August 8, 2023 • 46 mins
We have a bit of a different cereal discussion this time out as we discuss whether Heartwise deserved all the legal obstacles it had to deal with based on the name and the marketing. Trust me, it's more fun than it sounds. Also fun is our cartoon, ALF Tales! See our favorite Melacians tell some earthbound stories from our past!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:07):
It's time to PLoP down in frontof the TV and the way back machine
with the bowl of your favorite cerealto relift the cartoons that made it worth
waken up early on the weekend.It's the Saturday Morning Supercast. Hello,
(00:31):
and welcome to the Saturday Morning Supercast, where it's always Saturday morning and the
cereal bowl is always full. I'mJet, I'm Corey, and I'm Olivia,
and folks, we've got a realbanger of a show for you today,
as we always do. We're gonnawe're gonna keep the Alf train rolling.
We talked about Alf the animated seriesrecently, and over on the pilot
(00:53):
episode, we're discussing Alf the sitcom, the live action sitcom, so you
can head on over there pretty soonand hear that as well. So it's
just alf tastic around here. We'regonna be talking about Alf tails in the
spirit of Hello Kitty, Furry TaleTheater and Muppet babies and everything else that's
it's let's put on a show,yeah, and we're going to talk a
(01:14):
little bit about what went on there. But first I wanted to have a
discussion with you guys about heart WiseCereal, which I had heard of,
and the box looked familiar and everything. It's a it's a Kellogg cereal that
came out in nineteen eighty nine,which is right around the time that alf
Tails was on, and it waspulled from shelves at least in Texas in
nineteen ninety. It wasn't nextially pulledfrom shelves, it was just embargoed.
(01:40):
It wasn't allowed to be distributed afterlike September of nineteen ninety. Either of
you have any recollection of Heartwise cerealat all? Not a bit, not
a drop, nothing, not adrop. Okay, So it's just me.
I paid more attention to commercials apparentlywhen I was I think we all
know how much more TV than anybodywhen I was a kid. So okay.
(02:00):
Well, So Heartwise was a cereal, a brand cereal that contained cilium,
which was also used in laxatives andin meta musil, but was also
promoted as being good for cholesterol,and this started a big problem. In
(02:23):
September of nineteen ninety, it wouldthe Heartwise cereal was barred by Texas because
they claimed they claimed that cilium causedallergic reactions in people akin to peanut butter
or shellfish or peanuts are shellfish andkellog has disputed this. Uh. Texas
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did not force them to pull Heartwisefrom shelves, but they caused them to
not be distributed. Well, itwould a big slap, a big slapped,
a big red letter on them thatsaid, um, it said something
like I do not sell, donot stock under under penalty of law,
or something like that, detain,do not remove under penalty of laws.
(03:05):
What it said, right, Anda few months later, in July of
nineteen ninety one, Kelloggs then announcedthat it was changing the name from Heartwise
Cereal to fiber Wise. So apparentlythe big complaint and the big fear was
that the fact that they called itheartwise would lead people to believe that it
would ward off heart disease and highcholesterol. Right, and health officials in
(03:31):
several states pulled the cereal off shelves, saying the package falsely implies that the
cereal can prevent heart disease. Heartwisecontains a grain cilium proven to reduce cholesterol,
but not necessarily with the amounts ina bowl of the cereal. And
I mean, it's got to bepretty bad for them to pull a cereal
off the shelves exactly, but Icannot find anything where Kelloggs specifically said this.
(03:54):
They're just basically talking about the name, the fact that it was called
heartwise. So where do you guysfall on this? On this, I'm
curious because I feel like it's kindof an overreach. But we'll discuss why
it maybe wasn't in a bit.But I'd like to hear your your opinions
on it, Olivia, how doesthat sit with you? Oh, it's
(04:15):
it kind of is in a grayspace for me. UM. Having spent
so much time with my grandparents andmy grandmother's constant quest for the fiber yst
fiber cereal possible Yes, UM withher her fiber one, which, as
I've mentioned before, my grandfather lovinglycalled goat food. UM. She did
(04:42):
not like that joke either. UM. So, I mean I understand the
value of fiber. That's not anissue UM, and silium is a very
UM effective te type of fiber.UM. We said a podcast that I
(05:03):
listened to just talked about UH ciliumand other UM fiber products as as UM
as a health aid. If youwill, what was the name of the
podcast and listen in case anyone elsewants to partake. Wow. Um,
well, because I'm a huge fanof the whole McElroy family of products.
(05:27):
This was saw Bonds. Okay,those bunch of hacks. Come on,
what have they ever done that's beenworth a while talking about? We now
have it, Jeff are on theirpodcast outside of ours. Well, I
know, but when you record fora week, you don't really have a
whole lot of time to listen toothers. I have no idea. You
(05:51):
ever heard of the related Adventure hour? Yes, my brother, my brother
and me. No, m wellthey're both the mclroy brothers and okay,
okay, so I was thinking ofthe golfer royclroy. No, no,
no, no, no, ohno, honey, no, back out
(06:12):
of the ditch and continue please,and we keep it between the lines.
Um So anyway, but part ofthe point of Sawbones is to kind of
debunk ways that people have tried toum live a healthy lifestyle or um various
like cure alls and fads um.And on top of that, the ineffective
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treatments of early medicine back before wereally had an understanding of the human body
and how it works. So therethey there's a whole episode based around various
like fiber products, and um,yes, like fiber can impact uh some
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your cholesterol, but like by singledigit points, like not, you know,
not enough to to say like,well, Jim, you can come
off that medication. No no,no, no, no, that's not
how that works. And yes,fibers is good for digestive and colon health.
Sweep that baby clean. But it'syou know, it's it's not a
(07:27):
cure all. It's not like somekind of golden you know, put it
on a pedestal type of substance.So, I mean, like I understand
people feeling frustration too that um,when we were getting into the eighties and
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people were trying to start making somemore health conscious choices with their lifestyle,
not just you know, with food, but finally publicly embracing like smoking is
bad and nicotine is addictive. Solike, I understand people being been out
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of shape by a product that labeldidn't really live up to some pretty lofty
claims. Yeah I get that aswell. Corey. What about you?
How do you how do you fallon this one? You know, anything
outside of cheerios that is for yourhealth I have no knowledge of, and
I've always kind of been on themind that if you're invested in cereal,
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you don't necessarily have your finger onthe health pulse. You'd probably go with
an oatmeal or you know, somethinglike that. But um no, I
would say if heart health is youknow in the in the title so much
and there's not much to that,I'd say they're probably right and pulling it
from the shows. Now, I'mnot sure that should have had the huge
(09:01):
brew haw that a company that butyeah, so so, even though like
I said, I can't find anythingon any of the packaging that that makes
a claim that it is, youknow, will prevent heart disease. I
get where you're coming from. Andhere's twenty years ago, even ten years
ago, even yesterday, I wouldhave said the exact I would have said
(09:24):
the exact ops like, you knowwhat, it's sort of buy or beware
if you're if you if you're gullibleenough to think it's called heart wise,
it must be good for my heart. That's all I need to do.
Then I would say that that's onyou. However, I remembered a friend
of ours, Corey from Sack inParis, who thought that he could eat
(09:48):
an entire box of snack Wells cookiesand not gain weight because they were fat
free? Was this Mike? No, No, I I'm not gonna say
the person's name on the Mica.I haven't. I haven't talked to him
in years. But um, thisparticular person I thought was fairly intelligent,
(10:09):
and he told me that, andI said, wait, you hit the
whole box. Yeah, yeah,it's fat free. I was like,
yeah, but it's still got caloriesand you know, cholesterol and all sorts
of stuff in it. Right,it does. Plus we're leaving out the
fact though, Jeff, those snackwalls were so good. No, they
were. I did not fault himfor eating the whole thing. I faulted
(10:30):
him for eating the whole thing becausehe thought he wouldn't gain any weight.
So those those little Devil's food ones, that's exactly what it was, That's
exactly what it was. So good. Yeah, I would, I would
mess up about a sleeve of himright now. But did they still make
those? Yeah? I think so, I think yeah, Okay, I
got ahead of the store. Umum. But so so that's why I
(10:56):
just have to remember that, justbecause most of the people in my orbit
are of above average knowledge in thisarea, that means that half of the
country is below that, you knowat least, and I guess I see
where they're coming from. And Ia fiber wise is probably a better name
(11:18):
for it. But I just itirritates me that we have to spell things
out so much because common sense isso uncommon, you know, like you
said that they say that, youknow cheerios. I eat honey nut cheerios
partly because I like it and partlybecause it has been shown to help lower
(11:39):
cholesterol. But I know that that'snot all I have to do. I'm
not going to come off of mycholesterol medication. I'm not going to stop
exercising, but I'm going to makethese choices that will help sure. And
yeah, I just I hate thatwe have to play to the lowest common
denominator. Yeah, I get that. I know, a heart white cereal
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I would assume tasted much like brandflakes or wheaties or something like that.
As we're all reaching the age wherewe need to start thinking about fiber,
is that something that you're taking considerationwhen you are buying cereal on a regular
basis. I don't think anyone's arereally not really, No, But then
(12:24):
it's also so rare that during aschool year, I have time in the
morning to actually eat a bowl ofcereal. True, that's very true.
I'm usually having to take like somekind of portable breakfast that I can nuke
and eat at my desk in themorning as I'm getting started. Okay,
good to know, Good to know. So that brings me to the way
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we market the way cereals have beenmarketed to kids for all of our lives.
Do you think that the cereal companieshave an obligation even though the kids
are the ones asked for the serial, the parents are the ones making the
final decision. Do you feel likethe serial companies have an obligation to not
(13:09):
be at all misleading in any oftheir claims? I feel like yes,
but how impaired? How important doyou think it is for the serial companies
to to not trust that adults knowbetter? I don't know. Again,
on the mind or if you're eatingcereal, you're kind of throwing caution to
(13:31):
the wind. You're kind of losingany any any arguments, So I don't
necessarily get that you had to tellI mean, yes, be truthful with
the ingredients, but you know peoplearen't reading the ingredients and just solely going
off of the cover of the boxkind of more fool them, right,
(13:54):
true. I mean I will givepeople the benefit of the doubt because this
series coming out in the time thatit did. I mean, we're we're
talking what thirty years ago, umand gosh. I mean, while I
would hope that the American consumer hasbecome a little more you know, sharp
(14:18):
and savvy, savvy observant. Let'slet's call this duck a duck. They
probably haven't. It's true, we'veseen that in our public discourse. Oh
yeah. So I'm thinking, andI'm thinking specifically of things like I'm remembering
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our friend Brian arguing with his dadabout not wanting to eat his cereal as
quickly as his dad wanted him to. And it was cookie crisp cereal and
Brian said to his dad, butDad, it stays crispy and milk.
And I said to him, Um, I feel like any cereal is going
to get soggy after a certain point. And he argued with me. But
(15:01):
of course, as we all know, I was right on that one.
And so I'm trying to figure outwhy it is that some of us are
savvier about that sort of thing thanothers, right, And I'm guessing that
I don't know what the answer tothis is, but I just feel like
(15:22):
we all need to take a littlemore responsibility for what we're putting into our
bodies. But I also think thatKelloggs probably did make a misstep here by
calling it heart wise, but Iunderstand that there was probably no intention to
mislead. Sure, yeah, yeah, I get I would have to think.
(15:46):
As far as I know, it'snot on the shelves any longer,
so fiber wise was not a changethat took off. So I don't know
about that, But I think Ifind it interesting that that Corey that that
you you don't think of cereals asa as a valid option for somebody who's
trying to stay healthy because there areso many cereals out there that are healthy.
(16:08):
Or is that just sort of ablanket, that something that you're just
for yourself. I don't know howdoes that work. I mean, mostly
with folks when you hear me talk, I'm speaking for myself en general populace.
But yeah, I don't eat cerealto be healthy. I eat cereal
to put something in my stomach.At the beginning of the day, and
I figure it's a lot cheaper thanblack Tar heroine and the probably more filling.
(16:32):
I would imagine as well, you'venever had black Tar heroine, my
friend. This is true, Thisis true. If you had, that's
what you should be. No.For me, it's just I'm still a
kid at heart, so I likethe sugar sweet this stuff. And Shane,
yes, I'll do cheerios every nowand then, but if I do
cheerios, I'm going to sprinkle aspoonful of sugar over the top. Oh
(16:53):
same, same, yeah, regularcheerios. I can't eat regular cheer ereos
anyway. I don't know that I'vetold that story on the show, and
I won't because it's kind of depressing. But I will share it with you
guys offline about why I don't likeregular cheerios, but um, honey nut
cheerios, I will I will missup a bowl. Oh yeah, yeah,
Olivia, what about you? AndI know, you know, like
(17:15):
in the summers when you're doing mostof your serial consumption, are you giving
any thought at all to nutrition oris it just hey, this this is
on sale or this this sounds goodto me right now? Honestly, it's
all of those things. It's what'sthe last box that I bought? And
if that's a super sugary box,should I maybe mitigate this with something that's
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a little more grown up? Then? Also, what's on sale? Do
I have a coupon? Is therea store brand? Does it come in
a bag for better value? Soit's really just kind of a hodge hodge
of all of those things. Gotchamade in made in twenty seconds staring at
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a big wall of boxes while I'min that aisle, right, yeah,
And it's same for me. Iusually I'll get a hankering for something that
I haven't had in a while,and I'll go get a box and usually
by the time I get halfway throughthe box, I'm like, yeah,
I'm done with that for now,and then it sits there for a year.
I'm sad to say, Yep,it happens to the best of us.
Yep sometimes. Right. So,now that we've had that discussion and
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we talked about buyer beware and youknow, should the manufacturer be responsible for
the content that our children are consuming, let's take a short break and come
back and talk about alf tails,discuss if it was indeed responsible programming to
our children. Absolutely not all right, So alf Tales for those of you
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that don't know or that don't remember, we talked about this a little bit
when we talked about alf The animatedseries. Alf Tales was a spinoff of
Alfhi Animated series. It aired onNBC from September tenth of nineteen eighty eight
to December ninth of nineteen eighty nine, so just over a year. That
consisted of two seasons totally twenty oneepisodes, which they obviously ran, you
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know, ad nauseum. The premiseof the show is that the characters from
Alpha Animated Series would play various charactersfrom different fairy tales, and not only
just fairy tales, sometimes just storiesthat we know. We'll talk about some
of those. The fairy tale.It was a parody that was usually altered
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for comedic effects, sort of likesome people liking it to Jay Ward's Fractured
fairy Tales, although I think Fracturedfairy Tales is much funnier. Spoilers,
but the episodes were performed in thestyle of like a the company, with
an ensemble cast, where each eachof the characters from Alpha Animated Series would
play a different character within the storyeach week, and the other characters were
(20:12):
usually Gordon and Rond that would takethe leading male and female roles, and
the other characters were cast according totheir characteristics. A lot of the stories
spoofed a film genre, such asthe Cinderella episode is presented like an Elvis
Presley film and the leged to SleepyHollow is set up like a film in
their very much like a double indemnity, you mean. Some of the episodes
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featured an effect where the fourth wallwill be broken, where Gordon's backstage preparing
for the episode, and Rob Callen, who was a TV executive, would
appear, introducing himself as Rob Callen, Roger Roger Callen, TV TV executive
who tries to brief Gordon and howto improve the episode. For instance,
he once told Gordon, who wasreadying from an evil themed episode, that
less than two percent of our audiencelives in the dark ages. And that's
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a pretty fun joke. It's avery late eighties early nineties joke. Reminds
me a lot of the stuff youwould hear on like animaniacs or freakazoids.
Some of the stuff that was comingout from Warner brothers at the time.
Sure I could see that. Yeah, And the cast is the exact same
cast from out the animated series.You had Paul Fusco voicing Alf tap At
the Saint Germain voicing both Augie andRhonda, Peggy Mahon voicing Flow, Thick
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Wilson voicing Larson Petty, and BobDan Hennessy is Sloop, Rob Cowan again
is Skip. Ellen Ray Hennessy isStella the Waitress. Gnomes Zilberman is Curtis
for nineteen eighty eight, and MichaelFantinis Curtis in nineteen eighty nine, and
then the rest would be filled outby you know, those people or others.
I remember watching this when I wasa kid and really really enjoying it
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when it came out in nineteen eightyeight. So I would have been like
eleven years old going on twelve whenthis came out, and I think I
was at just the right age toget most of the references. Some of
them, obviously we're going to goover my head, but I at least
got that they were referencing something,and I just thought it was hilarious.
Did either of you watch this whenit aired originally? I don't think I
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did, because as I was doingthe reading and watching the first episode,
I didn't feel like stuff was comingback to me like I so often have
with the different shows we've watched.I think for me, I actually thought
that ALF Tails was kind of mixedin with the ALF cartoon because when I
was watching the first two, SleepingBeauty especially, kind of triggered something in
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my mind that I had seen thembefore. So I kind of think that
I just lumped it all together.Okay, I could. I could see
that. Yeah, Okay, soyou probably did watch it, you just
don't remember it apart from ALF theAnimated series, right, Okay, you
know, And we talked about itwhen we talked about ALF the Animated Series
that I really thought that concept wasgood, and I think this is an
(22:53):
interesting concept. I was just surprisedbecause we talked about Hello Kitty Furytail Theater
a little bit ago. I wassurprised that these all aired within like a
year of one another, and tryingto figure out what was happening in nineteen
eighty seven eighty eight, where thiswas sort of the way to go.
Who knows, Yeah, who knows? I guess it's, you know,
one of those things where everybody hasthe same idea at one time, you
(23:15):
know, Deep Impacted, arm Againcame out the same year and things like
that. Yeah, yeah, AndI will say if you aren't at all
interested in watching, all of theepisodes are available on Amazon Prime through free
v so you can watch it withcommercials, but the commercials are very unobtrusive,
just like they are on the othershows that we've talked about. From
there some of the episodes. Iwatched the robin Hood episode, and I
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watched the leged to Sleepy Hollow,and then I skimmed through a few others.
Olivia, how many did you?Were you able to watch in prep?
I just watched robin Hood? Okay, Corey, how about you?
I watched the first three robin Hood, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. Did
any of those stand out to youas working better than any of the others?
(24:04):
I think the robin Hood one Ienjoyed the most out of the three.
The second one I was actually kindof sad that they didn't make Gordon
play it as a girl. Ithink that would have been a lot funnier,
But it was still fine. Youknow, I see where you're coming
from, But I kind of thinkit was a way to turn it on
(24:25):
its head where he had to besaved by a princess. Sure, and
I could see that as well.Yeah, and that also, I believe
has some references to Lord of theRings in it as well, which I
would not have gotten at the time. So I need to go back and
watch that one as well. AndCinderella was the eldest one. And were
there songs in that one that youremember? Hm, Nope, I do
(24:45):
not. Okay, All right,well I watched it like a couple of
weeks ago, so right, gotcha. Well, the robin Hood episode,
I agree with you. It wasa lot of fun. I just kind
of was expecting them to do morewith it, to like spruce it up
a little bit. You know.It's a pretty bid the numbers retelling of
(25:06):
the robin Hood story with some modernjokes sprinkled in. And I think that's
what I was kind of let downby with that one. Certainly a modern
sensibility or a modern back then.But I did like it. It was
he opens it up by saying itwas a time when men were men and
women were glad of it yep,which made me laugh. And I like
the bit where Rick shows up wearingthe wrong costume, like every single time
(25:27):
he's in just the wrong era costume, right, which I thought was a
really funny bit. But I didfind and I'll see interesting to see if
you guys thought this. I thoughtthe pacing was very similar to other eighties
cartoons. Sure, I just beatup a little bit, but still very
very slow and deliberate. And Ithink it's the voice acting. The rhythm
(25:48):
of the speech is slow. Didyou guys find that? M And I
don't think that I noticed that inparticular. Yeah, I don't think I
thought of it that way, Butthat's totally plausible because like Alf typically as
a character has never struck me asthat kind of zippy, fast talking eighties
(26:11):
kind of guy, right, Yeah, and he and he is. But
again, the speech pattern, likewithin the lines is actually pretty slow.
And I don't know if it's becausethey were trying to enunciate. I just
don't know, but I can't putmy finger on it. But it did
seem like a tickler. And Ithink you know what I think it is.
(26:33):
I reference Family Guy a lot andFamily Guy. You know, usually
once a season or so, we'lldo one of those episodes where they do
like three vignettes, right, andthey've done several that were, you know,
based on fairy tales, so thosebeing you know, seven minutes long,
they're able to get through the wholestory so quickly that it just seems
like these seems so stretched because they'respending twenty minutes on it. Okay,
(26:59):
And maybe that's what I'm responding to. A leeged to Sleepy Hollow. I
thought was a really good example ofwhat I was expecting from the show because
it was it was more of afilm in the WIR that takes a lot
more liberties with it. They've updatedthis to the modern era. He's on,
but he's on the twentieth century Limitedtrain, which is a reference not
many kids would ever get even backthen. Yeah, I would say so,
(27:23):
Yeah, Nillery's not guided is becausethere's a play called on the twentieth
Century. Yeah, it's about thetrain. But he's he's in like New
York. Sleepy Hollow is basically NewYork City in this one. And he
goes to the Van Tassel building becauseBalta's Van Tassel was like a newspaper magnate.
Okay, and he's like a photojournalistinstead of a teacher here and his
(27:47):
boss puts him on the story ofthe Headless Horseman and he's going to be
working with this big Brahm is abig, hulking reporter, right. And
Katrina is still Van Tassel's daughter,but she's his secretary, and of course
she is all into uh Ichabod playedby Gordon, even though Brahm is into
her. And Katrina is almost kindof a fim fatale in this one,
(28:10):
which I really liked. Yeah,but they change the cadence of the story,
whereas Robin Hood, you know,we talked about it. I feel
like it's pretty by by the numbers, you know, point eight to point
b two point see, you geteverything in there. You know, made
Marian Friar tuck the you know himgoing in disguise and you know, winning
the archery contest and all of that. Did Did Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella kind
(28:33):
of do the same thing, Coreyor did they? Did they mess with
the story a little bit on thosethat you recall. Sleeping Beauty is pretty
much I guess you'd say, bythe book, other than being gender flipped,
right, other than being gender flippedand yes Cinderella. Um, they
just kind of did their own thing. I think they don't really. The
only thing that they kept so muchwas, you know, the core storyline
of the fairy godmother giving her awish, but it was a wish that
(28:57):
he can't refuse to the whole godfatherthings. So yeah, okay, And
they used Marlon Brando as the Godfatherwhere the Godmother I mean, which was
kind of funny right, but itway wasn't Marlon Brander doing the voice?
Do you know did you recognize thevoice actor? I did not. Well.
I thought it was interesting because Ibelieve in that one the glass Slipper
(29:19):
comes into play because he and Cinderella, Gordon and Cinderella sing a duet that
like shatters glass, and so hehas to go a house to house searching
for the woman who can shatter glasswith her voice. Yep, okay,
the legers a sleepy hollow. They'vechanged the cadence a bit because Ikabad gets
hit with the Jack o'lanard after gettingchased by the horseman the first time.
(29:41):
After being threatened if he doesn't leavetown, he like the horseman actually talks
and actually threatens him, and thenwe find out at the end that both
Bram and Baltas have been playing thehorseman for career advancement, Brom trying to,
you know, juice up the story, and Baltas because he wants to
sell newspapers and didn't We find outthat the whole town at some point dresses
(30:02):
as a horseman at different times,but then at the end of the episode,
a real one actually does show up. So it's it's a pretty good
take. I thought it was areally interesting take on the story. And
I don't mind it. You knowthat that kind of, like I said,
that's kind of what I was expectingbecause you kind of assume that kids
know most of these stories, right, Yeah, true enough. Yeah,
(30:23):
So what did you think of thehumor in there? Did it work for
you or was it more of thesame kind of like it was with Alfhi
animated series, where it you kindof got where it was coming from,
but it just didn't hit for you. The ladder I saw, I saw
what they were doing, and Iimagine where I watched it in the eighties
as a kid, I probably wouldhave found it funnier than I did.
(30:45):
Okay, Olivia, what about you? True? And not all of the
humor ages as well as we aswe expect from properties from the eighties.
That's surprised there um purest me solittle tiny Olivia, who who usually had
(31:08):
her nose in a book at somepoint might have been annoyed with little like
you know, flips and tweaks andmodernizations of classic fairy tales like I'm I
can I'm very much imagine myself,like you know, talking to the screen
(31:29):
and saying like, that's not theright story. That doesn't happen, you
know, I can imagine myself beingperturbed about that. I'm reminded of when
when Pam took her daughter when shewas a kid to see the Percy Jackson
the Lightning Thief movie, and thewhole time all the kids said was they
changed that from the book. That'snot in the book. That's different than
(31:51):
the book. This was a badmovie, this wasn't just like the book.
Yep. There's still a lot ofadults who feel that way too.
Yep. Absolutely. And then youget a movie like a Harry Potter and
the what is it The Sorcerer's Stonewhen it is a pretty much paint my
numbers from the book. People complainabout that too. Yeah, hopefully Amazon
can fix that with their new series. Right. Um So, so,
(32:15):
Olivia, you you think as akid you would have been you would have
been annoyed by the changes as anadult, do they still bother you or
do you kind of are you kindof getting what they're coming from? Honestly,
they kind of still bother me.Okay, why is that? Um?
I think if you're gonna if you'regonna tell a tale, tell a
(32:36):
tale, like if you're going totell the story of I'm just gonna pick
something right now, the tortoise inthe hair, then tell the tortoise in
the hair, not you know,the tortoise with a jet pack in the
hair, or you know, um, when it comes to classical terature,
(33:00):
and especially stuff that's so iconic,whether that's a Hans Christian Anderson, an
ASoP, Mother Goose, whoever,a Brothers Grimm, actually gives some accurate,
you know, source material. Now, granted, especially Brothers Grim some
(33:20):
of those are a little dark,So I understand that needing to be kind
of smoothed over a little bit.I get that. But if if you're
setting out to tell that story,then that's that's the story. I would
want to hear not. Um notnecessarily something that's been put through some kind
(33:47):
of like eighties lens of spin.Did it bother you when theater theater companies
do Shakespearean plays in different time Um? No, actually it does not.
It's similar if similarly, if they'redoing something with um Similarly, if they're
(34:09):
doing something in a classical repertoire likea oh, I don't know, something
ancient Greek like take like an antigonyor something like that, Um no,
it doesn't bother me. And similarly, m I go to Dallas Opera a
(34:30):
lot. I've seen all of theirlast two seasons. It does not bother
me to see that repertoire put intoa modern context or set in a slightly
different time period. So why isthat? Okay? But what alf tails
are doing? It rubbed you thewrong way? Oh that's a good question.
(34:53):
Yeah, I'm sure we have thelisteners who feel the same way.
So I'm just that I'm just curious. Yeah, I bet, I bet.
I'm wondering if and I really honestlyhaven't thought about this before, but
I'm wondering if it's the particular materialthat m taking, material that's largely aimed
(35:13):
at children, but muddying up likethe plot or the characters. Maybe that's
what bothers me. Okay. Atthe same at the same time, when
you take Shakespeare and put it intoa modern setting, or you take like,
just a few weeks ago, Isaw Mozart's cocy Fantude, which should
(35:40):
be set in generically late sixteen,early seventeen hundreds m Italy, like most
most art, and like you knowum, and instead they set it in
like a late twenties early thirties countryclub instead. However, when they do
(36:07):
this, they if you're doing itright, should not be changing a single
word of the libretto, right,That does not alter your character. Your
characters do not alter. Literally,the only thing you are changing is the
(36:30):
maybe know the context of the sceneryaround you, but your character list,
your character descriptions, the plot,the motivation of the people on stage,
and every single word of the librettoor in the case of like Shakespeare,
of the book. None of thatshould be touched. Okay, So I
(36:52):
think I see the delineation here.You don't mind when they take the same
story and said it in a differenttime frame. What you mind is when
they muck with the story itself.Yeah. Yeah, because then I think
we're getting into issues where they're they'refutzing around with like the integrity of the
(37:14):
content. Okay, No, Iget that. Um, I just and
I understand it. But I guessto me again, you have to assume
this is not the first time thiskid has heard the rumpel Stiltskin story.
For instance. Um, and you'resetting it like a Dashal Hammett novel.
Gordon plays Sam Shovel private eye inthat one. Um, there's a caricat
(37:37):
and he's a caricature of Humphrey Bogardum, you're covering the same basic beats of
the story. You're just doing itin sort of a creative way. Um.
And I guess, yeah, whichI guess it is a kid.
My favorite version of rumpel Steltskan wasUm and Edwin worry illustrated version of it.
(38:02):
And if you're familiar at all withchildren's literature and Edwin Gorey, that
puts a very specific kind of almostdark visual twist on on that story.
Yes, but that's also absolutely appropriateto that story without having to change the
(38:25):
content. Agreed. Yeah, that'sI agree there. Yeah. So okay,
so I so I guess what I'mhearing is that you it's not that
you mind that they changed any ofthese, it's that you don't think the
changes I made were necessarily appropriate forthe material, or warranted or good quality
(38:46):
okay, a good quality of right. If they had done it better,
if they didn't what they did itbetter, it might have been a big
deal, right, Okay, Yeah, it was this. This comes off
of the flavor more of like somedudes named Dale sitting around a conference table
(39:07):
in the in the mid eighties.Everybody's chained smoking. Somebody's like it's some
kind of terrible um you know,IBM three eighty six pc and clacking on
a type on the keyboard and they'rethinking, you know, and they're having
(39:30):
a pitch session, like, youknow, well, what do I think
the kids would like nowadays? Whatdo you think is gonna get them?
Like? That's that goofy trope islike what pops in my brain with how
they make some of these changes.And I think that's one of the reasons
why I appreciate it. Um.I appreciated Wishbone because it was a more
(39:52):
accurate telling and that's fair. Andyou know what's funny and Corey tell me
if you agree with this, sinceyou watch three of the episodes, I
kind of feel like most of thejokes in here were they weren't necessarily keeping
kids in mind. I kind offeel like they were just jokes that the
writers themselves enjoyed. Yeah, Iwould probably go with that, And I'm
thinking specifically of an episode like theJohn Henry episode. John Henry is a
(40:15):
master chef with his TV show etGourmet E a t I E. Which
is a play on Eadie Gourmet,who was Steve Lawrence's wife, and Steve
Lawrence was big in the seventies.No kid in the eighties is going to
get that joke. No, nobody'snobody except a weirdo like me who watched
(40:36):
for me, yeah, a lotof old black and white movies and was
obsessed at a young age with FredAstern Ginger Rogers, and like kids like
me who are possibly born into thewrong decade, like I would have totally
got a Steven Eady joke, right, But it's your typical eighties kids.
(41:00):
No, No, you know,I mean like the summer, the summer
that new kids on the block justblew up and became huge the first day
of school coming back. I remembersitting at the lunch table and kids asking
(41:22):
me which one of the new kidsis your favorite? And I had absolutely
no idea who they were talking about, because I, oh, yeah,
I had spent the entire summer prettymuch in the car. My long story
(41:43):
short, my grandfather was hospitalized witha really serious heart issue, and so
we spent a huge amount of thatsummer in the car back and forth,
you know, going up to visithim in the hospital, which was a
solid forty five minutes away. Soit was a lot of time spent with
(42:05):
us, you know, with mysister and I in the car as kids,
listening to oldies, like most ofthe time that's what the radio was,
was was parked on, and soI spent a whole summer listening to,
you know, fifty sixty seventies music, And by then I could tell
you all about um like the Grassrootsand Three Dog Night and a bunch of
(42:37):
other random bands that, like,none of my friends would have heard of,
but all of their parents did.So I had to lie in the
moment and say I like them allbecause I didn't want to. I can't
choose, because I didn't want tojust you know, admit, who are
(42:58):
they? What are you talking about? And now after that I did,
I did, like listen to thepop station and listen to some new kids
and go, oh, okay,this, this is this is what they're
listening to. Gotcha right? Butfirst I was clueless, right, so
(43:21):
you you would have probably gotten jokeslike, um, for instance, the
elves and the shoemaker, it's saidin the village of Birkenstock. Yeah,
and then the Emperor's new clothes.There is a closed designer named benaton Esprie
and another one called Coco Kleine.M hmm, yeah, and he was
and they put out a line ofpants under the name guess who. So
(43:45):
yeah, it's it's stuff like thatthat I in Corey. I think.
I think you're right. I thinkthis is um. This was the writer's
room, just trying to make oneanother laugh. Probably so. They even
had a bit in snow Wet andthe Seven Dwarfs about an episode of Solved
Mysteries with Gordon as Robert Stuck.Yeah. I don't know. I think
(44:07):
some of that stuff I think iskind of funny. When I was a
kid, I would have thought itwas hilarious. The ones that I did
get. If that kind of humorwas just stuck in an episode with some
other normal modern plot, that wouldbe great, that wouldn't bother me at
all. For some reason, dropit into the middle of a classic fairy
(44:28):
tale set in the fourteen hundreds andfor something, and just it rubs me
the wrong way. What about inJack and the Beanstalk, where Gordon plays
Jack Bates, who is the sonof Norman just a soil the families because
his mother's motel business is going badly. I mean, who puts Hitchcock references
(44:51):
in a show for kids? Idon't know. So all right, so
it sounds like we're all kind ofon the same page with this. I
think I may have enjoyed it alittle more, like we all sort of
appreciate what they were doing. Sure, absolutely, maybe not on board with
the execution, right, Yeah?Is there enough there they'd either want of
you recommend anybody checking it out,or do you think it's skippable? I
(45:15):
think if you watch the other onethat we talked about, if you watch
the Alve cartoon, it's more thesame. I don't know that you necessarily
have to watch this one for allthe in jokes, right, yeah,
yeah, if you like that one, this is gonna be more of the
same. But again, it's onAmazon. You can watch it for free
even if you don't have Amazon Prime. It's on FREEV So I believe it.
(45:37):
Cop. I might see myself mscrolling through and catching just because of
like some specific references that they makeor people that they parody that are interesting
to me. I might, youknow, seek those out and see what
they do with those, um butnot something that I feel like I need
(45:59):
to the whole series and all rightcatch off. Well, there you have
the folks. Yeah, it's ait's a noble effort, but maybe maybe
I didn't quite stick the landing.So there you have, folks. So
we'd love to hear your thoughts onalf Tail, so head to the Facebook
page and let us know what youthink. Until next time for the Saturday
(46:19):
Morning Supercast, I'm Jeff, I'mCorey and Olivia and it looks like it's
time for college sports, so let'sturn off the TV and go outside.
Thank you for listening, and don'tforget to follow the show on Facebook It's
Saturday Morning Supercast and follow at MarvinDog Media on Twitter.
It's time to PLoP down in frontof the TV and the way back machine
with the bowl of your favorite cerealto relift the cartoons that made it worth
waken up early on the weekend.It's the Saturday Morning Supercast. Hello,
(00:31):
and welcome to the Saturday Morning Supercast, where it's always Saturday morning and the
cereal bowl is always full. I'mJet, I'm Corey, and I'm Olivia,
and folks, we've got a realbanger of a show for you today,
as we always do. We're gonnawe're gonna keep the Alf train rolling.
We talked about Alf the animated seriesrecently, and over on the pilot
(00:53):
episode, we're discussing Alf the sitcom, the live action sitcom, so you
can head on over there pretty soonand hear that as well. So it's
just alf tastic around here. We'regonna be talking about Alf tails in the
spirit of Hello Kitty, Furry TaleTheater and Muppet babies and everything else that's
it's let's put on a show,yeah, and we're going to talk a
(01:14):
little bit about what went on there. But first I wanted to have a
discussion with you guys about heart WiseCereal, which I had heard of,
and the box looked familiar and everything. It's a it's a Kellogg cereal that
came out in nineteen eighty nine,which is right around the time that alf
Tails was on, and it waspulled from shelves at least in Texas in
nineteen ninety. It wasn't nextially pulledfrom shelves, it was just embargoed.
(01:40):
It wasn't allowed to be distributed afterlike September of nineteen ninety. Either of
you have any recollection of Heartwise cerealat all? Not a bit, not
a drop, nothing, not adrop. Okay, So it's just me.
I paid more attention to commercials apparentlywhen I was I think we all
know how much more TV than anybodywhen I was a kid. So okay.
(02:00):
Well, So Heartwise was a cereal, a brand cereal that contained cilium,
which was also used in laxatives andin meta musil, but was also
promoted as being good for cholesterol,and this started a big problem. In
(02:23):
September of nineteen ninety, it wouldthe Heartwise cereal was barred by Texas because
they claimed they claimed that cilium causedallergic reactions in people akin to peanut butter
or shellfish or peanuts are shellfish andkellog has disputed this. Uh. Texas
(02:45):
did not force them to pull Heartwisefrom shelves, but they caused them to
not be distributed. Well, itwould a big slap, a big slapped,
a big red letter on them thatsaid, um, it said something
like I do not sell, donot stock under under penalty of law,
or something like that, detain,do not remove under penalty of laws.
(03:05):
What it said, right, Anda few months later, in July of
nineteen ninety one, Kelloggs then announcedthat it was changing the name from Heartwise
Cereal to fiber Wise. So apparentlythe big complaint and the big fear was
that the fact that they called itheartwise would lead people to believe that it
would ward off heart disease and highcholesterol. Right, and health officials in
(03:31):
several states pulled the cereal off shelves, saying the package falsely implies that the
cereal can prevent heart disease. Heartwisecontains a grain cilium proven to reduce cholesterol,
but not necessarily with the amounts ina bowl of the cereal. And
I mean, it's got to bepretty bad for them to pull a cereal
off the shelves exactly, but Icannot find anything where Kelloggs specifically said this.
(03:54):
They're just basically talking about the name, the fact that it was called
heartwise. So where do you guysfall on this? On this, I'm
curious because I feel like it's kindof an overreach. But we'll discuss why
it maybe wasn't in a bit.But I'd like to hear your your opinions
on it, Olivia, how doesthat sit with you? Oh, it's
(04:15):
it kind of is in a grayspace for me. UM. Having spent
so much time with my grandparents andmy grandmother's constant quest for the fiber yst
fiber cereal possible Yes, UM withher her fiber one, which, as
I've mentioned before, my grandfather lovinglycalled goat food. UM. She did
(04:42):
not like that joke either. UM. So, I mean I understand the
value of fiber. That's not anissue UM, and silium is a very
UM effective te type of fiber.UM. We said a podcast that I
(05:03):
listened to just talked about UH ciliumand other UM fiber products as as UM
as a health aid. If youwill, what was the name of the
podcast and listen in case anyone elsewants to partake. Wow. Um,
well, because I'm a huge fanof the whole McElroy family of products.
(05:27):
This was saw Bonds. Okay,those bunch of hacks. Come on,
what have they ever done that's beenworth a while talking about? We now
have it, Jeff are on theirpodcast outside of ours. Well, I
know, but when you record fora week, you don't really have a
whole lot of time to listen toothers. I have no idea. You
(05:51):
ever heard of the related Adventure hour? Yes, my brother, my brother
and me. No, m wellthey're both the mclroy brothers and okay,
okay, so I was thinking ofthe golfer royclroy. No, no,
no, no, no, ohno, honey, no, back out
(06:12):
of the ditch and continue please,and we keep it between the lines.
Um So anyway, but part ofthe point of Sawbones is to kind of
debunk ways that people have tried toum live a healthy lifestyle or um various
like cure alls and fads um.And on top of that, the ineffective
(06:40):
treatments of early medicine back before wereally had an understanding of the human body
and how it works. So therethey there's a whole episode based around various
like fiber products, and um,yes, like fiber can impact uh some
(07:00):
your cholesterol, but like by singledigit points, like not, you know,
not enough to to say like,well, Jim, you can come
off that medication. No no,no, no, no, that's not
how that works. And yes,fibers is good for digestive and colon health.
Sweep that baby clean. But it'syou know, it's it's not a
(07:27):
cure all. It's not like somekind of golden you know, put it
on a pedestal type of substance.So, I mean, like I understand
people feeling frustration too that um,when we were getting into the eighties and
(07:48):
people were trying to start making somemore health conscious choices with their lifestyle,
not just you know, with food, but finally publicly embracing like smoking is
bad and nicotine is addictive. Solike, I understand people being been out
(08:15):
of shape by a product that labeldidn't really live up to some pretty lofty
claims. Yeah I get that aswell. Corey. What about you?
How do you how do you fallon this one? You know, anything
outside of cheerios that is for yourhealth I have no knowledge of, and
I've always kind of been on themind that if you're invested in cereal,
(08:39):
you don't necessarily have your finger onthe health pulse. You'd probably go with
an oatmeal or you know, somethinglike that. But um no, I
would say if heart health is youknow in the in the title so much
and there's not much to that,I'd say they're probably right and pulling it
from the shows. Now, I'mnot sure that should have had the huge
(09:01):
brew haw that a company that butyeah, so so, even though like
I said, I can't find anythingon any of the packaging that that makes
a claim that it is, youknow, will prevent heart disease. I
get where you're coming from. Andhere's twenty years ago, even ten years
ago, even yesterday, I wouldhave said the exact I would have said
(09:24):
the exact ops like, you knowwhat, it's sort of buy or beware
if you're if you if you're gullibleenough to think it's called heart wise,
it must be good for my heart. That's all I need to do.
Then I would say that that's onyou. However, I remembered a friend
of ours, Corey from Sack inParis, who thought that he could eat
(09:48):
an entire box of snack Wells cookiesand not gain weight because they were fat
free? Was this Mike? No, No, I I'm not gonna say
the person's name on the Mica.I haven't. I haven't talked to him
in years. But um, thisparticular person I thought was fairly intelligent,
(10:09):
and he told me that, andI said, wait, you hit the
whole box. Yeah, yeah,it's fat free. I was like,
yeah, but it's still got caloriesand you know, cholesterol and all sorts
of stuff in it. Right,it does. Plus we're leaving out the
fact though, Jeff, those snackwalls were so good. No, they
were. I did not fault himfor eating the whole thing. I faulted
(10:30):
him for eating the whole thing becausehe thought he wouldn't gain any weight.
So those those little Devil's food ones, that's exactly what it was, That's
exactly what it was. So good. Yeah, I would, I would
mess up about a sleeve of himright now. But did they still make
those? Yeah? I think so, I think yeah, Okay, I
got ahead of the store. Umum. But so so that's why I
(10:56):
just have to remember that, justbecause most of the people in my orbit
are of above average knowledge in thisarea, that means that half of the
country is below that, you knowat least, and I guess I see
where they're coming from. And Ia fiber wise is probably a better name
(11:18):
for it. But I just itirritates me that we have to spell things
out so much because common sense isso uncommon, you know, like you
said that they say that, youknow cheerios. I eat honey nut cheerios
partly because I like it and partlybecause it has been shown to help lower
(11:39):
cholesterol. But I know that that'snot all I have to do. I'm
not going to come off of mycholesterol medication. I'm not going to stop
exercising, but I'm going to makethese choices that will help sure. And
yeah, I just I hate thatwe have to play to the lowest common
denominator. Yeah, I get that. I know, a heart white cereal
(12:03):
I would assume tasted much like brandflakes or wheaties or something like that.
As we're all reaching the age wherewe need to start thinking about fiber,
is that something that you're taking considerationwhen you are buying cereal on a regular
basis. I don't think anyone's arereally not really, No, But then
(12:24):
it's also so rare that during aschool year, I have time in the
morning to actually eat a bowl ofcereal. True, that's very true.
I'm usually having to take like somekind of portable breakfast that I can nuke
and eat at my desk in themorning as I'm getting started. Okay,
good to know, Good to know. So that brings me to the way
(12:45):
we market the way cereals have beenmarketed to kids for all of our lives.
Do you think that the cereal companieshave an obligation even though the kids
are the ones asked for the serial, the parents are the ones making the
final decision. Do you feel likethe serial companies have an obligation to not
(13:09):
be at all misleading in any oftheir claims? I feel like yes,
but how impaired? How important doyou think it is for the serial companies
to to not trust that adults knowbetter? I don't know. Again,
on the mind or if you're eatingcereal, you're kind of throwing caution to
(13:31):
the wind. You're kind of losingany any any arguments, So I don't
necessarily get that you had to tellI mean, yes, be truthful with
the ingredients, but you know peoplearen't reading the ingredients and just solely going
off of the cover of the boxkind of more fool them, right,
(13:54):
true. I mean I will givepeople the benefit of the doubt because this
series coming out in the time thatit did. I mean, we're we're
talking what thirty years ago, umand gosh. I mean, while I
would hope that the American consumer hasbecome a little more you know, sharp
(14:18):
and savvy, savvy observant. Let'slet's call this duck a duck. They
probably haven't. It's true, we'veseen that in our public discourse. Oh
yeah. So I'm thinking, andI'm thinking specifically of things like I'm remembering
(14:39):
our friend Brian arguing with his dadabout not wanting to eat his cereal as
quickly as his dad wanted him to. And it was cookie crisp cereal and
Brian said to his dad, butDad, it stays crispy and milk.
And I said to him, Um, I feel like any cereal is going
to get soggy after a certain point. And he argued with me. But
(15:01):
of course, as we all know, I was right on that one.
And so I'm trying to figure outwhy it is that some of us are
savvier about that sort of thing thanothers, right, And I'm guessing that
I don't know what the answer tothis is, but I just feel like
(15:22):
we all need to take a littlemore responsibility for what we're putting into our
bodies. But I also think thatKelloggs probably did make a misstep here by
calling it heart wise, but Iunderstand that there was probably no intention to
mislead. Sure, yeah, yeah, I get I would have to think.
(15:46):
As far as I know, it'snot on the shelves any longer,
so fiber wise was not a changethat took off. So I don't know
about that, But I think Ifind it interesting that that Corey that that
you you don't think of cereals asa as a valid option for somebody who's
trying to stay healthy because there areso many cereals out there that are healthy.
(16:08):
Or is that just sort of ablanket, that something that you're just
for yourself. I don't know howdoes that work. I mean, mostly
with folks when you hear me talk, I'm speaking for myself en general populace.
But yeah, I don't eat cerealto be healthy. I eat cereal
to put something in my stomach.At the beginning of the day, and
I figure it's a lot cheaper thanblack Tar heroine and the probably more filling.
(16:32):
I would imagine as well, you'venever had black Tar heroine, my
friend. This is true, Thisis true. If you had, that's
what you should be. No.For me, it's just I'm still a
kid at heart, so I likethe sugar sweet this stuff. And Shane,
yes, I'll do cheerios every nowand then, but if I do
cheerios, I'm going to sprinkle aspoonful of sugar over the top. Oh
(16:53):
same, same, yeah, regularcheerios. I can't eat regular cheer ereos
anyway. I don't know that I'vetold that story on the show, and
I won't because it's kind of depressing. But I will share it with you
guys offline about why I don't likeregular cheerios, but um, honey nut
cheerios, I will I will missup a bowl. Oh yeah, yeah,
Olivia, what about you? AndI know, you know, like
(17:15):
in the summers when you're doing mostof your serial consumption, are you giving
any thought at all to nutrition oris it just hey, this this is
on sale or this this sounds goodto me right now? Honestly, it's
all of those things. It's what'sthe last box that I bought? And
if that's a super sugary box,should I maybe mitigate this with something that's
(17:40):
a little more grown up? Then? Also, what's on sale? Do
I have a coupon? Is therea store brand? Does it come in
a bag for better value? Soit's really just kind of a hodge hodge
of all of those things. Gotchamade in made in twenty seconds staring at
(18:07):
a big wall of boxes while I'min that aisle, right, yeah,
And it's same for me. Iusually I'll get a hankering for something that
I haven't had in a while,and I'll go get a box and usually
by the time I get halfway throughthe box, I'm like, yeah,
I'm done with that for now,and then it sits there for a year.
I'm sad to say, Yep,it happens to the best of us.
Yep sometimes. Right. So,now that we've had that discussion and
(18:30):
we talked about buyer beware and youknow, should the manufacturer be responsible for
the content that our children are consuming, let's take a short break and come
back and talk about alf tails,discuss if it was indeed responsible programming to
our children. Absolutely not all right, So alf Tales for those of you
(19:03):
that don't know or that don't remember, we talked about this a little bit
when we talked about alf The animatedseries. Alf Tales was a spinoff of
Alfhi Animated series. It aired onNBC from September tenth of nineteen eighty eight
to December ninth of nineteen eighty nine, so just over a year. That
consisted of two seasons totally twenty oneepisodes, which they obviously ran, you
(19:26):
know, ad nauseum. The premiseof the show is that the characters from
Alpha Animated Series would play various charactersfrom different fairy tales, and not only
just fairy tales, sometimes just storiesthat we know. We'll talk about some
of those. The fairy tale.It was a parody that was usually altered
(19:47):
for comedic effects, sort of likesome people liking it to Jay Ward's Fractured
fairy Tales, although I think Fracturedfairy Tales is much funnier. Spoilers,
but the episodes were performed in thestyle of like a the company, with
an ensemble cast, where each eachof the characters from Alpha Animated Series would
play a different character within the storyeach week, and the other characters were
(20:12):
usually Gordon and Rond that would takethe leading male and female roles, and
the other characters were cast according totheir characteristics. A lot of the stories
spoofed a film genre, such asthe Cinderella episode is presented like an Elvis
Presley film and the leged to SleepyHollow is set up like a film in
their very much like a double indemnity, you mean. Some of the episodes
(20:37):
featured an effect where the fourth wallwill be broken, where Gordon's backstage preparing
for the episode, and Rob Callen, who was a TV executive, would
appear, introducing himself as Rob Callen, Roger Roger Callen, TV TV executive
who tries to brief Gordon and howto improve the episode. For instance,
he once told Gordon, who wasreadying from an evil themed episode, that
less than two percent of our audiencelives in the dark ages. And that's
(20:59):
a pretty fun joke. It's avery late eighties early nineties joke. Reminds
me a lot of the stuff youwould hear on like animaniacs or freakazoids.
Some of the stuff that was comingout from Warner brothers at the time.
Sure I could see that. Yeah, And the cast is the exact same
cast from out the animated series.You had Paul Fusco voicing Alf tap At
the Saint Germain voicing both Augie andRhonda, Peggy Mahon voicing Flow, Thick
(21:22):
Wilson voicing Larson Petty, and BobDan Hennessy is Sloop, Rob Cowan again
is Skip. Ellen Ray Hennessy isStella the Waitress. Gnomes Zilberman is Curtis
for nineteen eighty eight, and MichaelFantinis Curtis in nineteen eighty nine, and
then the rest would be filled outby you know, those people or others.
I remember watching this when I wasa kid and really really enjoying it
(21:44):
when it came out in nineteen eightyeight. So I would have been like
eleven years old going on twelve whenthis came out, and I think I
was at just the right age toget most of the references. Some of
them, obviously we're going to goover my head, but I at least
got that they were referencing something,and I just thought it was hilarious.
Did either of you watch this whenit aired originally? I don't think I
(22:07):
did, because as I was doingthe reading and watching the first episode,
I didn't feel like stuff was comingback to me like I so often have
with the different shows we've watched.I think for me, I actually thought
that ALF Tails was kind of mixedin with the ALF cartoon because when I
was watching the first two, SleepingBeauty especially, kind of triggered something in
(22:32):
my mind that I had seen thembefore. So I kind of think that
I just lumped it all together.Okay, I could. I could see
that. Yeah, Okay, soyou probably did watch it, you just
don't remember it apart from ALF theAnimated series, right, Okay, you
know, And we talked about itwhen we talked about ALF the Animated Series
that I really thought that concept wasgood, and I think this is an
(22:53):
interesting concept. I was just surprisedbecause we talked about Hello Kitty Furytail Theater
a little bit ago. I wassurprised that these all aired within like a
year of one another, and tryingto figure out what was happening in nineteen
eighty seven eighty eight, where thiswas sort of the way to go.
Who knows, Yeah, who knows? I guess it's, you know,
one of those things where everybody hasthe same idea at one time, you
(23:15):
know, Deep Impacted, arm Againcame out the same year and things like
that. Yeah, yeah, AndI will say if you aren't at all
interested in watching, all of theepisodes are available on Amazon Prime through free
v so you can watch it withcommercials, but the commercials are very unobtrusive,
just like they are on the othershows that we've talked about. From
there some of the episodes. Iwatched the robin Hood episode, and I
(23:41):
watched the leged to Sleepy Hollow,and then I skimmed through a few others.
Olivia, how many did you?Were you able to watch in prep?
I just watched robin Hood? Okay, Corey, how about you?
I watched the first three robin Hood, Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderella. Did
any of those stand out to youas working better than any of the others?
(24:04):
I think the robin Hood one Ienjoyed the most out of the three.
The second one I was actually kindof sad that they didn't make Gordon
play it as a girl. Ithink that would have been a lot funnier,
But it was still fine. Youknow, I see where you're coming
from, But I kind of thinkit was a way to turn it on
(24:25):
its head where he had to besaved by a princess. Sure, and
I could see that as well.Yeah, and that also, I believe
has some references to Lord of theRings in it as well, which I
would not have gotten at the time. So I need to go back and
watch that one as well. AndCinderella was the eldest one. And were
there songs in that one that youremember? Hm, Nope, I do
(24:45):
not. Okay, All right,well I watched it like a couple of
weeks ago, so right, gotcha. Well, the robin Hood episode,
I agree with you. It wasa lot of fun. I just kind
of was expecting them to do morewith it, to like spruce it up
a little bit. You know.It's a pretty bid the numbers retelling of
(25:06):
the robin Hood story with some modernjokes sprinkled in. And I think that's
what I was kind of let downby with that one. Certainly a modern
sensibility or a modern back then.But I did like it. It was
he opens it up by saying itwas a time when men were men and
women were glad of it yep,which made me laugh. And I like
the bit where Rick shows up wearingthe wrong costume, like every single time
(25:27):
he's in just the wrong era costume, right, which I thought was a
really funny bit. But I didfind and I'll see interesting to see if
you guys thought this. I thoughtthe pacing was very similar to other eighties
cartoons. Sure, I just beatup a little bit, but still very
very slow and deliberate. And Ithink it's the voice acting. The rhythm
(25:48):
of the speech is slow. Didyou guys find that? M And I
don't think that I noticed that inparticular. Yeah, I don't think I
thought of it that way, Butthat's totally plausible because like Alf typically as
a character has never struck me asthat kind of zippy, fast talking eighties
(26:11):
kind of guy, right, Yeah, and he and he is. But
again, the speech pattern, likewithin the lines is actually pretty slow.
And I don't know if it's becausethey were trying to enunciate. I just
don't know, but I can't putmy finger on it. But it did
seem like a tickler. And Ithink you know what I think it is.
(26:33):
I reference Family Guy a lot andFamily Guy. You know, usually
once a season or so, we'lldo one of those episodes where they do
like three vignettes, right, andthey've done several that were, you know,
based on fairy tales, so thosebeing you know, seven minutes long,
they're able to get through the wholestory so quickly that it just seems
like these seems so stretched because they'respending twenty minutes on it. Okay,
(26:59):
And maybe that's what I'm responding to. A leeged to Sleepy Hollow. I
thought was a really good example ofwhat I was expecting from the show because
it was it was more of afilm in the WIR that takes a lot
more liberties with it. They've updatedthis to the modern era. He's on,
but he's on the twentieth century Limitedtrain, which is a reference not
many kids would ever get even backthen. Yeah, I would say so,
(27:23):
Yeah, Nillery's not guided is becausethere's a play called on the twentieth
Century. Yeah, it's about thetrain. But he's he's in like New
York. Sleepy Hollow is basically NewYork City in this one. And he
goes to the Van Tassel building becauseBalta's Van Tassel was like a newspaper magnate.
Okay, and he's like a photojournalistinstead of a teacher here and his
(27:47):
boss puts him on the story ofthe Headless Horseman and he's going to be
working with this big Brahm is abig, hulking reporter, right. And
Katrina is still Van Tassel's daughter,but she's his secretary, and of course
she is all into uh Ichabod playedby Gordon, even though Brahm is into
her. And Katrina is almost kindof a fim fatale in this one,
(28:10):
which I really liked. Yeah,but they change the cadence of the story,
whereas Robin Hood, you know,we talked about it. I feel
like it's pretty by by the numbers, you know, point eight to point
b two point see, you geteverything in there. You know, made
Marian Friar tuck the you know himgoing in disguise and you know, winning
the archery contest and all of that. Did Did Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella kind
(28:33):
of do the same thing, Coreyor did they? Did they mess with
the story a little bit on thosethat you recall. Sleeping Beauty is pretty
much I guess you'd say, bythe book, other than being gender flipped,
right, other than being gender flippedand yes Cinderella. Um, they
just kind of did their own thing. I think they don't really. The
only thing that they kept so muchwas, you know, the core storyline
of the fairy godmother giving her awish, but it was a wish that
(28:57):
he can't refuse to the whole godfatherthings. So yeah, okay, And
they used Marlon Brando as the Godfatherwhere the Godmother I mean, which was
kind of funny right, but itway wasn't Marlon Brander doing the voice?
Do you know did you recognize thevoice actor? I did not. Well.
I thought it was interesting because Ibelieve in that one the glass Slipper
(29:19):
comes into play because he and Cinderella, Gordon and Cinderella sing a duet that
like shatters glass, and so hehas to go a house to house searching
for the woman who can shatter glasswith her voice. Yep, okay,
the legers a sleepy hollow. They'vechanged the cadence a bit because Ikabad gets
hit with the Jack o'lanard after gettingchased by the horseman the first time.
(29:41):
After being threatened if he doesn't leavetown, he like the horseman actually talks
and actually threatens him, and thenwe find out at the end that both
Bram and Baltas have been playing thehorseman for career advancement, Brom trying to,
you know, juice up the story, and Baltas because he wants to
sell newspapers and didn't We find outthat the whole town at some point dresses
(30:02):
as a horseman at different times,but then at the end of the episode,
a real one actually does show up. So it's it's a pretty good
take. I thought it was areally interesting take on the story. And
I don't mind it. You knowthat that kind of, like I said,
that's kind of what I was expectingbecause you kind of assume that kids
know most of these stories, right, Yeah, true enough. Yeah,
(30:23):
So what did you think of thehumor in there? Did it work for
you or was it more of thesame kind of like it was with Alfhi
animated series, where it you kindof got where it was coming from,
but it just didn't hit for you. The ladder I saw, I saw
what they were doing, and Iimagine where I watched it in the eighties
as a kid, I probably wouldhave found it funnier than I did.
(30:45):
Okay, Olivia, what about you? True? And not all of the
humor ages as well as we aswe expect from properties from the eighties.
That's surprised there um purest me solittle tiny Olivia, who who usually had
(31:08):
her nose in a book at somepoint might have been annoyed with little like
you know, flips and tweaks andmodernizations of classic fairy tales like I'm I
can I'm very much imagine myself,like you know, talking to the screen
(31:29):
and saying like, that's not theright story. That doesn't happen, you
know, I can imagine myself beingperturbed about that. I'm reminded of when
when Pam took her daughter when shewas a kid to see the Percy Jackson
the Lightning Thief movie, and thewhole time all the kids said was they
changed that from the book. That'snot in the book. That's different than
(31:51):
the book. This was a badmovie, this wasn't just like the book.
Yep. There's still a lot ofadults who feel that way too.
Yep. Absolutely. And then youget a movie like a Harry Potter and
the what is it The Sorcerer's Stonewhen it is a pretty much paint my
numbers from the book. People complainabout that too. Yeah, hopefully Amazon
can fix that with their new series. Right. Um So, so,
(32:15):
Olivia, you you think as akid you would have been you would have
been annoyed by the changes as anadult, do they still bother you or
do you kind of are you kindof getting what they're coming from? Honestly,
they kind of still bother me.Okay, why is that? Um?
I think if you're gonna if you'regonna tell a tale, tell a
(32:36):
tale, like if you're going totell the story of I'm just gonna pick
something right now, the tortoise inthe hair, then tell the tortoise in
the hair, not you know,the tortoise with a jet pack in the
hair, or you know, um, when it comes to classical terature,
(33:00):
and especially stuff that's so iconic,whether that's a Hans Christian Anderson, an
ASoP, Mother Goose, whoever,a Brothers Grimm, actually gives some accurate,
you know, source material. Now, granted, especially Brothers Grim some
(33:20):
of those are a little dark,So I understand that needing to be kind
of smoothed over a little bit.I get that. But if if you're
setting out to tell that story,then that's that's the story. I would
want to hear not. Um notnecessarily something that's been put through some kind
(33:47):
of like eighties lens of spin.Did it bother you when theater theater companies
do Shakespearean plays in different time Um? No, actually it does not.
It's similar if similarly, if they'redoing something with um Similarly, if they're
(34:09):
doing something in a classical repertoire likea oh, I don't know, something
ancient Greek like take like an antigonyor something like that, Um no,
it doesn't bother me. And similarly, m I go to Dallas Opera a
(34:30):
lot. I've seen all of theirlast two seasons. It does not bother
me to see that repertoire put intoa modern context or set in a slightly
different time period. So why isthat? Okay? But what alf tails
are doing? It rubbed you thewrong way? Oh that's a good question.
(34:53):
Yeah, I'm sure we have thelisteners who feel the same way.
So I'm just that I'm just curious. Yeah, I bet, I bet.
I'm wondering if and I really honestlyhaven't thought about this before, but
I'm wondering if it's the particular materialthat m taking, material that's largely aimed
(35:13):
at children, but muddying up likethe plot or the characters. Maybe that's
what bothers me. Okay. Atthe same at the same time, when
you take Shakespeare and put it intoa modern setting, or you take like,
just a few weeks ago, Isaw Mozart's cocy Fantude, which should
(35:40):
be set in generically late sixteen,early seventeen hundreds m Italy, like most
most art, and like you knowum, and instead they set it in
like a late twenties early thirties countryclub instead. However, when they do
(36:07):
this, they if you're doing itright, should not be changing a single
word of the libretto, right,That does not alter your character. Your
characters do not alter. Literally,the only thing you are changing is the
(36:30):
maybe know the context of the sceneryaround you, but your character list,
your character descriptions, the plot,the motivation of the people on stage,
and every single word of the librettoor in the case of like Shakespeare,
of the book. None of thatshould be touched. Okay, So I
(36:52):
think I see the delineation here.You don't mind when they take the same
story and said it in a differenttime frame. What you mind is when
they muck with the story itself.Yeah. Yeah, because then I think
we're getting into issues where they're they'refutzing around with like the integrity of the
(37:14):
content. Okay, No, Iget that. Um, I just and
I understand it. But I guessto me again, you have to assume
this is not the first time thiskid has heard the rumpel Stiltskin story.
For instance. Um, and you'resetting it like a Dashal Hammett novel.
Gordon plays Sam Shovel private eye inthat one. Um, there's a caricat
(37:37):
and he's a caricature of Humphrey Bogardum, you're covering the same basic beats of
the story. You're just doing itin sort of a creative way. Um.
And I guess, yeah, whichI guess it is a kid.
My favorite version of rumpel Steltskan wasUm and Edwin worry illustrated version of it.
(38:02):
And if you're familiar at all withchildren's literature and Edwin Gorey, that
puts a very specific kind of almostdark visual twist on on that story.
Yes, but that's also absolutely appropriateto that story without having to change the
(38:25):
content. Agreed. Yeah, that'sI agree there. Yeah. So okay,
so I so I guess what I'mhearing is that you it's not that
you mind that they changed any ofthese, it's that you don't think the
changes I made were necessarily appropriate forthe material, or warranted or good quality
(38:46):
okay, a good quality of right. If they had done it better,
if they didn't what they did itbetter, it might have been a big
deal, right, Okay, Yeah, it was this. This comes off
of the flavor more of like somedudes named Dale sitting around a conference table
(39:07):
in the in the mid eighties.Everybody's chained smoking. Somebody's like it's some
kind of terrible um you know,IBM three eighty six pc and clacking on
a type on the keyboard and they'rethinking, you know, and they're having
(39:30):
a pitch session, like, youknow, well, what do I think
the kids would like nowadays? Whatdo you think is gonna get them?
Like? That's that goofy trope islike what pops in my brain with how
they make some of these changes.And I think that's one of the reasons
why I appreciate it. Um.I appreciated Wishbone because it was a more
(39:52):
accurate telling and that's fair. Andyou know what's funny and Corey tell me
if you agree with this, sinceyou watch three of the episodes, I
kind of feel like most of thejokes in here were they weren't necessarily keeping
kids in mind. I kind offeel like they were just jokes that the
writers themselves enjoyed. Yeah, Iwould probably go with that, And I'm
thinking specifically of an episode like theJohn Henry episode. John Henry is a
(40:15):
master chef with his TV show etGourmet E a t I E. Which
is a play on Eadie Gourmet,who was Steve Lawrence's wife, and Steve
Lawrence was big in the seventies.No kid in the eighties is going to
get that joke. No, nobody'snobody except a weirdo like me who watched
(40:36):
for me, yeah, a lotof old black and white movies and was
obsessed at a young age with FredAstern Ginger Rogers, and like kids like
me who are possibly born into thewrong decade, like I would have totally
got a Steven Eady joke, right, But it's your typical eighties kids.
(41:00):
No, No, you know,I mean like the summer, the summer
that new kids on the block justblew up and became huge the first day
of school coming back. I remembersitting at the lunch table and kids asking
(41:22):
me which one of the new kidsis your favorite? And I had absolutely
no idea who they were talking about, because I, oh, yeah,
I had spent the entire summer prettymuch in the car. My long story
(41:43):
short, my grandfather was hospitalized witha really serious heart issue, and so
we spent a huge amount of thatsummer in the car back and forth,
you know, going up to visithim in the hospital, which was a
solid forty five minutes away. Soit was a lot of time spent with
(42:05):
us, you know, with mysister and I in the car as kids,
listening to oldies, like most ofthe time that's what the radio was,
was was parked on, and soI spent a whole summer listening to,
you know, fifty sixty seventies music, And by then I could tell
you all about um like the Grassrootsand Three Dog Night and a bunch of
(42:37):
other random bands that, like,none of my friends would have heard of,
but all of their parents did.So I had to lie in the
moment and say I like them allbecause I didn't want to. I can't
choose, because I didn't want tojust you know, admit, who are
(42:58):
they? What are you talking about? And now after that I did,
I did, like listen to thepop station and listen to some new kids
and go, oh, okay,this, this is this is what they're
listening to. Gotcha right? Butfirst I was clueless, right, so
(43:21):
you you would have probably gotten jokeslike, um, for instance, the
elves and the shoemaker, it's saidin the village of Birkenstock. Yeah,
and then the Emperor's new clothes.There is a closed designer named benaton Esprie
and another one called Coco Kleine.M hmm, yeah, and he was
and they put out a line ofpants under the name guess who. So
(43:45):
yeah, it's it's stuff like thatthat I in Corey. I think.
I think you're right. I thinkthis is um. This was the writer's
room, just trying to make oneanother laugh. Probably so. They even
had a bit in snow Wet andthe Seven Dwarfs about an episode of Solved
Mysteries with Gordon as Robert Stuck.Yeah. I don't know. I think
(44:07):
some of that stuff I think iskind of funny. When I was a
kid, I would have thought itwas hilarious. The ones that I did
get. If that kind of humorwas just stuck in an episode with some
other normal modern plot, that wouldbe great, that wouldn't bother me at
all. For some reason, dropit into the middle of a classic fairy
(44:28):
tale set in the fourteen hundreds andfor something, and just it rubs me
the wrong way. What about inJack and the Beanstalk, where Gordon plays
Jack Bates, who is the sonof Norman just a soil the families because
his mother's motel business is going badly. I mean, who puts Hitchcock references
(44:51):
in a show for kids? Idon't know. So all right, so
it sounds like we're all kind ofon the same page with this. I
think I may have enjoyed it alittle more, like we all sort of
appreciate what they were doing. Sure, absolutely, maybe not on board with
the execution, right, Yeah?Is there enough there they'd either want of
you recommend anybody checking it out,or do you think it's skippable? I
(45:15):
think if you watch the other onethat we talked about, if you watch
the Alve cartoon, it's more thesame. I don't know that you necessarily
have to watch this one for allthe in jokes, right, yeah,
yeah, if you like that one, this is gonna be more of the
same. But again, it's onAmazon. You can watch it for free
even if you don't have Amazon Prime. It's on FREEV So I believe it.
(45:37):
Cop. I might see myself mscrolling through and catching just because of
like some specific references that they makeor people that they parody that are interesting
to me. I might, youknow, seek those out and see what
they do with those, um butnot something that I feel like I need
(45:59):
to the whole series and all rightcatch off. Well, there you have
the folks. Yeah, it's ait's a noble effort, but maybe maybe
I didn't quite stick the landing.So there you have, folks. So
we'd love to hear your thoughts onalf Tail, so head to the Facebook
page and let us know what youthink. Until next time for the Saturday
(46:19):
Morning Supercast, I'm Jeff, I'mCorey and Olivia and it looks like it's
time for college sports, so let'sturn off the TV and go outside.
Thank you for listening, and don'tforget to follow the show on Facebook It's
Saturday Morning Supercast and follow at MarvinDog Media on Twitter.
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