September 19, 2023 • 35 mins
In the '80s, Little-everything was BIG. Muppet Babies, Little Clowns of Happytown...well....Muppet Babies was big. What about tiny magicians? Little Wizards was a show....and that's about it. Should it be better-remembered? Listen and find out. But first, the crew takes on DINERSAURS...which was a cereal. And that's about it. A concept that...well, just listen.
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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
waking up early on the weekend.It's the Saturday Morning Supercast. Hello,
(00:34):
and welcome to the Saturday Morning superCast, where it's always Saturday morning and
the cereal bowl is always full.I'm Jeff, I'm Corey, and I'm
Olivia, and folks, we gota real winner of a show for you
here today, really real big shoe. This could be our shortest show on
record based on everything we have tosay about these two properties. But I
(00:56):
did well. I did have somethoughts about both of them, and they
do sort of go together. Theywere they were on shelves and on TV
at roughly at the same time.The cartoon we're going to talk about as
a show called Little Wizards, whichI was not aware of until I started
doing research on that year, andI'm sure the same is true for you
guys. And the cereal that Iwanted to discuss is diner SAARs. Yeah,
(01:18):
not dinosaurs, Diners d I ne R like Mels Diner from Alice
and so are either one of youfamiliar with Diner SAARs or have you ever
would you ever partake of Diner Saurswhen it was on shelves from nineteen eighty
seven until roughly nineteen the end ofeighty eight. No, no, no
(01:40):
knowledge. Yeah, same here.I vaguely remembered the commercial and I vaguely
remember seeing it on shelves. ButI'll be honest, if you tell me
there's a food out there called DinerSaurs in the eighties, I'm going to
assume that it's a candy, likea movie candy, cause I remember the
dinosaur eggs that you used to get, the dinosaur egg he used to get
(02:00):
there was like the one big eggin the box at the movie theater.
Yep, I miss those things.That's what it kind of reminded me of.
So so basically from what I couldgather, it's fruit loops or tricks
shaped like dinosaurs. Is that kindof what you guys got out of it?
Yes? Yeah, that's my kindof guess on this. Initially,
when you sent this to us asor topic, what popped in my head
(02:24):
was the dinosaur egg oatmeal. Ohyeah, you remember that stuff that I
haven't had it either, Okay,because I was I was not a huge
oatmeal fan as a kid, andbecause of that, Mom wouldn't have bought
(02:45):
dinosaur gimmick oatmeal just because so yeah, but no, never had it.
That's what popped in my head thoughwhen I heard about diner sores, because
it's I I have no eighties childhoodcontext of this. What here's the weird
(03:07):
thing about it to me. Tome, this is what throws me about
the whole thing is it's it's veryhigh concept. It's dinosaurs cereal. But
the concept is there's a diner runby dinosaurs, and according to the box,
the diner itself is built into adinosaur, which brings up all sorts
(03:27):
of logistical issues to me. Soassuming it's the same kind of idea as
like those old school diners built intowhat looked like like a rail car trailer
but the busy, yeah kind,that would be okay if if this this
(03:49):
diner didn't have a face and wasn'tsmiling just like the rest of the dinosaurs
on the box. It's a fairpoint. Yeah, yeah, it's so.
And and they're all wearing like,you know, chef's hat like you
would see where, you know,in a diner, including the pterodactyls.
It cracks me up. So it'slike there's a story behind it that we're
never told. So I always assumedthat this was like based on a cartoon
(04:10):
or something, but it's not.It's it was put out by Ralston of
the dog food fame, right,And they've done other cereals as well,
they have, We talked about thembefore. But INtime I hear Rawlston,
I think Rawlston Purina, and Ithink Purina dog chow. Yeah makes sense.
Yeah, so it is. Soit's it's fruit flavored dinosaurs shaped cereal
(04:34):
and the jingle for the cereal.There's only and there's as far as I
know, there's only one TV addthere is nothing is finer than breakfast at
the Dinosaur Diner. Tiny dinosaurs likeyou never saw before, fruity dinersaurs yea,
and most of the pack ends.There were like dinosaurs trading cards.
On the back of the box.There were three D glasses inside the box
(04:54):
to view a three D image.On the back of the box, there
was a new Ghostbusters movie mystery recordin the box. At one point there
was a sweepstakes to win into EntertainmentSystem, a trip to Walt Disney World
chance to win a Porsche of allthings. I don't know why kid would
want to win a Porsche. Andthis was squarely aimed at kids. I
mean, to sell it and achance to win it to get it,
because like when you went to Scholasticbook fair in your library as a kid,
(05:18):
what we're half of the posters thatthey had for sale it was cars,
but but you couldn't buy the copiesand right, and the most interesting
one to me was instantly win areal fossilized dinosaur bone. That's pretty cool.
I don't know how you instantly win, because it's not like it's in
the box at least I hope not. Are you sure? But yeah,
(05:41):
out of all of those, that'swhat I would have wanted, it was
in the box. Yeah, ofcourse, if this happened before I got
my Nintendo, I might have wantedthe nes but yeah, the dinosaur bone.
So yeah, I just wanted toget get your guys thoughts on that.
Were you as confused as I waswhen you looked at this, thinking
that we must be missing something,missing some sort of storyline to go with
it. Yeah, it was alittle odd. I had thought that maybe
there was a little bit. Idon't know, a little bit more backstory
(06:04):
maybe in the ad, you know, the commercial, kind of like how
I always wish there was more backstoryin the cinema Toast Crunch Bakers. This
showed up on the original box artfor that, right, but yeah,
nothing like they never really flesh thisout. Well, I'll tell you what's
(06:29):
interesting. If you do want astory, if you go to the comments
on mister Breakfast dot com, there'sa little story going here. I'm gonna
I'm gonna share this with with withyou guys and with our our listeners.
One of the comments that was sharedon September thirteenth to twenty eighteen, so
almost five years ago. M yeah, says I know him five years later
(06:49):
on this, but nobody is acknowledgingthe presence of an actual serial creator here.
I for one, would like tothank her for this delicious product and
ask if she has created any othercereals or snacks or anything. And Wilson
should be a serial celebrity and givenrecognition for what she's given us. Thank
you, so, Ann Wilson.I assuming its not the same Ann Wilson
that was part of a part ofso you keep going on down and December
(07:13):
of twenty eighteen, somebody says,I was wondering if there was any info
on who won the nineteen eighty eightcontest to win a Porsche, and then
one, uh you going down Septemberof twenty sixteen. Fruit Island Cereal remains
my rosebud. But I remember thiscereal quite well. It had very strong
flavor and it is another top tierlong lost breakfast cereal from that heyday of
the mid to late eighties. Verygood work, especially by the hollowed out
(07:35):
dinosaur who serves as a diner itself. They should have made another serial spinoff
consisting of his viscera. I don'tknow if I can get behind that,
but he says they could have beencalled dino Chitlands and had the consistency of
three day old milky fruity pebble.So this person clearly needs to be stopped
before they do anything again. Butif you go down even further. September
(07:58):
of twenty thirteen, so five years, which is while the guy said five
years late. By Anne Wilson herself. Hi, my name is Ann Wilson.
I'm the creator of Dinosaurs Cereal.My ex husband and I had applied
for a trademark for Dinosaurs Cereal andsold it to Ralston. In turn,
they sold our contract to g Meals. The product only stud on the market
for a year and a half.My original idea was to have t Rex
on the front and the other boxand chocolate cereal for the product, but
(08:20):
it all turned out good. Sothere's some history for you, much the
same way that you know movies andtelevision shows turn out to be far different
than they're originally conceived. This onewas supposed to be a chocolate cereal but
became a fruity cereal. And Ithink you kind of have to do that,
right because if you get these dinosaursshapes, if you make it chocolate,
they're all going to be brown,yes, and it's going to be
(08:41):
very unappetizing, right, very yeah, So I think if you're going to
do that, I think they madea good good choice with going fruit flavored
instead of cocoa but chocolate. ButI don't know, Olivia what we're gonna
say. And this is the eighties. I can understand them wanting everything to
have a pop of color, right, it to be vibrant and exciting and
(09:05):
yeah, and then basically piggyback onfruit loops or tricks. Thank you fruit
loops or tricks? Yeah, yeah, I agree, it's it's I think
it's interesting that this one just kindof and this is why I wanted to
(09:26):
pair this with Little Wizards, becausethis is a cereal that I I don't
even know if I remember it beingon shelves. You hear diner staurs and
they're like, okay, maybe,But then when I saw the commercial,
I was like, no, thisis not ringing a bell. So it's
it's odd to me that this wason shelves for two years in my prime
childhood of cereal eating, and Inever even knew about it, right,
(09:48):
And so it makes me feel betterthat neither of you have heard of it
either. None. So do youthink there's a reason for them to even
try to reboot din sars or doyou think it's sort of is filling a
niche are feeling a need that's noteven there because we do have tricks and
fruit loops. Let it go theway of the dinosaurs. Okay, there's
(10:11):
a reason they're not here anymore either. Good point, Good point, all
right, So what I really wantto know is if any of our listeners
are familiar with Dinosaurs cereal and ifyou have as fond of memories as the
folks on Mister Breakfast dot com,they are calling it, you know,
next to Fruit Islands as their rosebudof cereals. Yeah. But the people
on Mister Breakfast, I swear everysingle cereal on there, somebody gets on
(10:35):
there it's like, oh man,this cereal is the best. I love
this cereal. This was my favorite. I swear somebody could post on their
a cereal called like cardboard squares fullof fiber and cardboard, and some dude
would still get on there and say, oh, these were the best.
Yeah, the cloud chasing with cereal, which is odd. Yeah. Right,
(11:00):
So we'll take a short break andwe'll be back to discuss another minor
classic, Little Wizards. Back,all right, Little Wizards. This is
(11:22):
another show much like Dinosaurs. Ihave no recollection of sometimes called Young Wizards,
but it aired between nineteen eighty sevenand nineteen eighty eight. We don't
even have a final air date.It premiered in September twenty six of eighty
seven, and the last airing isjust sometime in eighty eight. Thirteen episodes
total, created by Lynn Jansen andChuck Menville, who did a lot of
(11:45):
work. If you look up theirwork, they actually did a lot of
work. They worked to let alot of Hannibarbar stuff, especially the Star
Star Trek the animated series. Butare either one of you familiar with Little
Wizards at all? Looking at it? A couple of the character designs rang
a bell, but I honestly donot think that I ever saw it when
it aired. Similar the the dragonesque characters seemed very familiar, them hanging
(12:15):
out in a tree that kind ofseemed like a knockoff of gummy bears,
that struck of really familiar chord.They are visual elements that seemed really familiar.
But I doubt that I probably eversat through a whole episode. Yeah,
and probably still have it right,Yeah, this is this is one
(12:39):
that, Yeah, I have norecollection of it all. And Corey,
you're you're talking about the character designs? Ye did? Did it was phineas
the Wizard? Did he not remindyou of Cookie Jarvis? Either one of
you of Cookie Jarvis from Cookie Crisp. That's kind of what I thought of.
I mean, maybe, yeah,a podium Olivia, did you have
(13:00):
any of that connection at all.Oh No, he did strike me as
more of just kind of a generic, generic fantasy plotline boy, kind of
like the from the Dungeons and Dragonsseries. Okay, yeah, and I
(13:20):
can see that. Yeah, hewas very milk toast for me. Well
in Dexter. Dexter was definitely milktoast. Phineas I thought, was at
least kind of interesting, but verymuch in that Dungeon Master vibe. You're
right, And speaking of Dungeons andDragons, Renvict the Evil Wizard, I'm
watching him like that sounds just likeVenger. And that's because voiced by the
great Peter Cullen. Yeah, andthey must have put the same kind of
(13:43):
filter that they put on him forVenger. And I want to ask you
guys something, what in the worldwith that voice, what would Peter Cullen
have done with his life were itnot for voice acting? Man, I
don't know, Yeah, right,yeah, because he's that with that voice,
that's pretty much all he could orshould be doing in my opinion.
(14:05):
Could you imagine him on like anineteen eighties early nineties answering system, right,
Your college is very important to us, Please hold I would not want
to hold on that I would eithernot want to hold or I would be
afraid to hang up for fear ofwhat that voice would do to me.
You should be right, yeah,so, which is probably all of us
(14:28):
that are listening as I said.Little Wizards was ran from eighty seven to
eighty eight. It was created,as I said, by Lynn Jansen and
Chuckmanville, produced by Marvel Productions aNew World International. It follows a young
prince named Dexter, who doesn't havea crown because his father died. Soon
after his father's death, the evilwizard Renvic stole the crown and proclaimed in
self king. Sounds kind of likeRobin Hood. He ordered his servants to
(14:52):
imprison Dexter for fear that he wouldget in his way. However, Dexter
fled into the woods or he sawby Phineas a good wizard who rescued him
and he of the young dragon calledLulu. And one day he was preparing
a potion Phineas was Dexter, accidentallycaused an explosion that brought to life three
monsters in Dab with magical powers,Winkle, Gump, and Boo, and
(15:13):
Winkle is a little Pink as verysmall Pink monster who can hold her breath
and float. Gump is an orangemonster who can shape shift into it seems
like anything, regardless of size orcomplexity. And Boo is a blue monster
who is very timid and scared andcan turn himself invisible except for his eyes.
(15:35):
His eyes are still floating around.Ownership of the series passed to Disney
in two thousand and one when theyacquired Fox Kids Worldwide, which also include
Marvel productions, but it as ofthis recording is not available on Disney Plus,
and if you go to YouTube,the only there. I found one
episode in English on YouTube, it'sepisode eight a dragon Tale. You can
find the entire series dubbed into Spanish, and I have to tell you it's
(15:58):
a lot more entertaining if you watchit in Spanish. Somehow. The voices
were pretty good. Yeah, it'sit's kind of it's kind of hilarious to
the inflection and everything, even thoughyou don't know what's going on. The
voice work and the inflections, theyjust make it funny to me. I
don't know, I feel like itjust I don't know. I had it
had more pop or more sparkle,like there was more energy right into it,
(16:18):
which helped with the pacing issues.More on that later, I'm sure.
Yes. So we we talked aboutthe main characters. There's also Renvick
also has a a lackey I guessfor lack of a better word, who
follows him around. And there's alsoa recurring character named Clovie and her sparrow
(16:38):
William, who I didn't see inthe episode that I watched, but she
holds a secret to Renvick and hermother, and she helped the Little Wizards,
so it's sort of indicated that shemight actually be in love with Dexter.
So Jansen and Menville created a show, as I said, for Marvel
Productions and developed it for ABC.ABC brought in a company called Q five
(17:00):
Corporation to help develop the show,along with the other series that ran in
the eighty seven eighty eight season.Q five's consultants consisted of people that had
PhDs in psychology and advertising, marketingand research professionals. So the reason that
this all of this seems familiar isprobably because they're just taking everything that they
think worked from something else and puttingit together in a blender. So none
(17:23):
of this seems original. It allseems derivative and none of it really works,
at least not for me. I'llbe interested to see what you guys
think. So I watched. Iwatched the one episode, like I said,
a dragon tale. Did either ofyou get through the whole episode?
Yes? I did, Okay,So, in true Saturday morning fashion,
(17:48):
the opening credits consist of just theexposition over some music as told by the
Wizard, and we mentioned Olivia mentionedthe pacing and everything, and I noticed
in the very first scene, aswith most cartoons of the air, the
pace of the show is slow becausethe vocal deliveries are very deliberate, and
the editing is very deliberate, whereasnow you've got a lot of quick cut
editing between. Especially if you watchcartoons, it seems like the editing is
(18:11):
much faster this one. It's likethey'll cut to something, hold on it,
somebody will comment on the image,it'll hold on the image and then
cut to something else, and yeah, yeah, and sorry, Well I
was gonna say. The speech patternswithin the dialogue are even slow. The
cues between there's a lot of lagbetween the lines and the que the dialogue.
(18:33):
The internal rhythm of the dialogue isslow as well, or pace.
I should say what were gonna say, Olivia. So in this in this
particular episode Dragon's Tale, the verybeginning, when the gang is on their
flying contraption and they go down thislike huge ski jump style ramp to get
(18:56):
them airborne. As us they're flying, or I should say they're just gliding.
They're not. They haven't really takenflight yet, but they're gliding.
There's this section where they to borrowthe filmmaking terms split the second but to
the nth degree, where they makeit look like, oh, here comes
(19:18):
the ground, We're going to crash, and it's they show the ground getting
closer, and then they cut tothe monsters like making a face, and
then they cut back to the exactsame shot of the ground getting closer,
and then back to the monsters.And but then all of a sudden that
(19:42):
just I guess self corrects and Phineassays like, and we're flying? What
what what was what was the purposeof the last twenty five seconds? Then
I can't get back like, soyeah there was there, and so yeah,
(20:03):
piggybacking on what you were just saying. Slow, the dialogue was slow,
and then the dialogue placement was pepperedthrough like some really long u shots
for lack of a better word,within a particular scene, they're just kind
(20:25):
of holding like nothing is happening.There's no plot development happening. It was,
it was. It was kind ofbaffling. I'm with you on Corey.
What are your thoughts on that one? Yeah, there seemed to be
a lot of erraticness with it.I could not tell if it was from
the age of the transfer. Maybesome things had gotten lost because on the
(20:48):
same transfer we were watching, there'sa lot of blips and bleeps and tears.
But yeah, it seemed like theypulled a lot from their own stock
footage. And I think the reasonit was so short lived is just it
was real, sporadic and there wasreally not a lot of substance to it.
(21:10):
There's not and like I said,there's there's nothing to it to hook
you, you know, Like likeI said, it sounds like this this
consulting firm just test marketed it todeath. You know, a focus grouped
it to death until it became allof these elements that they pulled from everything.
You know, Quentin Tarantino can dothat and make it his own.
(21:30):
Sure, this group has done thisand has made just a hodgepode, so
it just see it feels like you'rewatching a montage of other other cartoons.
Yeah, yeah, it's the turbotineeffect. Yes for the Yes, however
many time that we've seen now onething that I did find interesting, and
this may be because of the transfer, like Corey was talking about, but
(21:51):
I don't know if you guys noticedthat. You know, I've talked a
little bit in the past about thelines around the outlines around each character.
Sometimes you get really thick black lineslike you have on like Clerks the animated
series. This one, the linesaround the characters were so thin as to
in some shots were almost non existent, So it gave it sort of a
soft look, like soft edges.Did either of you notice that. I
(22:12):
don't think that I did, butI believe yeah. I noticed it most
with Boo the Blue Monster, probablybecause his was the lightest of those colors.
But yeah, I gave it kindof a soft feel. The creatures
don't look like they head to haveany outlines, and some shots and it
was just kind of interesting. Itsort of set it apart a little bit
(22:33):
from the other cartoons of the day. It didn't look like, you know,
your typical Disney or your typical SaturdayMorning cartoons. So I did kind
of like that, and I didlike the look of the show. While
it was generic, I did likeit because we got a lot of nice
colors. You know, you talked, you guys talked about the design of
(22:53):
the dinosaurs or that the dragons rather, I'm still on our cereal talk.
The dragons reminded me of do youremember the Puff the Magic Dragon cartoon that
came out when we were kids?Yeah, I think so. Yeah,
Yeah, reminded me of that artstyle. And it may just be because
(23:14):
it was maybe the same studio thatdid it. I don't know, but
that's what the dragons reminded me of. And so at the end of the
episode spoilers, did the dragon havetwo eggs and they just didn't notice one
of them? They seemed to besurprised that there were two baby dragons at
the end. I mean maybe,so, okay, yeah, I was
(23:34):
aftable. Following as far as thecharacters, again, like like Olivia said,
the main kid, Derek Dexter,has you know, no personality,
and his Scott Menville is voicing him. He's the son of one of the
creators his accent was very questionable.He came and went. Sometimes it was
(23:56):
there, sometimes it wasn't. Youguys notice that, Yeah, a little
bit Mary Poppins Well, and honestlythe now in this okay, from this
one English language episode that we couldget our myths on, he also the
(24:18):
wasn't he didn't seem like he waskind of an impetus of the plot,
like he wasn't a real focal point. And yeah, and looking through some
of these other episodes, especially likethe second half of this thirteen episode set,
(24:48):
it looks like things become very dinosaurfocused, even more so specifically like
it looks like Gump has I don'tknow two three different episodes kind of devoted
to him. He was tortuous forme, Oh my god, I really
(25:12):
struggled with that voice work for Gump, because it's the same effect I've mentioned
so many times before. Just listeningto it, I over and over felt
like I needed to clear my throator I needed a lozenge right, or
recolla something. Well, and hischaracter like he's supposed to be the dumb
one. It's like at one pointthey see a dragon and somebody says he's
(25:33):
enormous and Gump says, yeah,he's big two, which on the surface
is actually kind of funny. Youknow, a kid might actually like that.
A kid who knows what the wordenormous means might they go, Okay,
that's kind of funny. But Ialso get the feeling that he represents
the target audience because he explains everything, so they think their audience is dumb
and needs to have things spelled outfor them. Sure, yeah, I
(25:56):
could see that. Yeah, sothere was his voice, and then Winkle,
the Pink Monster is kind of supposedto be, like the little kid
has a very very squeaky and annoyingvoice, which I didn't care for at
all. Did either of you findbecause like, I'm looking at the list
of voice talent for this, butI did not see is there a breakdown
(26:22):
of who actually is voicing what partsI found it on. I had to
go to IMDb to find it,and that's how that's how I found Charlie
Adler. Charlie Adler voice is Gump, and he's a voice actor we talked
about before, which is why Iwas surprising to me that it was so
grating. Katie Lee voiced Winkle.She worked on She worked on everything in
(26:44):
the eighties. She was Rolf onThe Muppet Babies, she was Sunny Dummy,
she was Sheila on Dungeons and Dragons, m okay, And so she
she's worked, I mean she's stillworking. She's she's working on the Guardians
of the Galaxy cartoon cosmic for shortthere, So she is still working today.
(27:04):
Joey caman ciam and voiced Boo thatvoice. That was the one that
I liked the most of the threemonsters. It was the one that and
by that, I mean he goton my nerves the least, right,
And he's still working and as voicework. He did some loop work on
Ready Player one. He worked onsome video he's done some video games and
(27:27):
everything. But you know, he'sdone some some cartoons here and there as
well, so he's still working.But yeah, and then of course we
you know, we've talked about ScottMenville voicing Prince Dexter h and he's still
working as a voice actor. He'she was Rob voice of Robin on Teen
Titans, so cool. Yeah,so he's you know, obviously got better.
(27:48):
Of course, they're great. FrankWalker anytime you hear I'm sure he
probably did some of the some ofthe animals that we didn't hear, Oh
yeah, absolutely, but the restof them are just you know. Peter
cullen Is is listed as various characters, Danny Mann is listed as various character.
I assume he was probably Phineas.And Amber Susa is listed as various
characters. I assume she was probablythe the little girl Clovie or clovee where
however you pronounce it. So,yeah, that's that's where we are with
(28:14):
those three characters. Boo was theone that got on my nerves, nerves
the least. Yeah, he's theleast annoying, and he's the other thing
I wanted to talk about, though, was the music. I didn't hate
the music in this episode. Ithink it was fine. Yeah, and
by that, you know, itwas ignorable, which I think a good
cartoon score should be, right,you shouldn't be noticing it, But but
(28:37):
I did, you know it was. I thought it was used fairly well.
And in this episode, the badguy ren Renvic Renvick wants dragon scales
for his armor, and it justso happens that the wizards happen up on
a flock of dragons. They weren'tlooking for the dragons though, were they
at Again, I didn't really followthe plot. No, I think they
just happened on him, Okay,And well, I think the point of
(29:00):
them flying was they were flying tosome kind of like dragon hide away.
I think it was called Okay.It's also it's also not super clear though,
if they were looking for those specificdragons or just those were the ones
(29:23):
they found, right, That's That'swhat I'm not sure about. Agreed.
And at one point, the dragonsmake this kind of weird ambient music that
assembles a dragon skeleton or is thatthe magic of the wizards. I couldn't
Again, I couldn't follow that.I think that's the dragons. Okay,
So everyone is glowing and Renwick isMatt, so he knocks the skeleton apart,
(29:44):
but then the skeleton reassembles and chasesRenwick away a Renwick away just in
time for the egg to hatch.And I know this because Winky told us
twice in two sentences. The eggis hatching, the eggs about to hatch,
the egg is hatching something along thoselines. Again, everything is spelled
out out too, you know.They beat every every point to death.
The second baby dragon likes Gump sothere's that this particular episode upload didn't have
(30:11):
any closing credits. It's just anabrupt end, but the Spanish language series
does have closing end credits. Theinstrumental theme song is over images from the
episode. And Yeah, like Isaid, this show to me just feels
like it was created from focus groupsor by just throwing elements together. Like
we talked about, did you guyshave kind of the same experience. Yeah,
it's pretty sloppy. Yeah, itwas very it like I have a
(30:37):
picture in my brain of a bunchof people sitting around a conference table going
what are the kids like these days? What cells? And a bunch of
pictures stuck up on a board,maybe with some lines connecting them, and
and then coming up with like,so there's a prince and wizards and a
(31:03):
dragon. I don't worry about it, just throw it in there. Yeah.
Yeah, kids are dumb, they'llwatch anything. We got the Gether.
The voice is optimist prime, that'sall we really need. Cory,
what about you? Was that sortof your experience as well? Yeah?
It was as quick as it wentby, it was just as memorable.
And I mean they had some cuteanimation and it was fun hearing some of
(31:27):
the voices that we've heard time andtime again, but there's nothing to it
that's really any redeeming quality in mymind. Yeah, I agree, There's
there's nothing about this show that makesme think anybody who hasn't watched it needs
to. If we do have alistener out there who remembers this show fondly
and wants to go check it out, I would love to hear about it,
(31:49):
to hear about your experience with andespecially to hear about your experience with
it now, because I can't imaginethis being enjoyable for anybody because you know,
again, the voice acting was veryshrill. It's either from poor to
shrill. Even Peter Cullen as rinVic was it just didn't fit the character.
You know that it sounds like Venger. You could check that voice to
(32:10):
come out of vendor, but notjust this pasty white guy with a prince
valiant haircut. Yep, yeah,so be it? Yeah all right?
So yeah, I had red Vicissues with how he was portrayed visually,
but how so explain explained please?I found some of his facial features a
(32:34):
little distracting, namely his chin.Okay, what was it? About Yeah,
what was it about his chin thatthat that that bothered you? Well,
this is a family show, Jeff, Okay, gotcha? Yeah.
So well, before before we go, I would just like to remind people
that the two creators, Lynn Jansenand Chuck Minville did work on some some
(32:57):
things that we actually have liked.Uh. Lynn Jansen was actually a head
writer on Benji Zacs and the AlienPrince that we talked about a while back,
cool, as well as Going Bananas. And he also was a head
writer for season three through seven ofthe Real Ghostbusters and went on to write
for Slimmer and The Real Ghostbusters aswell. So what were those things we
(33:19):
liked? The Real Ghostbusters we did? Oh yeah, as well as Tiny
Twon Adventures. I Will I will, I will Yes, we always,
I will always acquiesce on that.Okay, I'm glad we get that settled.
Yes, and so that's it.And Chuck Menville worked on Groovy Goolies.
(33:39):
He also worked on Hong Kong Foo, which is you know, near
and dear to Corey's heart yep,yes, yes, And he also worked
on Benjie Zacts and The Elion Prince, Real Ghostbusters a lot of the same
the same ones. He also workedon a Little Mermaid cartoon in nineteen ninety
two the series, and he alsowrote for bast several episodes for Batman the
Anem eight series, so there's somebona fie days for him. Definitely.
(34:04):
Okay, I'm glad they cranked outsome more solid work. Yeah, it's
surprising that these two that have doneso much good work in other areas get
you know, this thing came outthat just kind of splatted. We got
thirteen episodes and that said, andit's just truly been forgotten, has truly
been forgotten. And yeah, there'san episode title called the Unicorns Nada in
(34:27):
Ada that I really kind of wantto find out what that's about. But
then part of me thinks no,no, no, no, yea,
So all right, so it's allright. So I think we're all saying
you can skip, you can skipLittle Wizards. Yeah, okay, yeah,
just just move on, move onwith your life, move on.
All right. I'm with you onthat one. There. So they were
(34:47):
folks, they can all be winners. So this is one you can probably
skip. But again, if ifif it's something you watch when you were
a kid, you may have somenostalgic value that you can derive from it.
So if if that is a case, and we do want to hear
from me, so ahead of theFacebook page and let us know what you
think. That will do it forthis episode of the Saturday Morning Supercast until
next time. I'm Jeff, I'mCorey, and I'm Olivia. And it
(35:09):
looks like it's time for college sports, so I am done with the TV
for once, all right, whothank you for listening, and don't forget
to follow the show on Facebook It'sSaturday Morning Supercast and follow at Marvin Dog
Media on Twitter. M
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
waking up early on the weekend.It's the Saturday Morning Supercast. Hello,
(00:34):
and welcome to the Saturday Morning superCast, where it's always Saturday morning and
the cereal bowl is always full.I'm Jeff, I'm Corey, and I'm
Olivia, and folks, we gota real winner of a show for you
here today, really real big shoe. This could be our shortest show on
record based on everything we have tosay about these two properties. But I
(00:56):
did well. I did have somethoughts about both of them, and they
do sort of go together. Theywere they were on shelves and on TV
at roughly at the same time.The cartoon we're going to talk about as
a show called Little Wizards, whichI was not aware of until I started
doing research on that year, andI'm sure the same is true for you
guys. And the cereal that Iwanted to discuss is diner SAARs. Yeah,
(01:18):
not dinosaurs, Diners d I ne R like Mels Diner from Alice
and so are either one of youfamiliar with Diner SAARs or have you ever
would you ever partake of Diner Saurswhen it was on shelves from nineteen eighty
seven until roughly nineteen the end ofeighty eight. No, no, no
(01:40):
knowledge. Yeah, same here.I vaguely remembered the commercial and I vaguely
remember seeing it on shelves. ButI'll be honest, if you tell me
there's a food out there called DinerSaurs in the eighties, I'm going to
assume that it's a candy, likea movie candy, cause I remember the
dinosaur eggs that you used to get, the dinosaur egg he used to get
(02:00):
there was like the one big eggin the box at the movie theater.
Yep, I miss those things.That's what it kind of reminded me of.
So so basically from what I couldgather, it's fruit loops or tricks
shaped like dinosaurs. Is that kindof what you guys got out of it?
Yes? Yeah, that's my kindof guess on this. Initially,
when you sent this to us asor topic, what popped in my head
(02:24):
was the dinosaur egg oatmeal. Ohyeah, you remember that stuff that I
haven't had it either, Okay,because I was I was not a huge
oatmeal fan as a kid, andbecause of that, Mom wouldn't have bought
(02:45):
dinosaur gimmick oatmeal just because so yeah, but no, never had it.
That's what popped in my head thoughwhen I heard about diner sores, because
it's I I have no eighties childhoodcontext of this. What here's the weird
(03:07):
thing about it to me. Tome, this is what throws me about
the whole thing is it's it's veryhigh concept. It's dinosaurs cereal. But
the concept is there's a diner runby dinosaurs, and according to the box,
the diner itself is built into adinosaur, which brings up all sorts
(03:27):
of logistical issues to me. Soassuming it's the same kind of idea as
like those old school diners built intowhat looked like like a rail car trailer
but the busy, yeah kind,that would be okay if if this this
(03:49):
diner didn't have a face and wasn'tsmiling just like the rest of the dinosaurs
on the box. It's a fairpoint. Yeah, yeah, it's so.
And and they're all wearing like,you know, chef's hat like you
would see where, you know,in a diner, including the pterodactyls.
It cracks me up. So it'slike there's a story behind it that we're
never told. So I always assumedthat this was like based on a cartoon
(04:10):
or something, but it's not.It's it was put out by Ralston of
the dog food fame, right,And they've done other cereals as well,
they have, We talked about thembefore. But INtime I hear Rawlston,
I think Rawlston Purina, and Ithink Purina dog chow. Yeah makes sense.
Yeah, so it is. Soit's it's fruit flavored dinosaurs shaped cereal
(04:34):
and the jingle for the cereal.There's only and there's as far as I
know, there's only one TV addthere is nothing is finer than breakfast at
the Dinosaur Diner. Tiny dinosaurs likeyou never saw before, fruity dinersaurs yea,
and most of the pack ends.There were like dinosaurs trading cards.
On the back of the box.There were three D glasses inside the box
(04:54):
to view a three D image.On the back of the box, there
was a new Ghostbusters movie mystery recordin the box. At one point there
was a sweepstakes to win into EntertainmentSystem, a trip to Walt Disney World
chance to win a Porsche of allthings. I don't know why kid would
want to win a Porsche. Andthis was squarely aimed at kids. I
mean, to sell it and achance to win it to get it,
because like when you went to Scholasticbook fair in your library as a kid,
(05:18):
what we're half of the posters thatthey had for sale it was cars,
but but you couldn't buy the copiesand right, and the most interesting
one to me was instantly win areal fossilized dinosaur bone. That's pretty cool.
I don't know how you instantly win, because it's not like it's in
the box at least I hope not. Are you sure? But yeah,
(05:41):
out of all of those, that'swhat I would have wanted, it was
in the box. Yeah, ofcourse, if this happened before I got
my Nintendo, I might have wantedthe nes but yeah, the dinosaur bone.
So yeah, I just wanted toget get your guys thoughts on that.
Were you as confused as I waswhen you looked at this, thinking
that we must be missing something,missing some sort of storyline to go with
it. Yeah, it was alittle odd. I had thought that maybe
there was a little bit. Idon't know, a little bit more backstory
(06:04):
maybe in the ad, you know, the commercial, kind of like how
I always wish there was more backstoryin the cinema Toast Crunch Bakers. This
showed up on the original box artfor that, right, but yeah,
nothing like they never really flesh thisout. Well, I'll tell you what's
(06:29):
interesting. If you do want astory, if you go to the comments
on mister Breakfast dot com, there'sa little story going here. I'm gonna
I'm gonna share this with with withyou guys and with our our listeners.
One of the comments that was sharedon September thirteenth to twenty eighteen, so
almost five years ago. M yeah, says I know him five years later
(06:49):
on this, but nobody is acknowledgingthe presence of an actual serial creator here.
I for one, would like tothank her for this delicious product and
ask if she has created any othercereals or snacks or anything. And Wilson
should be a serial celebrity and givenrecognition for what she's given us. Thank
you, so, Ann Wilson.I assuming its not the same Ann Wilson
that was part of a part ofso you keep going on down and December
(07:13):
of twenty eighteen, somebody says,I was wondering if there was any info
on who won the nineteen eighty eightcontest to win a Porsche, and then
one, uh you going down Septemberof twenty sixteen. Fruit Island Cereal remains
my rosebud. But I remember thiscereal quite well. It had very strong
flavor and it is another top tierlong lost breakfast cereal from that heyday of
the mid to late eighties. Verygood work, especially by the hollowed out
(07:35):
dinosaur who serves as a diner itself. They should have made another serial spinoff
consisting of his viscera. I don'tknow if I can get behind that,
but he says they could have beencalled dino Chitlands and had the consistency of
three day old milky fruity pebble.So this person clearly needs to be stopped
before they do anything again. Butif you go down even further. September
(07:58):
of twenty thirteen, so five years, which is while the guy said five
years late. By Anne Wilson herself. Hi, my name is Ann Wilson.
I'm the creator of Dinosaurs Cereal.My ex husband and I had applied
for a trademark for Dinosaurs Cereal andsold it to Ralston. In turn,
they sold our contract to g Meals. The product only stud on the market
for a year and a half.My original idea was to have t Rex
on the front and the other boxand chocolate cereal for the product, but
(08:20):
it all turned out good. Sothere's some history for you, much the
same way that you know movies andtelevision shows turn out to be far different
than they're originally conceived. This onewas supposed to be a chocolate cereal but
became a fruity cereal. And Ithink you kind of have to do that,
right because if you get these dinosaursshapes, if you make it chocolate,
they're all going to be brown,yes, and it's going to be
(08:41):
very unappetizing, right, very yeah, So I think if you're going to
do that, I think they madea good good choice with going fruit flavored
instead of cocoa but chocolate. ButI don't know, Olivia what we're gonna
say. And this is the eighties. I can understand them wanting everything to
have a pop of color, right, it to be vibrant and exciting and
(09:05):
yeah, and then basically piggyback onfruit loops or tricks. Thank you fruit
loops or tricks? Yeah, yeah, I agree, it's it's I think
it's interesting that this one just kindof and this is why I wanted to
(09:26):
pair this with Little Wizards, becausethis is a cereal that I I don't
even know if I remember it beingon shelves. You hear diner staurs and
they're like, okay, maybe,But then when I saw the commercial,
I was like, no, thisis not ringing a bell. So it's
it's odd to me that this wason shelves for two years in my prime
childhood of cereal eating, and Inever even knew about it, right,
(09:48):
And so it makes me feel betterthat neither of you have heard of it
either. None. So do youthink there's a reason for them to even
try to reboot din sars or doyou think it's sort of is filling a
niche are feeling a need that's noteven there because we do have tricks and
fruit loops. Let it go theway of the dinosaurs. Okay, there's
(10:11):
a reason they're not here anymore either. Good point, Good point, all
right, So what I really wantto know is if any of our listeners
are familiar with Dinosaurs cereal and ifyou have as fond of memories as the
folks on Mister Breakfast dot com,they are calling it, you know,
next to Fruit Islands as their rosebudof cereals. Yeah. But the people
on Mister Breakfast, I swear everysingle cereal on there, somebody gets on
(10:35):
there it's like, oh man,this cereal is the best. I love
this cereal. This was my favorite. I swear somebody could post on their
a cereal called like cardboard squares fullof fiber and cardboard, and some dude
would still get on there and say, oh, these were the best.
Yeah, the cloud chasing with cereal, which is odd. Yeah. Right,
(11:00):
So we'll take a short break andwe'll be back to discuss another minor
classic, Little Wizards. Back,all right, Little Wizards. This is
(11:22):
another show much like Dinosaurs. Ihave no recollection of sometimes called Young Wizards,
but it aired between nineteen eighty sevenand nineteen eighty eight. We don't
even have a final air date.It premiered in September twenty six of eighty
seven, and the last airing isjust sometime in eighty eight. Thirteen episodes
total, created by Lynn Jansen andChuck Menville, who did a lot of
(11:45):
work. If you look up theirwork, they actually did a lot of
work. They worked to let alot of Hannibarbar stuff, especially the Star
Star Trek the animated series. Butare either one of you familiar with Little
Wizards at all? Looking at it? A couple of the character designs rang
a bell, but I honestly donot think that I ever saw it when
it aired. Similar the the dragonesque characters seemed very familiar, them hanging
(12:15):
out in a tree that kind ofseemed like a knockoff of gummy bears,
that struck of really familiar chord.They are visual elements that seemed really familiar.
But I doubt that I probably eversat through a whole episode. Yeah,
and probably still have it right,Yeah, this is this is one
(12:39):
that, Yeah, I have norecollection of it all. And Corey,
you're you're talking about the character designs? Ye did? Did it was phineas
the Wizard? Did he not remindyou of Cookie Jarvis? Either one of
you of Cookie Jarvis from Cookie Crisp. That's kind of what I thought of.
I mean, maybe, yeah,a podium Olivia, did you have
(13:00):
any of that connection at all.Oh No, he did strike me as
more of just kind of a generic, generic fantasy plotline boy, kind of
like the from the Dungeons and Dragonsseries. Okay, yeah, and I
(13:20):
can see that. Yeah, hewas very milk toast for me. Well
in Dexter. Dexter was definitely milktoast. Phineas I thought, was at
least kind of interesting, but verymuch in that Dungeon Master vibe. You're
right, And speaking of Dungeons andDragons, Renvict the Evil Wizard, I'm
watching him like that sounds just likeVenger. And that's because voiced by the
great Peter Cullen. Yeah, andthey must have put the same kind of
(13:43):
filter that they put on him forVenger. And I want to ask you
guys something, what in the worldwith that voice, what would Peter Cullen
have done with his life were itnot for voice acting? Man, I
don't know, Yeah, right,yeah, because he's that with that voice,
that's pretty much all he could orshould be doing in my opinion.
(14:05):
Could you imagine him on like anineteen eighties early nineties answering system, right,
Your college is very important to us, Please hold I would not want
to hold on that I would eithernot want to hold or I would be
afraid to hang up for fear ofwhat that voice would do to me.
You should be right, yeah,so, which is probably all of us
(14:28):
that are listening as I said.Little Wizards was ran from eighty seven to
eighty eight. It was created,as I said, by Lynn Jansen and
Chuckmanville, produced by Marvel Productions aNew World International. It follows a young
prince named Dexter, who doesn't havea crown because his father died. Soon
after his father's death, the evilwizard Renvic stole the crown and proclaimed in
self king. Sounds kind of likeRobin Hood. He ordered his servants to
(14:52):
imprison Dexter for fear that he wouldget in his way. However, Dexter
fled into the woods or he sawby Phineas a good wizard who rescued him
and he of the young dragon calledLulu. And one day he was preparing
a potion Phineas was Dexter, accidentallycaused an explosion that brought to life three
monsters in Dab with magical powers,Winkle, Gump, and Boo, and
(15:13):
Winkle is a little Pink as verysmall Pink monster who can hold her breath
and float. Gump is an orangemonster who can shape shift into it seems
like anything, regardless of size orcomplexity. And Boo is a blue monster
who is very timid and scared andcan turn himself invisible except for his eyes.
(15:35):
His eyes are still floating around.Ownership of the series passed to Disney
in two thousand and one when theyacquired Fox Kids Worldwide, which also include
Marvel productions, but it as ofthis recording is not available on Disney Plus,
and if you go to YouTube,the only there. I found one
episode in English on YouTube, it'sepisode eight a dragon Tale. You can
find the entire series dubbed into Spanish, and I have to tell you it's
(15:58):
a lot more entertaining if you watchit in Spanish. Somehow. The voices
were pretty good. Yeah, it'sit's kind of it's kind of hilarious to
the inflection and everything, even thoughyou don't know what's going on. The
voice work and the inflections, theyjust make it funny to me. I
don't know, I feel like itjust I don't know. I had it
had more pop or more sparkle,like there was more energy right into it,
(16:18):
which helped with the pacing issues.More on that later, I'm sure.
Yes. So we we talked aboutthe main characters. There's also Renvick
also has a a lackey I guessfor lack of a better word, who
follows him around. And there's alsoa recurring character named Clovie and her sparrow
(16:38):
William, who I didn't see inthe episode that I watched, but she
holds a secret to Renvick and hermother, and she helped the Little Wizards,
so it's sort of indicated that shemight actually be in love with Dexter.
So Jansen and Menville created a show, as I said, for Marvel
Productions and developed it for ABC.ABC brought in a company called Q five
(17:00):
Corporation to help develop the show,along with the other series that ran in
the eighty seven eighty eight season.Q five's consultants consisted of people that had
PhDs in psychology and advertising, marketingand research professionals. So the reason that
this all of this seems familiar isprobably because they're just taking everything that they
think worked from something else and puttingit together in a blender. So none
(17:23):
of this seems original. It allseems derivative and none of it really works,
at least not for me. I'llbe interested to see what you guys
think. So I watched. Iwatched the one episode, like I said,
a dragon tale. Did either ofyou get through the whole episode?
Yes? I did, Okay,So, in true Saturday morning fashion,
(17:48):
the opening credits consist of just theexposition over some music as told by the
Wizard, and we mentioned Olivia mentionedthe pacing and everything, and I noticed
in the very first scene, aswith most cartoons of the air, the
pace of the show is slow becausethe vocal deliveries are very deliberate, and
the editing is very deliberate, whereasnow you've got a lot of quick cut
editing between. Especially if you watchcartoons, it seems like the editing is
(18:11):
much faster this one. It's likethey'll cut to something, hold on it,
somebody will comment on the image,it'll hold on the image and then
cut to something else, and yeah, yeah, and sorry, Well I
was gonna say. The speech patternswithin the dialogue are even slow. The
cues between there's a lot of lagbetween the lines and the que the dialogue.
(18:33):
The internal rhythm of the dialogue isslow as well, or pace.
I should say what were gonna say, Olivia. So in this in this
particular episode Dragon's Tale, the verybeginning, when the gang is on their
flying contraption and they go down thislike huge ski jump style ramp to get
(18:56):
them airborne. As us they're flying, or I should say they're just gliding.
They're not. They haven't really takenflight yet, but they're gliding.
There's this section where they to borrowthe filmmaking terms split the second but to
the nth degree, where they makeit look like, oh, here comes
(19:18):
the ground, We're going to crash, and it's they show the ground getting
closer, and then they cut tothe monsters like making a face, and
then they cut back to the exactsame shot of the ground getting closer,
and then back to the monsters.And but then all of a sudden that
(19:42):
just I guess self corrects and Phineassays like, and we're flying? What
what what was what was the purposeof the last twenty five seconds? Then
I can't get back like, soyeah there was there, and so yeah,
(20:03):
piggybacking on what you were just saying. Slow, the dialogue was slow,
and then the dialogue placement was pepperedthrough like some really long u shots
for lack of a better word,within a particular scene, they're just kind
(20:25):
of holding like nothing is happening.There's no plot development happening. It was,
it was. It was kind ofbaffling. I'm with you on Corey.
What are your thoughts on that one? Yeah, there seemed to be
a lot of erraticness with it.I could not tell if it was from
the age of the transfer. Maybesome things had gotten lost because on the
(20:48):
same transfer we were watching, there'sa lot of blips and bleeps and tears.
But yeah, it seemed like theypulled a lot from their own stock
footage. And I think the reasonit was so short lived is just it
was real, sporadic and there wasreally not a lot of substance to it.
(21:10):
There's not and like I said,there's there's nothing to it to hook
you, you know, Like likeI said, it sounds like this this
consulting firm just test marketed it todeath. You know, a focus grouped
it to death until it became allof these elements that they pulled from everything.
You know, Quentin Tarantino can dothat and make it his own.
(21:30):
Sure, this group has done thisand has made just a hodgepode, so
it just see it feels like you'rewatching a montage of other other cartoons.
Yeah, yeah, it's the turbotineeffect. Yes for the Yes, however
many time that we've seen now onething that I did find interesting, and
this may be because of the transfer, like Corey was talking about, but
(21:51):
I don't know if you guys noticedthat. You know, I've talked a
little bit in the past about thelines around the outlines around each character.
Sometimes you get really thick black lineslike you have on like Clerks the animated
series. This one, the linesaround the characters were so thin as to
in some shots were almost non existent, So it gave it sort of a
soft look, like soft edges.Did either of you notice that. I
(22:12):
don't think that I did, butI believe yeah. I noticed it most
with Boo the Blue Monster, probablybecause his was the lightest of those colors.
But yeah, I gave it kindof a soft feel. The creatures
don't look like they head to haveany outlines, and some shots and it
was just kind of interesting. Itsort of set it apart a little bit
(22:33):
from the other cartoons of the day. It didn't look like, you know,
your typical Disney or your typical SaturdayMorning cartoons. So I did kind
of like that, and I didlike the look of the show. While
it was generic, I did likeit because we got a lot of nice
colors. You know, you talked, you guys talked about the design of
(22:53):
the dinosaurs or that the dragons rather, I'm still on our cereal talk.
The dragons reminded me of do youremember the Puff the Magic Dragon cartoon that
came out when we were kids?Yeah, I think so. Yeah,
Yeah, reminded me of that artstyle. And it may just be because
(23:14):
it was maybe the same studio thatdid it. I don't know, but
that's what the dragons reminded me of. And so at the end of the
episode spoilers, did the dragon havetwo eggs and they just didn't notice one
of them? They seemed to besurprised that there were two baby dragons at
the end. I mean maybe,so, okay, yeah, I was
(23:34):
aftable. Following as far as thecharacters, again, like like Olivia said,
the main kid, Derek Dexter,has you know, no personality,
and his Scott Menville is voicing him. He's the son of one of the
creators his accent was very questionable.He came and went. Sometimes it was
(23:56):
there, sometimes it wasn't. Youguys notice that, Yeah, a little
bit Mary Poppins Well, and honestlythe now in this okay, from this
one English language episode that we couldget our myths on, he also the
(24:18):
wasn't he didn't seem like he waskind of an impetus of the plot,
like he wasn't a real focal point. And yeah, and looking through some
of these other episodes, especially likethe second half of this thirteen episode set,
(24:48):
it looks like things become very dinosaurfocused, even more so specifically like
it looks like Gump has I don'tknow two three different episodes kind of devoted
to him. He was tortuous forme, Oh my god, I really
(25:12):
struggled with that voice work for Gump, because it's the same effect I've mentioned
so many times before. Just listeningto it, I over and over felt
like I needed to clear my throator I needed a lozenge right, or
recolla something. Well, and hischaracter like he's supposed to be the dumb
one. It's like at one pointthey see a dragon and somebody says he's
(25:33):
enormous and Gump says, yeah,he's big two, which on the surface
is actually kind of funny. Youknow, a kid might actually like that.
A kid who knows what the wordenormous means might they go, Okay,
that's kind of funny. But Ialso get the feeling that he represents
the target audience because he explains everything, so they think their audience is dumb
and needs to have things spelled outfor them. Sure, yeah, I
(25:56):
could see that. Yeah, sothere was his voice, and then Winkle,
the Pink Monster is kind of supposedto be, like the little kid
has a very very squeaky and annoyingvoice, which I didn't care for at
all. Did either of you findbecause like, I'm looking at the list
of voice talent for this, butI did not see is there a breakdown
(26:22):
of who actually is voicing what partsI found it on. I had to
go to IMDb to find it,and that's how that's how I found Charlie
Adler. Charlie Adler voice is Gump, and he's a voice actor we talked
about before, which is why Iwas surprising to me that it was so
grating. Katie Lee voiced Winkle.She worked on She worked on everything in
(26:44):
the eighties. She was Rolf onThe Muppet Babies, she was Sunny Dummy,
she was Sheila on Dungeons and Dragons, m okay, And so she
she's worked, I mean she's stillworking. She's she's working on the Guardians
of the Galaxy cartoon cosmic for shortthere, So she is still working today.
(27:04):
Joey caman ciam and voiced Boo thatvoice. That was the one that
I liked the most of the threemonsters. It was the one that and
by that, I mean he goton my nerves the least, right,
And he's still working and as voicework. He did some loop work on
Ready Player one. He worked onsome video he's done some video games and
(27:27):
everything. But you know, he'sdone some some cartoons here and there as
well, so he's still working.But yeah, and then of course we
you know, we've talked about ScottMenville voicing Prince Dexter h and he's still
working as a voice actor. He'she was Rob voice of Robin on Teen
Titans, so cool. Yeah,so he's you know, obviously got better.
(27:48):
Of course, they're great. FrankWalker anytime you hear I'm sure he
probably did some of the some ofthe animals that we didn't hear, Oh
yeah, absolutely, but the restof them are just you know. Peter
cullen Is is listed as various characters, Danny Mann is listed as various character.
I assume he was probably Phineas.And Amber Susa is listed as various
characters. I assume she was probablythe the little girl Clovie or clovee where
however you pronounce it. So,yeah, that's that's where we are with
(28:14):
those three characters. Boo was theone that got on my nerves, nerves
the least. Yeah, he's theleast annoying, and he's the other thing
I wanted to talk about, though, was the music. I didn't hate
the music in this episode. Ithink it was fine. Yeah, and
by that, you know, itwas ignorable, which I think a good
cartoon score should be, right,you shouldn't be noticing it, But but
(28:37):
I did, you know it was. I thought it was used fairly well.
And in this episode, the badguy ren Renvic Renvick wants dragon scales
for his armor, and it justso happens that the wizards happen up on
a flock of dragons. They weren'tlooking for the dragons though, were they
at Again, I didn't really followthe plot. No, I think they
just happened on him, Okay,And well, I think the point of
(29:00):
them flying was they were flying tosome kind of like dragon hide away.
I think it was called Okay.It's also it's also not super clear though,
if they were looking for those specificdragons or just those were the ones
(29:23):
they found, right, That's That'swhat I'm not sure about. Agreed.
And at one point, the dragonsmake this kind of weird ambient music that
assembles a dragon skeleton or is thatthe magic of the wizards. I couldn't
Again, I couldn't follow that.I think that's the dragons. Okay,
So everyone is glowing and Renwick isMatt, so he knocks the skeleton apart,
(29:44):
but then the skeleton reassembles and chasesRenwick away a Renwick away just in
time for the egg to hatch.And I know this because Winky told us
twice in two sentences. The eggis hatching, the eggs about to hatch,
the egg is hatching something along thoselines. Again, everything is spelled
out out too, you know.They beat every every point to death.
The second baby dragon likes Gump sothere's that this particular episode upload didn't have
(30:11):
any closing credits. It's just anabrupt end, but the Spanish language series
does have closing end credits. Theinstrumental theme song is over images from the
episode. And Yeah, like Isaid, this show to me just feels
like it was created from focus groupsor by just throwing elements together. Like
we talked about, did you guyshave kind of the same experience. Yeah,
it's pretty sloppy. Yeah, itwas very it like I have a
(30:37):
picture in my brain of a bunchof people sitting around a conference table going
what are the kids like these days? What cells? And a bunch of
pictures stuck up on a board,maybe with some lines connecting them, and
and then coming up with like,so there's a prince and wizards and a
(31:03):
dragon. I don't worry about it, just throw it in there. Yeah.
Yeah, kids are dumb, they'llwatch anything. We got the Gether.
The voice is optimist prime, that'sall we really need. Cory,
what about you? Was that sortof your experience as well? Yeah?
It was as quick as it wentby, it was just as memorable.
And I mean they had some cuteanimation and it was fun hearing some of
(31:27):
the voices that we've heard time andtime again, but there's nothing to it
that's really any redeeming quality in mymind. Yeah, I agree, There's
there's nothing about this show that makesme think anybody who hasn't watched it needs
to. If we do have alistener out there who remembers this show fondly
and wants to go check it out, I would love to hear about it,
(31:49):
to hear about your experience with andespecially to hear about your experience with
it now, because I can't imaginethis being enjoyable for anybody because you know,
again, the voice acting was veryshrill. It's either from poor to
shrill. Even Peter Cullen as rinVic was it just didn't fit the character.
You know that it sounds like Venger. You could check that voice to
(32:10):
come out of vendor, but notjust this pasty white guy with a prince
valiant haircut. Yep, yeah,so be it? Yeah all right?
So yeah, I had red Vicissues with how he was portrayed visually,
but how so explain explained please?I found some of his facial features a
(32:34):
little distracting, namely his chin.Okay, what was it? About Yeah,
what was it about his chin thatthat that that bothered you? Well,
this is a family show, Jeff, Okay, gotcha? Yeah.
So well, before before we go, I would just like to remind people
that the two creators, Lynn Jansenand Chuck Minville did work on some some
(32:57):
things that we actually have liked.Uh. Lynn Jansen was actually a head
writer on Benji Zacs and the AlienPrince that we talked about a while back,
cool, as well as Going Bananas. And he also was a head
writer for season three through seven ofthe Real Ghostbusters and went on to write
for Slimmer and The Real Ghostbusters aswell. So what were those things we
(33:19):
liked? The Real Ghostbusters we did? Oh yeah, as well as Tiny
Twon Adventures. I Will I will, I will Yes, we always,
I will always acquiesce on that.Okay, I'm glad we get that settled.
Yes, and so that's it.And Chuck Menville worked on Groovy Goolies.
(33:39):
He also worked on Hong Kong Foo, which is you know, near
and dear to Corey's heart yep,yes, yes, And he also worked
on Benjie Zacts and The Elion Prince, Real Ghostbusters a lot of the same
the same ones. He also workedon a Little Mermaid cartoon in nineteen ninety
two the series, and he alsowrote for bast several episodes for Batman the
Anem eight series, so there's somebona fie days for him. Definitely.
(34:04):
Okay, I'm glad they cranked outsome more solid work. Yeah, it's
surprising that these two that have doneso much good work in other areas get
you know, this thing came outthat just kind of splatted. We got
thirteen episodes and that said, andit's just truly been forgotten, has truly
been forgotten. And yeah, there'san episode title called the Unicorns Nada in
(34:27):
Ada that I really kind of wantto find out what that's about. But
then part of me thinks no,no, no, no, yea,
So all right, so it's allright. So I think we're all saying
you can skip, you can skipLittle Wizards. Yeah, okay, yeah,
just just move on, move onwith your life, move on.
All right. I'm with you onthat one. There. So they were
(34:47):
folks, they can all be winners. So this is one you can probably
skip. But again, if ifif it's something you watch when you were
a kid, you may have somenostalgic value that you can derive from it.
So if if that is a case, and we do want to hear
from me, so ahead of theFacebook page and let us know what you
think. That will do it forthis episode of the Saturday Morning Supercast until
next time. I'm Jeff, I'mCorey, and I'm Olivia. And it
(35:09):
looks like it's time for college sports, so I am done with the TV
for once, all right, whothank you for listening, and don't forget
to follow the show on Facebook It'sSaturday Morning Supercast and follow at Marvin Dog
Media on Twitter. M
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