The Comic Strip (TV series)
| The Comic Strip | |
|---|---|
| Voices of |
Donald Acree Josh Blake Camille Bonora Gary V. Brown Jim Brownold Eddie Castrodad Danielle DuClos Seth Green Earl Hammond Maggie Jakobson Larry Kenney Carmen de Lavallade Bob McFadden Jim Meskimen Gordy Owens Gerrianne Raphael Ron Taylor Tanya Willoughby Daniel Wooten |
| Music by | Bernard Hoffer |
| Country of origin |
United States Canada |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 65 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) |
Arthur Rankin, Jr. Jules Bass |
| Running time | 20 min. |
| Production company(s) |
Rankin/Bass Animated Entertainment Pacific Animation Corporation |
| Distributor |
Lorimar-Telepictures Warner Bros. Television Distribution |
| Release | |
| Original network | Syndicated |
| Original release |
September 7 – December 4, 1987 (first run) Fall 1988 (repeats) |
The Comic Strip is an American animated series which features four rotating cartoon segments. The 90-minute series ran in first-run syndication during the 1987 season and was also seen on ABC Television in Australia, on RPN-9 in the Philippines, and on Rai 2 in Italy.
Despite the show title, the segments have no history in newspaper comic strips.
This was the last TV series produced by Rankin/Bass Productions, and distributed by Lorimar-Telepictures.
Segments
The four segments offered were:
- The Mini-Monsters: Normal human siblings Sherman (voiced by Seth Green) and Melissa find themselves in for a surprise when they are sent to summer camp for one year. Camp Mini-Mon turns out to be run by an organ playing shadowy camp director (voiced by Peter Newman), and attended by monster kids who are offspring of usually famous monsters, a witch, and Merlin. They are Count Dracula's son Dracky, Frankenstein's son Franky, The Wolf Man's son Wolfie, The Creature from the Black Lagoon's son Gill, The Mummy's son Mummo, the Invisible Man's son Blanko, Klutz (who may or may not be Godzilla's son), Jynx the Witch (voiced by Maggie Wheeler), and Merlin's son Melvin accompanied by Cawfield the talking crow (voiced by Earl Hammond).
- Street Frogs: Depicting the typical teen-aged hijinks of a gang of street-smart frogs named Big Max, Spider, Moose The Loose, "Honey Love" Loretta, and Dr. Slick. Each episode contains a musical number. Apart from Rankin-Bass regular Bob McFadden, this segment featured an African-American cast including Carmen de Lavallade and Ron Taylor.
- Karate Kat: In a world inhabited by anthropomorphic cats, one cat uses his karate to fight crime in his town.
- TigerSharks: A group of powered up human/sea animal hybrids become involved in underwater adventures. Each episode consisted of two parts.
Typically, two segments, each running about 10 minutes, were shown on each broadcast.
Video releases
VHS releases of certain episodes of The Comic Strip were made available in 1987. These VHS tapes each featured three installments of one particular cartoon. For example, the video "Adventures at Camp Mini-Mon" contained three episodes: "Camp Mini-Mon The First Day", "The Belly Ache" and "Alien."