{"id":89847,"date":"2025-04-02T00:01:29","date_gmt":"2025-04-02T07:01:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/?p=89847"},"modified":"2025-04-02T09:03:07","modified_gmt":"2025-04-02T16:03:07","slug":"cartoons-about-cartoons-part-28","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cartoonresearch.com\/index.php\/cartoons-about-cartoons-part-28\/","title":{"rendered":"Cartoons About Cartoons (Part 28)"},"content":{"rendered":"\"\"\n

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The advent of animation for television brought about some mixed trends in our survey of cartoons self-conscious of their medium. Certainly, the concept of being projected in front of a massed seated audience would more-or-less disappear when short cartoons ceased to be a regular part of the theater-going experience. But there was still opportunity for interaction with the viewers, on a more personal level, in small batches before their sets in the living rooms of the average home. As packaging of programming grew from mere individual shorts into weekly or even daily half-hour blocks, the concept further grew of having characters from the show literally become the host, in place of local or syndicated live-action emcees, clowns, sheriffs, engineers, spacemen, etc., who were originally cast to provide entertainment between presentation of new and old theatrical cartoons, ultimately saving local markets and networks significant expense in production. On the higher end of the production scale, it was further found that audiences could to a degree be fooled into taking new interest in old shorts from decades before if framed within new \u201cbridging animation\u201d featuring classic characters, often in a hosting or backstage studio role, integrating the stock footage to make an entire half-hour or hour presentation look as seamless as possible, telling some continuous story as if entirely newly-minted. And, on rare occasions, gags would come into play that still followed the old leads of their theatrical ancestors, presenting an idea or two that might have worked just as well in a theatrical film.<\/p>\n

\"\"One of the earliest concepts for character\/viewer interaction via the cathode-ray tube was possibly one of the strangest – and an idea that likely got a good many kids in trouble and a good many parents irate. It was called Winky Dink and You<\/strong> (CBS, 1953-57), hosted by Jack Barry, with offscreen voice-overs by Mae (Betty Boop) Questel. The original show barely qualifies as animation at all, being more frequently constructed of still drawings, sometimes depicted against panning backgrounds, showing the title character in some situation, while narration of his troubles was provided by the host or verbal comments were mouthed by Questel without lip movement onscreen. The gimmick, however, was the way in which the kiddies were supposed to help out the hero to accomplish his tasks or adventures. A special piece of equipment was sipposed to be purchased by the parents at the local toy store or other participating retail outlet, called a \u201cmagic screen\u201d. As I understand it, it was some form of semi-soft flexible clear plastic, large enough to cover the average family-size TV screen, and held into place by the static electricity produced by old TV screens in operation, by rubbing the screen firmly against the tube glass before use with some form of cloth included in the purchased kit. (One wonders how well this method works, and how many magic screens probably fell off the set in the middle of broadcasts.)<\/p>\n

\"\"Also included in the kit were a set of crayons, of a substance designed to be capable of easily rubbing off the screen with the cloth after application. During the show, various outlines or patterns would be briefly shown in isolation of any prop or background, and the kids would be asked to take out a particular crayon and trace the lines depicted. Once time deemed sufficient by the producers for the kids to complete the tracing elapsed, the scene on the TV would suddenly change to a full background or set, with the video outline no longer present. The lines the children had drawn would thus become conjoined with other objects now appearing on the screen, letting the drawn lines complete a larger image which might be a vehicle, an animal, or some prop needed by the hero in his quest. The concept was indeed clever, and was believed by the producers to be conducive to promoting child interest in artwork. Yet, rumors continue to be told of children who became interested in this artwork a little too much – as in those whose parents had not in fact purchased a magic screen kit, or who didn\u2019t themselves know how to properly affix the magic screen, or who had simply run out of crayons of the washable varuety. The result was that the kids would improvise to participate in the show, drawing on the actual TV tube with anything they could get their hands on, often not designed to be washable. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Parents\u2019 complaints are believed to some degree to have been behind the ultimate demise of the show. And yet, in 1969, history would repeat itself, as the idea was hatched to revive the series in color, as syndicated stand-alone five-minute cartoons with reasonable animation but low budgets, produced by Fred Calvert. Lionel Wilson would be hired to dig out of moth balls his old voices from the \u201cTom Terrific\u201d series for Terrytoons, which became interchangeably used in the new series (Tom\u2019s voice for Winky, and Mighty Manfred\u2019s voice for Winky\u2019s dog Woofer). Even a villain or two in the new series didn\u2019t sound far from the voice of Crabby Appleton. While an array of ideas were devised for using the shape-tracing gimmick, leading to a good many sales of new magic screen kits in local Toys \u201cR\u201d Us outlets, the color series generally lacked the inventiveness and spirit of its Tom Terrific ancestor, though certainly a step up from Winky\u2019s 1953 version. Moreover, the limitation to five-minute running time posed a problem – no luxury of screen time to allow the kids ample opportunity to get their tracing in. Viewing the episodes and attempting to imagine the task of following the verbal instructions given to the kids to the letter, one can only suppose that anyone who actually completed all the drawings requested in an average episode truly deserved the title of \u201cquick on the draw\u201d. The revival thus didn\u2019t last long – about one season – and subsequently disappeared without a trace, excepting a fairly rare DVD package containing only a portion of the total episodes produced. (I believe you still had to send away separately to obtain magic screens for the DVD!)<\/p>\n

A sample episode from the color edition is embedded below.<\/p>\n