DVD Transfer 230 (Miscellaneous 1992 Christmas Specials and Goof Troop Premiere)

About

(c)1992 (recording)

DVD Transfer 230 consists of a series of recordings from a tape I recently bought that had been recorded between September-December 1992 in the New York area. Most of these were Christmas specials but also include at the top a 2-hour special with the series premiere of "Goof Troop" as well as episodes of "Clarissa Explains It All" and "Roundhouse"

CONTENTS

1. Goof Troop ("Everything's Coming Up Goofy" {S1E1}; episode recorded around September 5, 1992 {I say around since - as the Disney Afternoon block was syndicated - some areas aired it on different dates [for example; September 6 was when the series premiered in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex based on a listing in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram newspaper while a newspaper in Olathe, KS in the Kansas City metro area had it airing locally on September 4]} on independent station WPIX-TV 11. Note that the intro has a different set of clips compared to the standard intro. In addition to the episode itself - stretched out to fill the 2-hour program - also contains shorts included as a series titled "Goofy's Success Story" {S2E12 of the"Walt Disney's Disneyland" series on ABC [the original name of the long-running, often-renamed Disney anthology series] presented as if they were a retrospective on Goofy's acting career - with that episode premiering on December 7, 1955} such as the 1934 Mickey Mouse short "Shanghaied" {which Goofy is watching in the theater when he is discovered as part of the framing device} 1952's "Two-Gun Goofy, 1937's "Moose Hunters" {part of a series starring Mickey Mouse with Goofy and Donald Duck in supporting roles}, 1936's "Moving Day"; 1941's "How to Ride a Horse" {one of three shorts included as part of a 1941 anthology film titled "The Reluctant Dragon" - essentially a thinly-veiled filmed tour of Disney's recently opened Burbank studio released during that year's animators' strike at Disney - with "How to Ride a Horse" being re-released by Disney's embattled distributor at the time, RKO Radio Pictures, as a separate short in February 1950} and 1950's "Motor Mania" along with a music video for a song titled "Gettin' Goofy". One interesting trivia note is that this was the first non-action/adventure series for the Disney Afternoon block {being more of a sitcom})

2. Clarissa Explains It All ("The Great Debate" {S2E6 [Wikipedia has this episode as the 12th of Season 2, while IMDB has this as episode 6 of the season] - OAD: September 5, 1992}. This episode's premiere was roughly four weeks after the debut of Nickelodeon's Saturday night "SNICK" lineup - for which "Clarissa" was the lead-off series in that block)

3. Roundhouse ("School Daze" {S1E4 - same date}; this was one of the episodes from a TeenNick recording from 2016 I posted on my previous account a few years back on DVD Transfer 61)

4. Inspector Gadget Saves Christmas (we now jump ahead to December 4, 1992 for this special - which doubled as a series finale of the 1983-85 syndicated cartoon starring Don Adams as the bumbling cyborg hero {basically a cyborg version of Adams' earlier role as equally clueless Maxwell Smart on the 1965-70 NBC/CBS spy spoof "Get Smart"}; with the original cast reuniting save for the character of Penny {Gadget's niece} - voiced here by Erica Horn {previously voiced by Cree Summer - now a prolific voice actress at that time voicing Elmyra Duff on "Tiny Toon Adventures", Suzie Carmichael on "Rugrats" and also having her only major live-action role as Winifred "Freddie" Brooks on the 1987-93 NBC sitcom "A Different World" while also managing a recording career - and in Season 2 by Holly Berger}. It appears that the reunion may have been in part due to CBS having picked up reruns for the 1991-92 Saturday morning lineup during the winter of that year. Recorded off NBC flagship WNBC-TV 4. One other curiosity is that after DiC and Saban parted ways, DiC ended up losing the rights to the classic 1983 theme, thus being unable to use said theme for this special or the following year's Super Nintendo game. Finally, this special was nominated for a 1993 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program {for Programming 1 Hour or Less} - losing out to "Batman: The Animated Series")

5. Tiny Toon Adventures ("It's a Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas Special" {S3E20 - OAD: December 6, 1992}. This special - doubling as both a Season 3 and - with the exception of a pair of specials released in 1994-95 - series finale for Tiny Toons using a thinly-veiled spoof of "It's a Wonderful Life" {among the elements used in the spoof included a guardian angel named Harvey [really Bugs Bunny in disguise] talking Buster out of jumping off the frame - the name of Harvey also being a reference to 1950's "Harvey" [also starring Jimmy Stewart - who in that film has a large imaginary rabbit named Harvey for a best friend] and Montana Max being in a wheelchair being a parallel to Mr. Potter ["It's a Wonderful Life" villain] being in a wheelchair]. The network executives appearing in the special originally appeared in the Season 3 premiere "Thirteensomething")

6. The Christmas Toy (1992 Nickelodeon rebroadcast of the 1986 ABC special produced by Jim Henson - later inspiring the short-lived 1994 Disney Channel series "Secret Life of Toys" from Jim Henson Productions)

7. The Christmas Tree (obscure 1991 Christmas special which aired on USA Network {where it premiered on December 14, 1991. USA aired the special until 1993, after which it popped up on Canada's YTV channel, a handful of smaller Christian stations [despite having no overtly Christian content] before largely disappearing after airing on German TV in the early 2000s} - with the special getting panned for its poor animation quality [drawing comparisons to the infamous - for equally poor quality - and obscure 2002 special "Rapsittie Street Kids: Believe in Santa" - the main difference being that at least the latter special spent probably all of its budget in securing a strong vocal cast headlined by Nancy Cartwright, Mark Hamill, Jodi Benson, Paige O'Hara, Debra Wilson, Walter Emanuel Jones, Grey DeLisle, Clint Howard, April Winchell and Jack Angel]}. Also contains the start of 1981's "A Chipmunk Christmas" {the first TV project for the Alvin and the Chipmunks franchise since the death of Ross Bagdarsian Sr. in 1972 - with son Ross Jr. having inherited the franchise and voicing the main characters {Dave, Alvin and Simon} save for Theodore {voiced by Ross Jr's wife Janice Karman}. This special - which managed to pick up an uncredited Chuck Jones and Phil Monroe to help with the special - ended up becoming a defacto pilot for what became the 1983-90 NBC Saturday morning series "Alvin and the Chipmunks")

Human-made No record of this work says a model made it. What this means.

Archive

Internet Archive, in The VHS Vault

Licence or status

CC BY-ND 4.0, as the Internet Archive states it.

Credit

WPIX-Mission Broadcasting Group; WNBC-NBCUniversal/Comcast; Nickelodeon-Paramount Skydance; WNYW-FOX Corporation; Warner Bros. Discovery; USA Network-Versant; Jim Henson Productions; Amblin Partners; The Walt Disney Company;

Who can watch

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