Channel Frederator Blog

On this date in 1954, “Lassie” premiered on CBS. The show proved quite popular, and ran for many years. It was predated by both a film, and a successful radio series.

In 1973, Filmation ran a series caled “Lassie’s Rescue Rangers”. In the show, Lassie lived near Thunder Mountain with the Turner family. Head Ranger Ben Turner worked with wife Laura and children Susan, Jackie, and Ben Jr. as “The Forest Force”, a ranger-rescue team that protected Thunder Mountain National Park. Lassie also headed up a group of wild animals that lived within the national park, working with the Turner family to maintain a healthy environment that was ecologically sound, and to create a safe place for tourists to hike and camp. This renegade group of animal heroes was known as “Lassie’s Rescue Rangers”.

The Rescue Rangers were a band of about eight animals, including Groucho the owl, Toothless the mountain lion, [Read more…]

There are rumors around the web of a new Inspector Gadget series set to start in early 2009.  It is said to feature many of the characters from the original series, but it has a darker tone.

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The Anime News Network is reporting that “Gon” will soon have his own television series. Korean company Daewon Media has secured the rights to Gon from Japanese company Kodansha. 

“Gon” is a comic book series featuring a small dinosaur type character with super speed and super strength. The stories have no dialog and no human characters. They all take place in nature, and place Gon with realistic animals in natural surroundings and situations.

Look for “Gon” in early 2010.

-Floyd Bishop 

Inspired by Eric’s post, here’s a piece of Flapjack Fan Art I created for my pal and ol’ Cubicle Buddy: Thurop Van Orman, creator of The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack.

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What do “Gremlins”, “The Goonies“, “Ren & Stimpy“, and “Hotel California” have in common? The answer is the animated series “Galaxy High”.

“Galaxy High” premiered in September, 1986 on CBS and ran for 13 episodes until December of 1986. The series was created by movie director Chris Columbus, featured character designs by John Kricfalusi, and music and a theme song composed by Eagles member Don Felder. Galaxy High was about two earth teenagers who were accepted into the interstellar high school, Galaxy High School on the asteroid Flutor. Doyle, the school jock was popular on earth, but was a bit of an outsider at Galaxy High. Aimee, the female bookworm type on Earth was quite popular at her new school in space.

Though the show didn’t last too long, it left a lasting impression on many fans.

-Floyd Bishop

OK Fredheads, it’s time to test your cartoon knowledge. What is the name of the show this image is from? Bonus points if you can name the character. Post your answers in the comments section!

-Floyd Bishop

The cult hit (and WAY ahead of it’s time) television series “ReBoot” is poised to make a come back. For those that don’t know the show, it was the first 100% CG series on television. It ran from 1994 to 2001. It celebrated all things computers, and is thus a great geek show.

From the site for the new film:

The last television episode of ReBoot aired in November of 2001 with a cliffhanger episode that left viewers wanting more. Through websites and online forums, die-hard fans continued to speculate, predict and in some cases fictionalize the next chapter in the ReBoot story.

Fast forward to 2007. Rainmaker Entertainment teamed with Zeros 2 Heroes Media to give ReBoot fans the power to decide which of five new concepts have the most merit. Over four weeks, thousands of comments, ratings, blog posts and votes poured in.

If you were a fan of the series, head on over to the site and give [Read more…]

Check out the LATEST Episode of Refrederator, RIGHT HERE!

Last week we asked you to come up with your own theories on Casper’s demise.
They ranged from weird to surreal, wacky to morbid, psychotic to gore filled grossness!!!
We picked a few theories and gleefully combined them with Jeaux Janovsky’s illustrations of Casper’s many deaths for you.
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Muttley first showed up in the 1968 series “Wacky Races”, as the sidekick to Dick Dastardly. Both characters were based on characters from the film “The Great Race”.

Dick Dastardly was based on the character Professor Fate, while Muttley was based on Max Meen. Dick Dastardly and Muttley have appeared in later Hanna Barbera series as bumbling villains.

In “Wacky Races”, Muttley wore only a collar, but in “Dastardly & Muttley and their Flying Machines” he wore an aviator’s cap and scarf.

A lot of people confuse Muttley with Mumbly. It’s easy to do, since they are so similar. While their laugh is similar, Mumbly has gray fur, wears a trench coat, and fights crime. He’s almost the other side of Muttley in that regard.

Interestingly enough, when they needed villains for the “Laff-A-Lympics” series, Hanna Barbera used Mumbly as the team leader of the Really Rottens.  He was accompanied by a Dick Dastardly [Read more…]

Frederator Veteran John Fountain, looks back on his time spent working on Rob Renzetti’s My Life As A Teenage Robot.

“I haven’t had time to do any new doodles or paintings lately, so I’m just going to wax nostalgiac.
Unfortunately, tragically and disappointingly, not all that many people are familair with the show ‘My Life as a Teenage Robot’.
It was created by Rob Renzetti who, apart from just being an overall good guy, has been instrumental in shaping some of the better cartoons from the last decade or more.
‘Robot’ was, originally, part of the ‘Oh Yeah! Cartoons!’ anthology series on Nickelodeon.
Anyway, it became a series and I had the honor of working on it in a number of capacities.
Rob let me write, direct, storyboard and - oftentimes - design entire characters. Rob was one of those rare directors who was able to step back, hire folks he trusted and just let them run.
This [Read more…]