No pun in this post’s title, because the series in question
was given such a good one as its own title!
As if to mitigate (even if it’s only in my personal view) its decision to create a Sylvester and Hippity Hopper collection, Warner Home Video
is (At LAST!!!) releasing a volume of the great – and now unjustly forgotten –
series TAZ-MANIA! More details are found HERE!
TAZ-MANIA came into being in an odd (and, perhaps, not well
remembered) window of time.
 |
| Taz remember! ...Maybe! |
The great success of The Disney Afternoon series of animated
TV programs awakened the sleeping giant of Warner Bros., who countered with TINY
TOON ADVENTURES in 1990.
But, in those years prior to the formation of the WB network
– and, by extension, the once magnificent Sat AM block called “Kids WB”, that
gave us PINKY AND THE BRAIN, FREAKAZOID!, SUPERMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES, BATMAN
BEYOND, and so much more – TAZ-MANIA found a home on what was then known as “Fox
Kids” in 1991 . And, though it eventually
reached the then-syndication-requisite total of 65 episodes, it never made the
transfer to “Kids WB” – to become forever linked in our collective memories with
the other denizens of that great Sat AM block, as did both ANIMANIACS and
BATMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES.
Nevertheless, TAZ-MANIA was a riot, with much of its comedy
stemming from the fact that, while Taz had very limited powers of speech, the
series was literally teeming with newly-created ancillary characters who talked
endlessly around him! All the while
exploiting his naiveté and his heretofore unseen “good nature"! He was even hunted by a pair of crocodiles
(superbly voiced by John Astin and Jim Cummings) who wished to turn him over to
a ZOO, for the enjoyment of all the zoo-going children of the world.
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| "Now, let's put this DVD on our list, Axel!" |
We’ll get the first 13 eps in this set – and I, for one, can’t
wait to become reacquainted with this wonderful (and unjustly obscure)
series! …And, if memory serves, we will
be getting the great “TAZ HATE WATER!” episode in this collection!
 |
| "Eek! Ook! Snort! Someone say WATER?!" |
8 comments:
quote: The great success of The Disney Afternoon series of animated TV programs awakened the sleeping giant of Warner Bros., who countered with TINY TOON ADVENTURES in 1990.
But, in those years prior to the formation of the WB network – and, by extension, the once magnificent Sat AM block called “Kids WB”, that gave us PINKY AND THE BRAIN, FREAKAZOID!, SUPERMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES, BATMAN BEYOND, and so much more – TAZ-MANIA found a home on what was then known as “Fox Kids” in 1991 . And, though it eventually reached the then-syndication-requisite total of 65 episodes, it never made the transfer to “Kids WB” – to become forever linked in our collective memories with the other denizens of that great Sat AM block, as did both ANIMANIACS and BATMAN THE ANIMATED SERIES.
YES! spot-on!
I actually remember Taz-Mania being pretty popular in its time -- all types of merchandise sporting the visage of the newly-christened "Taz" sprouted up all over the place, and Warner Bros.' marketing department promoted him to being one of the Looney Tunes heavies: I remember a concurrent McDonald's Happy Meal Looney Tunes tie-in where the "prize" at the bottom of a Happy Meal box would be one of four (cheap plastic) figurines: Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, or...the Tazmanian Devil.
And personally, in grade school at the time, I had a friend or two who regarded the show as "cool". As for myself, I remember watching the primetime premiere, but after that, my interest waned. I'm glad to see that the series is being given a dvd release, and your post has actually somewhat reawakened said waned interest. :)
Jumping to another subject: has anyone else theorized that Warner Bros.' taking Animaniacs and B:TAS away from their proven-highly-successful positions on Fox Kids and using them as the basis of the inferiorly-distributed and very tentatively-established start-up Kids' WB! lineup that they were trying their best to make an instant powerhouse actually caused those series' popularity and pop culture presence to diminish more quickly -- even immediately -- than they would've had they left well enough alone? (After all, Animaniacs has long been all but forgotten, when it had briefly been all the rage...)
Now, don't get me wrong: I'm only making these contentions from a ratings/mass culture perspective; personally, as I've said before in comments here on Joe's blog, I consider the first couple years of Kids' WB to have been near-perfection. But times were changing: within a couple years, The Disney Afternoon was completely dismantled, Kids' WB! struck it rich with PokemonPower Rangers.
-- Ryan
Interesting comments, as always, Ryan! Also, enjoyed your personal recollections of a time we all experienced.
Clearly, moving the established ANIMANIACS and BATMAN TAS to Kids WB (and spinning off PINKY AND THE BRAIN) could do nothing but enhance the brand. And, considering that FOX had come into its own only recently – and that both WB and UPN were pretty much starting up at the same time – you can’t blame WB for doing anything that might give it an edge, or even just help it to stand out from the pack.
After all, Warner Bros. CREATED those programs in the first place and, with that, should come the right to utilize them as they wish. Lest we forget, BATMAN didn’t actually move over until the third year of Kids WB, when they launched “The New Batman/Superman Adventures”.
Also, considering that the Kids WB block was also carried nationally on SUNDAYS over WGN – allowing me to watch it twice in a weekend – I’m not certain how the move from FOX Kids could have “…caused those series' popularity and pop culture presence to diminish more quickly”.
Actually, I remain amazed that Kids WB maintained its near-perfection for as long as it did, from the 1995-1999 seasons, despite the growing influence (and ultimate domination) of Pokemon, which itself was likely prompted by the success of Power Rangers FOX Kids.
All eras come to an end and, just as the great period of sixties cartoons gave way to the dread and horrors of the seventies and eighties, so ended that nice little nineties golden age. I can’t really see ANIMANIACS and BATMAN TAS moving off FOX Kids as hastening their demise. It just “happened”, as things do. Indeed, WB (though more of it in the realm of its “Cartoon Network” brand) still introduced a few good Scooby-Doo and (especially) DC Comics series in the decade that followed.
To me, the mystery was why TAZ-MANIA was left behind by Kids WB, and never became a part of that lineup. The resulting lack of what I dare call “Kids WB Nostalgia” may be why it’s languished for so long in terms of DVD releases.
With the final volume of ANIMANIACS coming on February 05 (fittingly, these were the Kids WB Era shows, with a cameo by Freakazoid!) and TAZ-MANIA on May 14, it looks like WB is finally giving these shows some of the recognition they deserve.
…Now, let’s hope they recall that only the first 13 eps of THE SYLVESTER AND TWEETY MYSTERIES have been released, and they come back with that one as well.
This was one of those cartoons were my parents got the jokes before I did - particularly the Hugh Devil character being a spoof of Bing Crosby and Francis X. being this overeducated kid who was in over his head when it came to hunting Taz. I remember Kellie Martin was sort of a big deal being cast as Taz's sister. Anyway, it was a cute sitcom. The stuff with Bull Gator and Axel is kind of a forerunner to Pinky and The Brain.
And Ryan is right - Taz was big in the early 90s - I remember the video games were fun. I wonder if this set has the episode with Marvin the Martian - I love that one!
But Joe, you are right about it being underrated - there was no tie-in comic book, or cobbled-together magazine (remember Tiny Toon Adventures Magazine?). Finally, I think the driving force behind this show was Bill Kopp, who created Eek! the Cat, so this had more of a FOX kids cartoon feel, and it didn't have the "Steven Speilberg presents" banner, so there's a combination of different elements at work on this show.
‘Rehab:
Having your parents get the jokes before you do, is a grand old Warner Bros. animation tradition. My mother explained to me who “Kilroy” (“Haredevil Hare”) and “Petrillo” (“Hurdy-Gurdy Hare”) were, making this a generational thing that we may all share to one degree or another.
And the very name "Hugh Devil" is a great joke in itself.
“The stuff with Bull Gator and Axel is kind of a forerunner to Pinky and The Brain.”
That is ONE GREAT observation! Yeah, I can sure see that!
I recall a fan writing to Roger Ebert about Yosemite Sam yelling "Open the door! Open the door! ... y'notice I didn't say 'Richard"?" in "High Diving Hare" and Ebert passed the letter over to Leonard Maltin, who answered that it was a reference to a sketch or song - I forgot, but the point is...these things weren't aimed at toddlers!
Another inside joke I recall was in the film "A View To A Kill": Roger Moore' James Bond bakes a quiche - this was a nod to a popular book at the time called "Real Men Don't Eat Quiche". Interesting enough, this book was written by one of the more recent Bond screenwriters!
And those are the best kinds of cartoons, ‘Rehab! The ones you can enjoy when you’re younger, but leave a few surprises waiting for you when you’re older.
No one did this better than Warner Bros. I’m STILL finding stuff related to their old movies and such (which, as the Blog shows, I’ve gotten more and more into in recent years).
BTW, I never got the “Richard” reference either – to this day!
The only downside to this approach is that some of the jokes and characterizations risk receding too far into history for recognition. This is the case with some WB toons like “The Coo-Coo Nut Grove”, which I discuss as part of the review in the post below:
http://tiahblog.blogspot.com/2011/02/dvd-review-petrified-forest-1936.html
…But, it’s a risk I’m more than willing to take, given the wonderful rewards to be found!
Joe: I think the reason for my impression of the "diminishing popularity" of the series in question once they moved to Kids WB! was that when they'd been on Fox, they were on in the afternoons, and at school, my peers talked about them.
Whereas at first, The WB! was exclusive to Saturday mornings ... and by that point, I was in junior high, when everyone was beginning their "We're so adult and rebellious and cool phase" ... and at which point the only attention surrounding these series that I knew was amongst those of us in WTFB. (And I never had the sense that the series remained popular amongst younger children -- in contrast to a couple of years later, when the Pokemon craze hit, and from the media, I was well aware that it was all the rage amongst those several years younger than me...)
But I think there really is something to your assessment that the era "just came to an end" -- the series were kind of already past their prime (not necessarily in terms of quality, but just insofar as being "The Big New Thing") by the time they came to The WB!, anyway...
(the other) Jo(seph): That's a very acute observation, about Taz-Mania! being a Bill Kopp show/Fox Kids-type show, as opposed to a "Steven Spielberg Presents" show.
(Also, Taz-Mania was a few years old by the time of the innauguration of Kids WB! ... in fact, not much younger than Tiny Toon Adventures, which also didn't make the transition to Kids' WB, essentially "over" at that point...)
-- Ryan
Ryan:
While I will continue to stick to my view that it was an era that “just came to an end” (as all things do), there’s really a point in what you say about "Afternoon vs. Sat. AM", when it comes to the age group you happened to be in at the time. It’s a perspective I would never have otherwise had, just being an older, “five-day-a-week working” fan of this stuff.
In fact the whole “Nineties Golden Age” (I’m going to call it that, from now on!) is an era that is not adequately discussed – perhaps because we’re still a bit too close to it in time for any assessment of it as what we tend to call an “Age”.
To me, it was the greatest time for both comics and animation since the sixties (I was THERE at the same age you were during the nineties, as many of you already know.) but it had the added factor of being able to attract and hold my attention AT that more advanced age. Nothing in the seventies was able to do that, and very little in eighties. After the seventies and eighties, were we EVER ready for it!
And it, too, (ALL of it) “just came to an end”… as all things do. So, maybe now begins the time to critically discuss it, as we’ve endlessly dissected other “ages”.
I’m really enjoying where this discussion has gone in general, beyond just memories of TAZ-MANIA. Great job, guys!
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