I have been looking for this show on IMDb for quite sometime. I'm glad I found it and have the opportunity to comment on it. When this cartoon/live action series appeared, it was not up to the intelligence of cartoons that came from Hanna-Barbera. This was Ruby-Spears and although they made interesting cartoons and specials, there always seemed to be a little something missing. For lack of a better term, I'll call it "magic".
You see, at the tail end of the baby boom generation, we were born. And I've noticed many tried to lump us into the "baby boomers" but we are the "just missed it by a hair" group - although we can adapt. And we came into some pretty monumental pieces of animation lead by two sides: Hanna Barbara and Japanese Anime. Everything else kinda fell into the middle.
This cartoon/live action series had several things against it for our generation and the generation it was intended for: Disco for one - the television was saturated with that influence in everything from Burger King Commericals to toys in 1979, but old cartoons made from a few years before were placed into the rotation of "Saturday Morning" fare that captured children's attention more than this. You had cartoon and live action.
The Plastic Man/Comedy Adventure show had a little something going for it: Plastic man. He came before "Stretch Armstrong" for all you Gen X'ers - and that's the point. This cartoon character (and subsequent merchandise based on this that didn't sell too well either) could bend and stretch and wrap like the rest of them, he just wasn't interesting in this telling.
The problem - it was NEVER explained HOW Plastic man came to be. I think this was on purpose, which is why I used the word "intelligence" in describing cartoons. (I mean, "Fat Albert" was still on!) This one dumbed down the character, possibly because of the live action portions and the technology just wasn't quite there yet. He was interesting on his own, you just would never know it from this.
Besides many folks got "Plastic Man" confused /or thought he was a "rip-off" of Mr. Fantastic. He wasn't, really. According to his comic series he was a criminal who was shot by a security guard - he fell into some substance that entered his wound and gave him these powers. I don't think you'd ever get that from this working. And besides it wasn't just Plastic Man's Show. This has other cartoons and one and one I remember vividly: Friggin'Rickety Rocket.
Being that I was beyond the little child's age and into the teen years when this aired, the first thing we remarked in school about the cartoon "Rickety Rocket" was: who's brilliant idea was this? As I think back now, I think the same folks who came up with the UPN live action show "Homeboys From Outerspace" decades later were probably the same folks who had something to do with this. The name alone should give you some idea of that this cartoon was about. I'll make it short and sweet: Four black teen agers running a detective agency with their rocket. Sounds neat. Shoulda been neat - but "Rickety Rocket"??? Well, it was the 70's. But that kinda hit what was wrong with this series as a whole.
Much of the Plastic Man Adventure Comedy Hour DID sound neat on previews and paper, the show came at the end of a decade - preceding it were monumental cartoons and animation, after it came imaginative mind lasting cartoons and animations. (The Transformers, Jem, He Man and the Masters of the Universe, My Little Pony, She-Ra Mistress of Power, Rainbow Brite, Voltron and my personal favorite: Thundercats). Plastic man has so much animation potential in watching this you may be disappointed in his limitations -- and that was due to the imagination of this series creators, not to the character of Plastic man himself.
Who knows...somewhere out there a brain is brewing to bring Plastic Man to the big screen -- and give him the tale he deserves. If so, please do so without Rickety Rocket.
You see, at the tail end of the baby boom generation, we were born. And I've noticed many tried to lump us into the "baby boomers" but we are the "just missed it by a hair" group - although we can adapt. And we came into some pretty monumental pieces of animation lead by two sides: Hanna Barbara and Japanese Anime. Everything else kinda fell into the middle.
This cartoon/live action series had several things against it for our generation and the generation it was intended for: Disco for one - the television was saturated with that influence in everything from Burger King Commericals to toys in 1979, but old cartoons made from a few years before were placed into the rotation of "Saturday Morning" fare that captured children's attention more than this. You had cartoon and live action.
The Plastic Man/Comedy Adventure show had a little something going for it: Plastic man. He came before "Stretch Armstrong" for all you Gen X'ers - and that's the point. This cartoon character (and subsequent merchandise based on this that didn't sell too well either) could bend and stretch and wrap like the rest of them, he just wasn't interesting in this telling.
The problem - it was NEVER explained HOW Plastic man came to be. I think this was on purpose, which is why I used the word "intelligence" in describing cartoons. (I mean, "Fat Albert" was still on!) This one dumbed down the character, possibly because of the live action portions and the technology just wasn't quite there yet. He was interesting on his own, you just would never know it from this.
Besides many folks got "Plastic Man" confused /or thought he was a "rip-off" of Mr. Fantastic. He wasn't, really. According to his comic series he was a criminal who was shot by a security guard - he fell into some substance that entered his wound and gave him these powers. I don't think you'd ever get that from this working. And besides it wasn't just Plastic Man's Show. This has other cartoons and one and one I remember vividly: Friggin'Rickety Rocket.
Being that I was beyond the little child's age and into the teen years when this aired, the first thing we remarked in school about the cartoon "Rickety Rocket" was: who's brilliant idea was this? As I think back now, I think the same folks who came up with the UPN live action show "Homeboys From Outerspace" decades later were probably the same folks who had something to do with this. The name alone should give you some idea of that this cartoon was about. I'll make it short and sweet: Four black teen agers running a detective agency with their rocket. Sounds neat. Shoulda been neat - but "Rickety Rocket"??? Well, it was the 70's. But that kinda hit what was wrong with this series as a whole.
Much of the Plastic Man Adventure Comedy Hour DID sound neat on previews and paper, the show came at the end of a decade - preceding it were monumental cartoons and animation, after it came imaginative mind lasting cartoons and animations. (The Transformers, Jem, He Man and the Masters of the Universe, My Little Pony, She-Ra Mistress of Power, Rainbow Brite, Voltron and my personal favorite: Thundercats). Plastic man has so much animation potential in watching this you may be disappointed in his limitations -- and that was due to the imagination of this series creators, not to the character of Plastic man himself.
Who knows...somewhere out there a brain is brewing to bring Plastic Man to the big screen -- and give him the tale he deserves. If so, please do so without Rickety Rocket.