Oh Yeah! Cartoons: #29: Slap T. Pooch in What is Funny?

Nickelodeon 

Previously, Triplets have fun [Here]

#29 Slap T. Pooch in: What is Funny?

Season 1, Episode 1b

    The name of this one makes it feel like there is going to be more but there is not, it's just this one.   Back to season 1 and the very first episode. This segment of the three is the only one that's not part of a series of shorts that would show up in the series later. I've already written about Jelly's Day . 

             Slap T. Pooch in What is Funny?  was created by Bill Burnett and Vincent Waller. Burnett also wrote this one. Bill Burnett had been a singer songwriter for the purpose of this post he met with Fred Seibert and Alan Goodman (Seibert being a reason why Oh Yeah! exists) and he was a writer for their agency. Seibert and Goodman are the creative minds behind MTV's look in the 1980's, Nickelodeon's splat logo, Nick at Nite, and Comedy Central. Burnett is the one who thought up the name Comedy Central.  When Seibert went to Hanna-Barbera Burnett followed and became VP Creative Director of the company. He also worked on the show "Cow and Chicken".   He went with Seibert again to Nickelodeon and worked on this. That's my speed run. I will mention a little more about him at the end.  I've mentioned Waller before, but for this one they have connection where they both worked on "Cow and Chicken" he storyboarded an episode. (One that's uh well known)  Anyway to this short. 

                This one is very focused on being meta and 4th wall breaking. Our main character is named Slap T. Pooch, a dog who knows that this is a cartoon and decides to ask if something is funny. That's the whole 7 minutes.  This a very visual and quick paced short.  It accelerates into randomness as the dog tries to focus group the viewers into wondering if that event is funny.  It has a lot of slapstick. 

            There's really not much story here and that's fine. It's a showcase of madness more than anything else.  I can see it even being grating to some because of the constant of the asking if something is funny.  It's not like there's nothing funny happening in the short, but yeah it can be seen as little much. A highlight has to be the prison  of gingerbread men.  The short has a running gag song of a choir singing "What is Funny? What is Funny?" 

                 I guess I could ask would this have made a good series? Probably not, this feels more one off  unless it's making a meta cartoon where Slap does different things, but the constant question repeating and stuff hampers it a bit.  You should check it out, at least once, to see what it is, but that should be it. 

             Back to Burnett, before we close. This episode of Oh Yeah! Cartoons has his fingers all over it, he was involved in all three shorts. The first one , "Chalk Zone" which was the first of many shorts and one of the shorts featured that became it's own show. He co-created that with Larry Huber. With Slap T. Pooch and Chalkzone you'll notice music is part of them and he again did make music too. He also worked on Jelly's Day as a co-creator.   

             That's really it here... uh was this post fun?  Was it?  help. 

Arthur: Season 3: Episode 15: Arthur and D.W Clean Up/ The Long, Dull Winter

Arthur PBS 

Episode 15a: Arthur and D.W Clean Up

   The Cold Open:  Arthur talks about how he changed his room into the  Mall of America, but also it can clean itself, unlike the Mall of America.  He was supposed to be cleaning his room.

  The Episode:  Arthur  wants to go with his friends to a fun air, the next day, and that's important because  before that day Arthur's mom wonders if he has cleaned his room. He has not.  I always find it funny how messy rooms look on cartoons, they always go excessive, but it funny. His mother lets him play soccer but he has to clean is room later. It is showing that she is being fair and he made did make a promise. So you can feel too bad for him.  Arthur again decides he finds  a way to watch his show instead of cleaning his room.  

          Arthur failed to clean is room and now he can't go to the happy fun thingy and  has to clean his room. His mom also stops D.W from laughing by saying that she has to clean her room too.  The father, who had nothing to say now suggests an idea where the two siblings work together to clean up their rooms.  D.W wants to throw stuff way, but Arthur doesn't want her to.  

            D.W becomes a Francine and Arthur shipper because she knows the audience.  The father tries to talk to them and thinks up the idea they just don't talk and this seems to go well. The episode has has some fun Easter eggs from past seasons of episodes.   They do end up finishing but now it's D.W's room's turn.  D.W has a set way of doing things and gets annoyed.  when Arthur doesn't follow along, her way. 

            The parents interject into the story because of their arguing.  D. W tells the parents she'd rather just do it her self.  Arthur gets to go to the park for the event.  That was moment for D.W.  The end of the episode Arthur and his friends get to help clean up the park.   

            A simple episode, pretty fun. It works well Arthur should have done his room before and wouldn't have missed some of that fun. D.W had no investment in the event herself but it was nice of her to let Arthur go while she did her room herself. Mostly because she was going to go mad if Arthur kept doing things the 'wrong' way.  It's a good basic episode. 

    More after the jump

Fall TV Look 2023: What's New, What's Renewed, What's Ended?

Fall TV Look  2023 ABC CBS CW FOX NBC

Last Updated  November 9  2023 at 8:50 PM MT 


It's our annual list of network TV moves either shows being renewed or canceled /ending. Also what's new? For disclosure, we are going to count reboot or one of those shows that are returning after ending as new , just to keep this list consistent.

Also to be determined is our list for shows that haven't been officially given a status so, it's

       

ABC 

Renewed 

Abbott Elementary 

America's Funniest Home Videos 

American Idol 

The Bachelor 

Bachelor in Paradise

Celebrity Jeopardy

Celebrity Wheel of Fortune 

The Conners 

The Good Doctor 

Grey's Anatomy 

Not Dead Yet

The Rookie 

Shark Tank 

Station 19 

Will Trent 

Canceled 

Alaska Daily 

A Million Little Things 

Avalon 

Big Sky

Home Economics 

The Company You Keep 

The Goldbergs 

The Rookie: Feds

To Be Determined 

Reality/Summer shows (determined at their own times)

The Wonder Years 

New Series 

9-1-1 (moving from FOX) 

 CBS 

Renewed 

Blue Bloods

Bob Hearts Abishola 

CSI: Vegas

The Equalizer 

FBI 

FBI: International 

Fire Country 

Ghosts

NCIS 

NCIS: Hawai'i 

So Help Me Todd 

S.W.A.T  (for a final season) 

Young Sheldon 

The Neighborhood 

Canceled 

East New York 

NCIS:LA 

True Lies 

Reality/News/Summer shows (determined at their own times)

60 Minutes 

48 Hours 

The Amazing Race 

Survivor 

Tough as Nails

New Series 

Elsbeth

Matlock

Poppa's House 

CW

Also will note that the CW has new ownership who could decide their own ways and other factors could come in to play. 

Renewed 

All American 

All American: Homecoming 

Walker 

Canceled 

The Flash

Gotham Knights 

Kung Fu 

Nancy Drew

Riverdale

Stargirl 

Superman & Lois 

Walker: Independence 

The Winchesters 

To Be Determined 

Reality/Summer shows (determined at their own times)

New Series 

FOX 

Renewed 

9-1-1: Lone Star 

Accused 

Alert 

Animal Control 

Bob's Burgers (2 Seasons) 

The Cleaning Lady

The Great North 

Family Guy  (2 Seasons) 

Krapopolis (Renewed before first season premiered) 

The Simpsons  (2 seasons) 

Canceled 

9-1-1 (moving to ABC) 

Call me Kat

Fantasy Island 

Monarch

The Resident 

Welcome to Flatch 

To Be Determined 

Housebroken 

Reality/Summer shows (determined at their own times)

New Series 

Grimsburg 

NBC

Renewed 

Chicago Fire

Chicago Med

Chicago PD

La Brea

Lopez vs. Lopez

Law and Order

Law and Order: Organized Crime

Law and Order: SVU

Magnum PI  (second part of season 5 in mid season 2024) (ending after that) 

Night Court

Quantum Leap

Canceled 

American Auto 

The Blacklist

Grand Crew

New Amsterdam 

Young Rock 

To Be Determined 

Reality/Summer shows (determined at their own times)

American Ninja Warrior (2 seasons) 

New Series 

Found (moving to Fall 2023) 

St. Denis Medical 

2023: Oscars Nominations announced

Oscars 

            It's that season again. The 95th Academy Awards nominations have been announced.  "Everything Everywhere All at Once" led the nominations with 11, Angela Bassett,  Jamie Lee Curtis , Judd Hirsch, and Brendan Fraser are some of the many actors nominated.   The awards are set for March 12 on ABC it will be hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. No, I'm not mentioning last year. 

Here's the full list 

Best Actress In A Supporting Role

Angela Bassett (“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever”)
Hong Chau (“The Whale”)
Kerry Condon (“The Banshees of Inisherin”)
Jamie Lee Curtis (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”)

Stephanie Hsu (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”)  

Best Original Screenplay
“The Banshees of Inisherin” (Martin McDonagh)
“Everything Everywhere All at Once” (Daniel Kwan, Daniel Scheinert)
“The Fabelmans” (Steven Spielberg, Tony Kushner)
“Tár” (Todd Field)
“Triangle of Sadness” (Ruben Östlund)

Best Actor In A Supporting Role

Brendan Gleeson (“The Banshees of Inisherin”)

Brian Tyree Henry (“Causeway”)

Judd Hirsch (“The Fabelmans”)

Barry Keoghan (“The Banshees of Inisherin”)

Ke Huy Quan (“Everything Everywhere All at Once”)

Best Adapted Screenplay

“All Quiet on the Western Front” (Edward Berger, Lesley Paterson, Ian Stokell)

“Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery” (Rian Johnson)

“Living” (Kazuo Ishiguro)

“Top Gun: Maverick” (Ehren Kruger, Eric Warren Singer, Christopher McQuarrie, and Story by Peter Craig and Justin Marks)

“Women Talking” (Sarah Polley)

Best International Feature Film

“All Quiet on the Western Front” (Germany)

“Argentina, 1985” (Argentina)

“Close” (Belgium)

“EO” (Poland)

“The Quiet Girl” (Ireland)

Best Animated Short Film

“The Boy, the Mole, the Fox, and the Horse” (Apple TV+)

“The Flying Sailor”

“Ice Merchants”

“My Year of Dicks”

“An Ostrich Told Me the World Is Fake and I Think I Believe It”

Best Costume Design

“Babylon” (Paramount Pictures)

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (Marvel Studios)

“Elvis” (Warner Bros)

“Everything Everywhere All at Once” (A24)

“Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris” (Focus Features)

Best Production Design

“All Quiet on the Western Front” (Netflix)

“Avatar: The Way of Water” (20th Century Studios)

“Babylon” (Paramount Pictures)

“Elvis” (Warner Bros)

“The Fabelmans” (Universal Pictures)

Best Visual Effects

“All Quiet on the Western Front” (Netflix)

“Avatar: The Way of Water” (20th Century Studios)

“The Batman” (Warner Bros.)

“Black Panther: Wakanda Forever” (Marvel Studios)

“Top Gun: Maverick” (Paramount Pictures)

Best Live Action Short

“An Irish Goodbye” (Floodlight Pictures)

“Ivalu” (M&M Productions)

“Le Pupille” (Disney+)

“Night Ride”

“The Red Suitcase” (Cynefilms)

Best Animated Feature Film

“Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio” (Netflix)

“Marcel the Shell With Shoes On” (A24)

“Puss in Boots: The Last Wish” (DreamWorks Animation)

“The Sea Beast” (Netflix)

“Turning Red” (Pixar)

More after the jump 

CNN Announces New Daytime Changes , and a CNN Tonight Update

CNN   Cable TV News  Cable TV 

           More changes are coming to CNN, this time, with a new daytime line up. The programming between 9am ET and 4pm ET weekdays will be broken up into 3 separate programs. 

           The 9am-Noon ET block will be anchored from New York, former New Day co-anchor , John Berman,  with current 11am ET anchor of "At This Hour", Kate Bolduan, and adding in Sara Sidner will be the three anchors of this block.  

            Inside Politics with John King will continue at Noon ET.  Then, the 1-4pm ET block will from Washington D.C.  former New Day co-anchor, Brianna Keilar, current CNN This Morning Weekend co-anchor , Boris Sanchez, and current 9-11am anchor, Jim Sciutto, will be the anchors for this block.    

      Most of the changes here finds spots for people who were shuffled out like Berman and Keilar, their New Day program was canceled last year and replaced with CNN This Morning.  Sciutto's former co-anchor, Polly Harlow moved to CNN This Morning .  Meanwhile, the Alisyn Camerota and Victor Blackwell block will be gone.  Blackwell will be moving back to weekends as co-anchor of CNN This Morning Weekend and the 10AM ET, Saturday hour of  Newsroom. 

           During the fall, Camerota was put on the 10pm-Midnight ET block of CNN Tonight when Don Lemon was moved to mornings.  Camerota will still be anchoring the 10pm ET , while co-host Laura Coates will be on at 11pm ET.   

             Besides, Blackwell moving back to weekends, another weekend change has been made. Jim Acosta will now anchor Saturdays 4pm- 8pm ET and Sundays 4-7pm ET.  Pamela Brown has been named Chief Investigative Correspondent and Anchor for CNN replacing Drew Griffin who passed away in December ,and she be leaving her CNN Newsroom hours on weekends.  

       The programming names, dates, and etc for daytime haven't been effective yet and will be announced later.  Also of note, CNN hasn't announced at 9PMET replacement yet.  

Press release after the jump

NewsNation to add Elizabeth Vargas

NewsNation    Cable TV News 

            

       Nexstar owned cable news network, NewsNation, continues to expand and change programming. Tuesday they announced that former ABC News anchor, Elizabeth Vargas, will be joining the network to host at 6pm ET show called "Elizabeth Vargas Reports"  The show is set to start on April 3. 

             Vargas will be anchoring from New York City, and not from their Chicago headquarters. Newsnation says the program will "...feature one-on-one interviews with headline makers across the country and on-the-ground reporting by Newsnation's team of seasoned journalists." 

             Currently, the network runs "NewsNation Rush Hour" from 5-7pm ET,  and it's assumed that Rush Hour will go back to being one hour. Reruns of off network drama, Blue Bloods runs from 12pmet-5pmet, at present. 

             

Press release after the jump 

Rudolph's Shiny New Year

New Years   The Flashback 

          In some room somewhere they at Rankin Bass thought that their Rudolph special  needed a sequel and  for a different network than where that one was airing.  First airing on December 10, 1976 on ABC (whilst original Rudolph aired on NBC and later CBS) "Rudolph's Shiny New Year" takes the idea that Rudolph now has to save the New Year because we need to have new years or something. 

        New Year's as  a holiday isn't really a big marketed thing, I mean in the way Christmas is, plus mostly it's just a trend of time and it happens right after Christmas. It's not the most fun of holidays anyway. That's right I said it.   

           I've made the statement before that Rankin Bass seemed to like the idea of taking Christmas songs and going "Hey Let's make that a special" and then try to wrap a story around that. It's creative, but it's also creative to see what they do with they don't.  I think "Rudolph's Shiny New Year" is their most original Christmas special since they really had no source material to work from except Rudolph existing.  

     So how does a New Year's special with Rudolph work?  They do take a creative (again this is another Rankin-Bass special written by Romeo Muller) idea of the concept of baby new year.  Baby New Year is a classic personification of  the time.  A new fresh year, rebrith-- birth--- baby.  

     Santa starts off the special and this one apparently takes place just after the famous Rudolph story The Santa in this special looks like the same model they used for "The Year Without A Santa Claus" but uses Rankin Bass go to -Paul Frees- as his voice. The Rudolph model is different too, but again it was about 12 years after the first special.   The special is voiced by Red Skelton, the famous entertainer, he voices the character of Father time, which also fits well for our New Year special here. This is Red Skelton after networks were cutting back on classic stars from the radio and early days of television because they wanted newer younger viewers.  He does fit with Rankin Bass using classic well-known performers to their  thing, and he does it well.  

I don't control Daylight Saving time, you dummies made that/ Copyright Warner 

         The story starts where Santa gets a letter from Father Time because the Happy, the baby New Year is missing. Apparently, if the baby is missing we will live in a loop of December 31st forever. (That doesn't sound too bad)  To raise the stakes, there's an awful snowstorm still, so enter Rudolph. That's the stakes, Rudolph has 6 days to find the baby or else. (What happens if he finds the baby later, couldn't that still, and what?)   

What? I didn't run that traffic light? / Copyright Warner 

            I do find the concept very creative, the baby New Year being the quest for Rudolph to find him. Father Time's world is a neat thing too, he has a clock work set up and shows him taking care of time. (not Life magazine)  I do find it interesting he has a scythe, like a grim reaper.  There's General Ticker who is a clock work solider, there's a whale named Big Ben, and a clock on his tail. A clock based camel as well.  Much like the first special, Rudolph gets some fun characters to work off of with. 

        There's Eon , a vulture, who doesn't want the baby to be found and brought back to Father Time because he's gonna die. That's not a joke of mine, they outright say that Eon can live until he's one eon old and turn into ice and snow, so death. (I looked how much an Eon is and apparently he lived a billion years?)  I think it's kind of a justifiable reason to not having something happen where he dies. That's an interesting character motivation for a villain.  (Also kind of dark that Rudolph's goal means that death of Eon has to happen) 

Of any villain he has a good reason / Copyright Warner

          More concept stuff is that it explains what happens when the years switch, well through the year the baby New Year ages( I also love the song used when Father Time explains it) it then hands its crown to the next year.  The special explains later that old years go to their own islands and this is the special I learned the  term archipelago from as a kid. So there are islands where it's 1965 , for example, and it's always that year. (Don't go to 2001 or 2020 island) Through the special you'll meet some of the old New Years. I'll get to them in a minute.

           Why did Happy leave? Well unlike his name, he wasn't very happy, he has big ears. When people saw him they laughed because big ears are funny or something. He ran away. This special does take Rudolph's story where he was maligned for being a misfit and he understands Happy's problem. So, again he has to find Happy before Eon and before midnight December 31st.  

He's not very happy/ Copyright Warner 

More after the jump

Christmas: 'Twas the Night Before Christmas (Rankin Bass)

Christmas 

       I do like to mention that Rankin-Bass specials seem to be taking songs and trying to make a story out of them. They have "Rudolph", "Frosty", "The Little Drummer Boy" etc. I have mentioned times they've used books as source material like "The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus" and "The Year without A Santa Claus" This time, they used a poem.

    The famous "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" no creature was stirring not even a mouse. But they in joke is in this special a mouse is stirring. (ha ha ha ha)

      From 1974, originally airing on December, 8, 1974 on CBS where it ran for a couple decades before being cable-ized. "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" is a Rankin-Bass special that's traditionally animated , instead of stop-motion, and a 30 minute (25 without ads ) special.

  
       The original poem was written in 1823 and uses the story from it, but that would be short, so they added a story around that poem to build up something. This special was written by Jerome Coopersmith whom also wrote scripts for "Hawaii Five-O" , "Streets of San Francisco" and more.



       The special starts with the famous words "'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house not a creature was stirring not even a mouse..." it feels like a little animated version of the poem, but the guy who is playing the I is having a hard time sleeping, then it goes a mouse , who also laying in his bed, who is actually stirring and starts to tell us that's it 3 minutes until Christmas. So apparently, he's going to tell us this story in the span of 3 minutes. (Not for us)


       His name is Father Mouse, so that's helpful. He is voiced by George Goebel who was a radio entertainer in the 1930's through 50's. He and his business partner named David O'Malley were the guys who started a company called Gomalco which produced the hit series "Leave it To Beaver" He also will be singing a song for this special, we'll get to that.
             

I've always been called Father Mouse, even before I was married and had kids/Copyright Warner

       Father Mouse says that it all started when letters to Santa are returned to the people of Junctionville. We also meet the Trundle family, who live in the house where the mice also live. Santa has decided to remove the town from his route. That's right, we also set up the rest of the plot with Joshua Trundle, a clock maker and repairer, is going to make a special clock that plays a song that will play at midnight on Christmas Eve to entice Santa. The mayor character who is kind of fun just because he tries to use elaborate language to sound more how a kid thinks a politician speaks. 
                            

This clock is our new Santa! Copyright Warner

    Back to the reason why Santa decided to remove the town of Junctionville from his route, well, the reason is a newspaper editorial to the local paper. Which means Santa has too much time on his hands to read every town's newspaper or likes to search for himself and finds out what people are writing about him. Either way petty Santa is petty.

                               

    The letter is notable because the words are long and Father Mouse figures out his son, he has three kids, but the only one that matters his is eldest son named Albert, who is a nerdy mouse decided to write a letter signed "all of us" meaning his friends not the town (or the UPN sitcom). Which either way Petty Santa is petty.
  

                        

We are going to have to disown you / Copyright Warner

    I have 3 questions , 1) If the Santa thinks the whole town thinks he's a fraud then why would send him letters? Did he not think of that? 2) If Albert thinks Santa is not real, then where does he think the letters were from. 3) Why doesn't Albert believe in Santa, when everyone seemingly does and he says he's a science mouse, there's evidence Santa is real in this world?

            

    These Christmas stories where people say "Santa's not real" but then he is real meaning there's evidence are always weirdly conflicting if you think too hard about it. (Which is going on here)

More after the Jump