Uncle Croc’s Block was a monumental disaster for Filmation Associates and arguably the worst program they ever produced. After the show premiered in an hour-long format on ABC on September 6, 1975, the network almost immediately whittled it down to a half-hour and canceled it on February 14, 1976. After that, ABC president Fred Silverman permanently severed all ties with Filmation and turned to Hanna-Barbera for future endeavors.
Charles Nelson Reilly in costume as Uncle Croc appearing on the ABC Saturday morning tv series ‘Uncle Croc’s Block’. (Photo by Disney General Entertainment Content via Getty Images)
But enough about this foolishness. Like most kidvid live-action shows, it featured cartoons—three different ones. The first was M*U*S*H (Mangy Unwanted Shabby Heroes), in which dogs enacted a dreadful parody of the TV hit M*A*S*H. Lou Scheimer, who wrote the episodes, recounted that he made them purposely unfunny. So woeful was this cartoon that 14 episodes went unfinished. It was this horror show that led Silverman to dump Filmation.
The second cartoon, Fraidy Cat, was a morbid exercise in paranoia in which the titular cat, having lost eight lives, is haunted by those ghosts. Worse, he has developed a phobia of the number nine, who shows up as a personification to terrify the cat further. Perhaps John R. Dilworth could have worked with this concept. Filmation, however, could not.
That brings us to the third cartoon, which is the only palatable one given the efforts and resources of Filmation. Wacky and Packy (short for pachyderm) were a duo consisting of Wacky, a red-haired clueless caveman, and his pet (buddy?) wooly mammoth. Wacky and Packy were the brainchildren of executives Lou Schiemer and Norm Prescott. They appeared in 16 cartoons spanning the duration of Uncle Croc’s Block.
The series had a well-worn premise: the “Fish out of Water.” Swept into a cave via a whirlpool, Wacky and Packy emerged two million years into the future in what appears to be New York City. Misadventures naturally follow. The caveman and his mammoth often seek food or a place to sleep and are sometimes even rewarded. Whether crashing a penthouse party, trying to land a job, or being recruited by the Army, the pair create misunderstandings and slapstick-style comedy.
What Wacky and Packy want most is to return home, a seemingly impossible wish. There is a recurring gag where Packy bursts into tears at the word “home.” The two have this exchange when Packy screws up, which is to say, in every episode:
Wacky: “One of these days, Packy—Pow! Right in the kisser!”
Packy: “What I do? What I do?”
The British VHS release.
Twenty-five animators are listed for Wacky and Packy, which is highly unlikely. Nearly all were Filmation animators or industry veterans from Fleischer and Paramount. For example, Irv Spector, Tony Pabian, and Otto Feuer had careers dating back to Fleischer’s 1939 film Gulliver’s Travels, while Virgil Raddatz worked on Filmation’s He-Man.
Art director Herb Hazelton worked on all 16 episodes.
Wacky and Packy are far more endearing than the other cartoons in Uncle Croc’s Block but are undercut by shoddy and reused animation across all episodes. It is surprising that the cartoons retained any charm on what must have been a penurious budget. Much of that charm came from writers Barry E. Blitzer, who won an Emmy for Best Comedy Writing for The Phil Silvers Show, and Len Janson, a prolific animation writer.
Musical composers were listed as Yvette Blais and Jeff Micheal, pseudonyms for Ray Ellis and Norm Prescott (who used his son’s names). This pair composed virtually every note of Filmation’s music from 1968-1982. Wacky and Packy’s end credits bop to a jumpy boogie-woogie score that is almost worth sitting through the cartoon for.
Finally, Don Towsley, who had a long and exceptionally distinguished career as a Disney animator beginning in 1935, directed all 16 episodes of Wacky and Packy. Towsley contributed work on Pinocchio, Dumbo, and Fantasia, as well as animating Donald Duck. Towsley also served as animation supervisor for Chuck Jones’ acclaimed short The Dot and the Line before joining Filmation in 1968.
Wacky and Packy still have some nostalgic fans. Their collected episodes are available on DVD and are streamed on many platforms.
Martin Goodman is a veteran writer specializing in stories about animation. He has written for AWN and Animation Scoop – and lives in Anderson, Indiana.
I’ve heard of “Uncle Croc’s Block”, but I never saw it and didn’t know anything about it. The idea that it could be even worse than the Saturday morning shows of the 1970s that I do remember fills me with horror. That said, I have to admit I got a big laugh out of the “Bowery Joe Creamath” character spoofing “Broadway Joe” Namath, who was ubiquitous on TV in the early ’70s, and not just in shaving cream commercials either.
I notice that Filmation didn’t have it in their budget to put numbers on the football players’ jerseys.
“Wacky and Packy” has a similar premise to the Sherwood Schwartz sitcom “It’s About Time”, about a pair of astronauts who travel faster than the speed of light and wind up back in the Stone Age. Faced with low ratings, Schwartz decided to reboot the show and send the astronauts and the Stone Age family back to 20th century Earth. Yes, of course the cave men form a “rock” band.
Then there was the 1970 horror film “Trog”, about a prehistoric man in modern Britain. It was Joan Crawford’s last film. No, I’m not kidding.
I’m going to have to take a look at some more Wacky and Packy cartoons, as well as the other segments of “Uncle Croc’s Block”. If the show wasn’t good enough for Fred Silverman — I have no idea how to finish that sentence.
Not too long ago I saw some bootleg DVDs of this show being sold at clearance price at some big media store, alongside DVDs of the accompanying show Fraidy Cat. Even at 99 cents a disc it still would’ve been a ripoff.
A show about a sarcastic kiddy show host would normally be prime comedy fodder (Mad Magazine’s “Uncle Nutzy’s Clubhouse” is a perfect example), but Filmation is probably the LAST studio you’d expect to produce such an idea and it’s evident in how universally negative the reviews have been – of course, I couldn’t really tell if it was truly as bad as people have made it out to be since almost nothing of the show exists today outside of some brief clips.
From the sampler cartoon posted here I can say that, at the very least, the character designs for Wacky and Packy are appealing, but everything else is about as canned as creamed corn. Maybe it works better when there’s three guys in silhouette in the corner heckling at the screen.
Is that “Horrible Hall” (from ‘Groovie Goolies’) I see in the end credits?
Indeed it is! Most likely, the credits here were just taken from the “Groovie Goolies and Friends” syndication package from the late 70s, which included all three of the Uncle Croc’s Block segments alongside other Filmation series like Waldo Kitty and My Favorite Martians.
Yes, it is. I think that particular credits sequence was created for the syndication of “Wacky and Packy” as part of the GROOVIE GOOLIES AND FRIENDS package that aired on weekday tv on local stations in the late 1970s and through the 1980s. The series MY FAVORITE MARTIANS was also part of that package, and Filmation simply superimposed the credits for that show over backgrounds of the interior of Horrible Hall.
You sold me the whole pack. Reilly reminds me a bit of Ignatius idem, but older, bitter and wheelchair bound. Really the kind of show I would have killed for. I had Sesame Street instead.