Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to In The Balcony. We hope you enjoy your visit.

You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free. Plus, you'll be eligible for the monthly $1 million prize. (Not really.)

Join our community!

If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Halloweeners 2011
Topic Started: Nov 8 2011, 07:59 AM (1,027 Views)
Laughing Gravy
Member Avatar
Look for In The Balcony on Facebook!
[ *  *  * ]
In the early '60s, the Casper show - the one I grew up watching - featured cartoons with the Casper I read in the funnybooks, Mr. P. Yes, there are some cartoons that show a graveyard and "real" ghosts.
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
panzer the great & terrible
Member Avatar
Mouth Breather
[ *  *  * ]
If you grew up watching something, that doesn't necessarily make it worth watching now. I grew up on Ding Dong School with the insufferable Miss Frances, but I wouldn't watch it again if they paid me the large bucks.

Anyway, Cliff, it's great to have you back on this site. We missed you.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Laughing Gravy
Member Avatar
Look for In The Balcony on Facebook!
[ *  *  * ]
I have an episode of Ding-Dong School (on the Hey Kids! DVD set of old TV shows for kids) and I loved it so much that I showed it on FNF; everybody loved it, and Strawberry Gravy - who was working as an after-school teacher's assistant for grade-school kids at the time - learned how to do some crafts that she later taught her charges. It was very, very cool. God bless Miss Frances.
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
panzer the great & terrible
Member Avatar
Mouth Breather
[ *  *  * ]
Lord God: Miss Frances lives, and somebody thinks she's cool.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
JazzGuyy
Member Avatar
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
[ *  *  * ]
mort bakaprevski
Nov 8 2011, 01:24 PM
Laughing Gravy
Nov 8 2011, 08:37 AM
Casper is a mythical creature like a unicorn, a giant, or a pixie (all of whom appeared in the comics and cartoons), not a dead little boy.

Another sad Hollywood tale of Jewish siblings who just couldn't seem to get along (at least Harry & Jack Cohn were smart enough to have a continent separating them).
As did some of the Warner Bros.
Edited by JazzGuyy, Nov 9 2011, 12:00 PM.
TANSTAAFL!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
JazzGuyy
Member Avatar
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
[ *  *  * ]
Laughing Gravy
Nov 9 2011, 08:36 AM
I have an episode of Ding-Dong School (on the Hey Kids! DVD set of old TV shows for kids) and I loved it so much that I showed it on FNF; everybody loved it, and Strawberry Gravy - who was working as an after-school teacher's assistant for grade-school kids at the time - learned how to do some crafts that she later taught her charges. It was very, very cool. God bless Miss Frances.
As a kid I hated Miss Frances. I thought she talked down to kids.
TANSTAAFL!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
mort bakaprevski
Member Avatar
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
[ *  *  * ]
JazzGuyy
Nov 9 2011, 12:00 PM
As did some of the Warner Bros.
Another Harry/Jack combo that ended disastrously for Harry as Jack tricked him out of the company entirely.

Granted, the above is based on the film produced by Harry's granddaughter, but Jack's reputation always had a bit of an odor associated with it. My understanding is that most people liked & respected Harry!!
"Nov Shmoz Ka Pop."
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Laughing Gravy
Member Avatar
Look for In The Balcony on Facebook!
[ *  *  * ]
Jazzy, she didn't... She had a "Mr Rogers" kind of personality, and my kids LOVED Fred. In fact, he was probably influenced by her.
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
JazzGuyy
Member Avatar
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
[ *  *  * ]
Oh, he definitely was. I believe he was on record about that.

I was only speaking for myself about Miss Frances. I just didn't like the woman and the way she talked. Most of my friends felt the same way. It may have only been because we were a couple of years past the age of her intended audience.
TANSTAAFL!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Inspector Carr
Member Avatar
Charter Member
[ *  *  * ]
Disliked Casper way back when.........nostalgia has not softened my opinion
"Life is a Crapshoot however you need a pair of dice to participate"
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Frank Hale
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
[ *  *  * ]
Hey, for every woman who accuses me of not liking Mizoguchi, there are a thousand who say they never heard of me! (I'm actually pretty neutral; most of the Japanese films in the Criterion Eclipse series have reminded me of Ann Beattie stories in The New Yorker: well executed, but about people in whom I have a very limited interest.)

Have to agree with Fantomas and the Inspector about Casper. I hated all the Harveytoons when I was a kid, and feel no pressing need to revisit them now.

Miss Frances was OK; a hell of a lot nicer than my elementary school principal. (These youthful scars heal slowly.) I had a couple of 78’s from the show, unless I’m thinking of Winkie-Dink or the John Gnagy Learn to Draw show (where IIRC you were invited to affix a static-cling plastic sheet to the tube and draw along with the master,)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
CliffClaven
Member Avatar
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
[ *  *  * ]
Maybe Casper and kin were eventually purged of previous mortal lives, but at least one cartoon seemed pretty explicit on the subject of ghosts. Casper befriends a fox cub. Casper scares off a British fox hunter, but little Foxy has already been shot. We end with Casper sobbing over Foxy's humble grave when the cheery ghost of his little friend rises from the dirt. They frolic joyfully. Happy ending! (and don't try this at home, kids)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
panzer the great & terrible
Member Avatar
Mouth Breather
[ *  *  * ]
I agree with jazzy 100% -- Miss Frances always seemed condescending to me, possibly because I was too old for her. In the part of the world where I grew up, though, people didn't speak to children in special "gentle" voices, so she and for that matter Fred Rogers seemed kinda affected or at any rate odd. Just a cultural thing I guess.

Similar problem with Casper -- he was far too cute to belong in the world I knew. I never liked that type of mush, even when I was small. Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Popeye were the ones I warmed to, and that developed into a taste for westerns, serials, Pogo, MAD, Marvel Comics, the Rolling Stones and such like. Always with a little edge. Never liked marshmallows either.

I've said it before: there are DC people and there are Marvel people, they aren't the same breed, and there's nothing to be gained by quarreling about it.

Or put it another way: the kids who acted like Casper were the Eddie Haskell types: manipulative phonies who put on a show for the grownups. Some girls were especially good at it.
Life is just a bowl of cherries, it's too mysterious, don't take it serious...
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
mort bakaprevski
Member Avatar
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
[ *  *  * ]
panzer the great & terrible
Nov 11 2011, 08:09 AM
... the kids who acted like Casper were the Eddie Haskell types: manipulative phonies who put on a show for the grownups.
Good grief P...... & I thought I was cynical!
"Nov Shmoz Ka Pop."
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Fantomas
Member Avatar
Balcony Gang, Foist Class
[ *  *  * ]
Let's take a moment to contemplate Winky-Dink, which was not a cartoon show (there's virtually no animation in it), but actually a half-hour infomercial design by sleazy Jack Barry (before he went on to fixing quiz shows) with the goal of extorting 50 cents from the parents of every kid with a TV set. Here's a chunk--notice how much time is devoted to sending in that money. "Kids, you can't enjoy the show without the magic crayons and screen, so ask your parents . . ."

Winky-Dink and You and Your 50 Cents

As time went on, Barry got a lot less avuncular and a lot more perfunctory:

Later Winky


Now Jon Gnagy sold drawing kits in stores, but didn't make you send in 50 cents for a magic screen to watch the show. Here's the intro to his program:

Jon Gnagy Learn to Draw

I haven't thought of this in over fifty years, but I remember he always wore those flannel shirts.





"For life is short, but death is long."
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · Shock Theatre · Next Topic »
Add Reply