A little trip down Memory Lane

[dolorous_ett]

I had a lovely surprise a few days ago. Rooting through a box for something quite different, I discovered a Dangermouse DVD I'd bought before I went away last summer and then forgotten all about. 

I loved Dangermouse as a kid - which isn't necessarily the best advertisment as I liked all sorts of dodgy things too - but I'd quite forgotten how clever Dangermouse is. Fruity  British accents! Devilish plots! Sinister hoarse-voiced evil amphibians! Paranoid announcers! Explosions! Ridiculous in-jokes! Nero the sinister gibbering catterpillar!

I haven't had so much fun since I discovered Black Cat Policeman in China (another fantastic animated animal superhero from 1980s China - who deserves a whole entry in himself).

Does anyone else remember Dangermouse? Failing that, I'd love to hear about the cartoons that made your childhood.

Comments

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

i dont' knwo the cartoon. onl ythe tune (which is oen fo the few bits o fmsuci that'd make me watch a series in contrasttot the overdoen stuff on rangers/ninja turles/wahtever the latest kids-anime for us children has brought up for a theme song.)
what i watche? well irecently foud notu i am not crazy and ther actually is aseries caleld tedy ruxpin. forthe rest ilvoed david the gnome. adn there was a long-running series (which shoudl have been translated wer it not forthe too dutch adn typica lconcept) caleld the fable-newspaper. took place i na large forest adn had like twentyfive different animals with their own charactertraits. eveyr day sir owl would make it liek it was news flash and tel lus aboutthe most important events.
i'd lie kto thin kit'd be fu nfor uk adn us kids to endtheir day wit ha 'now it's tiem to clsoe yorueyes, and yoru beask aswell.'* heh. i liekdit far better then sesame street.
there wasalso a thifg if which i vaguely remember findign out it ws fro ma danish?swedish?cartoon. about a woman who wsaas big as a teaspon adn needed a godlen spoon to etiher get back tot normal or do magical things (or both.)
i remember sleepy breakfast on sudna ywhere m ybrother ws curled up to watc our big mornign fest of cartoonsand kids shows. it had stuff liek inspector gadget, adn veyr rare danish short films for kids.
adn i hada phase when iwsa jsut over 18 that ituned i nforthe simpsons every night.
i'm sure there's much more but i can't remember.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

That's a lot of lovely cartoons. Thank you!

I seem to remember the Dutch one - I don't think I've seen it, but it was in an article praising it as something good...

And I'm pretty sure I've seen Inspector Gadget. And Simpsons galore, of course, though strangely my elderly, sedate parents are the big Simpsons fans in my family!

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

wow. that dutch cartoon made it to an article? interesting.
well i don't watch simpsons any more now. it'd be fun to catch soem of their stuff nowand then. i remember it was ver funny.

[dolabellae.livejournal.com]

Oh goodness, yes! Not only did I love Dangermouse, I was more than a little in love with Dangermouse himself. The fact that he was a fictional white mouse didn't seem to make the difference it should have done, but I was only about three at the time... Early evidence of my liking for the fruitily English, obviously. I also went to my first fancy dress party dressed as him!

Haven't seen the cartoon for years and years, and am pleased to hear that my younger self had such good taste! Will have to get hold of the DVD myself and appreciate all the cleverness I missed then.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

In love with Dangermouse! I wouldn't go as far as that, but he is very smooth and swashbuckly, isn't he?

Still, I think in the end you have it right - I'd rather be him than crave after him.

Take it from me, your younger self had excellent taste!

[snorkackcatcher]

Remember Dangermouse? Of course! It's a classic. :)

And you definitely ought to tell us about Black Cat Policeman, who doesn't seem to have made it to Wikipedia.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I'm glad someone else remembers! - and more importantly, agrees with me!

I'll try to post something about Black Cat Policeman sometime soon. Too bad I don't think I have pictures!

[dbassassin.livejournal.com]

Black Cat Policeman sounds intriguing.

Two cartoons I never missed were Bugs Bunny and the Flintstones.

Bugs appealed to the budding anarchist in me, even when I was just a wee thing. I loved the quick, subversive wit, combined with the great cultural references. "What's Opera, Doc?" is still my favourite cartoon of all time, closely followed by his other two opera-themed pieces, "The Rabbit of Seville"and "Long-Haired Hare". One of the things I loved about the BB cartoons is how often music featured as part of the comedy. "Hillbilly Hare" has the best cartoon song, ever.

My affection for the Flintstones is probably based on the fact that Fred Flintstone was my dad. Not literally, of course, but my dad is soooo like Fred, it's frightening: the look, the voice, the personality, the big feet, the sticky-outy black hair. Very, very spooky. And I wanted a dinosaur for a pet. :D

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Black Cat Policeman is a lot of fun. I really might do a post on him sometime. Though the pictures are half the fun, and I'm not sure if my account will let me show any!

As to Bugs Bunny, the ones I saw were heavily cut with the later versions which weren't all that good, so I don't have more than a vague recollection of him. Sounds like I really missed out!

A dinosaur for a pet? That's what I call style!

[aerama.livejournal.com]

I've heard the name Dangermouse, and perhaps vaguely knew what it was, but I've never seen it.
But Black Cat Policeman!! Yes, please do post about it - I must know!

Childhood cartoons:
I liked cartoons that had backgrounds that weren't just a line drawn against a salmon sky. Cartoons that were 3D and had character and were not made by Hanna-Barbera (sorry for H-B aficionados).
But I could handle it if Tex Avery was the progenitor - because Tex Avery was crazy. I think he used to have Tom & Jerry at first (cat 'n' mouse, don't know how widespread cartoons were), so it was gloriously violent.
(Let me interject a note here - just because Jerry would smash Tom's head with a toaster did not mean I thought that I could smash people's heads with toasters. I knew reality vs TV).

I also really like Max Fleischer's stuff (Betty Boop, Popeye, etc), and early Bugs Bunny where he's marvelously unfair and wise-cracking and has a snub-nosed bunny face.
And these old old cartoons that can't be shown today because they're very un-PC.

And Snow White, because it's so lush and artistic, and the immensity of the details is staggering (owls carved into the ends of the staircase in the dwarves' house, the way the water pours off their faces in the washing scene), and everything is in motion, like the squirrel's tail while Snow White is speaking, even though her head is up THERE and the squirrel is way down there. And the stepmother is wicked-scary.

I think I saw that they redid Snow White to make her the same emaciated, doe-eyed female that all the subsequent Disney movies have churned out. And it made me sick.

I also saw Fantasia when I was quite young (back then they only showed it every 7 years), and I liked the pegasus/centaur/hippo scenes the best. We had Beethoven's symphonies so my dad would play them and we'd imagine everyone frolicking.

Whew. I love topics like this, as you can tell.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I think Dangermouse did make it to North America, but possibly not in as widespread a way.

Yay for not liking Hanna-Barbera - I didn't care for Hanna-Barbera cartoons either - apart from Dick Dastardly and Muttley, whom I loved for being unrepentantly nasty! (well, even a Good Child needs a break sometimes...)

I think I know what you mean about old Bugs Bunny and Popeye - I remember liking the old, discoloured ones better than the new ones.

As for the rest... that's quite a reading list! Looks like I'm more of a cartoon beginner than I thought (though to be fair watching Walt Disney would have been a struggle as my Mum really didn't approve - I think the doe-eyed female thing has a lot to do with it).

So many fun things I've never seen! This could be interesting...