Fabulous Funnies is a 1978-1979 American animated children's show produced for Saturday morning television by Filmation. The show aired for one season from September 9, 1978 to September 1, 1979 on NBC, airing 13 episodes. The show was an anthology of stories based on famous American comic strips, including Broom Hilda, Alley Oop, The Captain and the Kids, Nancy, Emmy Lou and Tumbleweeds. The character designs closely mimicked the comic strips, so the animators had to animate in several different styles for the program. It was noted by critics that the show's comic potential was blunted by NBC's demand that the show promote pro-social messages for the child audience. This was especially noticeable when rowdy characters like the Katzenjammer Kids were obliged to spread messages of politeness and restraint. The Los Angeles Times called the show's moralizing "heavy-handed."
Episode structure
Each episode contained Broom Hilda, Alley Oop and The Captain and the Kids, with other segments appearing on a rotating basis. Foozy from Alley Oop served as the show's host, and mainly spoke in rhyme. Each episode had an overall theme, based on a pro-social message. For example, "Fear" dealt with overcoming trepidation, and included Foozy's narration, "We're here to make one thing clear, a lot of woe comes from undue fear." Other topics included drinking, smoking, schoolwork, health, voting and the environment.
Rights problem
The first episode of Fabulous Funnies aired with a segment based on Tumbleweeds, but Filmation didn't actually have the rights to the strip. The strip's creator, Tom K. Ryan, said that he would give approval for his comic to appear in the show pending a look at the scripts and designs, but the producers believed that he had already given permission. After the first episode aired, Ryan called producer Lou Scheimer and said that he wouldn't sue, as long as the strip didn't appear in any further episodes.
June Foray: Broom Hilda, Sluggo, Oola, Hans and Fritz Katzenjammer
Jayne Hamil: Nancy, Emmy Lou
Alan Oppenheimer: Captain Katzenjammer, King Guzzle, Irwin, Grelber, Inspector
Bob Holt: Alley Oop, Gaylord, Foozy
Reception
In The Encyclopedia of American Animated Television Shows, David Perlmutter writes: "For the most part, they were effective adaptations on a visual level. However, the advanced age of most of the properties meant that adapting them to the restrictions of television animation in the 1970s required unwelcome compromises to the material that impaired their abilities to tell stories as effectively as they had in the comics." George Woolery agrees in Children's Television: The First Thirty-Five Years that the show "sacrificed humor and fun for preaching." In Television Cartoon Shows, Hal Erickson adds, "What, pray tell, did the media critics expect when such marvelously uninhibited, havoc-wreaking characters like Alley Oop and the Katzenjammer Kids were required to warn the kids at home to behave like responsible ladies and gentlemen? Especially in the case of the Katzenjammers, the whole point of newspaper strips in the first place was to give rule-bound children a cathartic outlet for their latent antisocial tendencies. With the noblest motivations in mind, Fabulous Funnies managed to rob its characters of their very reason for being."
