Classic Cartoons Archives - Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures

The World of Commander McBragg

The World of Commander McBragg was one of those quick little cartoon shorts that showed up inside other shows, especially Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales and later syndicated cartoon packages. The shorts were usually only about 90 seconds, but they packed in a whole tall tale before moving on.

Commander McBragg was a retired British-style officer and gentleman who loved telling outrageous stories about his impossible adventures. He would buttonhole some poor listener at his club, point to a map or globe, and launch into a story about the time he survived some ridiculous danger. Of course, the name said it all: McBragg. He was always bragging.

The humor came from how seriously he told these completely unbelievable adventures. Giant birds, dangerous jungles, impossible escapes, wild animals, lost valleys, flying machines, and whatever else the writers could dream up. At the end, he would usually survive by some absurd bit of cleverness, then calmly accept praise as if it had all been perfectly normal.

The character’s deep, gravelly voice was done by Kenny Delmar, who had been famous on radio as Senator Claghorn, the character who helped inspire Foghorn Leghorn.

Looking back, Commander McBragg was basically a cartoon version of that old uncle or neighbor who always had a bigger, better, wilder story than everyone else. You didn’t believe a word of it, but you still wanted to hear how he got out of it.

Tennessee Tuxedo: The Penguin Who Tried, But Couldn’t Succeed-o

Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales was a Saturday morning cartoon that aired on CBS from 1963 to 1966. It starred Tennessee Tuxedo, a penguin in a hat and bow tie, and his loyal but dim pal Chumley the walrus. They lived at the Megapolis Zoo and were always trying some new scheme that usually went wrong fast.

Tennessee was voiced by Don Adams, before Get Smart made him a household name. Once you know that, you can hear a little Maxwell Smart in Tennessee’s voice. Chumley was voiced by Bradley Bolke, and Larry Storch voiced the brilliant Phineas J. Whoopee, the professor who explained things with his famous 3DBB, the “three-dimensional blackboard.”

That was the sneaky educational part of the show. Tennessee and Chumley would get into trouble, then Mr. Whoopee would explain science, history, or how something worked, but it didn’t feel like school because the cartoon was still silly.

Looking back, it had that classic early Saturday morning feel: simple animation, funny voices, a catchy theme, and just enough learning hidden inside the laughs. Tennessee may have tried and failed a lot, but the show stuck around in a lot of memories.

Sesame Street’s Counting Songs: The Numbers That Got Stuck In Our Heads

When people mention the Sesame Street counting song, a lot of us instantly hear that funky:

“1, 2, 3, 4, 5…”

The best-remembered version is the Pinball Number Count, the animated segment where a pinball rolls through wild little number-themed machines while the song counts up to 12. It was recorded by The Pointer Sisters in 1976, which explains why it had so much more groove than a regular kids’ counting song.

That was part of Sesame Street’s genius. They didn’t talk down to kids. They used real music, catchy animation, and repetition that worked. You learned numbers without feeling like you were being taught.

There were plenty of other number songs on Sesame Street, including ones focused on counting to 10, but the Pinball Number Count is probably the one most people remember first. It was funky, fast, colorful, and impossible to forget.

For a lot of us, that little pinball didn’t just teach numbers. It gave us one of the greatest earworms in children’s TV history.

The New Casper Cartoon Show: The Ending We Remember

If you watched The New Casper Cartoon Show on Saturday mornings, the ending probably brings back just as many memories as the opening.

These are the Casper episodes I’m most familiar with, so seeing the closing again feels like finding an old piece of childhood TV you forgot was still tucked away somewhere. Casper was never the scary kind of ghost. He was gentle, lonely, and always just trying to make a friend.

The show first aired on ABC Saturday mornings in 1963, with new cartoons made for TV along with older Casper shorts. It gave Casper a regular place in the Saturday morning lineup, alongside characters like Wendy the Good Little Witch, The Ghostly Trio, Spooky, and Nightmare the ghost horse.

The ending has that simple old-TV charm. No big production, no loud cliffhanger, just a friendly goodbye from a cartoon that was never trying to be too wild or too scary.

For many of us, this version of Casper is the one that stuck: cereal bowl nearby, TV glowing, and a friendly ghost reminding us that sometimes the nicest character on television was the one everyone else was supposed to be afraid of.

The New Casper Cartoon Show

These are the Casper episodes I’m most familiar with, and it’s good to see them all once again.

The New Casper Cartoon Show first aired on ABC Saturday mornings in 1963, with its original run continuing into early 1964. It included 26 new Casper cartoons made for TV, along with older theatrical cartoons that helped keep Casper on television for years afterward.

Casper had already been around before this show, appearing in theatrical cartoons and Harvey Comics, but this version gave him a regular Saturday morning home. Unlike most ghosts, Casper didn’t want to scare anyone. He just wanted friends, which made him one of the gentler cartoon characters of the era.

The show also featured familiar Harvey characters like Wendy the Good Little Witch, The Ghostly Trio, Spooky, and Nightmare the ghost horse.

Casper would return in later forms too, including Casper and the Angels in the late 1970s and other Harvey cartoon packages that kept him alive for new generations of kids. But for many of us, The New Casper Cartoon Show is the version that feels like Saturday morning: cereal, pajamas, and a friendly ghost who was never too scary.

The Jetsons: The Future We Were Promised

The Jetsons first aired on ABC on Sunday nights at 7:30 p.m., beginning September 23, 1962. The original run was only 24 episodes, but it left a much bigger footprint than its short first season would suggest.

For kids, The Jetsons made the future look amazing. Flying cars, moving sidewalks, video calls, robot maids, push-button meals, and a workday so short George still complained about it. It was basically The Flintstones flipped into outer space, with the Stone Age family replaced by a space-age family.

The show followed George Jetson, his wife Jane, daughter Judy, son Elroy, dog Astro, and of course Rosie the Robot, who somehow became one of the most memorable characters even though she was not in every episode.

What is funny now is how many “future” ideas from The Jetsons don’t seem so crazy anymore. Video calls, flat screens, smart watches, robotic helpers, and push-button convenience all feel a lot closer to real life than they did in 1962.

The original series also has a neat TV trivia note: it was ABC’s first regularly scheduled program broadcast in color, even though many viewers still watched it in black and white.

Looking back, The Jetsons was not just a cartoon. It was the future as the early 1960s imagined it: shiny, funny, automated, and full of gadgets that were supposed to make life easier.

And somehow, George still had a hard day at work.

CBS Cartoon Theatre

CBS Cartoon Theatre was a short-lived CBS cartoon showcase from 1956, best remembered today because it was hosted by a young Dick Van Dyke before The Dick Van Dyke Show made him a household name.

CBS had bought the Terrytoons library in the mid-1950s, which gave them characters like Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle, Gandy Goose, and other theatrical cartoons they could repackage for television. CBS Cartoon Theatre was basically a way to put those cartoons on TV with a friendly live-action host wrapping around them. IMDb describes it as a CBS summer replacement show built around the newly acquired Terrytoons cartoons.

What makes it interesting is that CBS tried it in prime time, not just Saturday morning. A TV-history write-up says the show debuted on June 13, 1956, airing in the early evening in some markets, with Dick Van Dyke hosting.

Looking back, it feels like a bridge between old theatrical cartoons and the Saturday morning cartoon era. These weren’t originally made as “TV cartoons.” They were movie-theater shorts being recycled for a new generation sitting in the living room.

The fun part is seeing Dick Van Dyke in that early host role. CBS apparently had him under contract and was still figuring out what to do with him. A few years later, of course, everyone knew exactly what to do with him.

Stop the Pigeon!

Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines was one of those cartoons built around one simple idea that somehow worked every time: stop the pigeon.

The show came from Hanna-Barbera in 1969 and brought back Dick Dastardly and Muttley from Wacky Races. This time, they were part of the Vulture Squadron, flying ridiculous contraptions and trying every week to catch Yankee Doodle Pigeon.

Of course, they never did.

The real star was Muttley. That wheezy little laugh was funnier than half the script, and his constant demand for medals made him even better. Dastardly would scheme, Muttley would snicker, the plane would fall apart, and the pigeon would fly away.

Looking back, most of us probably weren’t rooting for the pigeon. We were watching for Dastardly to lose his temper, Muttley to laugh, and that theme song to get stuck in our heads all over again.

Stop the pigeon, stop the pigeon!

Speed Racer: Our First Taste of Anime Before We Knew the Word

Speed Racer was one of those cartoons that felt different the second it came on. The theme song hit, the Mach 5 took off, and suddenly we were watching cliffs, crashes, secret buttons, masked racers, gangsters, and more danger than most Saturday morning cartoons dared to show.

The show began in Japan as Mach GoGoGo in 1967 before becoming Speed Racer for American audiences. Most of us didn’t know we were watching anime back then. We just knew it didn’t feel like Bugs Bunny, Scooby-Doo, or the usual superhero cartoons.

Compared to American cartoons of the time, Speed Racer was faster, stranger, and more dramatic. There were revenge plots, family secrets, real danger, and Racer X lurking around like something out of a spy movie. The animation could be limited, but the style made up for it with speed lines, dramatic close-ups, wild crashes, and that nonstop rapid-fire dialogue.

And of course, there was the Mach 5. What kid didn’t want a car with buttons that could jump, saw through trees, go underwater, and somehow survive every impossible race?

Looking back, Speed Racer was a lot of kids’ first introduction to anime, even if we didn’t have that word yet. It was loud, weird, exciting, and unforgettable.

Did You Watch Super Chicken?

Super Chicken was one of those cartoons that felt like it was made for kids, but the jokes were flying right over our little heads and landing with the grown-ups. It was part of George of the Jungle, which aired on ABC starting in 1967, along with the other segments Tom Slick and Super Chicken. It came from Jay Ward Productions, the same folks behind Rocky and Bullwinkle, so you knew it was going to be loaded with silly names, smart-aleck humor, and jokes that moved faster than most of us realized at the time.

Super Chicken’s real name was Henry Cabot Henhouse III, because of course it was. He was a wealthy chicken superhero who would head off to fight crime with his lion sidekick Fred. And poor Fred always seemed to take the worst of it, which led to that famous line: “You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred!” That was the kind of cartoon writing I appreciate more now than I probably did back then.

The whole thing only had 17 original episodes as part of George of the Jungle, but like so many Saturday morning cartoons, it lived a lot longer in reruns and in our memories. Between the theme song, the goofy superhero setup, and that classic Jay Ward humor, Super Chicken was one of those quick little cartoons that didn’t need much time to leave a mark.

Who remembers Super Chicken? And did you watch it for him, George of the Jungle, or Tom Slick?