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Episode: 9
"Relax-O-Vision"
+ Richard Stone plays "Beautiful Dreamer," a favorite "relaxation"
theme of Stone and Carl Stalling before him, over the credits. (EOC)
+ This particular "O-vision" process is a dig at scissor-happy network
standards & practices people (there are several H.A. Futtermans at
every network), and also at the much-discussed issue of how to prevent
children from witnessing violence on TV (which led to the invention
of that great teapot tempest, the V-Chip).
+ H.A. Futterman is the voice and caricature of Ben Stein, a political
economist who has made a side career out of playing the same deadly
dull character over and over again. His most notable roles have been
the teacher in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" and Pip Pumphandle in the
"Animaniacs" short "Chairman Of the Bored."
+ The music played over all the Relax-O-Vision clips is "Theme From 'A
Summer Place,'" composed by Max Steiner, from the 1959 WB movie. The
most famous version is the one by the Percy Faith Orchestra (which was
used in the movie). The same music is used to underscore the Network
Censor's scenes in episode # 3. (LC)
+ "Terror on the Midway" was also the title of a 1942 Superman cartoon
(the last cartoon released under the Fleischer regime) in which
Superman had to save circus goers from disaster. (EOC)
- Stone plays "Les Tringles Tiannent" from "Carmen" while Longhorn is
charging at Freak. (EOC)
- DYN: While Freakazoid and Longhorn are fighting at the Smithsonian,
they crash into the "Hall of Nasty Objects." (BM)
- "Nasty" seems to be a favorite word of the F! crew, cf. "Nasty Lobe,"
"Nasty Men," and so forth, and so fifth.
+ Note the Alpha and the Omega on Lobe's rocket. (EOC)
"Fatman and Boy Blubber"
+ Freakazoid's line "And now something very special" is based on the
"Monty Python's Flying Circus" line "And now for something completely
different." (MN)
+ Ooh! ooh! Umm, it's Batman, and the Boy Wonder! (RO)
+ The main title of the 1960s "Batman" TV show is parodied in the music
for the chase scene and some of the shots of Fatman and Boy Blubber
(running towards the camera, and shaking hands in front of a green
background). (JJW)
"Limbo Lock-Up"
- "Harlan" is Harlan Ellison again, but the line about talking to him on
the internet is somewhat innacurate, since Ellison is known for having
vowed never to become a net-user.
+ All of Fan Boy's facts about Disney are scrupulously correct.
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Episode: 10
"In Arms Way"
+ The opening line of narration ("Darkness creeps across the city with
big tabby-cat feet") is a reference to Carl Sandburg's "The fog comes
on little cat feet." (BM)
+ John Schuck, the voice of Arms Akimbo, played the suicidal guy in the
movie M*A*S*H and Rock Hudson's assistant on the show "McMillan and
Wife." (JJW)
+ Freak was safe. He slid in under the tag. (JM)
"The Cloud"
+ A parody of the 1958 English sci-fi movie "The Trollenberg Terror,"
retitled "The Crawling Eye" for American release. Here's what Leslie
Halliwell's film guide has to say about it:
"Extraterrestrials invade Switzerland. Tolerable low-budget sci-fi
from a BBC serial. Forrest Tucker, Laurence Payne, Janet Munro,
Jennifer Jayne, Warren Mitchell."
The aliens take the form of giant eyes that tear people's heads off;
at the beginning of the movie, they attack a mountain climber, as in
the scene with Unag and his pals.
The alpine setting, the idea of people being transformed by a
mysterious force, and the heroic American who comes and saves the day
are all taken from that movie. (RN, JJW)
- "The Crawling Eye" was the first movie riffed on "Mystery Science
Theatre 3000" after the show went national. That is presumably where
F!'s creators saw it; MST3K has provided F! with a great wealth of
parody sources. (RN, BD)
+ The premise of spooky things concealed by mysterious water vapor is a
parody of "The Fog", a horror movie by John Carpenter ("Halloween").
(BD)
+ The travelling arrows in the title sequence are similar to those used
in Saul Bass's famous main title for Alfred Hitchcock's "North By
Northwest."
+ The "hanging from a cliff" scene comes from "North By Northwest" as
well. (SC)
+ The scene on the train is also a Hitchcock tribute of sorts, since many
Hitchcock movies feature extended sequences on trains: "Strangers on
a Train," "The Lady Vanishes," "The Thirty-Nine Steps." (SC, JJW)
+ The gambit of having people strike up a conversation on a train is
usually an excuse to have characters deliver the exposition ("You and
I are going to the same place, let me tell you its dark secret," etc.),
and the "Way Too Much Info!" caption is just a little dig at this
tendency.
+ The sky-buckets and the little motorboats are indeed gone from
Disneyland. Waaaaah! (SC)
+ Professor Heiney is a general takeoff on a character who appeared in
some form or another in every sci-fi movie: the solemn scientist. This
character's function is to deliver still more of the exposition and
then declare that all mankind is in big trouble.
+ Another connection to "The Fog" comes when Cosgrove knocks on the door
and Freakazoid answers it. In the original, one hapless victim very
stupidly decides to answer a similarly ominous knock, despite warnings
by less stupid characters. (BD)
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Episode: 11
"Next Time, Phone Ahead!"
+ This whole cartoon is a parody of a certain 1982 movie by a certain
bespectacled director about a certain cute alien.
+ Scenes referenced: The opening scene, where E.T. is unable to rejoin
his cohorts on the spaceship, the scene where Eliott lures E.T.
into the house with Reese's Pieces (Dexter uses hamburgers, which for
my money are much better bait for a hungry alien), Eliott's attempts
to hide E.T. from his mother (Dexter is less successful), and, of
course, the whole "phone home" bit.
+ Among the F! staffers seated at the table: Paul Rugg (the blond guy
with the nervous laugh), John McCann (the pointy-nosed one who says
"Well, he's not in this episode"), Jean Macurdy (next to Rugg), Tom
Ruegger (the bespectacled one seated across from McCann). (JJW)
+ "Rat Patrol" was a half-hour war drama of the mid-1960's, cancelled
at the height of its popularity because of the congressional hearings
on TV violence. (ACS)
+ But the supposed "Rat Patrol" clip they showed isn't from "Rat
Patrol." The tanks are the wrong color, the scenery isn't the same,
same, the music is different. It looks like an old WWII movie. (ACS)
+ Freakazoid's high-pitched cry of "Help mee!...Helllp meee!" is
from the end of the original version of "The Fly" (1958). This
classic starred Vincent Price and Al Hedison (who was better known
as David Hedison to fans of "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea"). (nsp)
- Why Mo-Ron was renamed Bo-Ron for this episode is not entirely clear,
but the consensus is that the change was probably demanded by the WB
after they received complaints about the original name. It's no longer
considered politically correct to call a moron a moron, or a spade a
spade.
- DYN: On the sample contract, the two choices read as follows:
* Gross (Sucker)
* Net (Better Have a Lawyer)
+ The clip of the Coyote and the Road Runner is from "Whoa, Be-Gone!"
(1958), directed (of course) by Chuck Jones. (JJW)
+ The bit with the father's underwear drawer is underscored with the
song "This Old Man." You know, the one who played nick-nack all the
time. (JJW)
+ Diane Sawyer is ABC's news anchorwoman.
- DYN: While Freakazoid and Mo-Ron discuss carrot consumption, Steff,
in the background, is seen at the office clock, punching out early.
+ "Pretty Amy! Good monkey!" In the awful movie "Congo," the only
character of any interest was an ape named Amy. (JJW)
+ Bo-Ron clearly chose Sprint, since he's shown being thanked in a rather
demonstrative fashion by Candace Bergen, Sprint's TV pitchwoman.
"Nerdator"
+ Yo-Yo Ma is the famous classical cellist. (JJW)
+ Tribbles are the cute little creatures who appeared in the "Star Trek"
episode "The Trouble With Tribbles." They're round and hairy and can
only be distinuished from large hairballs by the low cooing sound they
emit, so you can see how Mr. Shatner's toupee might get mistaken for
one of their number.
+ The chatty talk-show host is Tom Snyder, host of CBS's "Late Late
Show." He does tend to ramble sometimes.
- Snyder, who has never seen a parody of himself he didn't like, showed
that scene at the beginning of his show one night. (SC)
+ The woman who wants us to see pictures of Cody is Kathie Lee Gifford.
She deserves to get zapped.
- While the Nerdator explains his plan, the music on the soundtrack is
the opening theme of Tchaikovsky's fifth symphony. (JJW)
+ Among those in the writers' cage: Stephen King, John Grisham.
+ Among those in the movie directors' cage: Spielberg, Danny DeVito,
George Lucas. (JJW, JD)
+ In the "high public office" cage are George Bush, Bill Clinton, Ross
Perot, Hillary Clinton, and Emmitt Nervend.
+ In the good-looking-but-vapid-airheads Whitehouse, Pamela Anderson (of
"Baywatch") is talking to Kato Kaelin (the beach bum who was a star
witness in the O.J. trial), announcing a phone call from Fabio (the
male model with Yvette Mimeux hair).
+ President Kaelin's "I don't know--I think maybe--I heard a thump" is
a direct quote from his testimony. In fact, that's a good *summary*
of his testimony.
+ Dexter finds himself in a cage with caricatures of several WBA
employees, including Paul Rugg and Mitch Schauer (the guy with the
beard).
+ The vapid airhead lineup at the end, left to right, is Fabio, Keanu
Reaves and Brad Pitt. (JD)
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Episode: 12
"House of Freakazoid"
+ This short spoofs the monster movies produced by Universal in the '30s
and '40s. The specific point of reference is the 1941 film "The Wolf
Man," starring Lon Chaney Jr. as the reluctantly lupine Larry Talbot
(= Lonnie Tallbutt), a role Chaney repeated in several other movies.
(BC, JJW)
+ "You don't understand!" is a line from the original "Wolf Man." It
became enough of a catchphrase to be referenced in 1948's "Abbott and
Costello Meet Frankenstein," in which the following exchange takes
place between Chaney (as Larry Talbot) and Lou Costello:
CHANEY: You don't understand. At night, when the moon is full, I turn
into a wolf.
COSTELLO: You and fifty million other guys! (JJW)
- Universal's horror films of this period include many of the genre's
acknowledged classics, such as "Bride of Frankenstein," "The Mummy,"
"The Invisible Man," and "The Old Dark House."
- Lonnie is voiced by first-season producer Mitch Schauer.
- DYN: The books in the foreground read: "Overlays For Fun and Profit,"
"Book For Depth of Field," "Large Foreground Elements." (RO)
+ The sinister gypsy woman is based on a similar character played in
"The Wolf Man" by Maria Ouspenskaya. (JJW)
+ "Even a computer nerd who says his prayers at night..." Compare this
with the warning delivered by Ouspenskaya: "Even a young man who says
his prayers at night/May become a wolf when the full moon is bright."
(JJW)
+ The transformation scene parodies Old Hollywood's favorite method of
achieving a spooky metamorphosis: a series of dissolves with a new
layer of makeup added each time. (JJW)
+ The music accompanying Lonnie's haircut is, of course, Rossini's
overture to "Barber of Seville." The whole scene is reminiscent,
no doubt deliberately, of Chuck Jones' "Rabbit of Seville." (JJW)
+ There's also, expectedly, a musical quotation of Stephen Foster's "I
Dream of Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair." (EOC)
+ The Mavericks (that is, the NBA's Dallas Mavericks team) were pretty
awful in the era just before the time "House of Freakazoid" was made.
In the 1993-1994 season, for example, they were 13-69, by far the worst
in the NBA. Hence Freak's sarcastic comment on who Lonnie likes in
the playoffs. (EOC)
+ Lonnie's friends are Dracula, the Mummy, and Frankenstein's monster.
"Sewer or Later"
- Just a note: For an F! cartoon, this short is unusually low on CRs.
Then again, when you're doing a cartoon about the sewer there's not
much you can reference except "The Third Man" and those turtle fellas
with the bandannas.
+ "Atomic Boy" is probably an offhand reference to "Astroboy," whose
original title was "Mighty Atom." (See "Hero Boy" and "Two Against
Freak" for more Astro refs.)
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Episode: 13
"Deadpan"
- Deadpan is voiced by Bebe Neuwirth, better known as Lilith on "Cheers"
and Velma Kelly in the recent revival of "Chicago."
+ The people Deadpan turns herself into are: Barbra Streisand, Hillary
Clinton (Music: "Hail to the Chief"), and Princess Di (Music: "Rule
Britannia"). (MB)
"The Wrath of Guitierrez"
+ The title, of course, refers to the movie "Star Trek II: The Wrath
of Khan." (MB)
+ There are places like the one F! and Cosgrove are first shown in,
places where you can eat a "medieval-style" meal and watched staged
jousting matches. The most famous one is called "Medieval Times."
Hence the name "Medieval Nights." (MB, JLM)
- "Medieval Times" was also featured in the movie "The Cable Guy."
+ In the doctor's office, Cosgrove is reading "Highlights for Neurotics."
"Highlights for Children" is a kiddie magazine often found in doctors'
waiting rooms.
+ "I meant to do that" is Pee-Wee Herman's catchphrase.
+ Freakazoid's journey through is based on the "Full of Stars" sequence
in "2001: A Space Odyssey," again ending up in the mysterious room
with Dave and the monolith. Even the music is a perfect match for that
used in the movie. (BC)
- The astronaut is called "Keir" in the closing credits, referring to
Keir Dullea, who played Dave. (JJW)
+ "Amazing Castle" takes off on the old "Zork" adventure games, where
your hero would be running around an uninhabited environment like a
castle, picking up items that wouldn't normally be there (a bowl, a
piece of chalk, a ladder, x-ray glasses, woodchuck...oh, wait, that
wasn't there, was it?), and using them in ways nobody would ever dream
of. (SP)
+ Lonnie is dressed like the gatekeeper in "The Wizard of Oz." (BC)
+ "Er...yes. I am your father!" Guitierrez has obviously seen "The Empire
Strikes Back," where Darth Vader says the same thing to Luke (though
in Darth's case, it was the truth). (BC)
+ The "would you believe" routine comes from the '60s spy spoof "Get
Smart," starring Don Adams and created by Mel Brooks and Buck Henry.
(It was later ripped off by a horrendous cartoon starring Adams as the
voice of a guy with an inflatable coat...yeah, I know the title, I just
don't feel like mentioning it in print.) (JJW)
+ "Congo" was a 1994 movie adapted from a novel by Michael Crichton. It
was so awful that people enjoyed it as camp, and the main interest of
it, as shown here, was trying to tell the difference between the real
monkeys and the people in monkey suits. (MB, JJW)
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Episodes # 1-4
Episodes # 5-8
Episodes # 14-24
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