Original animation drawing of “Alice”

I made a slight error in my original post about Alice in Wonderland or What’s a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This? I said it was going to be on the Cartoon Netowrk later this month. It’s actually Boomerang and it’s this Sunday at 1:45 PM Pacific time, only I don’t think it’s this version of Alice. According to my cable company DVR, the description of this show is, “A little English girl wanders through the looking glass to an unusual place.” In the H-B program, she isn’t English and she doesn’t go through the looking glass. They modernized the way she enters Wonderland. That’s not to say that the cable company didn’t see a listing for Alice in Wonderland and plug in this generic description, but I think it’s more likely that this is not the aforementioned … What’s a Nice Kid… special. We will have to wait and see together… or not see, as the case may be.

In the previous post, I referred to Charles Strouse’s “Tomorrow” song from Annie as being repurposed from an Arrow Shirt commercial. It wasn’t so much a commercial as it was a short film titled Replay. Boiled down, the basic premise is that history repeats itself. Rather than explain it further, you can watch the film and hear the original lyrics as sung by Shelley Plimpton by clicking here. The color in it has faded to near non-existant (parts of it were meant to be in black and white) but it’s still watchable. It’s 7:36 long and there is brief nudity in it, so if you’re offended by such things or are underage, please ignore this one.

I’m not really sure what this has to do with Arrow Shirts, although there may be some featured in it, but isn’t it fun that companies used to do this kind of thing?

A special thanks to B. Baker who reminded me of the title of this film. He says it was made in 1970 and even enjoyed a theatrical run, distributed by Columbia in 1971.

One more thing, I’m not condemning Mr. Strouse for reusing a melody he liked. In fact, it’s nice to see that he retained ownership of it. I often reuse jokes I’ve written. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to catch a cold.

Has there ever been a really successful film version of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland? There have been many and many of them are very entertaining, but I would say there has never been a really successful version. There are several problems with trying to turn this witty, wacky world into a film and the first one is that there’s no story and no heroine. Alice wanders around Wonderland and meets people and things happen to her, but she’s never proactive. And the wandering around makes it very episodic, with nothing to tie the episodes together but her search for her missing cat.

So, why am I talking about Alice in Wonderland? Well, I’ve been meaning to post this piece for a while, but my buddy Mark Evanier has forced my hand with this. Scroll down to the last two paragraphs, where he talks about a Hanna-Barbera special titled Alice in Wonderland or What’s a Nice Kid Like You Doing in a Place Like This?

This is another version that still has a lot of the same flaws as other versions. But it also has some things going for it. The main one is the score and songs. More about that in a minute.

Here are some original cels from the film. First up is the White Rabbit, voiced by Howie Morris, remembered as one of the players on Your Show of Shows and Ceasar’s Hour and probably best known for his five appearances on The Andy Griffith Show as Ernest T. Bass. Search around Mark’s sight and I think you can find the story of why this was the last voice Howie did for the studio for quite a few years. It was over being replaced on the record album of this special. You can click on any of these pictures to see a larger version.

Here’s another view of the Cheshire Cat, voiced by Sammy Davis, Jr., who was also replaced on the record by Scatman Crothers, but was still somehow welcome at the studio. They even made him resemble Sammy by making his whiskers look like a moustache and giving him a goatee, a look that Davis was sporting at the time.

This is the Queen of Hearts, and again, she resembles her voice, Zsa Zsa Gabor. Unfortunately, some of this show dates by using celebrity voices and likenesses. There was a Hollywood gossip columnist, Hedda Hopper who wrote from the 1930’s through the 1960’s and was known for her flamboyant and omnipresent hats. Hanna-Barbera cast her as the Mad Hatter. Anyone under the age of 40 will never understand this reference.

The one reference that doesn’t really date is Bill Dana as The White Knight doing his Jose Jimenez character. Even though it’s another caricature, if you’ve never seen him before, the character is funny on his own.

The caterpillar in this version has two heads, belonging to the stone-age duo of Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. They perform one of the best numbers in the show, “They’ll Never Split Us Apart”. The track appeared on the Flintstones soundtrack album I produced for Rhino Records, which unfortunately, is now out of print. An interesting piece of trivia - Alan Reed, the original voice of Fred, performed the dialogue in the show, while Henry Corden, who would take over the voice after Alan died, did the singing.

Which brings us back to the music. As Mark has already pointed out, it was written by Lee Adams and Charles Strouse of Bye, Bye, Birdie fame. But here is a rare item, the cover of a book of sheet music from the show. WARNING: Only click on the next two items if you have a fast connection, they are rather large. Note that the artwork looks nothing like the Hanna-Barbera cartoon. My guess is that the publisher only licensed the music and not the art.

Here is the inside front cover with bios and a picture of Adams and Strouse. It says in the first paragraph that “they’ve written together ever since”. This didn’t continue to be the case as Charles Strouse teamed with Martin Charnin in 1977 to write the Broadway musical Annie. The melody for the show-stopping “Tomorrow” was something he had written for an Arrow Shirt commercial, but that’s a story for another time. Adams and Strouse would reteam for the disastrous Bring Back Birdie, an attempt at a sequel starring Donald O’Connor in the Dick Van Dyke role. It ran 4 performances.

Like Mark, I’m looking forward to seeing this show again when it plays on Cartoon Network later this month. I’ve been bugging Warner Home Video to release a DVD of this and the other H-B special, Jack and the Beanstalk, starring Gene Kelly. I remember enjoying that one, too, although it’s a bit disconcerting hearing Dick Beals’ (Speedy Alka-Seltzer) voice coming out of a real little boy.

One last note, if you’re in the L.A. area today or tomorrow, you can actually meet Bill Dana at the Hollywood Collectors Show, which takes place at the Burbank Marriott (nee Hilton).

By now you’ve come to realize that I have a penchant for puppet replicas, as witnessed by the recent and not so recent pictures of Kermit the Frog. Here is another of my replicas:

Yes, it’s lovable Tom Servo from Mystery Science Theater 3000. Well, here’s good news for everyone that was heartbroken when that show blasted off for the last time. Satellite News, the “Official Mystery Science Theater 3000″ Website is reporting that a new project called “The Film Crew” is beginning and asking for your help.

Who is The Film Crew and what do they do? They are three guys that take old movies and provide funny commentary over them. Sound like a rip-off of another popular show? Well, it would be except that here are pictures of The Film Crew:

Yes, it’s Kevin Murphy, Bill Corbett and Mike Nelson from MST3K. Kevin was Tom Servo, Bill was Crow #2 after Trace Beaulieu (Crow #1) left the show, and Mike was Mike. If you click on the banner above, it will take you to their home page where you can vote on one of four movies for Shout! Factory to release in July 2007.

There is a video greeting from Kevin Murphy, then clips of the four films with the boys in fine form. It’s kind of like seeing an old friend after so many years.

I won’t tell you which film I voted for so as not to influence anything, but I will say it has a city in the title. Once the DVD comes out, I’ll be sitting and watching it with Tom Servo. Just like old times!

I have no life.

A few posts ago… here, to be exact… I talked about the Hanna-Barbera plush that can mostly be found in claw machines and as carnival prizes and also referenced some characters that were made in the 1980’s by Applause.

Oops! I was looking at a set of Three Stooges dolls I have from 1988 and the tag on the back reads “Presents” and a light bulb went off. It wasn’t Applause, it was Presents that made the lot of Hanna-Barbera characters in 1985. A quick search on e-Bay turned up several of them. I have to say, they aren’t quite as nice as I remembered, or at least, not as on-model. Certainly, the ones I have are nicer than the ones pictured here, Wally Gator and Grape Ape. Maybe that’s why I picked out the ones I did, because they were the best of the bunch. Still, for them to make as many unusual characters as they did was nice. How many Hokey Wolf dolls have you seen? The biggest problem was that they made so many different ones, no store stocked them all. Not even the major chains with lots of floor space. They cherry-picked and so you mostly saw the biggest “star” characters, while the others sat on the downtown showroom shelf. Even the few currently on e-Bay are not the more obscure entries. Although, Grape Ape is probably one of the more unlikely ones to find.

At least in 1985, a lot of these cartoons were running on USA Network. Today, most of them only run on Boomerang, a network with low saturation, if they even run there. So, it’s all the more surprising that the current crop of plush exist. For us Boomers, it’s nice to see that some of these familiar faces still have some staying power.

By now, everyone who reads this column knows that Master Replicas, a company known mainly for reproducing props and models from Star Wars and Star Trek, has acquired the rights to make a line of Muppet “posers”. These are not puppets, but rather replicas of the photo doubles that they use when making calendars, ads, etc. You can’t put your hand inside and operate them, but they are fully poseable. Kermit the Frog is the first one available and pictures of mine will be at the end of this article.

As announced here, the next one in the line is Gonzo. Also widely known in Muppet fandom, but not announced here is that after Gonzo, the next character will be Animal. Kermit was a true bargain at $199. Although not reported or on pre-order yet, an official from Master Replicas speculates that Gonzo will run $249 and Animal will come in at $299. Besides being more complicated to build, they both also need clothing… at least more than a pointed frog collar.

Now for the exclusive… an inside source tells me that the next two Muppets being considered for production are Fozzie Bear or Miss Piggy. Both of them have huge hurdles to figure out. Miss Piggy’s head is flocked foam, unlike the original traditional Muppets, which had an internal foam structure and then were covered with a material called Antron fleece. (Originally they were nylon fleece, a material whose backing stretched in both directions, but that is no longer manufactured.) Miss Piggy’s head is also “blown”, meaning the foam is injected into a mold. The problem they are now trying to solve is finding a way to mass produce it and still maintain a reasonable price. Probably the biggest obstacle to Fozzie is his size. Below is a picture of the professional poser:

As you can see, compared to the frog, he’s huge. Not only will his cost have to be considerably higher, but shipping could become cost prohibitive. If Animal ends up at $299, I could foresee Fozzie coming in at $600-$800.

Anyway, no final decision has been made. It could be Fozzie or Piggy, or it might have to end up being a completely different character if the obstacles can’t be overcome.

Beyond the posers, the same Master Replicas official that offered his best guess on the upcoming prices hinted that in 2008, there will be other Muppet merchandise available. I’m not going to speculate on what it might be this far out, but keep watching this space for any news.

Now, as promised, here are a couple of pictures of my posing efforts with Kermit. I can tell you, just having him around makes you smile.

I’m sure every one of my readers listened with rapt attention to Mark Evanier and myself on Stu’s Show yesterday on Shokus Internet Radio. But for those one or two of you that were at work while it was on, it repeats at 4 PM Pacific, 7 PM Eastern time every night until next Wednesday except Sunday when it plays at 10 AM Pacific and 1 PM Eastern. Or maybe you just need to hear it again. Either way, tune in, and when you do, tell ‘em Earcho sent you.

I’m about to give you a link to an e-Bay auction where you can see pictures of EVERY toy made in the 1950’s and early ’60’s. I have no affiliation with the person selling this lot. In fact, I don’t know them at all. I just had to pass on this amazing collection for all to see. My favorite items in this group that I actually had were Golferino and Fascination. If you look at the pictures, you’ll get an idea of what they were. I may still have them, but having just moved, all my old toys went into storage. Hmm, depending on what this guy gets for his auction, maybe I should think about one, too! Here’s the link:

The One Who Dies With the Most Toys Has a Helluva Lot of Toys!