Cartoon Stars Re-Animated: Top Cat

 

Cartoon Stars Re-Animated

When people think of Hanna-Barbera animated sitcoms, most people thiunk of The Flintstones and The Jetsons. But there was another that came in between.

In 1961, one year after The Flintstones debuted, Hanna-Barbera debuted a prime time sitcom about a fast-talking, con artist alley cat and his loyal gang of underlings and cronies as they tried to employ their wits to make a fast buck or a quick meal. The show and main character were named Top Cat (also known as “T.C.” to his friends, provided it's said with dignity).

Top Cat with Logo

Top Cat has two sources of inspiration. One is the East Side Kids film series, which was about a group of rascally kids in New York City (all played by fully grown adult comedians). The other is The Phil Silvers Show, commonly referred to as Sgt. Bilko. Sgt. Bilko is about the titular Sgt. Bilko who runs cons in the U.S. Army camp where he's stationed and tries to get the better of his superior officers. The connection to that show will prove to be more important later on.

The basic set-up of the show is as follows: Top Cat lives in a trash can in Hoagy's Alley in the 13^th precinct of New York City. He's joined there by his gang of alley cats. There's the quick-thinking and wise-cracking Choo Choo, dimwitted but loyal Brain, slang-spouting Spook, smooth-talking ladies' man Fancy Fancy, and the child-like and naive Benny the Ball. Rounding out the cast is Officer Charlie Dibble, the police officer on the beat. Dibble and Top Cat are often at odds but not really enemies. Dibble often threatens to bring in Top Cat for his numerous offenses, the most common of which seems to be using the police-only phone that's stationed in the alley. But really he'd rather see the gang straighten up and fly right. Top Cat seems to like Dibble enough as a person but isn't about to let him get in the way of their latest plan. Despite his constant scams, neither Top Cat or his gang are really bad people (er . . . cats), though Top Cat will often be the last to give in to his better angels if it means missing a payday (One of the best examples is an episode titled “T.C. minds the baby” in which the gang try to adopt an abandoned baby they find). In most episodes the gang tries to pull some sort of get-rich quick scam with the scam often going sideways because of some sort of sitcom shenanigans. These include misunderstandings, mistaken identities unforseen circumstances and any number of other things.

Top Cat and the gang

In many ways, Top Cat was very much Joe Barbera's series, reflecting elements of his youth growing up in New York City. In his autobiography, Barbera says that he thought it was one of the most sophisticated series they made. Sometimes a bit too sophisticated. He reports that there was at least one time that his writers got so invested in writing witty dialogue that he had to remind them to actually remind them to write some visual gags into the script so there would actually be something cartoony in their cartoon. Beyond the writers, there was a great cast of voice talent. Top Cat himself was voiced by Arnold Stang, who started out the series doing such an on-point Phil Silvers impression that he got told to tone it down because, according t shows sponsor, they had paid for Stang not Silvers. There was also Marvin Kaplan as Choo Choo, John Stephenson as Fancy-Fancy, Leo De Lyon as both Spook and Brain, and Allen Jenkins as Officer Dibble. It's probably Maurice Gosfield as Benny the Ball that really stands out seeing as it's where the show really wears its inspirations on its sleeve. Gosfield had played the character of naive Pvt. Doberman on The Phil Silvers Show, and he basically just played the same character as a little purple cat when playing Benny on Top Cat. The music and score was also notable in Top Cat. The music was composed by Hoyt Curtin, who had already worked on The Flintstones. Top Cat was where Curtin really got to start playing around with jazz orchestration, though. As a composer for cartoons, Curtin is probably best known for his work on Jonny Quest, but his work on Top Cat was likely a necessary step to get up to that level.

Benny the Ball, voiced by Maurice Gosfield

So, Top Cat was another one of those shows that when most Gen X and younger folks saw it, it would have been packaged with other Hanna-Barbera cartoons on kid-centric TV channels. So, what, if anything, earmarked Top Cat as being for adults in that era before The Simpsons was a thing. Well, the music was particularly well-orchestrated. The dialogue was rather snappy compared to other animated kids' stuff. But if I'm going to pick one thing that stands out, it might be . . . how much Top Cat and his gang were motivated by sex.

Okay, maybe that sounds bad. But hear me out.

While it is true that Top Cat and the gang were more motivated by money (another earmark of a more grown-up cartoon), the show made few bones about the fact that the gang was made up of fully grown male alley cats who had their eye out for female cats to woo. At least three episodes centered on plots that happened because one of the gang had fallen in love. In numerous more episodes, it would be worked in as a side detail. One episode about Top Cat thinking he had come into some money, or rather, had been extended unlimited credit, had him showing it off by driving around a couple of girl cats in a little car he had bought. Heck, one member of the crew, Fancy-Fancy, was directly characterized as a ladies' man. Whenever Top Cat called a meeting and they showed Fancy-Fancy rushing away from what he was doing to attend, he'd be shown chatting up some young tabby he had met. This colony of tomcats was, well, a colony of tomcats. Just with the implications left to the imagination (near as I can tell, there are no episodes where Top Cat or Fancy-Fancy meet their illegitimate kittens). This is very rare for Hanna-Barbera talking animal characters. Most of those characters, being more childlike in their characterization, have little interest in romance. There might be one episode where they get struck by cupid's arrow but that's it. Yogi Bear acted like a little boy who was just barely out of the “girls are icky” phase. Sure, he liked Cindy Bear, but he wasn't sure what to do about it and the minute Cindy started talking about some sort of romance Yogi would take to his heels and run away. Same goes for Snagglepuss and his female counterpart Lilah (Note: which likely led to people making jokes or having headcanons that these characters are gay. Something that I'm pretty sure wasn't intended by either Hanna or Barbera seeing as it was the early 60s, but public image develops in its own way as time passes).

One of the many "ladies" of the Top Cat series

So, was Top Cat a big hit like The Flintstones was?

No. Not really. It lasted one season.

I think it kind of failed to find its audience. It was meant to be for a primetime audience that included adults. However, unlike The Flintstones which touched on the troubles of working suburban adults, Top Cat was about a bunch of talking animals pulling scams. Sure, there was the Phil Silvers inspiration, but The Phil Silvers Show was set on an army base and playing to an audience that included a fair share of former servicemen who had served in World War II or the Korean War and liked to see the top brass get fooled by Bilko. By contrast, Top Cat was about a bunch of talking animals who were trying to fool humans. It would be moved to Saturday mornings on NBC in 1965 and while a bit more popular there, wouldn't be a runaway hit. The prime audience for talking animals on Saturday mornings, children, probably didn't take to it because the plots and dialogue were a bit above their level (and the fact that they were written as a bunch of flirty tomcats as I noted above probably didn't mtter either way, even if it's something I noticed).

It did take off overseas, though. In the UK, the show became popular under the title Boss Cat. It was renamed because there was already a cat food brand named Top Cat in the UK. But it really took off in Latin America. There, it's called Don Gato y su Pandillo, which translates to “Don Gato and his Gang”. Top Cat is so popular in Mexico that he's as recognizable as a character like Homer Simpson. Top Cat is so popular and iconic there that two animated movies were made just for the Latin American audience. Top Cat: The Movie in 2011 and Top Cat Begins in 2015. Neither really did that well critically. But it does show that Top Cat struck a chord with Latin American audiences. Maybe they like the city setting. Maybe they like characters that get by using their wits. Either way, it works for them. Granted, the fact that it aired constantly on TV over there probably helped.

Top Cat the Movie with its Spanish title

Beyond that, Top Cat mainly continues on in the form of cameos and parts of much larger ensembles.  He was a sort of "handler" character in the show Yogi's Treasure Hunt, giving the characters their missions.  There was also a TV movie titled Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats in the late '80s.  And just recently in 2021 he and the gang were part of a much more expansive cast in the cartoon Jellystone!  I think that's as close as we'll get to a Top Cat revival in the U.S.

Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats

So, that was Hanna-Barbera's second attempt at a prime time animated sitcom. I'm not sure I'm any closer to seeing why people blame Hanna-Barbera for making cartoons a kids-only affair. But we did see the case of something failing in prime time and being ported over to Saturday mornings. I think that's going to be important.

Stay tuned and the next installment of Cartoon Stars Re-Animated will take us into the future. Bye for now.

Unsung Superheroes: Guy Gardner

 

Unsung Superheroes

Guy Gardner.

The Green Lantern introduced to many people through the 2025 Superman film.

Nathan Fillion as Guy Gardner in Superman (2025)

Who is he? Where did he come from? Why is he such a horse's ass?

Well, the answers to the last bit are mostly bad luck, a bad childhood, and significant head trauma. But perhaps I should elaborate.

First of all, one must know that Guy Gardner is primarily a Green Lantern. The Green Lantern Corps is an organization of cosmic police officers taken from 3200 space sectors and given a ring of futuristic space tech that allows them to create energy constructs of whatever they can think of as long as they have the willpower to create it. They also get a battery to recharge the ring, shaped like a green lantern (hence the name). The administrators of the Green Lantern Corps are a group of small, blue-skinned immortals called the Guardians of the Universe, who leave on the planet Oa which is ostensibly at the very center of the universe. The only two hard and fast qualifications to being a Green Lantern are that the candidate be completely honest and fearless.

Green Lantern #59

Guy Gardner is first introduced in Green Lantern #59 in 1968. In that story, it's revealed to the then-current and only Green Lantern of Earth, Hal Jordan, that there was another candidate to become Earth's Green Lantern, but that Hal's dying predecessor chose him because he was physically closer. Most of the issue then occurs as a sort of “imaginary story”, showing what would have happened if Guy had been chosen instead of Hal, as related by one of the Guardians' futuristic machines. Despite the antagonistic pose and dialogue he's given on the cover of this issue, Guy Gardner is generally a nice guy at this point. He's an honest and fearless physical education teacher who's shown living through many of the highlights of Hal Jordan's Green Lantern career before being shown stopping an endless war game on a planet of children before succumbing to an alien plague and passing on his ring to Hal Jordan. Back in the real world, Hal decides to meet and make friends with Guy and does so by joining a health club Guy's a member of.

So, next is the beginning of a storied career for Guy Gardner, right? Well, not exactly.

Guy ended up a back-up Green Lantern after training with an alien Green Lantern named Kilowog. During this time, he wasn't really remembered so much for his feats as his lousy luck. During an earthquake, Guy attempts to save some of his students and is hit by a bus. This puts him out of comission for a while and in the meantime Hal Jordan recruits John Stewart as his new backup. After returning to duty, Guy tries to charge his ring on Hal Jordan's power battery. The battery explodes and sends Guy into the Phantom Zone, the otherdimensional Kryptonian prison from the Superman comics. Guy is trapped there for months, during which time Hal Jordan starts dating and eventually tries to marry Guy's girlfriend Kari Limbo. Guy only managed to get freed because he ends up interrupting the wedding by sending Kari a telepathic message. After he's freed, though, it's revealed that all these misfortunes have not left Guy unscathed. It turned out that Guy had suffered brain trauma and ends up falling into a coma.

He ends up coming out of the coma, but Guy isn't quite the same guy after he wakes up.

The new Guy Gardner is rude, loud, crass, egotistical, hot-headed, and even a little jingoistic. Granted, by now it's the 1980s and he's a perfect parody of the Reagan-era United States. And all the while, he was still “honest and fearless”, which made him a worthy Green Lantern.

Guy Gardner when he returned post-coma.

The place where Guy Gardner got a lot of use is in the new Justice League International, where he served as the team's resident hothead and conflict creator. However, because of the new Justice League's more comedic tone, his volatile nature was used for comedic purposes. Like the time he challenged Batman to a fistfight and got knocked out in one punch.

Guy Gardner, knocked out with one punch.

Other times, his antics were far less funny, like the time Guy nearly caused World War III by flying into Soviet airspace.

Justice League #5

But overall, he was a member in good standing on the team (it helped that the writers developed a gag that allowed them to curb his more troublesome behavior. Basically, they made it so a blow to the head could change him from “jerk Guy” to “nice Guy” and back again). He even received some unexpected character depth when he started to develop feelings for team sweetheart Tora Olafsdotter, aka Ice.

Guy and Ice.

It was after this that Guy broke away from the Green Lantern Corps and got his own comic book series. On the surface, this seems like it might have been a time where there wasn't a solid direction for Guy. First, he starts using the yellow power ring that was first used by the Green Lantern villain Sinestro in order to play vigilante. Then he finds out he has alien DNA and somehow activates it and develops the ability to turn his arms into weapons. Yet, it's during this time that Guy receives the most character development. He became more tempered, but not without his flaws.

It's during this stretch that we find out about Guy Gardner's early life. We find out that Guy lived under an abusive father who always favored his athletic older brother Mace over him. We also find out about Guy's misspent youth as a juvenile delinquent and that big brother Mace Gardner, who became a police officer, wasn't the squeaky clean, perfect figure his father always thought of him as. We also find out how hard Guy worked to get through college and get his teaching degree,

Guy Gardner #1.  The start of his solo career.

At the end of the day, you start to wonder how much of Guy's life is him taking it on the chin because he was a prickly jerk, and how much of it was Guy being a prickly jerk because he was always taking it on the chin. One thing I couldn't help noticing is how much Guy at his worst is like his abusive dad. So, he's in that place of taking after his father while also trying to be a better person than him.

DC, because it's what they do, also tinkered around with Guy's origins a bit. After DC's big line-wide reset Crisis on Infinite Earths, they published a miniseries entitled Emerald Dawn II which changed it so Hal Jordan first met Guy Gardner when he was working as a social worker helping Hal get through a stint in jail caused by a DWI. In the 2010s, they wrote a new origin for Guy where he was the disgraced son of a family of cops who lost his badge due to what he claimed was a false report.

But ultimately, Guy's defaulted back to his previous origin, abusive dad and all. Just like he defaulted back to being a Green Lantern even after the yellow power ring and alien DNA stuff.

The one, the only, Guy Gardner (thank goodness)

And that's basically Guy Gardner. The hot-headed, egotistical, roughneck Green Lantern who, despite his well-recognized flaws, still manages to be a hero at the end of the day.

Cartoon Stars Re-Animated: The Flintstones.

 

Cartoon Stars Re-Animated

You know, looking at the American TV animation scene and its history is a strange thing. Especially when it comes to trying to figure out why cartoons in the U.S. are usually seen as only for children. When pushed and prodded, people will go back and forth on the subject. Ultimately, the name of one prolific animation studio comes out: Hanna-Barbera.

You ask people who made it so cartoons are only for kids and people will say that it was Hanna-Barbera's fault.

Which is really funny, because Hanna-Barbera tried repeatedly to create prime time animated sitcoms aimed at an adult audience.

So, let's look at Hanna-Barbera's prime time output and figure out where this is all stemming from.

First, a little bit about Hanna and Barbera themselves. Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera first met at MGM's animation studio. A seemingly more unlikely pair would be hard to find. Barbera was a fast-talking, streetwise New Yorker who liked his creature comforts. Hanna was a more introverted, laconic westerner whose interest in the outdoors seemed set from the minute he joined the Boy Scouts as a child. However, despite the odds, the two joined forces and created Tom & Jerry, possibly the biggest series to come out of MGM animation. Hanna's skill in music and timing seemed to work perfectly with Barbera's artistic ability (and later his gift as a pitchman). Hanna and Barbera's shorts won MGM numerous Academy Awards, none of which they were allowed to personally accept. But eventually things would end for MGM animation. With television making inroads into people's homes, theaters were taking fewer chances on new animated shorts. Also, they were starting to notice that they could make just as much by running classic shorts as new ones. The brass at MGM noticed this too. Before long, the MGM animation studio was disbanded and Hanna and Barbera were out of work. With no where else to go, they set their sights on television. And they brought with them a method they had developed called “limited animation” or “planned animation” that got the most animation out of the least number of drawings as possible. Hanna-Barbera were one of the first studios to make cartoons expressly for television (the other was Jay Ward, who we'll talk about at another time). Their first shows Ruff & Reddy, The Huckleberry Hound Show, and Quick-Draw McGraw were all successful, with Huckleberry Hound winning them an Emmy. It was in 1960 that Hanna-Barbera sales associate John Mitchell suggested to Bill and Joe that the next place for Hanna-Barbera to go would be to produce a cartoon for prime time viewing.

That show would become The Flintstones.

Fred and Barney as they appear in the first episode "The Flintstone Flyer".

The road to The Flintstones would not be a straight line. Initial concepts had them as Romani, ancient Romans, Native Americans, hillbillies and Pilgrims. It wasn't until animator Dan Gordon dashed off a sketch of a record player that used a bird's beak as a needle that the idea took form. In addition to a sitcom, the show would also lampoon modern conveniences filtered through a Stone Age lens. The end result is more or less The Honeymooners combined with Fleischer's Stone Age Cartoons, even if Hanna and Barbera weren't always aware that was what they were drawing from. The series stars blustering and stubborn bront-crane operator Fred Flintstone (played by Alan Reed), his strong-willed and frequently sarcastic wife Wilma Flintstone (voiced by Jean Vander Pyl), Fred's well-meaning friend and next door neighbor Barney Rubble (voiced by Mel Blanc) and Barney's cheerful wife Betty Rubble (voiced by June Foray). At least at the onset of the show.

There are actually a lot of places you can learn about the history of the Flintstones, ranging from videos on YouTube to Wikipedia to both Bill Hanna's and Joe Barbera's autobiographies. So, let's move on to impressions of the series.

The Flintstones as we would come to know them.

Rewatching the series now, I'm impressed with what a solid sitcom it is. Yeah, the jokes don't exactly seem as cutting edge in 2026 as they did in 1960, but they have the situation comedy tropes and formula down pat. On top of that, they also made sure to include a lot of visual cartoon humor. That's not always the easiest balance to strike. In Joe Barbera's autobiography My Life in Toons, Barbera tells a story of making the mistake of hiring a sitcom writer who worked on The Honeymooners and then finding that his whole script was nothing but dialogue and verbal humor, without any visual cartoon gags. I also have to give proper respect to how versatile the characters are. Fred, in particulart, is rarely one-note. Though usually loud-mouthed and stubborn, it's not the extent of his character. Sometimes he can be a jerk. Sometimes he can be a good guy (his friends and lodge brothers seem to particularly like him). Other times he can be a jerk. Sometimes he can be the source of a problem. Other times he's the victim of whatever the problem is. And it always feels like the same character. Barney, meanwhile, functions as Fred's “down for anything” sidekick in misadventure but frequently gets his jabs in as he knows not to take Fred particularly seriuously. And then there's Wilma and Betty, who are as prone to getting in and out of trouble as their husbands, which kind of a rarity in TV in 1960. Though the concept and main characters are solid in the beginning, the fine details of the world take a little bit more time. The name of Fred's workplace and boss change. So does Wilma's maiden name (from “Wilma Pebble” to “Wilma Slaghoople”). There's even an early episode that's meant to introduce Dino that has him speaking in a voice similar to Phil Silvers' voice and acting as something akin to a housekeeper. It's not long before he settles into the role of family pet, though. There are other things that never even made it into the show proper. Apparently, the pet sabre-toothed cat seen in the intro and end credits of the show was developed enough at one point to get a name: Baby Puss. In the end, the cat is barely seen in the actual show. I think this all just shows how experimental all this still was and how early in Hanna-Barbera's life as a studio it was. Luckily, this was all just fine detail and didn't effect the greater show, and most of them were hammered out by the third season.

People are fond of saying that the Flintstones is just a ripoff of The Honeymooners. So, in order to see the bigger picture, I actually watched some of the Honeymooners in order to get a sense of what the differences and similarities are. And while the Honeymooners definitely seems like the jumping off point for the Flintstones, there are definitely differences beyond the Stone Age setting. As Joe Barbera once observed, the Honeymooners was mnuch more driven by dialogue and verbal comedy. The Flintstones excelled more at its visual gags and “window dressing”. The Flintstones stock in trade is the gags about prehistoric versions of modern conveniences. Things like the record player with a bird for the needle or a shower that's just a baby mammoth spraying with its trunk. The characters in The Flintstones seem a bit softer too. Ed Norton is the butt of jokes because of his low intelligence and sometimes childlike personality. Barney Rubble doesn't seem particularly dumb, just like a nice guy who is sometimes a bit too accomodating of Fred. Fred Flintstone also seems nicer than Ralph Kramden. Fred is a grump and a grouch much of the time, but ultimately seems harmless. Watching Ralph Kramden, he always felt like he was one bad decision away from getting court-ordered anger management classes. He seems just that angry. There is one other thing that really stands out as a difference. It's a difference of social class. The Kramdens and the Nortons in The Honeymooners were poor, urban, working class folks living in a tenement walk-up. The Flintstones, with its many jabs at post-war modern conveniences was ultimately a parody of suburbia. The slightly sly underlying joke being that despite our pride in our modern suburban lives, we might not be so far removed from primitive savagery as we think. The Flintstones and the Rubbles lived in near-identical suburban houses with green lawns that they mowed with their dinosaur-powered lawn mowers. In other words, despite Fred's constant grumbling about money, the Flintstones are middle class. The Flintstones and Rubbles aren't the Kramdens and the Nortons. They're more like the Kramdens and the Nortons if they managed to just barely scrape together enough money together to move to the suburbs and stay there. Even more differences would develop over time. For example, the Flintstones and the Rubbles would have children: Pebbles Flintstone and Bamm Bamm Rubble. As far as I know, the Kramdens and Nortons never did.

And the Flintstones worked! As a sitcom for adults and family audiences,it worked for about six seasons. It may be hard to believe now, seeing as so many of us watched the Flintstones as reruns on kids' cartoon blocks and with how modern prime time animated comedies make a point of pushing into much edgier territory. At the time, though, the thing that set Fred Flintstone apart from other cartoon protagonists is that most of his worries and concerns were those of an adult man. His concerns were of holding down a job, making enough money, supporting his family, and keeping his marriage intact (yes, despite all the hare-brained schemes). Compare this to Hanna-Barbera's funny animal characters, who tend to be written as more childlike. Yogi Bear is like a mischevious kid constantly trying to steal “goodies” from a cookie jar while under the nose of an authority figure. Huckleberry Hound was like a kid playing dress-up, trying out a different profession every episode (policeman, mailman, cowboy, etc). Even later additions to the Hanna-Barbera library like Scooby-Doo sidestepped more practical concerns like why the show's cast of teenagers weren't in school and how they could afford to drive around the country solving mysteries.

Yet, the thing about TV shows that work is that they only work until they don't anymore.

Fred and Barney with the Great Gazoo, a character often accused of killing the show.

By season six, the show was running on fumes. Tastes had changed in the TV landscape. What the Flintstones offered wasn't exactly what viewers of primetime TV wanted anymore. The producers and writers had introduced new elements to try and keep interest up. In season three, they introduced the babies Pebbles Flintstone and Bamm Bamm Rubble. In season six, spurred by the success of the show My Favorite Martian, they added in the Great Gazoo, a spaceman from the future who only Fred and Barney could see. A lot of people blame Gazoo for leading to the show's cancellation, but while he wasn't a great addition, the show was pretty much on its way out anyway. But the show wouldn't be forgotten. The show would transition to syndication and Saturday morning TV and launch what seems like a million spinoffs aimed at younger viewers. Among them The Pebbles and Bamm Bamm Show, Fred and Barney Meet the Thing, Fred and Barney Meet the Shmoo, The New Fred and Barney Show, The Flintstone Funnies, The Flintstone Comedy Show, The Flintstone Kids, Cave Kids, Yabba Dabba Dinosaurs, and a whole bunch of TV movies including The Jetsons Meet the Flintstones, I Yabba-Dabba Do, and Hollyrock-a-Bye Baby. Plus two live action movies and various merchandise spinoffs like the various Post Pebbles cereals and Flintstones children's vitamins. And that's just all the ones I can remember.

The Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm Show.  The Flintstones' first spinoff (basically The Archies in furs).

Probably one of the more interesting spin-offs from the Flintstones was a Flintstones comic book published by DC Comics in 2016. The comic keeps the main set-up of the cartoon series while turning it into a rather biting satire. In addition to going to some darker places, the comic book trades the misplaced pride of living in a modern suburban world with the anxiety of living in a world that feels like it's moving a little too fast. It really is very good. Check it out if you get the chance.

The Flintstones comic book from 2016

As of right now in 2026, the Flintstones is not forgotten but is in a bit of a fallow period. The cereals and vitamins live on. There have also been numerous creative people circling around the idea of frelaunching the show, like Seth McFarlane and Elizabeth Banks. Nothing's come of it, though. They still keep trying, though. Just recently, Ryan Gosling signed on to star in and produce a movie about an adult Bamm Bamm Rubble, but who knows if that will go through.

The Flintstone Kids.  One of the last network spinoffs.  Was on TV when I was a kid.

The Flintstones probably aren't coming back at any time soon. It's just hard to recapture that same 1960 zeitgeist in the 2020s. Heck, it was hard to keep it going into the '70s, '80s and '90s with all the spinoffs.  And trying to inject the 2020s vibe into the property gets something like the 2016 comic book series, which was good but could be divisive as a TV show. Besides, the property actually reached a pretty good stopping point after the TV movies.

The Flintstones was Hanna-Barbera's first prime time sitcom, though. It was a big hit, too. It wasn't the last time they'd try it either. Those efforts yielded more mixed results. That's a subject for another time, though.

The Marvel that Wasn't.

 So, not long ago I went and saw the movie Spider-Man: Brand New Day. It was a very good movie and I would recommend it. However, there was something that did bother me as someone who's been in and out of superhero comics for a long while. Now, there is valid reasoning for some of the omissions that happen. Usually, they happen by way of condensation and omission. Hollywood likes to adapt the origins of superheroes and then skip ahead to whatever the hottest new storylines for the character are. For example, the Captain America movies started with World War II and the Red Skull, which were stories from the actual 1940s with some elements of 1960s Cap thrown in. But then the second movie raced ahead to the Winter Soldier storyline, which is a story from 2005. Then the third movie adapted the Marvel Comics Civil War storyline which was from 2006-2007. There were decades of unused storylines in between those events. It wasn't until the Falcon and Winter Soldier series on Disney+ that they doubled back and adapted the Flag Smasher, Power Broker and John Walker stories from the 1980s.

But alas, I know comic books aren't going to be 100% just like decades-long runs of comic books. And I know fans can get awfully nitpicky about this stuff. But, as catharsis, I would still like to go into the things I missed and that I wish the moviegoing public could have seen. So, stick with me a little as I get these off my chest.

The Funny Damage Control

This is the one that came up in Spider-Man: Brand New Day. The depiction of Damage Control. In Brand New Day, as well as Ms. Marvel and Wonder Man, the Department of Damage Control is a meddlesome, and antagonistic government agency that seems intent on locking up and controlling superhumans at the expense of human rights. But what if I told you that Damage Control in the comics, usually was not a government agency, not corrupt and not trying to lock up anyone?

The cover of Damage Control #1

First appearing in 1988, created by writer Dwayne McDuffie and artist Ernie Colon, Damage Control was a comics miniseries about a private construction and engineering firm whose sole job was rebuilding after superhero and supervillain fights caused collateral damage in the city. It was also a workplace comedy. The company was originally founded by a woman named Anne Marie Hoag, but actually owned in secret by the unlikely alliance of Wilson Fisk (the Kingpin) and Tony Stark (Iron Man), who both had their own interests in keeping New York City from being torn down by superhumans. Other principal characters include traffic manager Robin Chapel, comptroller Albert Cleary, account executive John Porter, intern Bart Rozum, and technician Eugene Strausser. Damage Control would deal with such problems as how to remove the remains a giant robot from the city, how to fish the entirety of Avengers HQ out of the river, and how to deal with the employee shortage caused by one of your workers discovering an alien artifact at a job site and having an “superhero origin”. All while bantering and dealing with their own personal stuff and various guests from the rest of the Marvel Universe. Though Damage Control rarely has series of its own, they have become a staple of the worldbuilding of the Marvel Universe.

So, why does the MCU have an evil, decidedly unfunny version of Damage Control? Well, needing some kind of government villain is one reason. The other seems to be them expanding on a subplot from the comic Civil War in which Damage Control's CEO at the time, Walter Declun, was dealing Mutant Growth Hormone to villains in order to amp them up and create more collateral damage and thus more paying work for Damage Control. This small blip of a story that was largely separate from most of Damage Control's appearances, seems to have cemented the idea in the MCU that Damage Control are the bad guys. It's a shame, though. The MCU could use more neutral people and organizations that are germane to the superhero world itself.

The Great Thunderbolts Ruse

The year is 1997. Due to a big event storyline that was published across Marvel's whole line of comics entitled Onslaught, the Avengers and Fantastic Four have disappeared and are presumed dead. With these heroes gone, that leaves a big gap in the world's defenses. Who could fill it? Suddenly, a new team appears: The Thunderbolts! Their roster: sword-wielding leader Citizen V, super-strong giant Atlas, genius inventor Techno, sound-manipulating Songbird, energy-wielding Meteorite, and one-man jet squadron Mach-1! For all of an issue, the Thunderbolts avail themselves fairly well as a superhero team like any other, taking on a number of villains and easing the fears of the citizenry. That is . . . until the last page of issue #1. That's when it's revealed that the Thunderbolts are not actually superheroes, but the Avengers' archenemies the Masters of Evil in disguise! Citizen V is really Baron Zemo! Atlas is really Goliath! Techno is really the Fixer! Songbird is really Screaming Mimi! Meteorite is really Moonstone! Mach-1 is really the Beetle! As the series goes on, cracks start to form in the team. Some members like Citizen V and Meteorite stick to the original villainous plan. Others like Atlas, Songbird and Mach-1 start to realize that they like being superheroes. And Techno just goes along with whatever side will benefit him the most.

The cover of Thunderbolts #1

The movie Thunderbolts was decidedly not that. And with good reason. Other than Baron Zemo, none of those villains had been introduced into the MCU. The Thunderbolts movie was good for what it was and still managed to drop a twist ending on people when they got introduced as the “New Avengers” at the end. And to tell the truth, that original version of the Thunderbolts didn't last forever anyway. It kind of got passes around as a title for various different villain or antihero team books. But man, do I wish I could have seen Marvel Studios drop that particular twist on the moviegoing public! “You thought you were watching superheroes! Well, surprise! These are actually the bad guys!” Oh, well.

The Many Faces of Valentina Allegra de Fontaine

One of the most consistent antagonists introduced in recent MCU movies is CIA director Valentina Allegra de Fontaine, played by Julia Louis Dreyfus. She appeared in a post-credits scene in Black Widow, she recruited U.S.Agent in Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and she was revealed to have done all sorts of morally repugnant things in Thunderbolts. Hard to believe she used to be Nick Fury's girlfriend, isn't it?

A very famous (and scandalous) Steranko page featuring Fury and Val.

ContessaValentina Allegra de Fontaine was created by famed comic book writer and artist JimSteranko in Strange Tales #159 in 1967. Steranko himself is an interesting guy, having worked as an escape artist and magician as well as an artist, as well as being the artist who introduced elements of psychedelia and op art. But that's a subject for another day. Anyway, Val was introduced as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who knocked Nick Fury for a loop upon first meeting her. She had a very long career with S.H.I.E.L.D. And an on-again, off-again romantic relationship with Nick Fury until 2009 when it was revealed that Val was a mole working for a terrorist organization called Leviathan.

Look, I'm not the biggest fan of the Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. comics or Val in particular. But seeing her just show up from the beginning as an antagonist feels abrupt to me. Like, I get that they're adapting the newer stuff, but in the comics her being a villain had emotional weight because the readers and other characters thought she was a good guy for so long.

Hawkeye the Rabblerouser

Of all the first crop of Avengers in the movies, people seem to dismiss Hawkeye the most. He's a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. He's a guy who shoots arrows and he has a family. That's it. Just a standard, stable, family man. The most normal guy in the Avengers. Now, what if I told you that Hawkeye had one of the biggest personalities in Marvel Comics?

Cover of Hawkeye miniseries from 1983.

Hawkeye first appears in Marvel Comics as a misguided villain in Tales of Suspense #57 in 1964 as a foe for Iron Man and an accomplice of the Black Widow, who was also a villain at the time. Later on, when most of the original lineup of Avengers (Thor, Iron Man, Ant-Man and Wasp) quit, he showed up at Avengers mansion to try out for a spot. And as an Avenger, boy did Hawkeye make himself known. Clint Barton proved himself to be loud, rebellious, in-your-face, cocky, flippant. It was such that Captain America had to work overtime just to gain Hawkeye's respect. Also, if we associate Marvel heroes with “quippiness”, then Hawkeye was the “quippiest” Avenger. He was especially known for branding his teammates with all sorts of nicknames, like calling Iron Man “Shellhead”, or Thor “Goldilocks”. Hawkeye was the Avengers' resident wisecracking urban roughneck. The team rebel and the guy who would take risks no one else would (kind of a necessary thing when you're the only member of the team with no powers). Eventually, he would grow up and become something of a leader, but he wouldn't completely lose his rebellious streak.

So, how did Hawkeye go from the most quippy Avenger to possibly the least quippy Avenger. Well, part of it is that they based a lot of his characterization on a version of Hawkeye from a comic called The Ultimates, which depicted him as a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent with a family. But another contributing factor is that, through Robert Downey Jr.'s portrayal, they ended up giving most of Hawkeye's more flippant and rebellious traits to Iron Man instead. So, Hawkeye ended up having to be put into a different role.

And . . . I think that's all I've got for now. I'm sure I could come up with more. Like how Hank Pym (you know, Michael Douglas's character) was originally the one who built Ultron. Or how Bucky Barnes was originally depicted as Cap's kid sidekick rather than as a peer. Or how Drax the Destroyer was originally human . . .

Y'know what? I'd better stop before I've bored everyone.

Until next time . . .

Unsung Superheroes: Metamorpho

 

Unsung Superheroes title card

Okay! Time to shine a light on another one of the lesser-knowns of DC Comics! Been looking forward to this one. This is both one of my favorites and one of the characters we saw in 2025's Superman movie.

But first, let's set the stage for the era. It's 1965. DC had found success with its science-forward approach. But a new competitor, Marvel Comics, had appeared with a different approach that emphasized character drama and flawed, tragic heroes with feet of clay. So, what happens when both approaches meet head-on?

You get a character like Metamorpho, The Element Man!

Metamorpho

He wasn't the first of this new breed of hero at DC. He was preceded by the Metal Men in 1962 and the Doom Patrol in 1963 (more on them at another time). He was the first solo hero in that mold, though.

Created by writer Bob Haney and artist Ramona Fradon, Metamorpho started life as devil-may-care, handsome soldier of fortune Rex Mason. Mason works for corrupt millionaire tycoon and scientist Simon Stagg. Stagg also happens to be the father of Rex's lady love Sapphire Stagg. One day, Simon Stagg sends Rex on a mission he doesn't intend for him to return from. Along with Stagg's manservant Java, Rex is sent to the Lost Pyramid of Ahk-Ton in Egypt to retrieve the mysterious Orb of Ra. While on the mission, two things of consequence happen. One, Java attacks Rex and leaves him for dead. The other is that after he recovers from Java's attack he stumbles on a mysetrious glowing meteorite. Faced with a seeming death from the radioactive meteorite, he swallows a pill Stagg gave him to use whenever he might face death and promptly passes out. Something happens when Rex is exposed to both the chemicals in the pill and is exposed to the radiation from the meteorite. When Rex Mason awakens, he's been changed to something else. No longer quite human and with a startling new appearance, Rex Mason has become an Element Man. He is now a creature made up of pure versions all the different elements in the human body. He is able to transmute his body into any form of those elements, whether it be solid, liquid or gas. He can be as ephemeral as flourine gas, as strong as cobalt or even as reactive as sodium!  A walking, talking chemistry set able to transform into different mixtures and compounds of those various elements. Shaken by his transformation, Mason turns once again to Simon Stagg in hopes he can return him to normal (though, he does kind of thrteaten to tear down Stagg's mansion if he doesn't). But Stagg has his own plans for Rex Mason and also holds the Orb of Ra. Made from the same meteorite that transformed Rex Mason, the Orb of Ra is the only thing that can weaken an Element Man. Encouraged by Sapphire Stagg to use his powers for good until a cure can be found, the superhero career of Metamorpho begins.

For a catchier, more simplified account of the origin, you could also just listen to this song from Tifton Records' 1966 Songs and Stories About the Justice League of America:

Condensing it down to one paragraph doesn't quite gather all the nuance. For the time and the publisher it was coming from, it really was something new. And the characters and relationships were more complex than you'd see in a 1966 issue of Superman and Batman. So, let's do a rundown of the cast.

Rex Mason/Metamorpho- Rex Mason is our hero, but he's far from perfect. He's good enough to know not to give Simon Stagg all the discoveries and artifacts he's sent to find because he knows Stagg is power-hungry. However, Rex is also kind of arrogant, and looks down on “freaks” (like Java). It's only after he's transformed that Rex is humbled. But even then, he becomes depressed and fixated on getting back what he lost, even to the point of relying on Simon Stagg who he knew was untrustworthy.

Sapphire Stagg- One of the most surprising things about Sapphire Stagg is that unlike a lot of the more delicate and easily scared female love interests in 1960s comic books, Saphire accepts the transformed Rex almost right away. She faints upon seeing him at first, largely because she had a feeling that something would go wrong on the expedition and now was seeing it made manifest, but recovers quickly. She's even the one who pushes him toward using his abilities to be a hero. Sapphire's flaws though, lie in how sheltered and naive she is. She loves Rex, but she's also devoted to her father who she just can't see as the villain he is.

Simon Stagg- Simon Stagg is probably one of the first supervillains to not only function as a recurring supporting cast member but also to hide behind a legitimate facade (about 20 years before the Superman comics did the same thing with Lex Luthor). Unlike a lot of villains from that era of superhero comics, Stagg isn't bent on destroying the superhero, but controlling him. Which means he always has to keep Metamorpho close by, constantly dangling the promise of a cure in front of him and with the Orb of Ra nearby just in case Metamorpho should turn on him. He's not just controlling of Rex either. One of the reasons he ordered Java to abandon Rex in Egypt is because he didn't want him to marry Sapphire.

Java- Java is Simon Stagg's manservant. He's also a caveman that was resurrected in the modern day and given greater intelligence by Simon Stagg (yes, really. We're dealing with 1960s comics here, remember?). Java is romantically fixated on Sapphire Stagg, convinced that if he were only handsome like Rex Mason, she would surely fall for him (something we know is definitely not true, because she accepted Rex even after he was changed). Java spends much of his time vacilating between begging Simon Stagg to somehow make him handsome, feeling sorry for himself, and plotting some way to kill Metamorpho so he can have Sapphire all to himself. Java is cunning but not really smart. Java may be a bit of a blunt object, but not someone Metamorpho should be complacent around.

Metemorpho debuted in Brave and the Bold #57 and then he got his own series series, aptly titled Metamorpho, which lasted 17 issues. Not a super long run, but respectable considering how few new features even made it to series. He was considered for an animated TV show shortly after his debut (he lost out when CBS got the rights to do a Batman cartoon). And in the comics, he gained the questionable honor of being the first superhero offered membership in the Justice League of America to turn it down (Justice League of America #42, story entitled “Metamorpho Says No!”).

An issue from Metamorpho's original series.

In the early days of Metamorpho's appearances, the more tragic nature of the character was often countered by how tongue-in-cheek many of the stories are. The solo series was marked by a good-natured lampooning of pulp fiction tropes. For instance, despite supposdly having a legitimate reputation, Simon Stagg rather openly lives like a James Bond villain. His underlings, aside from Java, dress all in black with executioner hoods. His facilities are littered with strange technology. He even has a pet jaguar named Sheba. Metamorpho's villains also lean towards parody. They include characters with names like Achille Le Heele and Cha Cha Chavez.

As is often the case in corporate superhero comics, even after his series was canceled, Metamorpho still stuck around.

He'd reappear in series of back-up stories in Action Comics and World's Finest Comics, and then in the third issue of 1^st Issue Special. In the early '80s, Batman forms a team called the Outsiders, which he forms to intervene in things the Justice League can't because of their high status. Metamorpho becomes a founding member of the team. Later, after the dissolution of the Outsiders, an amnesiac Metamorpho (it's a long story), joins Justice League Europe, the European branch of the Justice League International. 

Metamorpho in Justice League Europe

It's while with this team that Rex reunites with Sapphire and finds out that he has a son named Joey Mason. Joey, it turns out has powers of his own and can transmute matter by touching it.

Baby Joey Mason

For the record, the above picture is what Joey looked like in the comics. The Superman movie made him look like Grogu but with smaller ears (I guess because they thought it would be merchandisable).

Later on, Metamorpho seems to join a new version of the Outsiders headed up by Nightwing (the original Robin, all grown up). But it turns out to be some kind of intelligent off-shoot of Metamorpho named Shift. Kind of a chemical clone. And then years later he would join a team called the Terrifics (a pastiche of Marvel's Fantastic Four) alongside Mr. Terrific, Plastic Man and Phantom Girl.

The Terrifics, including Metamorpho.

So, Metamorpho stuck around and he's become a good supporting cast player. He may not have been able to leg it out as a leading man, but he's become a fairly reliable member of the c-list.

There's just one problem with his tenure in the DC Universe.

He can't seem to stop dying.

It's become something of a crutch for DC writers that because of how powerful Metamorpho is, that they can kill him off to show how dangerous things are and then just bring him back later. He died at the end of the original Outsiders run and then came back. He died at the end of the Justice League International and came back. I believe he was dead at the beginning of Nightwing's Outsiders, which is why Shift could take his place. It's something that I wish DC would stop doing.

Anyway, now thanks to James Gunn and Warner Bros., the world has seen Metamorpho in live action (he's already appeared in a whole bunch of cartoons). 

Anthony Carrigan as Metamorpho in Superman (2025)

He also got a new series around the same time written by Al Ewing and Steve Lieber. It lasted all of six issues and, to no one's surprise, Metamorpho seemed to die at the end. I don't think DC even showed how he came back this time, because now he's appearing in Justice League Unlimited.

A issue from Metamorpho's latest series.

He is one of my favorite lesser lights of the DC Universe. He has been ever since I read his original run of comics and was exposed to Metamorpho's unique combination of pathos and parody. I hope I might have at least clued you folks into why.

Television Oddities: Fluppy Dogs

 

Television Oddities title card

The year 1985 was an important year for Disney Television. Disney, as a company, had been struggling for a few years after the death of Walt Disney with the idea of what direction to go. However, in 1984, Disney came under new management with the recruiting of Michael Eisner and Frank Wells as CEO and COO respectively. Eisner, who prided himself on being a creative CEO, was intent on Disney creating new characters and properties. Also, as someone who had once had high-ranking positions at major television networks, he knew there was potential in television.. So, he set about launching Disney Television Animation.

Now, this may not seem so crazy right now, but you have to understand that Disney just didn't do TV animation. A lot of the major studios from the Golden Age of theatrical animation didn't. It was generally understood that they couldn't match the quality of their theatrical output on a TV budget, so they didn't really bother. But in 1985, Disney launched two television cartoons: The Wuzzles, about an island of composite animals (Butterbear, Bumblelion, etc), and Adventures of the Gummi Bears, a fantasy adventure very loosely inspired by a candy that Eisner's children became enamored with at camp. And from those two shows came all the television cartoons Disney has made since, including Duck Tales, Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers, Goof Troop, Gargoyles, Kim Possible, Phineas and Ferb, The Owl House and numerous others.

But not every show made it to series.

In 1986, ABC aired a Disney pilot for a show titled Fluppy Dogs. Fluppy Dogs, like many children's cartoons in the1980s, was meant to tie in to a line of merchandise including books and toys. For the record, here's a commercial for some of the toys:

Typical soft stuffed toy line aimed at young girls, right?

Disney decided to get a bit creative with it.

Fluppy Dogs TV title

The special opens with the main Fluppies of the series, Stanley, Tippi, Ozzie, Bink and Dink, traversing a dangerous mountain range in inclement weather. They eventually get to a cliff when one of the Fluppies pulls out a small, glowing crystal which they use to open a door in midair that leads them to another world, which they hope is their homeworld.

So, apparently, Fluppy Dogs can traverse the multiverse.  Also, points to anyone who thinks the travel method reminds them way too much of Kingdom Hearts.

They get chased through this new jungle world by a dinosaur-like creature until they find another door which leads them to our world. Well . . . a human world (it's still animated so it's hard to call it OUR world). The Fluppies end up causing a bit of trouble in a supermarket and escaping into the streets only to get caught by dog catchers. But not before getting the attention of the villain of the piece: J.J. Wagstaff, millionaire and rare animal collector. You see, Wagstaff knew about Fluppies already, having read about them in some old book. Now he was intent on adding one to his collection.

In the meantime, the Fluppies are in the pound with few means of escape. So, Stanley manages to get himself adopted by a woman who is there looking for a pet for her son Jamie. Jamie's less than enthused with his new pet, having expected a bigger dog. However, Jamie takes Stanley for a walk and after a brief escape attempt, saves Jamie from danger on a construction site. This reveals Stanley's extraordinary nature and after a brief explanation, the Fluppies now have their first ally on Earth.

The Fluppies and Jamie.

Jamie tries his best to help but his resources are limited. He manages to scraoe together all the money he has and manages to buy another Fluppy, Tippi, from the pound. Though, upon seeing this, his mom says “absolutely not” and makes him give Tippi to their teenage neighbor Claire.

Things go a little better that night when Jamie and Stanley are sleeping and Jamie starts scratching Stanley's head in his sleep. This causes the bed to start flying.

Yeah, it seems that Fluppies are just straight-up magic in some worlds. The flying bed scene is a really fun scene, but it also feels a lot like Disney animation was riffing on the flying bicycle scene from 1982's E.T.

Anyway, they fly to Claire's house to pick up Tippi (who is less than enthused with life at Claire's, since she seems to use Tippi as a sort of “dress-up doll”), and inadvertently reveal the truth to Claire (enter ally #2). They then go to the pound to stage a jailbreak, narrowly avoiding Wagstaff who had them open the pound so he could get the remaining Fluppies.

Tippi and Claire.

A good chunk of the rest of the special is the Fluppies finding more otherdimensional doors and opening them only to find that not only are they not the way home, but there's something on the other side that will cause trouble if it gets out. They open one door only for a huge flood of water to come through. They open another and a creature that Claire names a “Falumpus” comes through. In the meantime, Jamie is trying to help but the more he's involved the more trouble he gets in with his mom.

Wagstaff makes one more attempt at capturing the Fluppies, managing to actually nab Ozzie. Trying to keep Jamie out of it for once, Stanley and Tippi seek help from Claire who drives them to Wagstaff's mansion in her car. Jamie, though, sees them depart and he, Bink and Dink pursue by riding the Falumpus (which was still in Jamie's basement).

Things go south as Wagstaff and his butler Hamish manage to catch Stanley and Tippi and threatens to call the police on Jamie and Claire for breaking into his home. As a last ditch effort, Jamie and Claire “say goodbye” to the Fluppies by scratching their heads. This manages to release enough magic to rip the top floor of Wagstaff's mansion off and send it flying to the library where the actual portal to the Fluppies' homeworld is. The Fluppies open the door and go through, and Wagstaff and Hamish pursue only to get stuck on the other side (note: without his money and status and on a world where the animals he's trying to collect are the dominant species, Wagstaff will likely be at a disadvantage). This leaves Jamie and Claire alone on their own side of the door.

Months pass, the seasons change. Jamie and Claire are now good friends after their adventure. But they still miss their Fluppy friends. Then one winter day, Stanley and the other Fluppies appear saying that they miss Jamie and Claire too. It turns out that they found a way to stabilize the door between Earth and their world. As they open the door, hundreds of Fluppies stream through eager to have their own adventure on Earth.

So . . . how do you get from floppy dog plushies to canine interdimensional adventurers?

The Fluppies in their toy form.

Well, it's not unusual for animation studios to take a toy concept, even a seemingly gentle one aimed at young girls, and pump in some adventure and higher stakes.  I mean, even the Care Bears had villains like Dr. Coldheart and Noheart.

But it really seems more like an example of what Disney was doing and what headspace they were in regarding TV animation at the time. Turning a simple concept into a high adventure with appeal for both gender demographics. Heck, with Gummi Bears they took the name of a candy and some how turned that into a medeival fantasy adventure. And apparently they didn't stray too far from the initial concept. Certain details seem to have stayed. Like designating the Fluppies by their qualities. According to Wikipedia, the initial lineup of characters in the children's book were Fanci Flup, Cuddle Flup, Brave Flup, Cool Flup, Shy Flup and Silly Flup. The characters from the special are listed as Stanley the Loyal Fluppy, Tippi the Loving Fluppy, Ozzie the Cool Fluppy, Bink the Shy Fluppy and Dink the Playful Fluppy.

Anyway, the special aired on ABC on Thanksgiving, November 27, 1986. It got the lowest rating of any of ABC's TV movies during that week and of course did not go to series.

Should it have?

Well, despite the novel “cutesy animals travelling the multiverse” angle, I doubt it was any great loss to children's television as a whole. But it does show an interesting time in Disney television animation when none of it was really a sure thing yet and proves to be an interesting television oddity because of it.