Vote for why you think it jumped
Day One
Curly Neal as a basketball
Never Jumped
Same Character, Different Actor (Geese Ausbie for Meadowlark Lemon)
Solving crimes?
Shark Bytes
There were actually three TV shows featuring the Globetrotter in the 70's/early 80's. The first was _The Harlem Globetrotters_, a Hanna-Barbera cartoon. The only time this show jumped was when I realized the 'Trotters didn't do their own voices. Scatman Crothers, for example, was the voice of Meadowlark. I felt cheated. The next was _The Harlem Globetrotters Popcorn Machine_ a live-action Saturday morning variety series that lasted from '74 to '76. This was a pretty entertaining show for its time and its time period (Of course in the mid-70's Saturday a.m. TV had JTSed big time). The only demerit I'm giving it is that it featured Rodney Allen Rippy, one of series of overly-cure African-American boys on TV from Corey on _Julia_ to Urkel on _Family Matters._ The third show featuring the 'Trotters was Hanna-Barbera's animated _Super Trotters_ wherein the team, when not playing hoops, was fighting supercriminal in a bunch of goofball disguises. Mercifully, it only lasted about six months circa 1979-80. 'Nuff said.
Day One--Hanna/Barbara have produced many gems over the decades, but this wasn't one of them. As others have said, it was supposed to be "so-weird-it's cool", but it came off racially offensive at times. THE SUPER GLOBETROTTERS was worse--"Spaghetti Man?" "Sphere Man?" Yikes! However, there was one good thing to come out of this show. In 1970, DON KIRSHNER, the man behind THE ARCHIES and THE MONKEES, supervised (with Jeff Barry) a record album called "THE GLOBETROTTERS", showing the HG's cartoon likenesses on the cover. The only Globbie who sang on the album was MEADOWLARK LEMON, but the other singers included former members of THE COASTERS ("Charlie Brown", "Yakety Yak"), THE PLATTERS ("Only You", "The Great Pretender") THE DRIFTERS ("Under the Boardwalk", "Save The Last Dance For Me") and THE CADILLACS ("Speedo"), all classic Doo-Wop groups of the 1950s! Commercially, the album didn't do well, but it has since become a pretty big collector's item. I don't have my own copy (yet), but have heard several songs: "ESP", "Gravy", "Cheer Me Up", "Everybody's Got Hot Pants", etc. It's kind of like a cross between THE COASTERS, '40s' jive king Louis Jordan ("Ain't Nobody Here But Us Chickens", "Caledonia," Choo Choo Ch'Boogie") and early '70's Funk. One song, "Rainy Day Bells", actually has a cult following among East Coast Doo-Wop freaks. Also, in 1979, MEADOWLARK LEMON recorded a kid's record for Casablanca called "MY KIDS" (which I do own). It's basically a Disco/Funk positive-themed album, with songs like "Play Children Play", "Happy Bein' Me", "Make Life A Party" and the got-to-be-heard-to-be-believed "Po' Folks Disco." It's not as much fun as the KIRSHNER album, but worth picking up at used record shops just for fun. Anyone else heard these? PEACE!
BTW, does anybody remember a Saturday morning show, The Harlem Globetrotters Popcorn Machine? All I remember is it was a live-action thing with the Globies, first they do their ball-handling stunts, then there were some dumb skits, then Geese said, ''I didn know dat.'' That's all I remember. If anybody else remembers anything, please post. Thanks.
That Globetrotters vs. Jesus episode wasn't really an episode of the Globetrotters at all... it was a parody, shown on both Saturday Night Live and TV Funhouse. Anyways, the real show was pretty lame... Hanna-Barbera gave every celebrity in existence a cartoon (or at least a guest role on Scooby-Doo) back in the 1970's.
Did anyone ever see the Christmas episode? They went back in time to the original Christmas. Baby Jesus was kicking the Globetrotters' asses (Mary, Joseph, a wise man and a shepherd rounded out the "Holy Five" team) until Curly started using Jesus as a ball. Then they pulled down the shepherd's pants and threw a bucket full of confetti on Mary. I wish I were making this up...
A clarification...we're talking about (at least) two Hanna-Barbera incarnations of the Globetrotters; the original series (where they rode around on the team bus with their dog, Dribbles), which was typical H-B fare; and the "Super Globetrotters", where H-B took elements from their own "Impossibles" (Multiman, Fluidman) and whatever other powers and gimmicks they could think up. The second, pure (or impure) recombinant television.
Why did the Globetrotters solve crimes? That doesn't make sense. They are supposed to play ball and they're solving crimes. Sure I know the Washington Generals are fixed to lose, but could the Globetrotters really be that good if they didn't practice and opened up a private investigation business? I don't think so.
This show was an example of what HB could do if they were taking too many drugs, or simply wanted to torture an audience. This was just a mess. The character were tripped out, and kind of interesting, but the plotlines were awful, the voice acting was terrible, and the animation reeked. They jumped from scene to scene without any explainations. And the Globetrotters never should have been trapped or in trouble as long as the one guy could pull ANYTHING out of his afro. Besides that, the show seemed somehow racially offensive. I could never put my finger on it, but the show just sort of undid everything Fat Albert sought to do for the black community. And the Crime Ball transmiting to them (almost always on a busted TV in an alley) "Bzzt! Now Dig This. Now Dig This! Bzzt! Hmm!" was terrible!!! It seemed like a lame attempt by some white animators and voice actors to speak 70's Jive to children on saturday morning! I could never get past the bad guys, either! They always stole stupid things. And Curly Neal turned into a basketball-head man. This show was proof that crack cocaine existed in the 1970's!
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