Retro Games: Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats.

About 1989, I got a Spectrum 128k for a Christmas present... a couple of months early because I found where it was hidden as I was a little dick back then. A few years later, as the console was on it's way out, I got a few Hanna-Barbera themed games for cheap in a local store. Atom Ant, Hong Kong Phooey, Ruff and Reddy and the game I am going to talk about here, Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats. Based, kind of, on an animated TV movie from 1988, the game from Hi-Tec software was also available on Amiga, Commodore 64, Amstrad CPC and Atari ST.

The movie has Benny the Ball wrongly inherit a fortune and become embroiled in a scheme by people wanting his money. The game features Top Cat working his way through a serious of mini mazes, avoiding things that can kill him (including flying birds) in order to find his lost friends. Not exactly the same but the final level does have you search for Benny in a mansion so there's that. Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats has the distinction of being one of the few games young me actually completed (along with Yogi and Friends in The Greed Monster from the same publisher) . While I never was (and still am not) a particularly great gamer, I seemed to take to this one easier than, say, Atom Ant. While I threw high pitched Scottish accented obscenities at that (and Scooby Bastarding Doo from Gargoyle Games) I enjoyed the simpleness of TC's adventure. I am hesitant to say it was "easy", it was an early console game after all, they didn't like to hold your hand through games back then. If you died, it was back to the start for you, buddy boy or girl. However, I will say once you got into the rhythm of the game, it became quite fun. Repetitive, but fun. And this is coming from someone who, while a Hanna-Barbera fan, didn't quite click with the antics of TC and his band of merry felines.

As mentioned, the object is to guide TC around various maze like screens, avoiding obstacles in order to get from one side to another. Skateboarders, fires, bees, bombs, birds and for some reason, in the final level, ghosts try to block your path. Your health is represented by a milk bottle, the contents of which drain away if you are touched by or touch any dangerous object (a moving part of the fence can mess you up if you don't time it right). Along the way, you can find milk bottles to top your health up but, somewhat pointlessly,  there is also fruit but don't eat the rotten apples, they drain your health. The first level is simple, once you get into it, rescuing the first 4 members of your crew isn't all that taxing but level two is a tad more frustrating.
                                               

Moving from the alleys of New York, the second level takes it to the streets of Beverly Hills where you complete a series of puzzles to get to the (seemingly haunted)  mansion to find Benny. When you do find your weirdly coloured sidekick, the game ends rather unceremoniously, which was par for the course with older console games.Sure, it was disappointing,  I wanted to see how TC and Benny got back home, but at least I finished it. As it stands, the game lasts barely half an hour if you can master getting through without dying. Overall, it's not a bad game exactly just a very repetitive one but one t I always looked forward to playing. If only because I was actually good at it. If only I could get past the first level of that bloody obnoxious Atom Ant game...

Next Time: Nothing to do with Hanna-Barbera, I swear...

Unbelievable Hanna-Barbera Shows That Really, Honestly Existed

Hanna-Barbera were awesome. Ok, a lot of their stuff may not hold up and they did stick to the Scooby Doo formula for far too long but at the time, they were unstoppable TV Titans. They produced so many shows, that for every Scooby Doo, there was a Clue Club and some of their output was a tad...odd...

Fonz and the Happy Days Gang
1980-1981 (24 episodes)
It probably seemed like a good idea at the time. At the very end of the 1970s, H-B signed a deal with Paramount Television to bring some of their TV shows to Saturday mornings in cartoon form. Mork and Mindy (starring the original cast but, oddly, set when Mindy was at school), Laverne and Shirley and this oddity. Why is it any stranger than the other Paramount shows I mentioned? Because this show featured the Fonz, Richie and Ralph Malph meeting a girl from the future called Cupcake (voiced by Didi Conn, Frenchie in Grease). And Cupcake has a time machine. Yup, you read that right, the 'Happy Days Gang' travel through time. Sure, the live action show dabbled in sci-fi before when it introduced Mork but here, they are knee deep in science fiction.. Also, Fonzie has an anthropomorphic dog called Mr. Cool. Voiced by the legend that is Frank Welker, Mr Cool is one of the worst characters ever created by H-B, along with Scrappy Doo, No lie.
FACT:  In the Laverne and Shirley cartoon, the characters were in the army. This is similar to Olive Oyl in the Popeye Show that was on at the same time. Both were inspired by the film Private Benjamin which was a hit the year before (1980)

View a complete episode on Youtube

               

The Gary Coleman Show
1982 (13 episodes)
Ok, this one sounds simple enough- an animated show starring the kid from Diff'rent Strokes, right? Well, yes but he isn't playing Gary Coleman. He is playing a kid called Andy who has died and gets sent back to Earth from Heaven as an Angel to help people...... Yes that is the plot of an animated kids show in 1982, it was based on a live action TV movie that aired in the same year.  Each story (there were two per episode) was basically a ten minute PSA, teaching kids life lessons which is commendable, sure, but I just can't get past that premise for a Saturday morning cartoon.
FACT: Sidney Miller who voiced the nasty Hornswoggle was a man of many talents. As well as being an actor, he was a songwriter too as well as a director, helming episodes of shows such as The Monkees, Bewitched and Get Smart. He was also the voice of Dungeon Master in the excellent Dungeons & Dragons animated series.

View opening credits on Youtube

             

The Robonic Stooges
1977-1978 (16 shorts then 16 half hour episodes)
H-B made many shows that were made up of 3 or more shorts. Yogi Bear, for example, started as a short in The Huckleberry Hound Show before getting one of his own. In 1977, the format was wearing a bit thin when they introduced The Skatebirds to Saturday mornings and in turn, that show introduced The Robonic Stooges to a world of unsuspecting kids. After Skatebirds ended, the trio were given their own show that lasted 16 episodes in 1978. Giving a modern spin on the classic characters, Larry, Curly and Moe get bionic powers and fight crime. It's as bad as it sounds. Since all of the real stooges had passed away before this monstrosity could get made, it was left to voice actors to play the parts. The problem is, especially in the case of Frank Welker, they used actors who had done impersonations of the Stooges for other shows. This is why Curly sounds exactly like Jabberjaw the shark...
FACT: Paul Winchell who voices Moe is more famous for providing the voice of Dick Dastardly. Winchell also provided the voice of Woofer in the Woofer & Wimper, Dog Detectives segment of The Skatebirds show. These segments were shortened versions of episodes of Clue Club, which lessened the human characters and focused more on the canine 'heroes'.

Watch Clip on Youtube

                     

Popeye and Son
1987 (13 episodes)
In the 1980s, every cartoon character either had kids (The Pink Panther, Captain Caveman) or were kids (Tom and Jerry, The Flintsones, the Scooby Gang etc) and in the second half of the decade H-B thought it was the turn of Popeye to have a kid. Now, correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't one of the main attractions of the original (and indeed in H-B's own Popeye toon from the 70s) the love triangle between Popeye, Olive Oyl and Bluto? In this version, Popeye and Olive are married and have a son called Junior (original). Not only that, but Bluto is also married and has a son! Despite him being a cartoon character, I swear you can see the embarrassment on Popeye's face, throughout this mess. And Junior is more annoying than his mum, which is quite a feat.
FACT: Maurice LaMarche who portrayed Popeye for this show only is more famous for being the voice of Egon in the Real Ghostbusters and Brain in Pinky and the Brain. He also does many voices on Futurama. And is a freaking legend.

                                                    View complete episode on Youtube
                       

The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo 
1985 (13 episodes)
Before the fantastic 1997 direct to video animated move Scooby Doo on Zombie Island, Hanna Barbera introduced real supernatural elements in this, basically to cash in on the hit movie Ghostbusters. The shortest Scooby Doo series ever, this saw the 80s Scooby Gang (that's the one without Velma and Fred) join forces with the incredibly annoying child Flim-Flam to catch ghosts that have escaped a book. They are aided by Vincent Van Ghoul, voiced by the wonderful Vincent Price in his final regular role (he would voice Edgar Allan Poe for one episode of Tiny Toons Adventures in 1991). I remember enjoying this as a kid simply because it was offering something different but the combination of Scrappy Doo and Flim-Flam (voiced by Susan Blu) is so frustratingly annoying. It's like having two Scrappy Doos and nobody wants that.
FACT: The show was cancelled before the main arc could end but the direct to DVD movie Scooby Doo and the 13th Ghost (2019) aims to tie stuff up. As the legendary Mr Price is no longer with us, Vincent Van Ghoul is voiced by Maurice LaMarche who also portrayed him in the series Scooby Doo: Mystery Incorporated. 

Opening credits on Youtube