The Pemmy, Krissi & James Kinda-Sorta-Hopefully Funny Cartoon Podcast

Pemmy, James, Kyle and Justin return to see what a difference 10 years really could make in the world of Saturday morning. Scooby Doo had jumped from CBS to ABC, the Smurfs were dominant, Alvin and the Chipmunks, the Littles and Dungeons and Dragons were ascendant, and Richie Rich kept having to prop up other properties. So come along and join us!

With plans having gone up in smoke more than once, we're breaking the glass on an emergency episode, which turned out so long we had to split it into two parts! So here's part 1 where Pemmy and James were joined by Justin Toner and Kylepedia to talk about the entire Saturday morning schedule of 1973!

Three goofy ghosts running a moribund motel for the dearly departed? That's a GREAT idea for a cartoon! Then how the heck did Hanna Barbera make this so... so... below average!?! It's a sad thing when even the likes of Paul Winchell, Joe E Ross AND Alan Oppenheimer cannot salvage this mediocre effort. If they couldn't, what hope do us ameteurs have?

Hide your cats, the old Alfer is back, and NOT in pog form! With the smash success of his sitcom, Gordon Shumway quickly joined NBC's Saturday morning roster in 1987 courtesy of DiC. And you can tell they were given a budget for this show since it's downright lavish compared to a lot of that company's output. In fact, this is a better than average cartoon and we were pleasantly surprised to have enjoyed it, so get your earbuds ready for the next best podcast episode this side of Melmac.

N'cha! Too few American fans of Akira Toriyama have seen the anime that first made him a household name in Japan, and that includes James and Krissi. So Pemmy and special guest Kylepedia help them fix that with this examination of the first two episodes of this absolutely goofy series. So come join us in Penguin Village where pigs announce the morning, the sun brushes its teeth and adorable Arale-Chan tries to figure out the world around her, which in turn can't quite figure her out.

Faster than a speeding plot device! More powerful than hammy voice acting! It's the most famous season of the show that defined the DC Comics heroes and villains for an entire generation of kids! The Justice League versus the Legion of Doom across 16 episodes of some of the most over the top camp ever seen on Saturday morning, cramming a massive cast into the 22-minute run time. So join Pemmy, Krissi and James as they answer the Trouble Alert!

In part 2 of our coverage of the Super Mario Super Show, we hustle to Hyrule and check out the Friday feature of the series, The Legend of Zelda. In this Moonlighting-inspired take on the then-fledgling franchise, Link and Zelda butt heads and fend off the warlock Ganon together in a cartoon that's turned campier with age. And yet it's... surprisingly adult??? Tune in for our explanation why.

Is there any more consistently enduring 80s icon than Mario, the mascot of Nintendo's platforming games? Well, whether you agree with that or not, Mario Bros Mania was indeed everywhere by the end of that decade and this cartoon was the ultimate proof of that. A wild mix of live action segments and goofball cartoons putting the plumbers and company into every story the writers could think of, this was arguably the high-water mark for adaptations of video game properties for a long while. Faint praise, but seriously, this is far from the worst thing on TV in 1989!

With Pemmy away visiting his kid for their birthday, Krissi leads James on a cyberpunk-style take on the Holmes Cannon courtesy of DiC and Scottish Televison. With writers absolutely game to make the most of their 20-minute time allotments, this series comes so close to perfection you can almost taste it!

This podcast isn't much like a hurricane, but it come at you fast! DuckTales was Disney's biggest step into television animation to that point, and it was the single biggest harbinger of the 90s Animation Renaissance, paving the way for much of what would follow. Justin Toner joins the podcast crew as we dive into the Money Bin to check out two classic episodes of the seminal afternoon series.

We've dipped our toes in Disney content in the latter half of last year, but now it's time for one of their most famous stars to get the spotlight. Donald Duck is by far the most prolific Disney character between animation and comics across the globe, making him a natural first choice for our dives into the material that built the foundation of the Disney company. Pemmy, Krissi and James are joined by Marc and Jordan of That's Not Quite All Folks to check out his very first animated appearance and three all time classics from the 40s.

Two tales of holiday redemption, together in one podcast to close out the year. Pemmy and James look at the very first TV special inspired by the works of Dr. Seuss as Chuck Jones builds upon a 9 minute read and makes a masterpiece, while Disney tackles Charles Dickens' literary classic while squashing it down to about 25 minutes. Have a Merry Christmas and a happy holiday season, and we'll see you all in 2024!

You've seen the meme "Every so often a blue dog comes to guide the generations," right? Most folks today can speak to Bluey and Blue's Clues, but what of animation's OG cyan canine, Huckleberry Hound? This gentle, optimistic fellow broke Hanna Barbera's TV animation company to the big time, setting the stage for Yogi Bear, the Flintstones, Top Cat, Scooby Doo and everything else that followed. He's near and dear to James' heart, so join him, Pemmy and Krissi as they give the dog his due.

Surprise! We have an episode as unexpected as the success of the show in question! On October 13th GLITCH unleashed onto YouTube this demented little treat of a cartoon aimed at a slightly older crowd than much of the fare we've covered on this podcast. Pemmy loved it, and he talked James into making this quick bonus episode of the podcast to cover it while it was still new and relevant. But be warned, there are SPOILERS ahead, so if you want to watch the Amazing Digital Circus first, you should really go do so.

Al Capp, the cartoonist behind Lil' Abner and (thereby) the original portrayals of the Shmoo, passed away just two months after this show made it onto the air. We can't even begin to imagine what the outspoken Capp must have thought of his parable for the Earth's bounty being turned into a mystery solving shapeshifter. It was one of the last of the teen mystery/adventure cartoons not to involve Scooby Doo himself that HB would bring to Saturday morning, and watching this, you can kind of tell why the subgenre was in its last days.

Puppy Power Goes Wrong! Or rather, it first goes right then goes wrong? Or goes right in all the wrong ways? The legacy of Scrappy-Doo, one of the most maligned characters Hanna-Barbera ever created, isn't as simple as some make it out to be, and Pemmy, James and Krissi sit down to hash out what happened, when and why, while looking at three cartoons featuring the pup. It's a tale of network executives meddling, writers reaching and Fred Flintstone's catchphrase being turned into yet another dog. Enjoy!

In comedy, the law is that diametric opposites are inevitably pulled together just because the universe wants to see personalities clash. Hence, in this modern Disney Channel favorite, the ever optimistic Molly drags curmudgeonly Scratch into misadventure after misadventure. Pemmy and James dip their toes into the house that the mouse built for the first time, just in time for Halloween. Because nothing is scarier than Disney lawyers.

In the wake of Arleen Sorkin passing away last August, Pemmy, James and Krissi Harding set out to pay tribute to the character she was instrumental in unleashing on the world. That a snarky little gun moll named Harleen Quinzel could somehow upstage the Joker himself and become one of the most recognizable characters in DC Comics to this day is a testament to the series and her creators Paul Dini, Bruce Timm and especially Arleen herself. Enjoy, puddins!

Few criminals in animation history are as notorious or beloved as Lupin the Third, the simultaneously suave and goofy gentleman thief. In his second anime run, which Pemmy and James look at in this episode, the character became TMS' flagship property, running over 150 episodes. Many of his US fans first encountered him via Adult Swim's broadcasts of an English language dub, but there was a prior project that saw a small amount of this series dubbed for the home video market, and we check out a little of both!

Video game mania erupted in the early 1980s with the arrival of Namco's revolutionary maze-chase game, so leave it to Hanna-Barbera to turn the property into a dollar store diet cola version of both the Smurfs and the Flintstones. That's just the kind of rut HB was in during the 1980s, sadly, but it's not a complete loss thanks to the efforts of a stellar voice cast. Friend of the podcast and all-around Pac-Man expert Cary Woodham joins Pemmy and James to find the cure for Pac-Man Fever.