Happy 100th Birthday, Vincent Price!

I'll throw some tips on how to celebrate the day right over at It's Time for Some Action, but for now, ogle this awesome Vincent Van Ghoul (from 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo) piece from Chinese Deviant Art-ist SharksDen. There's a few other primo Price pieces up at his gallery so hop on over there to check them out.

What's Black and Grey and Rolls Around The Parking Lot of McDonalds?

Mr. T. and a pigeon fighting over an old french fry.

That's not me talkin'... That's someday Saturday morning stuntman "Super Dave" Osborne (comedian Bob Einstein) provoking fellow future cartoon caricature Mr. T. during a bit from Showtime's sketch comedy show Bizarre (1980-85).

Although the minimum amount of research hasn't placed an exact date on the video, it can be deduced that it was shot between the release of Rocky III (5/28/82) and the debut of the A-Team (1/23/83), meaning that it's roughly a year before Mister T. started solving crimes with his team of gymnasts and a  full decade before Fox aired Super Dave: Daredevil for Hire.

Check-out the clip after the jump. Be advised that some of the language is offensive - but, as you'll see, that's the whole point.

NYC Hook and Ladder No. 8 to Potentially Close Its Doors

Yup, the actual firehouse used in the Ghostbusters movie and then as the model of the headquarters seen in the Real Ghostbusters cartoon, comics, and video game franchises is on the list of firehouses in jeopardy thanks to proposed New York City budget cuts.

I guess the biggest irony in this potentially tragic tale - for pop culture fans and at risk NYC inhabitants, alike - is that a building made famous in the 1980s for being an "abandoned" firehouse has been fully functional the whole time (the company was amongst the first to respond on 9/11) and it is now back in the public eye because it may become an abandoned firehouse.

To read all about it click on over to the New York Post.

In other cartoon building news: Castle Grayskull has been scheduled for demolition to make way for a new upscale boutique specializing in fur bikinis, ornamental laser pistols, and other He-Man memorabilia. The Sorceress, who was evicted after the rent became too high for her to afford, could not be reached for a comment, though there was a giant orange pigeon found choking on a Starbucks biscotti in an alley adjacent to the soon-to-be demolition site.

That's Crazier Than the Time Seth MacFarlane Rebooted The Flintstones!

 Have your own zany Family Guy style cut-away by hopping over to Deadline who broke this story a couple of hours ago:

Happy 100th Birthday, Phil Silvers!

Comedic actor Phil Silvers would have celebrated his centenary today.

Born on May 11th, 1911 in Brooklyn, NY, Silvers found notoriety as a vaudeville performer before moving on to a career in film and television.  His most famous work was his eponymous sitcom, which featured the actor in the role of Sgt. Ernest G. Bilko, a scheming confidence man who often avenged the wrongs done to the mentally inferior cohorts he surrounded himself with.

Silvers' audacious comedic persona (indeed he was colloquially known as "The King of Chutzpah"), served as fodder for and the basis of a number of Hanna-Barbera's early funny animal characters such as Hokey Wolf and Top Cat, which is why Supercade has chosen to give an extra special shout-out to the man some 26 years after his death.

Voted one of the Top 50 Cartoon Characters of All Time, Top Cat still enjoys some popularity thanks to re-runs on Boomerang, and he remains hugely popular in Latin America (especially Mexico, where he's known as Don Gato) where he and his gang of alley cat ne'er do-wells will be the subject of their own 3-D animated feature from Anima and Illusion Studios.

Happy 100, Phil Silvers!  Despite all the credit you're actually due, we're sure you're still schilling for more in true Bilko/Top Cat style where ever you may be suitably slacking in peace!

A Diamond Jubilee "From Beautiful Downtown Burbank"

If God (whichever one you may choose to believe in) were to have an announcer or narrator, odds are the creator’s go-to guy would be Gary Owens, who celebrates his 75th birthday today.

A fixture on local California radio since the 1950s, Owens branched out into television announcing and his baritone has been the lead-in to everything from the seminal sketch comedy show Laugh-In (the source of this post's title) to America’s Funniest Home Videos. He was the original host of The Gong Show in 1976, and has also lent his voice to over 30,000 commercials.

In the field of animation, Owens' voice provided the narrative thread through such programs as Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, Garfield and Friends, and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. He also did a substantial amount of character work on Saturday morning cartoon shows, and when his flexible voice wasn’t relegated to the background as any number of cameo parts, his gallant intonations allowed him to take the lead as a quite a few memorable heroes including:

IN July... The Saturday Morning Legacy of Orson Welles

Born on May 6th, 1915 in Kenosha, Wisconsin, George Orson Welles - "L'enfant terrible" of classic cinema - would have celebrated his 96th birthday last Friday had he not shuffled off his (gigantic) mortal coil in 1985. His legacy lives on not only through his history making body of work in theatre (a groundbreaking production of Julius Caesar and the all black Macbeth), radio (Mercury Theater on the Air,  The Shadow), and film (Citizen Kane, Lady from Shanghai, and Touch of Evil being undisputed classics), but through the countless homages made to him in the medium of television animation.

An abbreviated list of  cartoons that have referenced Welles and his oeuvre includes: The Care Bears, Casper, Earthworm Jim, Family Guy, Futurama, Garfield, The Simpsons (countless times), and Tiny Toons; most of which have given a nod to his defining works - the riot inducing War of the Worlds broadcast and  Citizen Kane ("Rosebud" probably being the most quoted line in the history of cinema), or have made light of his later years as a corpulent, cantankerous, celebrity pitchman.

Futurama opted to mash up the old school War of the Worlds Welles with the old-aged bearded chubbo.

To celebrate the occasion I've compiled a list of  my five favorite characters based on Orson Welles that have popped up on Saturday mornings (and in one case, the cinemas) throughout the years: