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When M*A*S*H Became An Unlikely Saturday Morning Cartoon Show
My Saturday morning viewing days were long over by the time this happened, but I still wonder how in the world I missed this. It was a cartoon version of M*A*S*H, an animated series called M*U*S*H, which stood for "Mangy Unwanted Shabby Heroes." It aired on ABC for a short time in 1975, just as the real life show was catching big ratings on CBS.
"MUSH essentially featured canine versions of the iconic MASH characters, and while they slightly changed their names, it was clear who was who with names like Bullseye, Cold Lips, Col. Flake, and Sonar."
It wasn't very good and it didn't last long, but if you're curious, you see can almost every episode in the video attached to this article.
- BowmanvilleBob
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It was a strange time in children's television on Saturday mornings. MUSH was part of Uncle Croc's Block on ABC, a sort of bizzaro version of PeeWee Herman, where Charles Nelson Reilly played a washed-up, bitter kidshow host and Jonathan Harris (Dr. Smith of Lost in Space) played Basil Bitterbottom, the cynical director of the show. There were lots of 60s/70s parody characters, such as Koo Koo Knievel, Captain Klangeroo, Sherlock Domes and Steve Exhaustion, the $6.95 man.
The whole thing can basically be summed up with the show's opening -
- newsguy1
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Re: When M*A*S*H Became An Unlikely Saturday Morning Cartoon Show
Huh, weird.
But then I never understood how the House of Frightenstein ever existed especially with a star as huge as Vincent Price in an obscure Canadian kids show.
I loved the Friendly Giant though when I was a child>
Also Chez Helene which I bet nobody remembers now.. like Suzie Mouse.
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Re: When M*A*S*H Became An Unlikely Saturday Morning Cartoon Show
newsguy1 wrote:
Also Chez Helene which I bet nobody remembers now.. like Suzie Mouse.
Je me souviens.
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Thread Starter- newsguy1
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Re: When M*A*S*H Became An Unlikely Saturday Morning Cartoon Show
Oui, c"est ca!
- paterson1
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Re: When M*A*S*H Became An Unlikely Saturday Morning Cartoon Show
I watched Friendly Giant and Chez Helene almost every day prior to starting kindergarten. Razzle Dazzle and Uncle Bobby came a bit later.
Not sure Hilarious House was that obscure. It was reasonably popular in 1971 when CHCH ran it five days a week at 4pm. Also it was an hour show which was kind of rare and had many different sets. This show was an expensive project for an independent station and was syndicated right from the beginning.
In total 130 shows were produced for the 26 week run. I always thought the show was geared more for teenagers. Some markets in the US would run the program later at night against Johnny Carson and apparently in a few cities actually rated better in a few key demographics than the Tonight Show.
Vincent Price was paid $13,000 for his 400 segments on the show which were all recorded over one week.
And the program also has an animated reboot which I believe still runs on the Corus owned Family Jr. Channel with the Happy House of Frightenstein. This kids show had it's debut in 2021.
- mace
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Re: When M*A*S*H Became An Unlikely Saturday Morning Cartoon Show
Does anyone remember The Professor's Hideway? It ran on CFTO back in 1961ish around 4pm. Similar premise to Commander Tom where cartoons were the mainstay of the show. I think they ran stuff like Ruff & Reddy, the Mighty Hercules [Get im Herc, get im] Wizard of Oz etc.