The Fabulous Funnies

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The Fabulous Funnies
Fabulous Funnies special.jpg
Written by Bill Persky, Sam Denoff, Lee Mendelson, George Schlatter
Directed by Gordon Wiles
Presented by Carl Reiner
Starring Ken Berry, Jack Burns, Avery Schreiber
Music by John Scott Trotter
Country of originUnited States
Production
Producers Lee Mendelson, George Schlatter
Running time60 mins
Production company Lee Mendelson Film Productions
Release
Original network NBC
Original releaseFebruary 11, 1968 (1968-02-11)

The Fabulous Funnies was a one-hour primetime network special that aired on NBC on February 11, 1968, hosted by Carl Reiner. [1] The show was a salute to American comic strips, and featured interviews with cartoonists, including Rube Goldberg, Chester Gould, Chic Young, Milt Caniff, Al Capp and Charles Schulz. [2]

Contents

In addition, the show included songs that have been written about comic strips, performed by the Doodletown Pipers, the Royal Guardsmen and Ken Berry. [3] Ken Berry sang a song from the Li'l Abner musical, and the Royal Guardsmen performed their hit single "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron". Other songs featured in the program include "Barney Google (With the Goo-Goo-Googly Eyes)" and "Little Chatterbox," inspired by Little Orphan Annie . The comedy team of Burns and Schreiber also performed a skit about people reading comic strips. [4]

In one sequence, Reiner interacts with animated comic strip characters, leading production supervisor David Crommie to brag, "This is, perhaps, the most difficult show that has ever been done for television. Production began in January 1967, and continued until the end of the year. When you combine live action with animation, the impossible takes a lot longer!" [5]

The show did very well in the ratings, reaching #7 for the week according to the Nielsen ratings, [6] and garnered a follow-up a decade later. In an article about producer Lee Mendelson, comics historian Mark Evanier says, "The ratings were huge and the folks at CBS, for whom Lee was producing the Charlie Brown specials, said to him, "Why didn't you offer that special to us?" Lee replied, "I did. You didn't think it would do very well and passed so I sold it to NBC." The folks at CBS said, "Well... we want the next one." It was not until 1980 that Lee did the next one, which was called The Fantastic Funnies and yes, it was on CBS." [7]

Cartoonists

The cartoonists featured in the special were:

Reception

The next day's review in The New York Times was not kind, saying that the show "unfortunately turned out to be little more than a superficial look at one of the more interesting aspects of this country's kitsch culture. The producers were faced with an embarrassment of riches and did not know what to do with them. In attempting too much, the program did nothing well... Basically, the producers made the mistake of ignoring the strips themselves and leaving the viewer in the dark as to what, in fact, made them 'funnies.'" [8]

Similarly, The Baltimore Sun said, "It was plain from the beginning that those who produced it — Lee Mendelson and George Schlatter — failed to understand the scope and significance of their subject... The producers wasted precious time in superfluous matters and lumped together various manifestations of the comics, such as their radio versions, their invasion of the theater, and their proliferation in movies and television... The worst was a song, "Snoopy and the Red Baron", played with childish monkey business by a rock 'n' roll group called the Royal Guardsmen. It must have made Charles Schulz's blood run cold." [9]

On the other hand, the Ludington Daily News was enchanted with the show: "It was first cabin all the way, thanks in great measure to that gifted and civilized showman, Carl Reiner, who not only provided the link for the animated sequences, musical numbers, film clips and interviews with cartoonists — but set a new standard for video hosts as well. Despite the excellent organization and format of the show, it was the ubiquitous Reiner — participating in the animation, clowning, narrating with style and even singing "Little Orphan Annie" — who gave the hour its final touch of high gloss." [10]

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References

  1. ↑ Terrace, Vincent (2013). Television Specials: 5,336 Entertainment Programs, 1936-2012 (2nd ed.). McFarland & Company. p. 149. ISBN   978-0-7864-7444-8.
  2. ↑ Humphrey, Hal (Feb 9, 1968). "Funnies Get Their Inning on TV". The Marion Star. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
  3. ↑ Maays, Stan (February 10, 1968). "Fabulous Funnies Due on NBC Sunday". The North Adams Transcript. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
  4. ↑ "Ask the Archivist: Fabulous Funnies". Comics Kingdom. Feb 26, 2015. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
  5. ↑ Ashe, Isobel (Feb 10, 1968). "Leading Comics and Cartoonists Scheduled on NBC-TV's 'Fabulous Funnies'". The Troy Times Record. p. B-9. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
  6. ↑ Newton, Dwight (March 8, 1968). "Ernie Signs $2,100,000 NBC-TV Pact". The San Francisco Examiner. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
  7. ↑ Evanier, Mark. "A Lee Mendelson Story (Part I)". News From me. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
  8. ↑ Gent, George (February 12, 1968). "Fabulous Funnies". The New York Times . Retrieved 14 March 2020.
  9. ↑ Kirkley, Donald. "Look and Listen with Donald Kirkley". The Baltimore Sun. No. February 15, 1968. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
  10. ↑ Du Brow, Rick (Feb 14, 1968). "Television in Review". The Ludington Daily News. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
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