Ok, we watched -- but we didn't watch very closely. "Watching TV" meant talking, reading, or playing with the TV set on, a flickering series of background images.
It was a supporting feature to the Space Ghost series, about a boy named Todd who parachutes from a crashing plane into the The Land of the Lost, an isolated valley with cave men and dinosaurs.
He befriends a cave man named Ugh, who somehow learned to speak a "me-Tarzan" English patois, and they set about looking for a way home.
7 episodes have Dino Boy captured (by Worm People, Moss Men, Tree Men, Sabretooth People, Giant Ants, Vampire Men, a Pteradon), so Ugh can rush to the rescue, and they can hug.
Three episodes have Ugh captured (by Wolf People, Ant Warriors, Sun People) and Dino Boy must rush to the rescue.
Two episodes have Bronty, their pet brontosaurus, captured (by Wolf People and Giants).
Four episodes have strangers captured (by Snow Monsters, Rock Pygmies, Birdmen, and Moss Men).
What made it worth watching -- or at least looking up at one of the flickering images from time to time -- was the cute boy our own age, the uber-muscular Ugh, and the buddy bonding rescues.
And a comparison with other constantly-rescued boys of the 1960s, like Jonny Quest and Tarzan's Boy Johnny Sheffield (from 1930s movies that played constantly on 1960s tv).
This isn't deviantart.com, it's an actual screen shot. Surely they're about to kiss.
The episodes were rebroadcast on the Cartoon Network in the 1990s, but haven't appeared in any other medium.
Ugh was voiced by Mike Road, best known as the voice of Race Bannon on Jonny Quest
I don't remember this one, but as a huge Jonny Quest fan, would love to see it.
ReplyDeleteCartoon Network used to have reruns of those old Hanna-Barbara shows. I even renember this huge crossover they did with Space Ghost, Bird Man, the Galaxy Trio. Dino Boy, Mighty Mightor, Moby Dick, and God knows what else. (Years before Marv Wolfman invented the "event comic", it turns out.)
ReplyDeleteIt almost breaks my heart to point out, the brontosaurus isn't real, hominids didn't exist in the Mesozoic, and "ugh" is just Anglophones' failure to pronounce a glottal stop. Almost. (Kidding, but it is pretty funny.)
They writers probably knew that humans and dinosaurs never co-existed, but didn't care. Maybe they posited that dinosaurs were trapped in the valley 30,000,000 years ago, and then some cave men stumbled in 100,000 years ago. But what about the ant people, bat people, and whatever else?
DeleteI remember a bit from either the theme song (If there was one) or the commercial bumper where Dino Boy and Ugh are both riding on the back of Bronty in a very interesting position.
ReplyDeleteThe adventures of a young orphan together with his caveman sidekick & legal guardian Ugh & his comic relief pet dinosaur Bronty for his exciting saga the segment of Space Ghost TV series.
Delete