I have been trying to remember a 1980s show about a New Zealand girl and her coming of age adventures. It was something like “Clarissa Explains it All.” Does anyone know what the name of that show was?
Featuring one of my favorite character actors, Jonathan Banks!
I remember that. It starred Adrian Pasdar i believe, better kbown as “Flying Man” on Heroes.
I remember Wacky Races and Stop that pigeon or whatever it was called.
I remember it, and I’m sure many others do, too. It, and many other animated Sesame inserts, were animated and sung by Bud Luckey, who now works at Pixar (and whose familiar voice was heard in the short Boundin’, which he also wrote.)
The main shows I remember that no one else seems to are the various Canadian-produced cartoons the Family Channel showed after it was bought by Fox (and before they sold it to ABC). In particular, I recall The Kids from Room 402 and Angela Anaconda to be well-done. There may be other shows I remember from the past, but I can’t think of them right now (ironically).
Jabberwocky. This was a bizarre little live-action show from 1974 produced by WCVB in Boston. I remember watching it as a kid early on Saturday mornings waaay before anything else started (even Davey and Goliath came on later), and last time I was in town it was still there at 5am on Saturday morning (I was jet-lagged).
Aside from the psychedelic intro sequence, what struck me after seeing it again was how un-childish the dialog was (probably because they had no script and knew they were in a time slot nobody watched). At the end of the episode I saw they had someone from the New England Aquarium talking to a group of kids about scuba diving, and I swear every third sentence ended with a variant of “…because if that happens, you’ll die.”
Also, does anyone remember the 70s-era “crack” sequence on Sesame Street? Nothing to do with drugs, it was an animated short about the cracks in the wall coming to life.
It would never be aired today because of the unfortunate choice of names (Crack Monkey, Crack Camel and Crack Master), but it scared the shit out of me as a little kid (especially the monkey’s sing-song voice chanting, “At night, behind the door, I think I hear one more”)
Searching “Sesame Street crack” on Youtube brings up one relevant link, but don’t bother clicking it unless you like Rick Astley.
I remember both those shows very well. I believe Jason Bateman’s nemesis was the guy who played Marcy’s first husband on Married with Children. I don’t know why that show didn’t make it; it was very clever and funny.
I also remember New Zoo Revue - “With Doug and Emmy Jo; everyday’s a different show…” Wasn’t a fan, though; I was too old for it. 
The parody of the theme song that my sister and I enjoyed inflicting upon each other was, “It’s about time! It’s about space! It’s about time to slap your face!”
I do. I used to watch it on those Saturday mornings when I got up earlier than usual because it was the only network cartoon show that aired before 7:30 a.m. (Apparently, NBC didn’t have much faith in the program.) Sadly, in retrospect, it’s kind of easy to see why it didn’t catch on. I don’t think the demographic for extremely literate six-and-seven-year olds familiar with the works of Edward Lear, Ogden Nash, and Lewis Carroll was big enough for “Tomfoolery” to be a hit on Saturday morning. However, it might’ve fit in nicely on PBS.
Before Sabrina, Melissa Joan Hart starred in Clarissa Explains it All. I’ve never seen the show, but since I doubt Hart could pull off a Kiwi accent, I don’t think this could be the show you mean. Perhaps there was an NZ remake?
PINWHEEL!!!
I don’t care if I was five years too old for that show, it was a total foreign animation festival for five hours every day and Christmas vacations were that much more awesome because of it. I also remember “Kids Writes” and “Livewire” hosted by Fred Newman - one episode of which I remember being the first real discussion of racism I’d ever heard.
I also remember the cracks-in-the-wall animation and the monster freaked me out. And Jabberwocky! Dirty Frank, baby! Ah, to be a New England kid in the '70s again…
I remember the Ladybug Picnic, I still sing the song, and I was the Mom when it came out, hehehe.
How about Mathnet? As a parent I loved that show. And the real life Lisa Simpson was in one episode.
Complete mystery why it only lasted 14 episodes – it won Emmies for Best Comedy and Best Actor in its first and only season.
Its a shame that some shows with potential don’t last. Firefly is an obvious example. But there is also MANTIS and Brimstone.
Not only that, it was the lead-in to “Laugh-In” so it probably had the best time slot a new program could hope to get in 1969.
Anyway, regarding “My World and Welcome to It,” you can take much of what I said about the failure of “Tomfoolery” in my previous post and multiply it times 100. The show was basically too literary (the main character worked at a thinly-disguised version of The New Yorker and was based on writer James Thurber) and–with its mix of fantasy and cartoon sequences–too off-beat to get a large audience.
Come to think of it, both shows debuted the same year (1969) and on the same network (NBC). I wonder if the same well-intentioned programming strategy was behind them.
I hope I’m not the only one who remembers the Tijuana Toads.
I guess not many would consider these “old” shows, since I’m only 25…but they’re from my childhood, and no one remembers them…
None of my friends (even those who still watch cartoons!) remembers this Early 90s cartoon: Exo Squad. Here’s the opening: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYWYkTp9hUQ&feature=related
It was a war between humans and their humanoid creations…Neosapiens. There was suffering, and death.
I found the complete series on the web (as a low quality set of MPEGs). It lasted two seasons…I watched the show as a kid, and I’m STILL amazed at the depth of the story and the characters. It was an amazing show, EVERY episode served to move the story along. If you missed one episode, you missed alot! There were no “kiddie” or morality plays. There was no black and white definition of right and wrong. At times EVERYONE was wrong. Yet, everyone was right in what they believed. People switched sides.
Move on up to the late '90s…On the Fox channel, at about the same time frame as all the alien conspiracy shows and Roswell shows was a nice little sci-fi show called “The Visitor”.
I liked it. It was to me…basically a man fighting to do what was right, to improve others. I guess it was a bit…“black and white” in the good and bad department, and actually pretty heavy with the “doing good” bit. But I liked it quite a bit, due to the combination of historical themes and sci-fi. And probably the “feel good” factor. I was severely disappointed when it was canceled after a half season.
It’s hard to find ANYTHING about this show on the web, no clips. I did find the IMDB page: The Visitor (TV Series 1997–1998) - IMDb
Here’s their description…
I would gladly buy good DVDs of these shows if they existed!
Not only does no one else remember this animation
I don’t either.
All I remember is these long, standing lumps of different coloured plasticine in some sort of weird purely white set with strange coloured trees and multicoloured plants dotted around the place and one episode they were debating whether the lump of white plasticine was actually a colour, then I think they moved onto whether the black plasticine was also a colour?
They also had the ability to multicolour themselves all psychedelically like.
Think The Magic Roundabout but with plasticine.