Cartoon Series They Should Have Made (but didn't)

[Eleanor Hugbees]

LOL.

Stretch Armstrong the series.
Beetle Bailey
Foxtrot
Hagar the Horrible
Blondie

Maybe Ralph could drive a bus that flies across the sky like in the movie Sky High.

Maybe Ed would have night vision and filtration powers.

ROTFLOL.

Maybe when Ralph tells Alice "to the moon", he could literally send her there.

Beetle Bailey was an animated show that ran in the 1960's. Blondie had a crap load of movies and two shows even if they weren't animated. I don't understand why all these shows need mediocre animated shows. I mean, all of them weren't bad ideas. Foxtrot could work animated, but Family Matters? Perfect Strangers? Max Headroom? Why would they make cartoons of shows that were doing just fine by itself and air it at the same time as the original shows?or make it years after the shows disappeared off the pop culture radar?

 

[Ed Liu]

Can I remind people that list threads are frowned on? Plain lists are boring. Lists with reasons are fun.

That'll never happen since WB/DC lost any and all rights to the character in the lawsuit with his creators.

Not quite. We've been following the lawsuits on Toon Zone News. The legal stuff is a bit complex, but it's understandable and far from over (start here, then here, here, here, here, and here). Superboy has also started showing up in DC comic book titles again, so it's possible that there was some preliminary deal struck ahead of any possible settlement.

In any event, I'd actually check out the Super Honeymooners show described above, too. Just because they did Caveman Honeymooners (and, for that matter, those Honeymooner mice that Chuck Jones did at WB) doesn't mean the concept can't be appropriated elsewhere.

Of the properties from other media I'd like to see turned into cartoons:

- No One Lives Forever: Cate Archer was a terrific character and the video games had a great blend of humor and action. Plus, you know, hot woman in catsuits with a British accent kicking people's asses. Rowr.

- Parasite Eve: I played through the second game on the PlayStation and thought it would make a pretty good movie. I know there was a movie based on the original novels, but I understand they have almost nothing to do with each other or the video game. Admittedly, at the time, I'd rather have seen Tea Leoni as Aya Brea in a live-action version (still would, actually), but an animated version would be fine by me, too.

- Tomb Raider: Still surprised that this hasn't happened yet.

- Farscape: This was actually bandied around for a while after the show was cancelled, but the project seems to have died. Still, if they came up with a good enough story, I wouldn't mind another trip around the galaxy with John Crichton, Aeryn Sun, and the rest of the gang.

- The Lone Ranger: It's been a while since the masked man's been in a cartoon (and it was a Filmation cartoon at that). I think the property is still worth something, though, and in the right hands could be a terrific series.

- Dungeons & Dragons/Forgotten Realms: OK, there was the cartoon from the 80's, but it was D&D in name only. A really good D&D cartoon would be cool. And no, Dragonlance doesn't count. I said "really good" after all .

-- Ed

 

[Mavericker]

Urkel was eccentric enough and kooky enough in Family Matters to warrant a cartoon show; The same with Balky on Perfect Strangers.

There was a Blondie animated special on CBS, but I think Dagwood's mishaps in the strips would translate well to a cartoon.

Beetle Bailey would work now-especially if it kept up on current events.

 

[Silverstar]

Perfect Strangers and Family Matters were practically cartoons already, especially after Family Matters became the Steve Urkel Show.

Blondie and Hagar are just too dated to make it big on TV now. Both CBS TV specials based on the strips received bottom-barrel ratings, which is why there weren't any more of them.

 

[MegaJ]

Animorphs. It was a terrible idea to take a highly imaginative series and try to make it a live-action show, especially on Scholastic's budget.

 

[Luna]

I've always wanted to see a series where Disney characters from different series/movies interact (it's be interesing to see all the "princess" characters or all the villains together,for example)...Too bad that "Villains" idea didn't get off the ground (that sounds like an awesome series)...
They did have House of Mouse,but that was more of a showcase for new cartoons featuring Mickey and the other "classic" Disney cartoon characters than it was a crossover...
also the Kingdom Hearts video games (the first of which has some of the Disney villains kidnapping some of the Disney princesses),though mainly it's just Sora,Donald and Goofy meeting various other Disney characters...
I'd love to see Kingdom Hearts get an animated series...I think it would be an entertaining enough story for a series,plus it'd be a good way to get more people interested in the games...

 

[AdamYJ]

Superboy (the telekinetic Superman clone)

That would have been fun. So would shows based on Impulse and Young Justice. Impulse being more comedy-oriented, Superboy more action-oriented and Young Justice somewhere in between.

I think Crash Bandicoot and Spyro the Dragon cartoons would both be pretty cool. They could even do a "Crash and Spyro" type of anthology show because they're from the same company. 15 minutes of Crash and 15 minutes of Spyro, or one could take the whole half-hour when they had a particularly big story to tell.

I also agree on Animorphs. They could have at least used more animals that way (like Carlos's gorilla form). I am also surprised that they never did a cartoon about Steve Urkel on ABC back during the height of his popularity. Heck, the character had dolls and his own breakfast cereal (I'm not saying they should have given the character a cartoon, just that I'm surprised they didn't).

 

[Mavericker]

Perfect Strangers and Family Matters were practically cartoons already, especially after Family Matters became the Steve Urkel Show.

Blondie and Hagar are just too dated to make it big on TV now. Both CBS TV specials based on the strips received bottom-barrel ratings, which is why there weren't any more of them.

There was also a Cathy animated special on CBS.
Dagwood appeared in the new Garfield Gets Real movie.

Beetle Bailey would appeal to people now-there's always some slacker soldier type people ID with-it would just updated now to keep up with the times.

There was a Hagar cartoon?

A new Flash Gordon cartoon would work.

 

[Lavenderpaw]

An American Dragon high school spin-off.

 

[Mavericker]

An American Dragon high school spin-off.

The Chipmunks as teenagers and college students.

 

[Tobias]

I also agree on Animorphs. They could have at least used more animals that way (like Carlos's gorilla form). I am also surprised that they never did a cartoon about Steve Urkel on ABC back during the height of his popularity. Heck, the character had dolls and his own breakfast cereal (I'm not saying they should have given the character a cartoon, just that they didn't).

Yes, Animorphs: TAS would have rocked since they would have been able to actually follow the books a bit more closely since if looks like they didn't have much of a live action budget.

As for Family Matters/Perfect Strangers, they'd have had to come up with some sort of gimmick to justify the animation, like putting the shows into far out scenarios.

I mean, look at previous Live Action to Animation:

Punky Brewster- They gave her a magical gopher from the rainbow's end.
Gilligan's Planet - The Castaways build a rocket(?) that lands them on a far off planet.
ALF - The animated series went back to his past on the planet Melmac
Happy Days - Fonz & The gang go time traveling

I have a feeling that a Family Matters cartoon would involve Steve's robotic duplicate, or the ventriloquist's dummy as the show's main villains.

A year or so ago (Before Peter Boyle's death) I was joking about an animated 'Everybody Loves Raymond' series where the family gets trapped in the center of the Earth and has to live with the Mole People for wacky adventures.

Then there was 'The Seinfeld Adventures', where Newman causes Jerry's humor to magically vanish, thus causing Jerry & crew to travel the world to reclaim his jokes.

 

[Mavericker]

Yes, Animorphs: TAS would have rocked since they would have been able to actually follow the books a bit more closely since if looks like they didn't have much of a live action budget.

As for Family Matters/Perfect Strangers, they'd have had to come up with some sort of gimmick to justify the animation, like putting the shows into far out scenarios.

I mean, look at previous Live Action to Animation:

Punky Brewster- They gave her a magical gopher from the rainbow's end.
Gilligan's Planet - The Castaways build a rocket(?) that lands them on a far off planet.
ALF - The animated series went back to his past on the planet Melmac
Happy Days - Fonz & The gang go time traveling

I have a feeling that a Family Matters cartoon would involve Steve's robotic duplicate, or the ventriloquist's dummy as the show's main villains.

A year or so ago (Before Peter Boyle's death) I was joking about an animated 'Everybody Loves Raymond' series where the family gets trapped in the center of the Earth and has to live with the Mole People for wacky adventures.

Then there was 'The Seinfeld Adventures', where Newman causes Jerry's humor to magically vanish, thus causing Jerry & crew to travel the world to reclaim his jokes.

Don't forget Steve's Urkel's cousin Mertle.

There was also Laverne and Shirley cartoon which took place in the army and a Mork and Mindy cartoon, which introduced a weird alien dog.

 

[AdamYJ]

Yes, Animorphs: TAS would have rocked since they would have been able to actually follow the books a bit more closely since if looks like they didn't have much of a live action budget.

As for Family Matters/Perfect Strangers, they'd have had to come up with some sort of gimmick to justify the animation, like putting the shows into far out scenarios.

I mean, look at previous Live Action to Animation:

Punky Brewster- They gave her a magical gopher from the rainbow's end.
Gilligan's Planet - The Castaways build a rocket(?) that lands them on a far off planet.
ALF - The animated series went back to his past on the planet Melmac
Happy Days - Fonz & The gang go time traveling

I have a feeling that a Family Matters cartoon would involve Steve's robotic duplicate, or the ventriloquist's dummy as the show's main villains.

It would probably be less a "Family Matters" cartoon as an "Urkel" cartoon. They could just follow the comical exploits as Steve's inventions cause all sorts of funny hijinks. Maybe with little Richie to play the role of sidekick or something. The other characters would just get bit parts.

 

[Mavericker]

It would probably be less a "Family Matters" cartoon as an "Urkel" cartoon. They could just follow the comical exploits as Steve's inventions cause all sorts of funny hijinks. Maybe with little Richie to play the role of sidekick or something. The other characters would just get bit parts.

What about Stefon Urkel and Mertyl?

Mertyl had the hots for Eddie. I could see Stefon working with her, creating some kind of love elixir to make Eddie fall in love with him.

A cartoon based on Perfect Strangers would work-We would learn more about life in Mepos, and Larry would get involved with Balky's hijinks. We would see Larry and Balki going to Mepos and weird things happening and crazy cartoony things happening at the Chronicle.

 

[judyindisguise]

This is interesting, because the other day I was watching Boomerang with my dad and we started talking about the Flintstones, and how the show was a takeoff on The Honeymooners, and he told me that there were two shows that came on some years later that were a takeoff on The Odd Couple and All In The Family. Both starred dogs, but the Odd Couple one also had a cat in it (he was the obsessively-neat one). My dad said that both shows were pretty bad and he thinks Depatie-Freleng, the Pink Panther guys, created them.

 

[Zorak Masaki]

What about Stefon Urkel and Mertyl?

Mertyl had the hots for Eddie. I could see Stefon working with her, creating some kind of love elixir to make Eddie fall in love with him.

A cartoon based on Perfect Strangers would work-We would learn more about life in Mepos, and Larry would get involved with Balky's hijinks. We would see Larry and Balki going to Mepos and weird things happening and crazy cartoony things happening at the Chronicle.

Why couldnt they go to Mepos in the live action show? In fact, that was a missed opportunity for the show, all we see of it is the brief shot in the opening.

 

[Dr.Pepper]

I would love to see a Foxtrot series. Also an Opus series (not just the Christmas special).

 

[Mavericker]

Why couldnt they go to Mepos in the live action show? In fact, that was a missed opportunity for the show, all we see of it is the brief shot in the opening.

Yes-but there's an opportunity to do a lot of crazy stuff in the cartoon they couldn't do in the show.

 

[Silverstar]

There was a Hagar cartoon?

Yep. But a single TV special, not a series. It was called "Hagar Knows Best" and it aired on CBS on November 1, 1989.

 

[Tobias]

Why couldnt they go to Mepos in the live action show? In fact, that was a missed opportunity for the show, all we see of it is the brief shot in the opening.

Actually, they *did* go to Mepos in the LA show, but it was in the final season, or the next to final season when Balki was set to marry Mary Ann. It was a 2 parter when Balki's Mama came to bring him back, not wanting him to marry. Larry had to travel to Mepos to get Mama to let Balki return home.