Sports Cartoons is an American animated series, produced by Derek Lamb and Janet Perlman's Lamb-Perlman Productions in 1985. The series featured various sports being played by anthropomorphic animals, including cats, dogs, pigs, and hippopotami. Some of these sports included ice hockey, shot put, soccer, American football, and table tennis.
The episodes were short in length, ranging from 40 seconds to two minutes. Roughly 45 episodes were created, many of which were played during commercial breaks on Nickelodeon in the late 1980s and early to mid-1990s. Visually speaking, Sports Cartoons bear resemblance to other series animated in the National Film Board of Canada style. The series was issued on video cassette by Family Home Entertainment.
Sports Cartoons typically featured several of the same four characters in each episode. However, in episodes involving teams, the team was usually made up of numerous identical versions of the same character (for example, a football team of cats, or a hockey team of hippopotami).
The hippopotamus is calm and usually emerges as the victor. The hippopotamus is the most frequent opponent of the cat. The hippo remains peaceful and collected, unless a smaller helpless creature (such as a butterfly or a flower) is threatened, in which case he becomes highly protective.
The cat is the antagonist who, for the most part, does not play fair. He frequently faces off against the hippopotamus, wherein he tries to interrupt, distract, or otherwise throw off the hippopotamus' efforts. Usually this backfires, as the hippopotamus always wins. Another variation of the cat is the Big Cat, which is a larger, burlier rendition of the small cat.
The pig appears less frequently, and along with the hippopotamus, competes against the cat (or cats). Like the hippopotamus, the pig always comes out on top, though usually through dumb luck.
The dog is rarely seen, and usually portrays the referee/judge.
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Tom and Jerry is an American animated media franchise and series of comedy short films created in 1940 by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. Best known for its 161 theatrical short films by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the series centers on the enmity between the titular characters of a cat named Tom and a mouse named Jerry. Many shorts also feature several recurring characters.
Josie and the Pussycats is an American animated television series based upon the Archie Comics comic book series of the same name created by Dan DeCarlo. Produced for Saturday morning television by Hanna-Barbera Productions, 16 episodes of Josie and the Pussycats aired on CBS during the 1970–71 television season and were rerun during the 1971–72 season.
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John Ryan Kinney was an American animator, director and producer of animated shorts. Kinney is the older brother of fellow Disney animator Dick Kinney.
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The New Woody Woodpecker Show is an American animated comedy television series based on the animated short film series created by cartoonist and animator Walter Lantz. It was co-developed by animators Bob Jaques and Kelly Armstrong, was produced by Universal Cartoon Studios and aired from May 8, 1999, to July 27, 2002, on Fox's Fox Kids programming block.
Big Bag is an American live-action/animated puppet children's television series created by Nina Elias-Bamberger for Cartoon Network and Sesame Workshop. It was targeted at preschool viewers. The show was co-produced by Cartoon Network and Sesame Workshop, with Muppet characters created by the Jim Henson Company. It aired from 1996 to 1998, with reruns airing through 2001, alongside another program titled Small World. Localized versions of Big Bag aired on Canal J in France and Yorkshire Television in the UK.
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Rub-A-Dub-Dub was a British television series animated by Peter Lang and Alan Rogers of the Cut-Out Animation Co. They were previously famous for Pigeon Street. The series was produced by David Yates and Joe Wolf. The title is a reference to the nursery rhyme Rub-a-dub-dub. Rub-A-Dub-Dub was animated in a similar way, yet all the characters were anthropomorphic animals. It ran in 1984, completing 25 episodes.