Post by malaria on Mar 21, 2019 16:20:10 GMT -5
I'd get up at 7 a.m. and sit transfixed before these marvelous black-and-white films. They were hosted, IIRC, by one or two different people, though the prevalent one was a guy who called himself Officer Joe Bolton. Officer Joe was a lovable guy,but his Rascal expertise seemed lacking. He would occasionally have a Q-and-A-type session, and on one of these, it was suggested by a viewer, and conveyed to the TV audience without correction, that the name of the dog with the ring around his eye was, I swear, "Oswald." This was not just wildly wrong, but almost offensive given the events of the early part of the decade.
The NY assortment back then included one (1) silent (Barnum & Ringling, Inc., soon phased out of the playlist), and, more peculiarly, stopped with the last Roach-MGM talkie, "Hide and Shriek." Friends I had around the country would mention characters like "Froggy", and thus mystify me. In fact I first saw a post-Roach talkie for the first time circa 1978 (?) at the house of a friend outside Philadelphia. Thereafter I got the Maltin book and learned that I'd been deprived of a good deal of Rascalia, though in all honesty, my take was that the Froggy-era shorts were underwhelming and sometimes plain unfunny. My dad did remember *a lot of silents*, but he wasn't board-certified in Rascalology.
I saw "A Tough Winter" exactly once; that got pulled early on, perhaps in '64. Saw lots of "Moan & Groan, Inc" as a tiny kid, but that got pulled shortly thereafter; a friend of mine had an older brother who'd seen it, and raved about it to him, while my friend was a bit of a latecomer and never saw it. Of course through the later sixties the powers that be started making awful cuts in the films and pulling out a slew of episodes (mostly older ones), which was vastly irritating.
With the appearance of the VCR, I began to try to find stores which had some of the films; for some years, it was a pointless and depressing enterprise. But one day (late 1980s?) I was walking with my wife on 8th Ave in the 40s, and we passed an adult film store; Mrs. suggested I look in there for it. I told her, "no chance they have it," but lo and behold, they had a few of the Cabin Fever sets, and when we got home, I got to watch "Pups Is Pups" for the first time in decades. It was bloody marvelous.
Later, I had the privilege of showing the films to my kids, who enjoyed them greatly, though it was tough to explain that, no, unlike Loonette or The Wiggles, you can't go and see Darla in the flesh, she's, um, *elsewhere.*
I did have a feeling of being somewhat cheated when I saw that fargin' PHILADELPHIA got a fuller Rascals menu than we in the Big Apple did, but, for better or worse, other concerns soon moved to the forefront.
The Rascals were often played as part of a half-hour that also included old Popeye cartoons (Bluto, not Brutus), many of fairly high comedic quality themselves. But even that couldn't top the Rascals; it was like opening for the Rolling Stones.
The NY assortment back then included one (1) silent (Barnum & Ringling, Inc., soon phased out of the playlist), and, more peculiarly, stopped with the last Roach-MGM talkie, "Hide and Shriek." Friends I had around the country would mention characters like "Froggy", and thus mystify me. In fact I first saw a post-Roach talkie for the first time circa 1978 (?) at the house of a friend outside Philadelphia. Thereafter I got the Maltin book and learned that I'd been deprived of a good deal of Rascalia, though in all honesty, my take was that the Froggy-era shorts were underwhelming and sometimes plain unfunny. My dad did remember *a lot of silents*, but he wasn't board-certified in Rascalology.
I saw "A Tough Winter" exactly once; that got pulled early on, perhaps in '64. Saw lots of "Moan & Groan, Inc" as a tiny kid, but that got pulled shortly thereafter; a friend of mine had an older brother who'd seen it, and raved about it to him, while my friend was a bit of a latecomer and never saw it. Of course through the later sixties the powers that be started making awful cuts in the films and pulling out a slew of episodes (mostly older ones), which was vastly irritating.
With the appearance of the VCR, I began to try to find stores which had some of the films; for some years, it was a pointless and depressing enterprise. But one day (late 1980s?) I was walking with my wife on 8th Ave in the 40s, and we passed an adult film store; Mrs. suggested I look in there for it. I told her, "no chance they have it," but lo and behold, they had a few of the Cabin Fever sets, and when we got home, I got to watch "Pups Is Pups" for the first time in decades. It was bloody marvelous.
Later, I had the privilege of showing the films to my kids, who enjoyed them greatly, though it was tough to explain that, no, unlike Loonette or The Wiggles, you can't go and see Darla in the flesh, she's, um, *elsewhere.*
I did have a feeling of being somewhat cheated when I saw that fargin' PHILADELPHIA got a fuller Rascals menu than we in the Big Apple did, but, for better or worse, other concerns soon moved to the forefront.
The Rascals were often played as part of a half-hour that also included old Popeye cartoons (Bluto, not Brutus), many of fairly high comedic quality themselves. But even that couldn't top the Rascals; it was like opening for the Rolling Stones.