Here is a picture from Tuesday night’s performance of Cartoon Dump! at the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood. From left to right: Jerry Beck, Joel Hodgson and his creation Dumpster Diver Dan, Eddie Pepitone, Frank Coniff, Erica Doering and Joe Keys.

Thanks to Jerry for sending along this photo and my apologies to Eddie Pepitone, who played the Agent and Joe Keys, who played Hangover Hound, for not identifying them in the original article. Of course, I can use the excuse that I’m not a reporter, so facts-shmacts, but what would their poor families think? Well, now they can be proud that their loved ones portrayed a jerkweed Agent and a booze hound!

Seriously, it’s the best kid’s show parody since the original live Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. So, try to catch it before HBO snaps it up… hint, hint, HBO!!

Last night was the second live performance of Cartoon Dump!, the pairing up of the mind of Frank Coniff with the film collection of Jerry Beck.

Jerry comes out and introduces the Worst Cartoons Ever, a show he’s been doing at Comic-Con for the last few years. These are actual TV cartoons that were made in the 50’s and 60’s. None of them are intentionally bad, they’re just drawn that way. In some cases, they were made so cheaply, they can’t help but be bad. For instance, there’s The Big World of Little Adam where the leads, two young boys, have their mouths hidden behind a big book, so the only thing that animates are their eyes darting back and forth. They didn’t even bother to draw their bodies coming out from under the bottom of the book so that they are basically just floating heads. The rest of that cartoon consists of stock footage that they got for free from NASA.

After the first two cartoons, the screen rises and we are in the Cartoon Dump, hosted by Compost Brite (Erica Doering), an outgoing bulimic who sings of the joys of skipping meals. She is joined by Moodsy (Frank Coniff), the clinically depressed Owl. They do commercials for such products as “Little Boy Blue, Antidepressants for Children” and lead-in to more cartoons. As the night continued, other characters were introduced, including Hangover Hound, Moodsy’s AA sponsor; Dumpster Diver Dan, a puppet performed last night by Joel Hodgson with a theme song that parodied Diver Dan, a live-action and puppet show from the 60’s and Compost Brite’s Agent, who negotiates with God and the universe. Although a smaller part, I thought the Agent had the funniest line of the night. When Compost Brite wishes for the universe to bring her everything she wants, her Agent goes off to negotiate. After building up her hopes, he returns later with bad news, “The universe has decided to go a different way.”

Comedian Dana Gould also did a stand-up routine.

It was a very funny show and I recommend you check it out next month on the 4th Tuesday. I’ll remind you when it gets closer.

Another surprise of the evening, although not on the stage, was finding Trace Beaulieu in the audience. Trace was the original Crow T. Robot on Mystery Science Theater 3000, as well as Dr. Clayton Forrester. Last month at Comic-Con, there was a mini-reunion of MST3K with the Film Crew, Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy and Bill Corbett and last night, we had the other three principals together again, Joel Hodgson, Trace Beaulieu and Frank Coniff. That was a rare treat as Trace is in the process of moving back to Minnesota after nine years in the L.A. area.

Remember, boys and girls, “Keep Tip-Top with Titan!”

I know this is short notice, but I have to assume that most of you who read this also read Cartoon Brew, so you already know about this. In case you don’t know, tonight at the Steve Allen Theater in Hollywood, Jerry Beck is presenting another live installment of Cartoon Dump, which is a combination of the Worst Kid’s Show Ever with the Worst Cartoons Ever. The live portion is the brainchild of Frank Coniff (TV’s Frank from Mystery Science Theater 3000, for the uninitiated). There is supposed to be a special guest performer tonight, Joel Hodgson, also of MST3K fame. Joel will be heard but not seen as the voice of a new puppet character. It begins at 8 PM and you can find more information by following the links above.

See you down at the Dump!

Me and Jimmy Weldon (in that order)

If you missed yesterday’s live Stu’s Show on Shokus Internet Radio, you missed a very special event. The guest was Jimmy Weldon and you can read who he is, as if you don’t already know, by scrolling down this page.

Jimmy loves to talk and regaled us with stories of his childhood, through his learning how to talk like a duck and up to his current stint as a motivational speaker. We got to hear a clip of Jimmy’s appearance on the original Dragnet show with Jack Webb and Ben Alexander and did the soundtrack for a non-existant Yakky Doodle cartoon.

I said this at the end of the broadcast, but it bears repeating. I’ve been very lucky when meeting my childhood heroes. They’ve turned out to be very nice people and were especially nice to me… Daws Butler, Jim Henson, Soupy Sales… and now I’d add Jimmy Weldon to the list as well.

Don’t despair… you have at least six more chances to hear the rebroadcast. Follow the link to Shokus Internet Radio and look for the schedule for Stu’s Show. Generally, it’s repeated at 4 PM Pacific Time every day.

Next Wednesday, the 22nd (my birthday, by the way), my good friend Jerry Beck will be the guest to continue talking about the Fleischer and Terrytoon studios and on September 12th, Mark Evanier and myself will be back to talk more about TV animation. If you haven’t gotten in the habit of listening to internet radio, why not start now? It’ll make you feel warm and fuzzy all over or your money back.

No, not Karl Rove. I’m speaking of the fox and another enticement to listen to Stu’s Show on Wednesday the 15th at 4 PM Pacific Time. I’ll be cohosting and helping to interview Jimmy Weldon as reported below. But what it doesn’t say is that we’ll also be recreating a Yakky Doodle cartoon live on the show. Jimmy will, of course, be Yakky, but he’ll also double as Chopper, the role created by the late Vance Colvig. And yours truly will be doing Fibber Fox. This will not be a transcibed script from an actual cartoon, but something I’m writing that will sound like a Yakky Doodle cartoon. It’s gonna be a lot of fun, so be sure to listen or Karl Rove will out you!

Next Wednesday, August 15th, you’re in for another rare treat. I’ll be on Stu’s Show on Shokus Internet Radio. But Earl, you say, you’re on that thing all the time. Yes, but this time I’ll be co-hosting with Stu and our guest will be Jimmy Weldon. In case you’ve been in a cave since WW II, Jimmy was a kid’s show host with his pal, Webster Webfoot for many years, but most of you probably know him as the voice of Yakky Doodle.

This will be a great experience as Jimmy hasn’t done that many in-depth interviews. We’ll learn all about his life and what he’s up to today. As usual, Stu will be taking your calls during the live broadcast beginning at 4 PM Pacific Time, with repeats at that same time the rest of the week. Don’t miss this one or your brains will fall out!

The news of the Smurfs release on DVD was supposed to come out yesterday, but Warner Home Video themselves leaked it before. It was in the recently released Popeye DVD, they were handing out temporary tattoos at Comic-Con announcing it and finally, TV Shows on DVD had the above box art on August 2nd. I’ve known about this for a long time, but the company is making me sign non-disclosure agreements now, so I can’t tell you about upcoming releases ahead of time any more.

What I can tell you is the contents of this set and why the box says 19 cartoons (if you follow the TV Shows on DVD link, you can see a larger version of the art).

Season One originally aired as an hour, two eleven minute episodes and one full half-hour story. But as early as Show #3, they began repeating cartoons. Show #3 has “Vanity Fare” which was also in Show #1. It didn’t make sense to release 21 hours of Smurfs (the number of Season One episodes) with a lot of repeats in them, so they are in the order of the original hours, but without duplicates. Here is the list by disc:

DISC ONE:

1 The Smurf’s Apprentice
2 The Smurfette
3 Vanity Fare
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4 King Smurf
5 The Astrosmurf
6 Jokey’s Medicine
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7 St. Smurf and the Dragon
8 Sorcerer Smurf
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9 The Smurfs and the Howlibird

DISC TWO:

10 The Magical Meanie
11 Bewitched, Bothered and Be-Smurfed
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12 Smurf-Colored Glasses
13 Dreamy’s Nightmare
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14 Fuzzle Trouble
15 Soup A La Smurf
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16 All That Glitters Isn’t smurf
17 Romeo and Smurfette
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18 The Hundredth Smurf
19 Smurphony in ‘C’

The lines between the titles denote what would have been each original hour show, 1 - 9. No word yet on whether these will contain main and end titles. I’ll Smurf you in when I find out. (Sheesh… I can’t believe I just wrote that.)