Ah, good ol’ Clutch Cargo with his pals Spinner and Paddlefoot. Spinner of course being his young ward and Paddlefoot his pet dog. The thing about Clutch Cargo cartoons was that human actors mouths were superimposed over a static drawing of the character who was talking. Really bizarre if you look at it today. They did this to save animation costs, but it looked kinda spooky to have a hand drawn character with real lips. Clutch Cargo is one of those cartoons that’s so bad its good. Apparently this method of shooting human lips over a static cartoon inspired the opening for SpongeBob, so you can thank my generation for that!
Oh, and before anyone notices, I know that the plane Clutch used could not make the trip from Chicago to Latvia, but hey, this is a cartoon, man! 🙂
Of course today’s title is one of two things for you: One, a Fifth Dimension song, or two, what Superman used to say as he leapt into the sky. The 1960’s Filmation cartoons of “The New Adventures of Superman” actually had him saying “Down!” as Superman decided to fly back to Earth. Such a riot!
I think original Superman couldn’t fly either, he just jumped really far, Hulk-style. And picking up a car was about the extent of his strength.
I never saw the Clutch Cargo cartoons, but I think I’ll zip over to YouTube and see if they have any.
Also look up the other title they did; Space Angel. Same technique, just as creepy.
Superman could originally jump 1/8 of a mile.
Okay, YouTube does have them… and they are sincerely weird.
I remember Clutch Cargo, and Space Angel (used the same animation technique). I still remember Clutch’s theme song … actually pretty cool.
Yes, the 1940s Fleischer Superman cartoons essentially show him jumping really far and not really sustaining flight, if my memory recalls correctly. The 1960s cartoons done by Filmation Studios is what I was talking about and it’s funny to see Superman essentially “commanding” his powers. From what I’ve read, they wrote those early scripts like radio scripts, and Superman would say what he’s doing so the audience at home would follow the action. Still too weird.
Yes, Clutch Cargo cartoons are weird no matter how you slice ’em! 🙂
There would have been no point in mentioning that he could leap tall buildings in a single bound if he could just fly over them. He pretty much kept jumping farther and farther until he forgot to land. Who says being absent-minded is a bad thing? Not the Buddhists, certainly!
I was reading you comments on the animation of clutch cargo and it got me thinking of this phenomenon in Quebec thats been going on for the past 2 years, its a bunch of skit animations with play-dough and human mouth superimposition. if you liked clutch cargo, you might like this. Note that there is now a brand new english section http://tac.tv/
“Oh, and before anyone notices, I know that the plane Clutch used could not make the trip from Chicago to Latvia, but hey, this is a cartoon, man!”
LoL Well, maybe they could! There would just be whacking great load of stops on the way! 🙂
RE: TAC.tv… Wow, that’s creepy too, but very funny! I guess we owe old Clutch Cargo a big pat on the back for all these “talking mouths” that have been done since 1960!
I didnt think anyone remembered ol’ Clutch; I haven’t thought of him in years.
hey Byron
I finally got around to registering here :p
hehe.
ive been toying around with a voice for jeff but
nothing usable has presented itself to me as of yet.
blarg
Welcome “mavrick45” 🙂 No worries on Jeff’s voice. You’re good to go on Bud’s! Now if I can get my animator off her butt… argh…
Hey Brett! Unfortunately, I can’t forget Clutch… or Diver Dan, Sinbad Jr., or any of the other cartoons WGN Ch. 9 was showing back in the 60s! OH! Dick Tracy! Man, talk about flashbacks… 🙂
“There would have been no point in mentioning that he could leap tall buildings in a single bound if he could just fly over them.”
I can’t believe I never thought of that. Hah!
Well, being a bit of a Superman Geek that I am… I’ll take the “can leap tall buildings in a single bound” one step further. Using the 50s TV series as my basis, I think the intent is to show how strong he is in that he can jump that high with little effort. The 40s cartoons pretty much did not have Superman flying as much as jumping, true, but by the 50s, Supe’ was flying and was able to control going up and down (like to swoop down and catch a person falling or sailing over a crowd of people). I’ll put my cape away now… 🙂
Oh no…I’ve caught up.
Now I’ll have to wait for the next chapter!
Heheheh.
Hey, it’s the first time Lorraine’s breasts actually seem larger than Robyn’s ones!
Tell me: were the girls this pretty back in those days?
I’m getting better at drawing “boobs” and yes, Robyn is suppose to be smaller than Lorraine, but I’ve not drawn her that well so you could tell up till now.
The women today are pretty as well, my friend… but yeah, I remember a lot of “rock chicks” who were pretty hot (Ann and Nancy Wilson of Heart are/were babes of rock). I played with some nice lookin’ lead singers in a couple bands. So the answer is YES! 🙂
I wonder if this animation technique also inspired the design of the “790” robot-head in the TV-series “LEXX”…?
Hi from Latvia! :)))
It was really big surprise see name of Latvia 😀
The single engine airplane looks like an American Bellanca C 27 not Ukraine/Russian Antonov AN 2 bi plane. Well at least now the Baltic sea will be warm enough to swim in it is brackish not too salty like the normal sea. The only question how they’d get passports and visas to even go to Lativa it was soviet territory in 1977 tourist rarely if ever visited Lativa. Don’t piss off the local KGB Vladimir Putin was employed as a KGB in 1977.