Friday, December 21, 2012

Rein-Toon-Ation: Mighty Mouse (1979)

Mighty Mouse returned to television in 1979, as Filmation acquired the license to adapt Terrytoons' iconic hero, along with Heckle & Jeckle, in an all-new series, airing on CBS, which had been the home to the Terrytoons' icons from 1955-67.

Versatile character actor Alan Oppenheimer, who was relatively new to voice acting, spoke for both Mighty Mouse and his arch-enemy, Oil Can Harry. That same season, Oppenheimer voiced another comics icon, the vile Ming the Merciless, in another Filmation adaptation, Flash Gordon, for NBC. One of his co-stars was another relative newcomer, Diane Pershing, who'd debuted at Filmation a year earlier, working on the Freedom Force segment of Tarzan & The Super 7, lent her voice to Pearl Pureheart, for all intents & purposes an analogue for Lois Lane, as Mighty Mouse was one for Superman.

In "Snow Mouse", Pearl is a figure skater competing in a sort-of Olympic competition at a ski lodge. Harry tries to take as many shortcuts as possible, but is presented here as a bumbling buffoon, and can't be taken seriously as a villain, any more than he was in the original shorts back in the day. And he even has a sidekick, who's more of an impediment than a help. What fun!

"Snow Mouse" was uploaded by FilmationArchive:



One season was ordered, and cycled through two seasons, with the series moving to a lunch-hour death slot in season 2. Why did it fail? Well, it was on opposite the World's Greatest Super Friends over on ABC. Game, set, & match.

Rating: B.

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