
do would have been to have putthese on the back of, like I
(18:15):
said, a pre existing cereals.Like, you know, one month they're
on Captain Crunch and the next month, if you want volume two, it's
on this other cereal box. Soyou're you're selling your pre existing brands and
you're sort of cross cross up promotingthem. I guess that would have made
more sense to me, So yeah, I agree. Well that's why the
people in the eighties didn't didn't haveas much success. They didn't they didn't
(18:36):
ask us our opinion. Someone elsewho never asked our opinion on something was
Pee Wee Herman. So we'll beback in a couple of minutes to discuss
Peewee playhouse. Yo, and weare back. Okay, we're going to
talk about Pee Wee's playhouse, butbefore that, I just want to ask
both of you. I'm a hugefan of Peewe's Playhouse, even more so
(18:59):
as an adult than I was asa kid. What about you, two,
Corey, I'm assuming you're a hugefan. Yeah. I mean I've
got that full back piece of Terrythe Pterodactyl. So I had to say,
so, oh you do? No, No, I wish I actually
probably would do something like that becauseTerry was my favorite. But yes,
I'm an absolutely massive fan of Peewee'sPlayhouse. Olivia about me there for a
(19:22):
second, I wanted to see picturesof that. I know, me too,
I know. Uh yeah, yeah, absolutely, this had a prominent
position in the Saturday Morning rotation.Absolutely, and I watched the Pee' Playhouse
Christmas Special every year in December.Oh yeah, it's one of my one
of my favorite things to do everyIt's it's the one thing that it makes
(19:42):
that's sort of what makes me feelthe starts my Christmas season. When I
finally watched that, I'm like,Okay, Christmas has started, which is
odd because you think it would bethe Grinch. Since I watched that,
I'm like, you know, Thanksgivingnight, but but whatever. Sorry.
Yeah, So Peewee's Playhouse for anyonewho doesn't know. It was a television
series starring Paul Rubens as a childlike pee Wee Herman that ran from nineteen
(20:03):
eighty six to nineteen ninety on Saturdaymornings on CBS, and eredin reruns until
July of nineteen ninety one. Andwe'll talk about why they stopped three runs
in a bit. It was developedfrom Ruben's popular stage show and the TV
special The pee Wee Herman Show,which was produced for HBO, which was
similar in style but featured much moreadult humor. Now I've not seen it,
and he did. They did anew version of it several years ago.
(20:25):
Have either one of you seen eitherof those? Yes? I oh,
okay, how adult? How Rrated? Was it? Corey?
It wasn't. That's so confusing aboutthat statements. I didn't find it any
more provocative or anything like that thanthe original run. I don't know,
man, all right, Well,I need to need to check it out
and see. In two thousand andfour and two thousand and seven, Pee's
(20:48):
Playhouse Peewee's Playhouse was ranked number tenat number twelve on TV GUIDs topped Cult
shows ever respectively. I'm not surewhy they did one three years, did
the same thing three years apart.But whatever. So the little bit of
background, as I said, itwas developed. Uh. He developed a
live show a title of The PeeHerman Show in nineteen eighty after a failed
audition for Saturday Night Live, andit was very well received, and he
(21:12):
teamed up in nineteen eighty five withTim Burton to make the comedy film Pee's
Big Adventure. And that's what reallybroke Peewee Herman huge to the world at
large. And one of the lastthings that I got to do before COVID
nineteen shut the country down was Pamand I went to see a screening of
Pewee's Big Adventure that was hosted byPaul Rubens. It was a tour they
(21:33):
were doing. It was like thethirty I guess it was coming up on
the thirty fifth anniversary and they didthe screen Actually it was it was twenty
twenty, so it was the thirtyfifth anniversary. So there was a screening
and then Paul Rubens came out andyou know, he's he's getting a little
older, so he sat down.I think he was having some back trouble,
so he sat for his presentation.But then he read some some correspondence
from around that time and some reviewsof the film and and everything, so
(21:56):
it was it was really a lotof fun. He was very engaging and
just really yeah, it was reallya lot of fun. That became one
of the year's surprise hits, costingsix million dollars in, grossing more than
forty million at the box office fortyfive million at the box office, rather,
and that was back when forty fivemillion was really a lot of money.
Oh, those are the days,right, And so after that,
CBS approached him to create a cartoonseries, and he said, no,
(22:19):
what I want to do is somethingmore along the lines of Captain Kangaroo or
how do you do do things likethat? And so they gave him a
budget of three hundred and twenty fivethousand dollars per episode, which is comparable
to a half hour primetime sitcom,much more than you would get for an
animated show, and full creative control, although CBS did request a few minor
changes. The first season was filmedin a loft in New York City on
(22:41):
Broadway, and that was the seasonthat featured Phil Hartman. He was not
in the second season because they movedto Los Angeles due to Hollywood in the
second season, so he was obviouslywas you know, on Saturday Night Live.
So it didn't didn't work out right. The creative design of the show
was concocted by a troop of artistsincluding Wayne White, Gary Panter, Craig
(23:02):
Bartlett, Nick Park, Richard Glazowski, Gregory Harrison, Rick Heitzman, and
Phil Trumbo. And the show isum it's it's a visual feast again if
you're not, if you haven't seenit, I don't. I don't know
what to tell you. It's availableon what I think it was, is
it to be? Did I say? Or okay? Hoopla hoopla as well?
(23:25):
It was on Netflix for a while, but not anymore. I so
pile of it on YouTube honestly,Oh sure, yeah. I didn't have
any luck when I was looking atI could only find the like the title
sequences and stuff. So apparently Ijust wasn't losing the right uh the right
search functions. But each episode alsofeatured stop motion animation Clay claymation. Uh
you even they even showed it.The Kam cartoons would show up and they
(23:47):
would show as we mentioned before,public domain older you know, animated cartoons
as opposed to nine animated cartoons.I don't know. So you know,
you've got you've got just a littlebit of everything here. And it was
designed to be educational as well asin her training and Peewee or Rubens.
I believe that children liked the Playhousebecause it was fast paced, colorful,
and never talked down to them,while parents liked it because it reminded them
(24:08):
of the past. Because he wantedit to be very nostalgic, so that
parents who grew up in the fiftiesand sixties would remember that sort of thing,
right, And he also said atone point that he really wanted it
to be a show about just beingyourself. He said, you know,
it's it's okay to be different.It's not better, not worse. It's
not good, it's not bad,it's just okay. It's just one way
(24:29):
to be I and I I thinkthat's probably why we all every kid is
drawn to it, and you know, for one reason or another. So
we we talked about some of wetalked about some of the artists. Let's
talk about some of the actors whoappeared on the show. Some of these
a lot of people already know about. Of course. Lawrence Fishburne was Cowboy
Curtis. Phil Hartman was Cowboy Carlin the first season. Lynn Marie Stewart
(24:52):
was Miss Vaughan. Spatha Murkerson wasReba the Male Lady, and she's gone
on to a huge career on television. Um Gilbert Lewis was a King of
Cartoons for the first season, andWilliam H. Marshall was a King of
Cartoons for the second season. AndCorey, you know who William H.
Marshall is, don't you? Yes, sir, tell us who William H.
Marshall is? Hang on, Iwas actually just looking up Phil Hartman
(25:15):
as John b. No, PhilHartman was not John By. He was
on the show. Yeah yeah,oh well, since qual Corey's looking at
that, folks. William H.Marshall was Blackula. Yes, I think
that's so cool that he played Blackulathen played the King of Cartoons in this
children's show. It cracks me upand still commanded everyone's attention because of the
(25:38):
presence that he has. Absolutely absolutelyhe was. He was the King the
Playhouse Gang in the first two seasons, where a group of three kids who
interacted with Peewee the first season,one of them was Natasha Leone. Oh
really yep okay, And in thesecond season one of them was Alison Porter
who you might know as um mygirl. She was she was the main
(26:00):
actress and my girl. I knowsome of s arey Curly Sue, I
get that wrong. Curly Sue,not my girl, Curly Sue. Not
the one that that that scarred usall. But the one with Jim Belushi
probably still start he does his classes. Yeah. No. John b as
Corey mentioned, was played by PhilHartman in the touring show, but was
played by John Paragon on the onthe television show and he passed away.
(26:22):
Uh the last week or last yearor so, Alison Mork performed Cherry and
Magic screen h Terry the Terranto Donwhich Corey was talking about was was voiced
by John Paragon and seasons one,three, and five and George McGrath in
season two. Uh, Mister Windowwas Rick Heightsman Clock he was Kevin Carlson.
Conky two thousand was Gregory Harrison inseason one and that is the same
(26:45):
Gregory Harrison who was Gonzo Gates onTrapper John MD I had no idea and
Kevin Carlson. In all subsequent seasons, Globe was George George McGrath. The
puppet band was Wayne White, RickHisman and Alison mork uh. Bill Boloney
was voiced by Paul Rubins, andhe was sort of slightly resembled Randy,
who was voiced by Wayne White,and Randy was always kind of the troublemaker.
(27:06):
And then you know, they hadthese the everybody did double triple,
quadruple duty. So as soon asit first aired, Peewe's Playhouse fascinated media
theorists and commentators, many of whomchampion the show as a postmodernist hodgepodge of
characters and situations that appeared to thumbits nose at the racist and sexist presumptions
of dominant culture, which I thinkis hilarious because I doubt that much thought
(27:26):
went into it. Probably Bob KeishanCaptain Kangaroo himself, held the show's awesome
production values and added, with thepossible exception of the Muppets, you can't
find such creativity anywhere on TV.Yeah, and against all Rubens said,
even I'm sorry, go ahead,no good. I think that's an amazing
endorsement right there. Oh, absolutelythat's yeah. Yeah, that's that's like,
(27:48):
that's like mel Brooks telling you you'refunny. Oh, as far as
I'm concerned. Yeah, And PaulRubens again was quoted as saying, I'm
just trying to illustrate that it's okayto be different, that it's good,
not that it's bad, but thatit's all right. Trying to kill tell
kids to have a good time andto encourage them to be creative and to
question things. So I think that'sthat's important. And it won a ton
of Emmy's UM mostly for you know, technical things, production design, art
(28:11):
direction things like that. UM gottenthat for Best Song. Oh yes,
and you mentioned that the theme songwas actually sung by Cindy Lauper. Yea
she and I believe she used.She used to nod. Yeah, she's
a different name, lue and whatever. I don't know what you would call
(28:33):
that, yeah, um, butyeah, I can't remember the name.
But the Martin Mother's Ball actually wrotethe theme song okay from Devo. He
wrote the opening and closing theme.And I was reading an article where he
said, Um, they would sendhim the shows like on a Tuesday,
he would write all day he wouldwatch it Tuesday write all day Wednesday,
send them the tracks on Thursday.They would cut it into the show on
Friday, and then the show whatair on Saturday. Yeah, that's crazy.
(28:56):
He said, I was banking basicallyan album's worth of music every week
because he was on a hiatus fromDevo. And he said it was it
was the most one of the mostfulfilling creative times in my life. That's
that's really cool, which is wild. Yeah, and it's probably opened the
intense production schedule. I mean,yeah, when you think about South Park,
they produced their shows in six days, the whole show. It's yeah,
(29:18):
it's run on It's exactly that's exactlywhat I was going to get to
like it. That is that levelof like quick turnaround intensity how many years
before and yeah, and the SouthPark guys are only able to do it
because they literally created their own animationsoftware to processes to make that even possible,
(29:45):
right exactly. You think about today, how much easier it would be.
You would just drop box it tohim or something, but they were
probably messaging stuff. Yeah, andthis isn't like live action production. That's
crazy. And it opened again openedthe door for him to probably to do
work on you know, Rugrats andall the other stuff that he's done.
He did, you know, hedid what he did the music for Thor
Ragner Rogumen. Yeah. Yeah,so yeah, so this this show was
(30:07):
a lot of fun, obviously theshow. After the final season, M.
Paul Rubens decided they agreed. Afterthe fifth season, he agreed with
CBS. They decided that it wastime to bring it to a close.
They were still airing it in rerunswhen he got arrested in an adult movie
theater, which we all remember that, I'm sure, yeah, And that
(30:30):
was the reason that it got pulledout of reruns. The production had already
ceased, but it was still beingaired and they all got pulled at that
point. And I'm glad that it'scome back around and people have sort of
moved on from that at least forthe most part, and have allowed the
show to carry on its legacy,because I think it is a show that
if you watch it today, it'sstill it still feels fresh to me.
Yeah, absolutely, it does.I think it's because it was kind of
(30:52):
timeless. I think it was interestingtoo, like all of the backlash that
existed around that arrest and the fewother incidents of the of the nine Oh
the hard drive, Yeah that theyfound Yeah, that too. Um,
those incidents in particular, it makesme chuckle because as much as as current
(31:21):
um speak and current culture, youknow, bemoan of cancel culture and we
why can't we appreciate somebody's output ofcreation and art. Maybe there they have,
you know, some some troubled thingsin their in their personal lives,
but we can still respect their contribution. Um, you know, here's twenty
(31:47):
something years before here's an example ofthis huge media outcry and everybody wanting to
basically burn him at the stake,and and yeah, yet he manages to
just kind of pull him up byhimself, up by the bootstraps and work
(32:08):
through that. Did it take adecade? Probably? Yeah? But I
respect the fact that the dude continuedmoving forward well and he did it right
because the next thing anybody knew fromhim was this was ninety one, and
I think it was ninety two whenthe Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie came out,
right, Corey, Uh, yeah, it was ninety two with Christy
(32:30):
Swanson and he is easily the bestthing about that movie. Yeah, i'd
agree. And if you're listening andyou haven't seen it, Go watch it.
It's it's not as good as theTV show, but it's great and
it's worth watching just for his deathscene alone. Yeah, there's a lot
of good stuff that there is whereit was the the precursor to the series,
(32:50):
and you can see where Joss wasgoing with it. I'm glad they
changed it around, but it's afun movie and a fun snapshot. It
really is. And again, hisdeath is honestly one of the funniest things
I've ever seen put on film.To me, it really is so and
so okay. So one of thething I wanted to mention is the penny
cartoon. One of the segments wasa penny cartoon, which was a claimation
(33:12):
segment that would start out there wouldbe two pennies on the screen and then
this this character of Penny, thislittle girl would appear and she would tell
this really sort of free form storythat a lot of times didn't you know,
would jump from point A to pointQ and then back to point B.
Very disjointed, but was done byArdaman student Nick Ardman and Ardman Studios,
who were famous now for Wallace andGromit. So I just again,
(33:36):
this show just kind of gave alot of people exposure that they ordinarily wouldn't
have had. So I'll ask youboth and you may not have an answer,
and that's okay. But did youhave a favorite segment on the show.
I don't know that I've ever hada favorite one. I think just
the whole she Biggel was what Ienjoyed, especially that they were always going
(33:59):
to be certain characters that he touchedbass with in each episode, so you
knew that he was going to getto at some point a discussion with Cherry
and Conky, and that at somepoint you were going to hear him say
(34:20):
Randy. Those things always amused me. I had a great nostalgic moment as
I watched Missy Vaughn and Cowboy Curtiscome on screen. UM. I also
really enjoyed the fact that there waslike a snack segment. UM. I
(34:43):
watched probably the better part of fourrandom episodes scattered throughout the run, and
folks, I just want to wantto, I just want to. I
just want to remind you, uh, it's it's it's rare for us to
get through more than two episodes ofanything that we watched for this podcast,
So the fact that we're all ableto get through so many of these episodes
shows that they hold up. Yeah. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. So
(35:06):
I liked the snack segment because itwas usually easy things that kids could prepare
themselves. They didn't need to necessarilycook. In one of the episodes that
I watched, the snack was literallywater. Yeah why not. It was
the really quick, tight three sentencesabout Water's great. You should be drinking
(35:30):
water. It's important to stay hydrated, it's refreshing, drink water. Done,
and that was That was always oneof my favorite segments as well,
just because again I was a fatkid, so anything to do with food
always got my attention. Um,I was always I always loved, I
always hated. I'll tell you whatI always hated was the King of Cartoons
segment because those old cartoons always creepme out, and they still do to
(35:51):
this day. Yeah, there weresome pretty funky ones, right, It's
like the early Bugs Bunny cartoons wherehe's got the longer face and everything.
It just kind of kind of ropsme out. I don't know, but
I always like the Penny cartoons.And like Olivia said, I like the
food segment, but my favorite partof the whole show was always just a
production design, even as a kid, just the way the playhouse was set
(36:12):
up and the fact that everything talked, although it did kind of worry me
that they were walking on Floory whocould was apparently alive, and I wondered
if he could feel I think justthat one section was alive. Oh okay,
that's what I told myself when Iwas a kid at least. Yeah,
yeah, okay, thank you,thank you for reassuring me there,
Corey, I appreciate that. Yeah. On the flip side, if I
(36:32):
had the lodge of criticism, andthis is pretty small really, in the
opening, you had both a claimationand then the segment, and then you
also had the theme song with thelive action clips of him running around this
set and interacting with everybody, andthat averaged a solid what two thirty two
(36:57):
forty in the run probably to it. Yeah, yeah, um. By
episode three of my rewatching and revisiting, that was all getting kind of old.
Not necessarily the claimation by itself,not necessarily the theme song, because
it's fun and clever and and Iadult me enjoyed knowing that that was Cindy
(37:22):
Laubert, just having those back toback. Was that sits a little much?
Yeah, if you're gonna binge it, you definitely need the skip intro
button at the ready. Yeah.I suppose I didn't mind it, well,
and I and I wouldn't. Youwouldn't mind it on a weekly basis,
once a week, I imagine youwouldn't. I think you know.
When I was a kid, It'sfunny. When I was a kid,
(37:43):
I liked the show. Now thatI'm an adult, I love the show.
I think I appreciate it more nowas an adult than even I did
as a kid. Do you,Corey, do you find that to be
the case or do you just getit for a different reason. I still
love it. I think I stilllove it for the whimsy of it.
I still love it for the ingenuityof the puppets and everything. I don't
(38:04):
think that I appreciate it on adifferent level now that I'm an adult,
but it definitely it makes me veryhappy on the estalishc level. Did you
ever show it to X when hewas a kid. Oh yeah, quite
a few times. Did he likeit? No? Oh? Yeah,
man, listen, I can onlydo so much. It's it was worth
a shot. Yeah, I respectyou trying it actually kind of surprises it
(38:25):
kind of surprises me. But Iguess I don't know if going back and
watch it now, this is onethat is hard for me to separate seeing
it as a kid as opposed toseeing it now. So I can't decide
if the pacing of it is slowor not. It doesn't seem slow,
but it may just be because Iknow what's coming. Yeah. Possibly,
But Olivia, what about you?Is your experience of it today pretty much
(38:46):
what it wasn't you were a kid? Or is it? Is it informed
a bit? I do think it'sa little bit more informed. I got
it. I've lived a little lifesince that. Um, I do think
I do appreciate it in different ways. I see a little bit more of
(39:09):
the double layered humor. Obviously now, I have not watched any of the
Peewee movies in I'm being to guessa solid twenty years. I had not
seen Peee's Big Adventure in about adecade, and I went to see it
(39:30):
a couple of years ago, andI caught so many other things that I
just would would wash over me beforethat are so absurd to be as to
be hilarious, so I would givingit another watch. Yeah, I think
I need to go back and revisitthose because I was right in a great
(39:52):
age window for Peewee's Playhouse. Iwas perhaps a little bit on the young
side for the film Big Adventure,and yeah, yeah, and so yeah,
I think I need to I thinkI need to go back and dust
those off, especially since I justsaid twenty years and it's surprising that it
(40:14):
has been that long and more rightsince those came out. Well, and
Big Top Peewee, if I remembercorrectly, is a bit darker than Peee's
Big Adventure, right, Yes,very much. It's sort of like the
Babe Pig in the City of thePeewee movies. Yeah, and you can
also find one of the Broadway showson YouTube as well, well, Broadway
(40:35):
performances. Oh cool, I'll haveto go check that Out'll go find that
and see, Yeah, that's cool. So so I'm guessing that we're all
recommending if anybody hasn't seen Peewee playoffs, we're recommending them to go check it
out because as an adult, yourmileage may vary, but if you didn't
watch it as a kid, you'regonna probably find something to like. As
an adult, right, yeah,absolutely yeah, and if you watch it
as a kid, I think we'reall saying it it holds up pretty well.
(40:58):
And Olivia, sounds like you hada good time with us this time,
right, yeah, so much morethan so much of the other schlock
that we've watched lately. You're tellingme this is better than going bananas?
Yeah, Jeff, Yeah, I'mshocked, shocked, I tell you.
All. Right, Well, good, so we've got we've got a no
recommend on the Little Debby Cereal,we've got no recommends on The Morning Funny
(41:22):
Cereal, but we got three heartyhearty hearty recommends on Peewee's Playhouse. That's
that's encouraging. Good. It's alwaysalways fun to enjoy the talk and then
to just have to get through it. So, folks, we'd love to
hear your thoughts on it, Soahead to the Facebook page and let us
know what you think. That willdo it for this edition of the Saturday
Morning Supercast. So until next time, I'm Jeff, I'm Corey, and
(41:43):
I'm Olivia, and it is timefor college sports, which means it's time
to turn off the TV and scene. Thank you for listening, and don't
forget to Follow the show on FacebookIt's Saturday Morning super Cast and follow at
Marvin Dog Media On Twitter, itburrow, borrow bot, borrow borrow
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