barmar@mit-eddie.UUCP (Barry Margolin) (09/18/83)
Well, I was up this morning for some reason, so I decided to turn on the TV to see what was on the Saturday morning line-up for the new season. Boy are they doing weird things! For one thing, the Peanuts gang now has a series. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to be anything near the story quality of any of the specials or the newspaper comics pages (unless those have changed of late - the Boston Globe doesn't run Peanuts). Most of the characterizations were just slightly off what I remembered, although I will have to admit that I didn't watch too much. Peppermint Patty was being really obnoxious to "Chuck" at times, and C.B. was even more wishy-washy in front of the Little Red Haired Girl than I remembered. On the other hand, it could just be me. Another big surprise was a new set of "Alvin and the Chipmunks". This seemed pretty close to what I remembered, except for one big detail: Dave now looks about 21 years old and nothing like the old Dave, who had to be at least 30. They didn't do enough singing today for me to tell whether they still have the old harmonies. In today's episode there was also a bunch of girl chipmunks who were obvious Go-Go's rip-offs (they sang a song called "We Aim to Please" to the tune of "We Got the Beat"); if you thought Alvin's voice was high and squeaky.... Last, but certainly not least, Mr. T (of "Rocky" and "A-Team" fame) is now starring in a "Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids" rip-off called "The Mr. T Show". The show revolves around a gymnastics team (coached by the title character) that likes to solve mysteries. Each episode tries to teach a moral, and at the beginning and end Mr. T spells out the moral in live action (most of the show is animated): "I pity the fool who doesn't give the new guy a chance." The animated Mr. T is very true to life, but most of the gymnastics that the other characters did in order to catch the crooks (mostly handsprings) did not look very real. What made Mr. T seem even more real was the fact that the real MR. T provides the voice. -- Barry Margolin ARPA: barmar@MIT-Multics UUCP: ..!genrad!mit-eddie!barmar
twt@uicsl.UUCP (09/23/83)
#R:mit-eddi:-75100:uicsl:12200007:000:23 uicsl!twt Sep 22 21:57:00 1983 My advice -- Sleep in