April 4, 2023 • 40 mins
We're sticking with 1987 again and cartoons based on existing properties. This time, it's Hello Kitty, the international phenomenon that is still going strong today! Did the FurryTale Theatre charm us, or did we throw tomatoes? Listen and find out! But first, we discuss a cereal line that seems so obvious it's amazing it hasn't been more successful: KEEBLER COOKIES! Why do the elves not translate well to the cereal bowl? We try to eat our way to the bottom of this one.
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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
waken up early on the weekend.It's the Saturday Morning Supercast. Hello,
(00:38):
and welcome to the Saturday Morning superCast, where it's always Saturday morning in
the cereal bowl is always full.I'm Jeff Corey and I'm Olivia, and
We've got to treat for you today, folks. And I'm putting treat in
air quotes because i have a feelingthat it's gonna be a repeated the last
show where I'm sort of playing apologistfor the cartoon, although maybe not so
(00:59):
much just oh oh. We weregoing to talk about Hello, Kitty,
Furry Tale theater yep. But beforethat, in the interest of talking about
companies who really should have just stayedin their own lane with their with their
spokespeople, I thought we talked aboutthe couple of forays that Keebler has made
(01:22):
into the cereal marketplace, once intwo thousand and eight and once again in
twenty seventeen. And I believe theseare still on shelves, but the ones
from two thousand and eight were calledKeebler Cookie Crunch cereal. It was on
shelves for I don't even know.I don't even remember seeing it. Do
either of you have any any recollectionof this particular cereal at all? No,
I do not know. So again, there are two, and this
(01:49):
is one. This original cereal wasa combination of two of their favorites,
the Fudge Shop Fudge Stripe cookies andthe Chips Deluxe, the chocolate chip cookies
that uply I guess have more chocolatechips than them. Uh so Keebler cookies
do do? Do either of youhave a favorite? I've been trying to
think on that. I don't knowthat I do. I like to fudge
(02:12):
stripe cookies okay, yeah, fudgeripe good. Oh I'm I'm more of
an eel fudge. Oh okay,those are the ones that look like the
character, right, yeah, Ithink so. Well. I thought those
were the ones that are just likethe like the short bread grammish kind of
(02:32):
cookie that's just totally chocolate dumped,okay, whatever, whatever. The chocolate
covered Graham crackers, Yes, Ilove those. Yes, I'm so cheap
that I never buy the brand name, always buy the Walmart brand of those.
Noah, I understand you may actuallybe right. Yes, So this
(02:58):
this one, this Cereal. There'sa great rite up, there's a there's
a website. Westward dot com hasa good ride up about it, and
I just I want to read alittle bit of what this guy had to
say about it. A cookie Grunchis built on two separate foundations. The
majority of the pieces are rugged ovalsmade of corn and wheat flour and speckled
white and brown. They're supplemented bycorn ovals that are meant to resemble chocolate
(03:21):
chip cookies, and strangely enough,they actually do what a concept right.
So the idea behind this cookie isthat you got two kinds of cookies.
Are meant to look like the chipsDeluxe cookies, and the pieces meant to
resemble the fudge stripe cookies have moreof a brown fruit loop appearance. And
of course, the box featured theKeebler elf Ernie, which is the head
(03:44):
baker. He's the one with thered hat and the green green jacket and
blonde hair and all that good stuff. And by all accounts, the cereal
was actually seemed to suffer the samefate as some of the uh, the
little Debbie Cereals that you they youboth have have encountered in the uh,
(04:05):
the frosty Cereal that it just didn'thave a whole lot of flavor, right,
especially once it hits cereal milk.In fact, do what milk?
Yes, milk, yes said cereal, Yes, yes it is cereal.
You can't hit the cereal with thecereal. Our our friend, our friend.
(04:30):
Michael roberts On Westward says that despitebeing based on not one but two
cookies, the chocolate flavor is fairlymild, not early as sweet as alcoholic
my hope. Nevertheless, a realproblem here is texture. The piece is
based on the fudge stripes crunch acceptably, but their chip still X Companion don't
even have the crispness of a typicalCereal marshmallow bit. They're mushy, as
if they occupy some weird, uncomfortablemiddle ground between solid and liquid. That's
(04:54):
not the case when they eat anddry, they're pretty tasty into those circumstances,
but the second they touch milk theytransform like some fifties erras science fiction
monster, the blob disguised as snackfood. And his conclusion is in this
case two cookies aren't better than one, So that sounds about like what you
would expect from that that little concoction. So the one that's on shelves now
is just called Keebler Cereal. It'sactually called Keebler's Hero with real mini chocolate
(05:18):
chip cookies, but that's so muchof a mouthful that it's just Keebler.
Right. Have either of you triedthis one since it's been on shelves.
I have not, the same havenot. It's another one that I don't
even recall seeing it that often,but seeing the box, I was like,
Okay, that that looks vaguely familiar. Yeah, I looked at Walmart
(05:38):
today and didn't seeing me there,So yeah, so that they're mayre to
be off shelves or they may nothave them in your area. It's a
combination of cocoa puffs type balls andmini chocolate chip cookie pieces shaped somewhat like
cookies. They're basically like a domewith they're flat on the bottom, they
have rounded tops, and the numberof the cocoa puffs pieces apparently far exceeds
(05:59):
the number of cook pieces, soto you know, do with that what
you will. But there was athere was another ride up on a website
but I love called Coke Babies dotNet about that. But the one I
wanted to really hit on is aserial lessly dot Net has a review of
them that that actually, I thinksays everything we need said about it.
(06:23):
It says kind of the same thingthat we've that we've said, we've we've
talked about before, is that whenthey're when when they tell you to shake
the box the box, if youdon't shake the box, all the cookie
pieces sort of settle to the bottom. So when you look in the box,
all you're seeing are basically um cocoapuffs type cereal. And the chocolate
(06:46):
puffs don't even taste as much likethey They compared them to the the Reese's
puffs. And Corey, I believeyou tried some of those, right,
And do you remember the chocolate piecesnot being nearly as flavorful as cocoa puffs.
I believe you said that on theshow. Yes I did. Yep.
Apparently these the these puffs have adense dusting on them that will actually
(07:10):
get all over your pants if you'renot careful. Yeah, which is a
problem we all have. And hesays I was expecting the real cookies to
taste at best like chocolate chip tittygrams. So but I'll be darn Keeler's
cookies really do taste just like chipStilux or crunchy chips of Hoy cookies.
However, I have to eat morethan one You have to eat more than
one cookie pieces at a time totaste anything, and that's if you eat
(07:32):
them alone. When she didn tanhim with the chocolate puffs, there must
be at least few cookies perspoonful tocreate the delicious yet delicate cookies dunked in
chocolate milk combo. But apparently thebest part of the experience is the leftover
milk at the end. We've talkedabout this before. All of the chocolate
chip cookie pieces fall to the bottomof the milk, and they give the
(07:54):
milk this sort of like buttery chocolateyflavor that I must say sounds tantalizing.
Yeah, but I doubt it everreally fulfills that description. I don't know.
It might be worth trying if Icould find a box, but I
don't think I care that much aboutit. But I guess my question is
in a world where cookie crisp exists. I suppose it makes sense for Kelloggs
(08:18):
released both of these. I supposeit makes sense for Kelloggs to partner with
Keebler to try to trade on thatname. Right, Surely there's got to
be a better way to go aboutdoing this, right, because it really
sounds like with these what we haveis they've taken the name and put a
lot of work into the concept,but haven't done a whole lot of work
(08:39):
on actual actually formulating the cereal thatwell, which we see time and again.
Why do you both suppose do youhave any ideas about why a cereal
company might overlook that the flavor?No, I really don't. I would
tend to think maybe they're trying tobank on the name itself, but you
(09:01):
would also trying to think you'd alsothink that maybe they would want the taste
of the cereal to be close enoughto the actual item itself. Yeah,
if you want repeat purchases, yougot to make a good cereal, right,
you would think so. And Iunderstand too them putting a lot of
(09:24):
a lot of energy into like boxart and promotion and ads and things like
that, because ultimately you're trying tosell first time buyers based on un visuals
and I absolutely get that. AndI don't know, especially with like the
(09:50):
like taking the Cookie Crunch where they'retrying to turn two cookie flavors into a
single cereal and and the current KeeplerCereal, it just seems like they're trying
to do multiple flavor profiles at onceand that's leading to weaknesses. Yes,
(10:13):
so, and especially because this thecurrent Keepler Cereal with the little tenC chocolate
chip cookies, I mean, eachone of those doesn't really look much bigger
than like kind of a standard sizea standard size chocolate chip itself, you
(10:39):
know, and so like and thenso not only are they super tiny,
but you have a balance issue wherebecause if I'm assuming weight density, if
they're falling through to the bottom,then you don't get an equal number.
And I don't know it, justh I do. I feel like they're
(11:03):
kind of trying to overreach. It'sa mystery. Yeah, yeah, I
tend to agree, Olivia. Itfeels like rather they should have tried to
do one thing well rather than tryto throw too much into the mix.
Um. It's it's like a restaurantthat that that serves fish and all of
a sudden, now We're going totry to make acos in tex mex because
(11:26):
we want to make sure we're reachingeverybody, or even better, The Sci
Fi Channel starting to play wrestling isjust sticking. I think the Sci Fi
has always been my example of ofof a channel that used to do one
thing really well and then tried tostart doing everything, and now it doesn't
do much of anything right, right, So I think that's probably what happened
(11:50):
here. Would either of you beinterested in trying the key blue area if
you did come across it? Yeah? Sure, what up? Yeah,
that's fine. I'm not sure Iwould based on everything I've read. I
mentioned Coke Babies dot Net earlier anduh, I'll just read a little bit
of their's Uh. Following the GirlScouts recent foura into the Serial game,
(12:13):
we also see another company with strongcookie credentials putting a cereal to market.
Keebler had tried its hand in thepast at Cereal about ten years ago.
Cookie Crunch was a cereal that combinedfrend stripes and chocolate chip cookies and ingeniously
removed all the things you like aboutthose cookies. Okay, yeah, trying
again. Keebler isn't messing around thistime. It's not a Kellogg's brand,
(12:33):
it's Keebler serial with a catchy cookiecrunch soup esque name. Instead, the
cereal is just straight up Keeblue cereal. No kellogg supporting act on the box.
This is Keebler's self titled album ofcereals. Um. So this is
not this is not their rumors.No, this is not their U No,
this is their this is their MetallicaBlack album. Um. They go
(12:58):
on to say much the same thingthat we've heard from other people. At
the end, the milk is adequatelychocolate ified and have some those little chocolate
chips in the milk, which isa nice bonus. It's kind of a
weird case. It doesn't do anythingparticularly great. The chocolate could be stronger,
the pieces could be more distinct,it could taste a little more like
cookies. But at the same timeI found myself really enjoying it. I
killed the box in a few days, and I'll buy one, and it'll
(13:20):
be one I will buy again.So maybe I should give it a try.
If I weren't come across it,I will, I will, I
will buy a box and I willreport back. Okay, yeah, so
yeah, this is one that itcould be an interesting case study, could
be something that you know, Ididn't like. I didn't like the first
you know, eighty percent of myexperience, but there at the end it
really kind of tied everything together withthe leftover milk. Yeah, it's possible.
(13:43):
Yeah, So all right, Wellwe'll take a short break and we'll
be back to talk about another propertythat probably should have kept to itself,
Hello Kitty, And we're back.So Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater. First
(14:05):
off, did either of you seethe toys that made us episode about Hello
Kitty? Yes? No, okay, it's actually fairly interesting. And I
learned and Corey correct me if I'mwrong. This is where I learned it.
Hello Katy is not necessarily a cat. No it's not. It's a
little girl, a little girl dressedup as a cat. Yeah, I
(14:28):
really yea, yeah really no,I mean I've heard this, but we
gotta go that deep with it?Oh, yes we do. But it
doesn't really matter because Hello Katy's FurrytaleTheater really leaned into the cat aspect of
it, which we'll talk about.This show aired for thirteen episodes, well
(14:50):
thirteen episodes. In each episode consistedof two eleven minute segments, for a
total of twenty six total shows orepisodes. It ran from September nineteenth of
nineteen eighty seven to December twelfth,nineteen eighty seven. Only the one season
probably aired in syndication here and theresince then. But I remember hearing about
(15:11):
it, but I never saw anepisode. Did either of you have any
experience with this show before we decidedto discuss it here? Not a bit.
I have, like the vaguest ofrecollections. But with starting to watch
the episodes that I did, Ican't say that anything really came back to
me from before saying, well,other than the fact that you've seen Muppet
(15:35):
babies, and this is pretty muchto me. This came across as Muppet
babies light because they were always youknow, making play pertend using their imagination
or as Piggy called it, theirimaginations. Yes. So, Hello Kitty's
Furry Tale Theater was based on theJapanese character of Hello Katy, produced by
(15:56):
Deek Enterprises and animated by Toe Animation, which we talked about before. It
involves Hello Kitty and her friends andoccasionally her family, doing their own version
of popular fairy tales and stories,not necessarily always fairy tales. We'll talk
about it, and it was aspoof of a well known fairytale or a
movie. Some of the voice actors. Tara Cherandoff voiced Hello Kitty. I'm
(16:18):
not really familiar with a lot ofher work, but she's done a lot
of voice acting. Oh that's TaraStrongara Strong. Yeah, that was that
was her original name. Well whydid you call her Tara Strong here?
I'd clicked on her name as Iwas talking, and I was like,
oh, that's Tara Strong. Wellthat's because she was charond Off when she
recorded, so they wanted to keepit as precise as they could, right,
(16:38):
guess the good point. So TaraStrong we know from everything, Yes,
Batman, Teen Titans, Rugrats,Powerpuff Girls, fairly opparents. Yeah,
she's she's kind of a kind ofa legend. Yeah. Yeah.
Mamma Kitty was voiced by Elizabeth Hannah, who you may imagine is Hello Kitty's
mother. Papa Kitty voiced by LynnCarlson, who was a pitchman in Craft
(17:03):
for Craft in Canada. Yeah,in the seventies and eighties, and then
Elizabeth Hanna almost voice Grandma Kiddie.Grandpa Kiddie was voiced by Carl Bannis,
another Canadian actor who did a lotdid Actually he uh did some voice acting
for Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer,okay in nineteen sixty four. Yeah,
(17:25):
and he also did voices on TheRaccoons Do you guys ever see the Raccoons
cartoon? I don't think I did. It was a Canadian cartoon. I
only ever saw it on the DisneyChannel. It was something that they imported,
was about this group of raccoons,you know, lived in a tree
and everything, and they It waspretty standard cartoon, but there was there
was one that was like a Iwant to say, he wore a cape
(17:45):
and pretended to be a superhero.Okay, not very well. It's also
possible I'm getting that confused with Superted which is another Canadian cartoon about a
super teddy bear. Okay, yeahyeah, so yeah. Um Tuxedo Sam
was voiced by Sean Roberge, whowas also Canadian. My Melody was voiced
(18:07):
by Marion Bennett. Chip was voicedby Gnome Zilberman, who was an Israeli
born Canadian actor, and I definitelyheard him say sorry at one point,
all right, Katnip voiced by CreeSummer. I did not realize she had
done as much voice work as shehad done here has done a ton of
voice work. And I know herfrom a different world. She was who
(18:30):
was she on a different world?She was at Whitney. Um, you
know she was Freddie on a differentworld. Yeah, Freddie? Yeah,
and the woman who played Whitney.I think it was a one hit wonder
on the radio. Fangora was voicedby Denise Pigeon Grinder unfortunate name for a
(18:52):
henchman in this damage voice by GregoryMorton. And mounts Or, who you
don't meet until the very last episode, was voiced by Fred Savage. I
did not make it to the lastepisode. How many episodes did you both
make it through? The first one? Hum? I. I did not
(19:12):
really focus on whole episodes. Ijust did the individual story segments and yeah,
and I skipped around quite a bit. Um. So if we're going
by story segments, I watch,I'm looking at the list right now because
(19:32):
I lost count two three, okay, so four, so I'm going to
say the equivalent of two full episodes, okay, and that that was the
same for me. I watched thefirst episode the Wizard of Pause and Pinocchio
Penguin, and then I skipped aroundand I watched the Cat Wars episode because
of course at Star Wars. Yes, I watched. You watched two and
(19:55):
a half episodes. I also watchedcat Yula, which was based on Dracula,
and I also watched Crocodile Penguin becausethat was based on Crocodile Dundee,
which had come out the year before. So I was curious how they were
making that work. And I wantedto go and watch the last episode,
which was the year Scrooge nipswiped Christmasand the Phantom of the Theater. I
just did not have time before werecorded, so I did watch. I
(20:21):
watched. I did watch Phantom ofthe Theater. Okay, Yeah, that's
the only one that is the onlyone that does not take place in performance.
That episode ends or begins at theend of a performance, and everything
else happens backstage. Correct, Yes, okay, And I was disappointed.
I was really hoping that we wouldgo down into like the third sub basement
(20:42):
of the theater and find some characterwith the cape and the half mask in
the whole bit. Nope, nope. Oh that is not a truth in
advertising, not a bit. Soeach episode opens, not only we get
we get a preview of what's tocome, but it's all silent over with
(21:04):
music playing over it. Then wehave our one minute long opening sequence,
so we're a minute and a halfinto a twenty two to twenty three minute
episode before we get anything. Andthen of course you get the closing credits,
which were about what thirty seconds toa minute, So all in all,
as usual, we have about nineteento twenty minutes of actual program here.
(21:27):
And I was amazed at how theymade eleven minutes feel like a full
thirty minute episode. It was reallyimpressive. I was surprised that for being
the half episode segments of eleven twelveshminutes, that I was still feeling some
(21:48):
of those pacing, some of thosepacing issues, you know, I think
part of what it was for me, And Corey, tell me if you
felt this same way about this,especially the first episode. So we start
with the Wizard of Pause. It'sthe Wizard of Oz. Obviously, she
meets the all three, she meetsthe tin Woodsman, the cowardly rabbits in
this case, and I remember whatthe Scarecrow was going to be but she
(22:11):
meets him within like the first twominutes of the episode, right the house
lands and she meets all of them, and I thought, Okay, we're
just going to speed through this,and then it takes forever to get everything
done from that point on. SoI thought it felt like we were like
almost done with the episode or withthe story at least, and then they
stretched the rest of it. Isthat kind of what you felt, Corey,
(22:32):
Yeah, very much. So Okay, the other thing that I noticed
about that, And Olivia, ifyou didn't watch the episode, you want
to know this, But Corey,did you notice that? So in The
Wizard of Oz, she lands onthe house, lands on the Wicked Witch
of the East, and her sister, the Wicked Witch of the West,
shows up and wants her shoes.Right in this one, she just steals
(22:53):
the collar from the witch because she'slanded on top of the Wicked Witch of
the West, and Glenn, whoeverGlinda is, gives her this collar and
the Witch shows up and she getsout from under the house. She's like,
hey, gave him my collar back, and they're like, no,
basically finders keepers, So are wesupposed to be siding with the Finders Keepers
crowd. Oh absolutely at that age, Yeah, very much. And I
(23:17):
thought it was cute that that HelloKitty was called Hello Dorothy throughout the whole
episode. Yeah. The other thing, did you notice before the show started?
The cat what what's the cat's name? Steve cat Nip? She puts
something and I didn't I may havehis owned out. I forgot how this
(23:37):
paid off. But she puts somethingin the penguins dressing room. In the
penguins dressing room was all ice.It was like an ice cave. Yeah,
so I don't know. I thoughtthat was kind of cute. But
we get a lot of references tocats because it says like once upon them
meow is at the beginning of theshow, and they don't announce. We
don't get a title card for forthe segment. They just announced what it
is when they come out on stage. Um. And this is where I
(24:03):
learned that Chip does have a distinctCanadian accent because the actor is Canadian.
Um. And then I had toask, I think I mentioned before his
grinder really the best name for acharacter in a kid's cartoon. Well,
back then we also had the aidsweight loss system. So that's true,
hind I forgot about that, yikes. And so the next episode was was
(24:26):
Pinocchio at retailing a Pinocchio Pinocchio penguin, and I kind of z owned out
on that one. I was sortof fading in and out as I was
taking my notes because it just didn'thold my attention. Um, the cat
Wars episode. Did either of youwatch that one? No? I did?
Yeah, okay, Olivia, doyou remember what they called the C
(24:49):
three poum character? But let meask you this qory since you didn't watch
it. Yes, No. Threepo was played by a seal. So
if you were going to make aplay on that, what would you go
with? Seal three p exactly?That's what I would have gone with.
What did they go with? Seethree clo? That's so clunky, much
(25:14):
harder to say, not even asobvious, and clearly not as memorable because
I didn't catch it exactly. SoCorey, thank you for proving my point
for me. You got it.I did think it was funny that when
they met the ben Kenobe character,he said he had special powers given to
him by the fur and so theforce and uh, and I actually think
(25:38):
there were parts of this that Iactually really liked. So instead of the
cantina, they go in it's anice cream shop. I liked that.
Yeah, I thought that was adorable. Nine and thirty one flavors. Yes,
heaven forbid, we get too closeto Baskin Robbins, right. And
then there's another one that cop popsup and this guy pops up and like,
(25:59):
you know, tries to confront theLuke Skywalker character. You know,
he doesn't like your face or somethinglike that, and the b I don't
like how you hold your spoon,That's what it was. I don't like
a older spoon. Yeah. Idon't think he cut his arm off though.
In this one, No, helevitates ice cream up and dumps it
on the guy's head, right,yeah. Yeah. And and then of
(26:22):
course, of course, uh Catulaor not catch you a little bit.
Cat Nip is the Darth Vader character. I can't remember what they called her.
But I actually did really like theway that they had worked all the
Hello Kiddie stuff into the Star Warsmel you the look of everything, I
thought it was cute. Um.So there was also the did you watch
(26:45):
Olivia? Did you want to cracka love Ndee episode. I did not,
so I watched, um, pause, the Great White Dog Shark.
That's sort of a re telling ofASoP and the Andrew Clees and the Lion.
Right pause, The Great White DogShark. Yeah no, that's Jaws.
(27:07):
That's a really crappy right. Butif you doesn't find out that he's
mad because like he had something stuckin his fin or something, I thought,
oh, I don't maybe I madeMaybe I made that up. I
probably do mentally duced out by thatpoint. Okay, what else did I
see? Um? Tar Sam ofthe Jungle, and then I skipped down
(27:30):
to the end of the set forPhantom of the Theater. Okay, yeah,
um. TV Tropes says that thePaul's episode The Sharks aggression was prompted
by a fisher cut in his finand they pull it out and so he
befriends them. Oh yeah, allright, yeah, it's which again,
(27:51):
it's cute. Umu the tar SamI started, I was like, no,
I don't even like Tarzan enough toto find any of this amused.
But I did watch Crocodile Penguin becauseI just rewatched The Crocodile Donde trilogy recently,
like last month for the first timein probably twenty years. Okay,
and still fun, still fun.I'm one of those people that I actually
(28:12):
liked the third one quite a lot. I think it's horrible, but it
follows the plot of the film prettyclosely, but it adds this subplot where
kat Nip is playing like this NewYork boxing manager and Grinder is her prize
boxer, and they fly to Australiato challenge Crocodile Penguin because otherwise Grinder can't
(28:33):
be considered the toughest boxer on theplanet. That's not the story, I
know, but that's that's overlaid withthe story of Hello Kitty going to the
outback to to interview this character andthen bringing him back to New York.
And there's even a joke about thesuite and the hotel and everything where he
talks about how it's bigger than hishometown and everything. It's actually some of
(28:56):
the same dialogue from the movie.So I just thought it was odd that
just you forget how big of athing Crocodile Dundee was in the in the
mid to late eighties, because thatmovie was huge. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, And So the last oneI watched was Catula, and again that
(29:18):
one was adorable because Catullah, insteadof drinking blood, she drinks milk and
they bring in the crew brings ina bunch of milk, and so she's
trying to she has she tells herher minion to leave the windows unlocked so
she can get in and drink themilk. And they realize she's a vampire
because they took a picture of herwith a polaroid camera and she doesn't show
up in the photo, and admittedlyshe did look a little creepy in the
(29:41):
cape to me. So, Corey, you only made it through the one
episode, Olivia, were there anyepisodes that you saw, any segments that
stuck out to you was particularly cleveroverall or was it kind of like me
where there were just a couple ofthings you're like, Oh, that's that's
cute. I like that they didthat, but overall it just kind of
fell flat. It's more of thesecond. There were moments that they would
(30:03):
really do something cute and clever witha particular plot point or the way that
they cratified, or just you know, the Hello Kiddy universe in general applied
that to those characters in some kindof clever way. In general, though
(30:27):
that those little moments of cleverness weren'tenough to keep my patience and attention connected
all the way through a segment.Right. It kind of goes back to
what we were saying about the Keeblerserial a minute ago, that they put
a lot of thought into the overallconcept but didn't bother to follow through and
(30:49):
put it in an a whole lotof effort on the actual product itself.
Yeah, because again with the StarWars episode, there were certain things that
I thought were just adorable and kindof funny, Like they said the one
hundred and thirty one flavor thing.It was being an ice cream shop that
actually made me laugh, But thatwas pretty much the only thing. Yeah,
that's the shame. And with theWizard of Pause, you know,
(31:11):
the Wizard of Oz or the Wizardcouldn't drive the whatever the kink of the
vehicle was that the Wicked Witch wasdriving. I thought that was kind of
funny. But Corey, was thereanything in those first two episodes that made
you think that there was probably somethingmore to this? Or did you have
this It sounds like you had thesame experience that Olivia and I did.
Yeah, it was just it wascute, and I enjoyed some of the
animation, But no, I thinkit was all potatoes, no meat.
(31:37):
That's a good way to put it. Yeah, you know, speaking of
the animation, I thought this thisstyle looked like a rather than a Saturday
Morning cartoon. It looked like afirst run syndication cartoon that they were having
to crank out sixty five episodes ofseason four to me, did you find
that as well? Yeah? Yeah, I didn't find the animation particularly skillful.
(32:02):
I mean the voice acting with withyou know, we got some some
real pros here, but the characterswere voice wise, we're kind of indistinct
to me as well. Yeah,I could see that, with the exception
obviously of cat Nip and Grinder,right, But in the adults, yeah,
(32:22):
I guess so. Yeah, nineteeneighty seven. Though you'd think they
were, they were. I don'tknow, just I'm surprised because san Rio
protects this product so much, I'msurprised that they allowed such a I wouldn't
even call it subpar, it's justmediocre. Well, maybe this is the
reason that they have such a stranglehold on it now. That's true,
(32:45):
very true. Well, I thinkthe most disappointing thing for me beyond um,
I mean, other than finding outthe Hello Kiddie isn't actually a cat.
Well, I've known that for awhile now. I still think that's
stupid, Like, really, dowe have to go that deep it's a
(33:06):
damn cat? Just can it justbe a cat because it's a cartoon,
so it can just be a catbecause it's fiction. Where's the point on
that? Stupid anyway? So Iwas I think the most bothered by the
(33:29):
quantity of liberties they were taking withthe plot points. Okay, so rather
than retelling the story, they werereally they were adjusting it to fit a
the run time and be what theyviewed as the unsophisticated audience. Kind of
is that kind of what you mean? I know, even if they thought
(33:50):
that they were modifying it in away that was better for young children,
you could still find clever, intelligentways to modify these stories but still feel
like you're at least including your majorplot points, whereas with the crocodiles on
(34:15):
d episode that you watched that wasa complete total departure the only day it
was an overlay. Yeah, likeI said, they told the same story
with fish out of Water and allthat stuff that they added this, yeah,
this weird boxing subplot that didn't Yeah, I didn't have anything to do
with anything, and I assumed itwould exactly otherwise they wouldn't have had a
(34:36):
thing for their antagonist to do.And it's hard because a movie like Crocodile
and d is really a story aboutits character driven story. It's not so
much plot driven, and there's nota strong antagonist in it. And for
a kids show, I guess itwould be a little tough to pull that
off in eleven minutes. At thesame time, though, look how both
(34:58):
Muppet Babies so often took fairy tales, movies, um, some kind of
historic event and found a way towork with it, put their spin on
it, and make it so muchmore entertaining and engaging. Today it's I
mean, you know, we Ihave Muppet Babies on Blue Ray and I
(35:21):
still watch it to this day andit's still fun. Yeah. And like,
here's a mid to late nineties pullum Wishbone from PBS. Yes,
Wishbone was a fabulously produced show anddid not And now, granted they're probably
aiming a little bit more toward um, I would say upper adolescent into middle
(35:49):
school perhaps, but young kids couldstill watch that, and they would still
find a way to handle material inthe plots of those novels that they were
retelling in a way that was kidfriendly inaccessible. So they didn't shy away
from heavier stuff. They just founda gentle way, you know, to
(36:16):
approach it. Right. So,granted this being for young children, okay,
but I mean if you're taking likea huge concept like Star Wars and
reducing it down into an eleven minuterun, there should be no like dead
(36:38):
gaps of story in there. Thereshould be no pacing issues, right because
it's yeah, it's not like you'vegot a lack of content to work with.
Yeah, absolutely right. Yeah,And when she goes back to what
we've we talked about with a lotof these shows from the seventies, even
the sixties, really sixties up throughthe eighties, is that the writing was
(37:00):
just so lazy that when you hadto show light Muppet Babies that came along,
and a couple of others we've talkedabout that the writing was just really
on point. They put a lotof thought into it. They cared about
the audience. They didn't want totalk down to the kids. We talked
about it, you know, recessand fillmore, which we all like to
varying degrees, but still the writingwas still pretty strong. I felt like
(37:23):
for both of those. And Idon't understand why in the eighties, especially
the late eighties, like this isthey're not putting a little more thought into
it, putting a little more effortinto it. Why they thought we'll just
dump this out and it'll be fine. Yeah, I don't know, So
I take it we're not going tobe revisiting Hello Kitty fur retail theater.
(37:45):
H No. I mean, ifyou've got a huge fan of one of
the many very memorable core faery talesor intellectual movie properties that they hit,
(38:07):
Okay, it's eleven minutes of yourlife and now you can say that you've
seen this other thing Dracula related thatthey somehow managed to do with Hello Kitty.
I mean, it's if you're ahuge ET fan, or you're a
huge you know, Josh fan,it's eleven minutes to just you know,
(38:30):
hey, see what they did withthis intellectual property. That won't hurt you,
but you will not find yourself motivatedto watch more. Agreed, I
would have to stay the saying,so all right, I guess that will
do it then, So, folks, we'd love to hear your thoughts on
it. If you have some funmemories of Hello Kitty fur retail theater,
we'd love to hear it. Youknow what, it will be a good
(38:52):
I think next time we'll kind ofstay in this vein and we'll jump back
and we'll talk about alf tails nexttime, which was sort of the same
concept. So we'll talk about thatnext folks, and we'll kind of compare
and contrast. So next time we'lltalk alf tails and we'll find another serial
to go with it. But we'dlove to hear your thoughts on it.
So I to the Facebook page andlet us know. And if you have
(39:14):
a good excuse and a reason asto why Hello Kitty is not just a
cat, we'd love to hear thattoo. Olivia was she will debate that
with you. This might be thatmeme with that guy sitting at the card
table in the park. Prove mewrong. It proved me wrong. Prove
me wrong, Kelly, Yeah,Hello Kitty could just be a cat.
(39:37):
No one cares. Prove me wrong. Can get happen, folks. Yeah,
bring it all right. So we'llbe back next time to discuss alf
tails and a serial to be namedlater, but until then, for the
Saturday Morning super Castime Jeffrey and I'mOlivia and uh, it's almost time for
(39:57):
college sports, so let's put thesedishes away and let's go play something outside.
But no, let's not put ona show. Okay. Thank you
for listening, and don't forget tofollow the show on Facebook It's Saturday Morning
Supercast and follow at Marvin Dog Mediaon Twitter m M
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
waken up early on the weekend.It's the Saturday Morning Supercast. Hello,
(00:38):
and welcome to the Saturday Morning superCast, where it's always Saturday morning in
the cereal bowl is always full.I'm Jeff Corey and I'm Olivia, and
We've got to treat for you today, folks. And I'm putting treat in
air quotes because i have a feelingthat it's gonna be a repeated the last
show where I'm sort of playing apologistfor the cartoon, although maybe not so
(00:59):
much just oh oh. We weregoing to talk about Hello, Kitty,
Furry Tale theater yep. But beforethat, in the interest of talking about
companies who really should have just stayedin their own lane with their with their
spokespeople, I thought we talked aboutthe couple of forays that Keebler has made
(01:22):
into the cereal marketplace, once intwo thousand and eight and once again in
twenty seventeen. And I believe theseare still on shelves, but the ones
from two thousand and eight were calledKeebler Cookie Crunch cereal. It was on
shelves for I don't even know.I don't even remember seeing it. Do
either of you have any any recollectionof this particular cereal at all? No,
I do not know. So again, there are two, and this
(01:49):
is one. This original cereal wasa combination of two of their favorites,
the Fudge Shop Fudge Stripe cookies andthe Chips Deluxe, the chocolate chip cookies
that uply I guess have more chocolatechips than them. Uh so Keebler cookies
do do? Do either of youhave a favorite? I've been trying to
think on that. I don't knowthat I do. I like to fudge
(02:12):
stripe cookies okay, yeah, fudgeripe good. Oh I'm I'm more of
an eel fudge. Oh okay,those are the ones that look like the
character, right, yeah, Ithink so. Well. I thought those
were the ones that are just likethe like the short bread grammish kind of
(02:32):
cookie that's just totally chocolate dumped,okay, whatever, whatever. The chocolate
covered Graham crackers, Yes, Ilove those. Yes, I'm so cheap
that I never buy the brand name, always buy the Walmart brand of those.
Noah, I understand you may actuallybe right. Yes, So this
(02:58):
this one, this Cereal. There'sa great rite up, there's a there's
a website. Westward dot com hasa good ride up about it, and
I just I want to read alittle bit of what this guy had to
say about it. A cookie Grunchis built on two separate foundations. The
majority of the pieces are rugged ovalsmade of corn and wheat flour and speckled
white and brown. They're supplemented bycorn ovals that are meant to resemble chocolate
(03:21):
chip cookies, and strangely enough,they actually do what a concept right.
So the idea behind this cookie isthat you got two kinds of cookies.
Are meant to look like the chipsDeluxe cookies, and the pieces meant to
resemble the fudge stripe cookies have moreof a brown fruit loop appearance. And
of course, the box featured theKeebler elf Ernie, which is the head
(03:44):
baker. He's the one with thered hat and the green green jacket and
blonde hair and all that good stuff. And by all accounts, the cereal
was actually seemed to suffer the samefate as some of the uh, the
little Debbie Cereals that you they youboth have have encountered in the uh,
(04:05):
the frosty Cereal that it just didn'thave a whole lot of flavor, right,
especially once it hits cereal milk.In fact, do what milk?
Yes, milk, yes said cereal, Yes, yes it is cereal.
You can't hit the cereal with thecereal. Our our friend, our friend.
(04:30):
Michael roberts On Westward says that despitebeing based on not one but two
cookies, the chocolate flavor is fairlymild, not early as sweet as alcoholic
my hope. Nevertheless, a realproblem here is texture. The piece is
based on the fudge stripes crunch acceptably, but their chip still X Companion don't
even have the crispness of a typicalCereal marshmallow bit. They're mushy, as
if they occupy some weird, uncomfortablemiddle ground between solid and liquid. That's
(04:54):
not the case when they eat anddry, they're pretty tasty into those circumstances,
but the second they touch milk theytransform like some fifties erras science fiction
monster, the blob disguised as snackfood. And his conclusion is in this
case two cookies aren't better than one, So that sounds about like what you
would expect from that that little concoction. So the one that's on shelves now
is just called Keebler Cereal. It'sactually called Keebler's Hero with real mini chocolate
(05:18):
chip cookies, but that's so muchof a mouthful that it's just Keebler.
Right. Have either of you triedthis one since it's been on shelves.
I have not, the same havenot. It's another one that I don't
even recall seeing it that often,but seeing the box, I was like,
Okay, that that looks vaguely familiar. Yeah, I looked at Walmart
(05:38):
today and didn't seeing me there,So yeah, so that they're mayre to
be off shelves or they may nothave them in your area. It's a
combination of cocoa puffs type balls andmini chocolate chip cookie pieces shaped somewhat like
cookies. They're basically like a domewith they're flat on the bottom, they
have rounded tops, and the numberof the cocoa puffs pieces apparently far exceeds
(05:59):
the number of cook pieces, soto you know, do with that what
you will. But there was athere was another ride up on a website
but I love called Coke Babies dotNet about that. But the one I
wanted to really hit on is aserial lessly dot Net has a review of
them that that actually, I thinksays everything we need said about it.
(06:23):
It says kind of the same thingthat we've that we've said, we've we've
talked about before, is that whenthey're when when they tell you to shake
the box the box, if youdon't shake the box, all the cookie
pieces sort of settle to the bottom. So when you look in the box,
all you're seeing are basically um cocoapuffs type cereal. And the chocolate
(06:46):
puffs don't even taste as much likethey They compared them to the the Reese's
puffs. And Corey, I believeyou tried some of those, right,
And do you remember the chocolate piecesnot being nearly as flavorful as cocoa puffs.
I believe you said that on theshow. Yes I did. Yep.
Apparently these the these puffs have adense dusting on them that will actually
(07:10):
get all over your pants if you'renot careful. Yeah, which is a
problem we all have. And hesays I was expecting the real cookies to
taste at best like chocolate chip tittygrams. So but I'll be darn Keeler's
cookies really do taste just like chipStilux or crunchy chips of Hoy cookies.
However, I have to eat morethan one You have to eat more than
one cookie pieces at a time totaste anything, and that's if you eat
(07:32):
them alone. When she didn tanhim with the chocolate puffs, there must
be at least few cookies perspoonful tocreate the delicious yet delicate cookies dunked in
chocolate milk combo. But apparently thebest part of the experience is the leftover
milk at the end. We've talkedabout this before. All of the chocolate
chip cookie pieces fall to the bottomof the milk, and they give the
(07:54):
milk this sort of like buttery chocolateyflavor that I must say sounds tantalizing.
Yeah, but I doubt it everreally fulfills that description. I don't know.
It might be worth trying if Icould find a box, but I
don't think I care that much aboutit. But I guess my question is
in a world where cookie crisp exists. I suppose it makes sense for Kelloggs
(08:18):
released both of these. I supposeit makes sense for Kelloggs to partner with
Keebler to try to trade on thatname. Right, Surely there's got to
be a better way to go aboutdoing this, right, because it really
sounds like with these what we haveis they've taken the name and put a
lot of work into the concept,but haven't done a whole lot of work
(08:39):
on actual actually formulating the cereal thatwell, which we see time and again.
Why do you both suppose do youhave any ideas about why a cereal
company might overlook that the flavor?No, I really don't. I would
tend to think maybe they're trying tobank on the name itself, but you
(09:01):
would also trying to think you'd alsothink that maybe they would want the taste
of the cereal to be close enoughto the actual item itself. Yeah,
if you want repeat purchases, yougot to make a good cereal, right,
you would think so. And Iunderstand too them putting a lot of
(09:24):
a lot of energy into like boxart and promotion and ads and things like
that, because ultimately you're trying tosell first time buyers based on un visuals
and I absolutely get that. AndI don't know, especially with like the
(09:50):
like taking the Cookie Crunch where they'retrying to turn two cookie flavors into a
single cereal and and the current KeeplerCereal, it just seems like they're trying
to do multiple flavor profiles at onceand that's leading to weaknesses. Yes,
(10:13):
so, and especially because this thecurrent Keepler Cereal with the little tenC chocolate
chip cookies, I mean, eachone of those doesn't really look much bigger
than like kind of a standard sizea standard size chocolate chip itself, you
(10:39):
know, and so like and thenso not only are they super tiny,
but you have a balance issue wherebecause if I'm assuming weight density, if
they're falling through to the bottom,then you don't get an equal number.
And I don't know it, justh I do. I feel like they're
(11:03):
kind of trying to overreach. It'sa mystery. Yeah, yeah, I
tend to agree, Olivia. Itfeels like rather they should have tried to
do one thing well rather than tryto throw too much into the mix.
Um. It's it's like a restaurantthat that that serves fish and all of
a sudden, now We're going totry to make acos in tex mex because
(11:26):
we want to make sure we're reachingeverybody, or even better, The Sci
Fi Channel starting to play wrestling isjust sticking. I think the Sci Fi
has always been my example of ofof a channel that used to do one
thing really well and then tried tostart doing everything, and now it doesn't
do much of anything right, right, So I think that's probably what happened
(11:50):
here. Would either of you beinterested in trying the key blue area if
you did come across it? Yeah? Sure, what up? Yeah,
that's fine. I'm not sure Iwould based on everything I've read. I
mentioned Coke Babies dot Net earlier anduh, I'll just read a little bit
of their's Uh. Following the GirlScouts recent foura into the Serial game,
(12:13):
we also see another company with strongcookie credentials putting a cereal to market.
Keebler had tried its hand in thepast at Cereal about ten years ago.
Cookie Crunch was a cereal that combinedfrend stripes and chocolate chip cookies and ingeniously
removed all the things you like aboutthose cookies. Okay, yeah, trying
again. Keebler isn't messing around thistime. It's not a Kellogg's brand,
(12:33):
it's Keebler serial with a catchy cookiecrunch soup esque name. Instead, the
cereal is just straight up Keeblue cereal. No kellogg supporting act on the box.
This is Keebler's self titled album ofcereals. Um. So this is
not this is not their rumors.No, this is not their U No,
this is their this is their MetallicaBlack album. Um. They go
(12:58):
on to say much the same thingthat we've heard from other people. At
the end, the milk is adequatelychocolate ified and have some those little chocolate
chips in the milk, which isa nice bonus. It's kind of a
weird case. It doesn't do anythingparticularly great. The chocolate could be stronger,
the pieces could be more distinct,it could taste a little more like
cookies. But at the same timeI found myself really enjoying it. I
killed the box in a few days, and I'll buy one, and it'll
(13:20):
be one I will buy again.So maybe I should give it a try.
If I weren't come across it,I will, I will, I
will buy a box and I willreport back. Okay, yeah, so
yeah, this is one that itcould be an interesting case study, could
be something that you know, Ididn't like. I didn't like the first
you know, eighty percent of myexperience, but there at the end it
really kind of tied everything together withthe leftover milk. Yeah, it's possible.
(13:43):
Yeah, So all right, Wellwe'll take a short break and we'll
be back to talk about another propertythat probably should have kept to itself,
Hello Kitty, And we're back.So Hello Kitty's Furry Tale Theater. First
(14:05):
off, did either of you seethe toys that made us episode about Hello
Kitty? Yes? No, okay, it's actually fairly interesting. And I
learned and Corey correct me if I'mwrong. This is where I learned it.
Hello Katy is not necessarily a cat. No it's not. It's a
little girl, a little girl dressedup as a cat. Yeah, I
(14:28):
really yea, yeah really no,I mean I've heard this, but we
gotta go that deep with it?Oh, yes we do. But it
doesn't really matter because Hello Katy's FurrytaleTheater really leaned into the cat aspect of
it, which we'll talk about.This show aired for thirteen episodes, well
(14:50):
thirteen episodes. In each episode consistedof two eleven minute segments, for a
total of twenty six total shows orepisodes. It ran from September nineteenth of
nineteen eighty seven to December twelfth,nineteen eighty seven. Only the one season
probably aired in syndication here and theresince then. But I remember hearing about
(15:11):
it, but I never saw anepisode. Did either of you have any
experience with this show before we decidedto discuss it here? Not a bit.
I have, like the vaguest ofrecollections. But with starting to watch
the episodes that I did, Ican't say that anything really came back to
me from before saying, well,other than the fact that you've seen Muppet
(15:35):
babies, and this is pretty muchto me. This came across as Muppet
babies light because they were always youknow, making play pertend using their imagination
or as Piggy called it, theirimaginations. Yes. So, Hello Kitty's
Furry Tale Theater was based on theJapanese character of Hello Katy, produced by
(15:56):
Deek Enterprises and animated by Toe Animation, which we talked about before. It
involves Hello Kitty and her friends andoccasionally her family, doing their own version
of popular fairy tales and stories,not necessarily always fairy tales. We'll talk
about it, and it was aspoof of a well known fairytale or a
movie. Some of the voice actors. Tara Cherandoff voiced Hello Kitty. I'm
(16:18):
not really familiar with a lot ofher work, but she's done a lot
of voice acting. Oh that's TaraStrongara Strong. Yeah, that was that
was her original name. Well whydid you call her Tara Strong here?
I'd clicked on her name as Iwas talking, and I was like,
oh, that's Tara Strong. Wellthat's because she was charond Off when she
recorded, so they wanted to keepit as precise as they could, right,
(16:38):
guess the good point. So TaraStrong we know from everything, Yes,
Batman, Teen Titans, Rugrats,Powerpuff Girls, fairly opparents. Yeah,
she's she's kind of a kind ofa legend. Yeah. Yeah.
Mamma Kitty was voiced by Elizabeth Hannah, who you may imagine is Hello Kitty's
mother. Papa Kitty voiced by LynnCarlson, who was a pitchman in Craft
(17:03):
for Craft in Canada. Yeah,in the seventies and eighties, and then
Elizabeth Hanna almost voice Grandma Kiddie.Grandpa Kiddie was voiced by Carl Bannis,
another Canadian actor who did a lotdid Actually he uh did some voice acting
for Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer,okay in nineteen sixty four. Yeah,
(17:25):
and he also did voices on TheRaccoons Do you guys ever see the Raccoons
cartoon? I don't think I did. It was a Canadian cartoon. I
only ever saw it on the DisneyChannel. It was something that they imported,
was about this group of raccoons,you know, lived in a tree
and everything, and they It waspretty standard cartoon, but there was there
was one that was like a Iwant to say, he wore a cape
(17:45):
and pretended to be a superhero.Okay, not very well. It's also
possible I'm getting that confused with Superted which is another Canadian cartoon about a
super teddy bear. Okay, yeahyeah, so yeah. Um Tuxedo Sam
was voiced by Sean Roberge, whowas also Canadian. My Melody was voiced
(18:07):
by Marion Bennett. Chip was voicedby Gnome Zilberman, who was an Israeli
born Canadian actor, and I definitelyheard him say sorry at one point,
all right, Katnip voiced by CreeSummer. I did not realize she had
done as much voice work as shehad done here has done a ton of
voice work. And I know herfrom a different world. She was who
(18:30):
was she on a different world?She was at Whitney. Um, you
know she was Freddie on a differentworld. Yeah, Freddie? Yeah,
and the woman who played Whitney.I think it was a one hit wonder
on the radio. Fangora was voicedby Denise Pigeon Grinder unfortunate name for a
(18:52):
henchman in this damage voice by GregoryMorton. And mounts Or, who you
don't meet until the very last episode, was voiced by Fred Savage. I
did not make it to the lastepisode. How many episodes did you both
make it through? The first one? Hum? I. I did not
(19:12):
really focus on whole episodes. Ijust did the individual story segments and yeah,
and I skipped around quite a bit. Um. So if we're going
by story segments, I watch,I'm looking at the list right now because
(19:32):
I lost count two three, okay, so four, so I'm going to
say the equivalent of two full episodes, okay, and that that was the
same for me. I watched thefirst episode the Wizard of Pause and Pinocchio
Penguin, and then I skipped aroundand I watched the Cat Wars episode because
of course at Star Wars. Yes, I watched. You watched two and
(19:55):
a half episodes. I also watchedcat Yula, which was based on Dracula,
and I also watched Crocodile Penguin becausethat was based on Crocodile Dundee,
which had come out the year before. So I was curious how they were
making that work. And I wantedto go and watch the last episode,
which was the year Scrooge nipswiped Christmasand the Phantom of the Theater. I
just did not have time before werecorded, so I did watch. I
(20:21):
watched. I did watch Phantom ofthe Theater. Okay, Yeah, that's
the only one that is the onlyone that does not take place in performance.
That episode ends or begins at theend of a performance, and everything
else happens backstage. Correct, Yes, okay, And I was disappointed.
I was really hoping that we wouldgo down into like the third sub basement
(20:42):
of the theater and find some characterwith the cape and the half mask in
the whole bit. Nope, nope. Oh that is not a truth in
advertising, not a bit. Soeach episode opens, not only we get
we get a preview of what's tocome, but it's all silent over with
(21:04):
music playing over it. Then wehave our one minute long opening sequence,
so we're a minute and a halfinto a twenty two to twenty three minute
episode before we get anything. Andthen of course you get the closing credits,
which were about what thirty seconds toa minute, So all in all,
as usual, we have about nineteento twenty minutes of actual program here.
(21:27):
And I was amazed at how theymade eleven minutes feel like a full
thirty minute episode. It was reallyimpressive. I was surprised that for being
the half episode segments of eleven twelveshminutes, that I was still feeling some
(21:48):
of those pacing, some of thosepacing issues, you know, I think
part of what it was for me, And Corey, tell me if you
felt this same way about this,especially the first episode. So we start
with the Wizard of Pause. It'sthe Wizard of Oz. Obviously, she
meets the all three, she meetsthe tin Woodsman, the cowardly rabbits in
this case, and I remember whatthe Scarecrow was going to be but she
(22:11):
meets him within like the first twominutes of the episode, right the house
lands and she meets all of them, and I thought, Okay, we're
just going to speed through this,and then it takes forever to get everything
done from that point on. SoI thought it felt like we were like
almost done with the episode or withthe story at least, and then they
stretched the rest of it. Isthat kind of what you felt, Corey,
(22:32):
Yeah, very much. So Okay, the other thing that I noticed
about that, And Olivia, ifyou didn't watch the episode, you want
to know this, But Corey,did you notice that? So in The
Wizard of Oz, she lands onthe house, lands on the Wicked Witch
of the East, and her sister, the Wicked Witch of the West,
shows up and wants her shoes.Right in this one, she just steals
(22:53):
the collar from the witch because she'slanded on top of the Wicked Witch of
the West, and Glenn, whoeverGlinda is, gives her this collar and
the Witch shows up and she getsout from under the house. She's like,
hey, gave him my collar back, and they're like, no,
basically finders keepers, So are wesupposed to be siding with the Finders Keepers
crowd. Oh absolutely at that age, Yeah, very much. And I
(23:17):
thought it was cute that that HelloKitty was called Hello Dorothy throughout the whole
episode. Yeah. The other thing, did you notice before the show started?
The cat what what's the cat's name? Steve cat Nip? She puts
something and I didn't I may havehis owned out. I forgot how this
(23:37):
paid off. But she puts somethingin the penguins dressing room. In the
penguins dressing room was all ice.It was like an ice cave. Yeah,
so I don't know. I thoughtthat was kind of cute. But
we get a lot of references tocats because it says like once upon them
meow is at the beginning of theshow, and they don't announce. We
don't get a title card for forthe segment. They just announced what it
is when they come out on stage. Um. And this is where I
(24:03):
learned that Chip does have a distinctCanadian accent because the actor is Canadian.
Um. And then I had toask, I think I mentioned before his
grinder really the best name for acharacter in a kid's cartoon. Well,
back then we also had the aidsweight loss system. So that's true,
hind I forgot about that, yikes. And so the next episode was was
(24:26):
Pinocchio at retailing a Pinocchio Pinocchio penguin, and I kind of z owned out
on that one. I was sortof fading in and out as I was
taking my notes because it just didn'thold my attention. Um, the cat
Wars episode. Did either of youwatch that one? No? I did?
Yeah, okay, Olivia, doyou remember what they called the C
(24:49):
three poum character? But let meask you this qory since you didn't watch
it. Yes, No. Threepo was played by a seal. So
if you were going to make aplay on that, what would you go
with? Seal three p exactly?That's what I would have gone with.
What did they go with? Seethree clo? That's so clunky, much
(25:14):
harder to say, not even asobvious, and clearly not as memorable because
I didn't catch it exactly. SoCorey, thank you for proving my point
for me. You got it.I did think it was funny that when
they met the ben Kenobe character,he said he had special powers given to
him by the fur and so theforce and uh, and I actually think
(25:38):
there were parts of this that Iactually really liked. So instead of the
cantina, they go in it's anice cream shop. I liked that.
Yeah, I thought that was adorable. Nine and thirty one flavors. Yes,
heaven forbid, we get too closeto Baskin Robbins, right. And
then there's another one that cop popsup and this guy pops up and like,
(25:59):
you know, tries to confront theLuke Skywalker character. You know,
he doesn't like your face or somethinglike that, and the b I don't
like how you hold your spoon,That's what it was. I don't like
a older spoon. Yeah. Idon't think he cut his arm off though.
In this one, No, helevitates ice cream up and dumps it
on the guy's head, right,yeah. Yeah. And and then of
(26:22):
course, of course, uh Catulaor not catch you a little bit.
Cat Nip is the Darth Vader character. I can't remember what they called her.
But I actually did really like theway that they had worked all the
Hello Kiddie stuff into the Star Warsmel you the look of everything, I
thought it was cute. Um.So there was also the did you watch
(26:45):
Olivia? Did you want to cracka love Ndee episode. I did not,
so I watched, um, pause, the Great White Dog Shark.
That's sort of a re telling ofASoP and the Andrew Clees and the Lion.
Right pause, The Great White DogShark. Yeah no, that's Jaws.
(27:07):
That's a really crappy right. Butif you doesn't find out that he's
mad because like he had something stuckin his fin or something, I thought,
oh, I don't maybe I madeMaybe I made that up. I
probably do mentally duced out by thatpoint. Okay, what else did I
see? Um? Tar Sam ofthe Jungle, and then I skipped down
(27:30):
to the end of the set forPhantom of the Theater. Okay, yeah,
um. TV Tropes says that thePaul's episode The Sharks aggression was prompted
by a fisher cut in his finand they pull it out and so he
befriends them. Oh yeah, allright, yeah, it's which again,
(27:51):
it's cute. Umu the tar SamI started, I was like, no,
I don't even like Tarzan enough toto find any of this amused.
But I did watch Crocodile Penguin becauseI just rewatched The Crocodile Donde trilogy recently,
like last month for the first timein probably twenty years. Okay,
and still fun, still fun.I'm one of those people that I actually
(28:12):
liked the third one quite a lot. I think it's horrible, but it
follows the plot of the film prettyclosely, but it adds this subplot where
kat Nip is playing like this NewYork boxing manager and Grinder is her prize
boxer, and they fly to Australiato challenge Crocodile Penguin because otherwise Grinder can't
(28:33):
be considered the toughest boxer on theplanet. That's not the story, I
know, but that's that's overlaid withthe story of Hello Kitty going to the
outback to to interview this character andthen bringing him back to New York.
And there's even a joke about thesuite and the hotel and everything where he
talks about how it's bigger than hishometown and everything. It's actually some of
(28:56):
the same dialogue from the movie.So I just thought it was odd that
just you forget how big of athing Crocodile Dundee was in the in the
mid to late eighties, because thatmovie was huge. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, And So the last oneI watched was Catula, and again that
(29:18):
one was adorable because Catullah, insteadof drinking blood, she drinks milk and
they bring in the crew brings ina bunch of milk, and so she's
trying to she has she tells herher minion to leave the windows unlocked so
she can get in and drink themilk. And they realize she's a vampire
because they took a picture of herwith a polaroid camera and she doesn't show
up in the photo, and admittedlyshe did look a little creepy in the
(29:41):
cape to me. So, Corey, you only made it through the one
episode, Olivia, were there anyepisodes that you saw, any segments that
stuck out to you was particularly cleveroverall or was it kind of like me
where there were just a couple ofthings you're like, Oh, that's that's
cute. I like that they didthat, but overall it just kind of
fell flat. It's more of thesecond. There were moments that they would
(30:03):
really do something cute and clever witha particular plot point or the way that
they cratified, or just you know, the Hello Kiddy universe in general applied
that to those characters in some kindof clever way. In general, though
(30:27):
that those little moments of cleverness weren'tenough to keep my patience and attention connected
all the way through a segment.Right. It kind of goes back to
what we were saying about the Keeblerserial a minute ago, that they put
a lot of thought into the overallconcept but didn't bother to follow through and
(30:49):
put it in an a whole lotof effort on the actual product itself.
Yeah, because again with the StarWars episode, there were certain things that
I thought were just adorable and kindof funny, Like they said the one
hundred and thirty one flavor thing.It was being an ice cream shop that
actually made me laugh, But thatwas pretty much the only thing. Yeah,
that's the shame. And with theWizard of Pause, you know,
(31:11):
the Wizard of Oz or the Wizardcouldn't drive the whatever the kink of the
vehicle was that the Wicked Witch wasdriving. I thought that was kind of
funny. But Corey, was thereanything in those first two episodes that made
you think that there was probably somethingmore to this? Or did you have
this It sounds like you had thesame experience that Olivia and I did.
Yeah, it was just it wascute, and I enjoyed some of the
animation, But no, I thinkit was all potatoes, no meat.
(31:37):
That's a good way to put it. Yeah, you know, speaking of
the animation, I thought this thisstyle looked like a rather than a Saturday
Morning cartoon. It looked like afirst run syndication cartoon that they were having
to crank out sixty five episodes ofseason four to me, did you find
that as well? Yeah? Yeah, I didn't find the animation particularly skillful.
(32:02):
I mean the voice acting with withyou know, we got some some
real pros here, but the characterswere voice wise, we're kind of indistinct
to me as well. Yeah,I could see that, with the exception
obviously of cat Nip and Grinder,right, But in the adults, yeah,
(32:22):
I guess so. Yeah, nineteeneighty seven. Though you'd think they
were, they were. I don'tknow, just I'm surprised because san Rio
protects this product so much, I'msurprised that they allowed such a I wouldn't
even call it subpar, it's justmediocre. Well, maybe this is the
reason that they have such a stranglehold on it now. That's true,
(32:45):
very true. Well, I thinkthe most disappointing thing for me beyond um,
I mean, other than finding outthe Hello Kiddie isn't actually a cat.
Well, I've known that for awhile now. I still think that's
stupid, Like, really, dowe have to go that deep it's a
(33:06):
damn cat? Just can it justbe a cat because it's a cartoon,
so it can just be a catbecause it's fiction. Where's the point on
that? Stupid anyway? So Iwas I think the most bothered by the
(33:29):
quantity of liberties they were taking withthe plot points. Okay, so rather
than retelling the story, they werereally they were adjusting it to fit a
the run time and be what theyviewed as the unsophisticated audience. Kind of
is that kind of what you mean? I know, even if they thought
(33:50):
that they were modifying it in away that was better for young children,
you could still find clever, intelligentways to modify these stories but still feel
like you're at least including your majorplot points, whereas with the crocodiles on
(34:15):
d episode that you watched that wasa complete total departure the only day it
was an overlay. Yeah, likeI said, they told the same story
with fish out of Water and allthat stuff that they added this, yeah,
this weird boxing subplot that didn't Yeah, I didn't have anything to do
with anything, and I assumed itwould exactly otherwise they wouldn't have had a
(34:36):
thing for their antagonist to do.And it's hard because a movie like Crocodile
and d is really a story aboutits character driven story. It's not so
much plot driven, and there's nota strong antagonist in it. And for
a kids show, I guess itwould be a little tough to pull that
off in eleven minutes. At thesame time, though, look how both
(34:58):
Muppet Babies so often took fairy tales, movies, um, some kind of
historic event and found a way towork with it, put their spin on
it, and make it so muchmore entertaining and engaging. Today it's I
mean, you know, we Ihave Muppet Babies on Blue Ray and I
(35:21):
still watch it to this day andit's still fun. Yeah. And like,
here's a mid to late nineties pullum Wishbone from PBS. Yes,
Wishbone was a fabulously produced show anddid not And now, granted they're probably
aiming a little bit more toward um, I would say upper adolescent into middle
(35:49):
school perhaps, but young kids couldstill watch that, and they would still
find a way to handle material inthe plots of those novels that they were
retelling in a way that was kidfriendly inaccessible. So they didn't shy away
from heavier stuff. They just founda gentle way, you know, to
(36:16):
approach it. Right. So,granted this being for young children, okay,
but I mean if you're taking likea huge concept like Star Wars and
reducing it down into an eleven minuterun, there should be no like dead
(36:38):
gaps of story in there. Thereshould be no pacing issues, right because
it's yeah, it's not like you'vegot a lack of content to work with.
Yeah, absolutely right. Yeah,And when she goes back to what
we've we talked about with a lotof these shows from the seventies, even
the sixties, really sixties up throughthe eighties, is that the writing was
(37:00):
just so lazy that when you hadto show light Muppet Babies that came along,
and a couple of others we've talkedabout that the writing was just really
on point. They put a lotof thought into it. They cared about
the audience. They didn't want totalk down to the kids. We talked
about it, you know, recessand fillmore, which we all like to
varying degrees, but still the writingwas still pretty strong. I felt like
(37:23):
for both of those. And Idon't understand why in the eighties, especially
the late eighties, like this isthey're not putting a little more thought into
it, putting a little more effortinto it. Why they thought we'll just
dump this out and it'll be fine. Yeah, I don't know, So
I take it we're not going tobe revisiting Hello Kitty fur retail theater.
(37:45):
H No. I mean, ifyou've got a huge fan of one of
the many very memorable core faery talesor intellectual movie properties that they hit,
(38:07):
Okay, it's eleven minutes of yourlife and now you can say that you've
seen this other thing Dracula related thatthey somehow managed to do with Hello Kitty.
I mean, it's if you're ahuge ET fan, or you're a
huge you know, Josh fan,it's eleven minutes to just you know,
(38:30):
hey, see what they did withthis intellectual property. That won't hurt you,
but you will not find yourself motivatedto watch more. Agreed, I
would have to stay the saying,so all right, I guess that will
do it then, So, folks, we'd love to hear your thoughts on
it. If you have some funmemories of Hello Kitty fur retail theater,
we'd love to hear it. Youknow what, it will be a good
(38:52):
I think next time we'll kind ofstay in this vein and we'll jump back
and we'll talk about alf tails nexttime, which was sort of the same
concept. So we'll talk about thatnext folks, and we'll kind of compare
and contrast. So next time we'lltalk alf tails and we'll find another serial
to go with it. But we'dlove to hear your thoughts on it.
So I to the Facebook page andlet us know. And if you have
(39:14):
a good excuse and a reason asto why Hello Kitty is not just a
cat, we'd love to hear thattoo. Olivia was she will debate that
with you. This might be thatmeme with that guy sitting at the card
table in the park. Prove mewrong. It proved me wrong. Prove
me wrong, Kelly, Yeah,Hello Kitty could just be a cat.
(39:37):
No one cares. Prove me wrong. Can get happen, folks. Yeah,
bring it all right. So we'llbe back next time to discuss alf
tails and a serial to be namedlater, but until then, for the
Saturday Morning super Castime Jeffrey and I'mOlivia and uh, it's almost time for
(39:57):
college sports, so let's put thesedishes away and let's go play something outside.
But no, let's not put ona show. Okay. Thank you
for listening, and don't forget tofollow the show on Facebook It's Saturday Morning
Supercast and follow at Marvin Dog Mediaon Twitter m M
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