Dancing cellphones from 1953

                            Note. They looked different then. But they danced.

Weird-ass old TV show gifs

Yes, I remember Tom Ewell, who could forget, he was in that movie with Marilyn Monroe, Some Like it Hot, wasn't it, or no, it was The Seven-Year Itch I think. But this is a way weird-ass show because, uh, The Tom EWELL show? Who'd a known.

I don't have dates for these, but I suspect they're 1958 - 1962-ish, because in that era most sitcoms began with stylish but very primitive animation. This one reminds me just a little bit of a later gem, My World and Welcome To It, loosely based on the works of James Thurber. William Windom, I think. I'll never forget his turn, or turns, on Star Trek, sweating and freaking out. Or was it someone else?

You can't tell me there was actually a show by this name on TV. Looks like a failed pilot, or something that maybe lasted a season. Then again. O. K. Crackerby! with Burl Ives was a real show, and it knocked me over to realize it. Notice how they cleverly combined "cracker barrel" (folksy wisdom) with "cracker" (po' white trash, which he was supposed to be in the show, and probably was in real life).

This reminds me so much of another '60s sitcom intro  I giffed, that also showed a couple driving home and doing zany things, but now I can't remember either of their names. Peter and Mary ring no bells either.

Love that station wagon. 

I've heard of My Sister Eileen, but not as a TV show, and the intro is so bizarre and '60s that I just had to include it. 

I don't know why this doesn't say The Weird Brothers. It looks like three Swiss guys, bellringers or something, with bells for hats. A kindergartner using left-handed scissors could have made better cutouts than these, that's all I can say. I said weird-ass, and I gave you weird-ass.

William Windom's finest hour in The Doomsday Machine. 

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In the clutches of a nightmare

My gif-making hobby appears to have hit a new low. For years I told my children about a bizarre cartoon series called The Adventures of Clutch Cargo (with his pals, Spinner and Paddlefoot). They not only doubted me, they thought I was totally loony.

This series had absolutely no animation in it whatsoever. In an evil process called Syncrovox, a real person's mouth was superimposed on a still picture of what might be a face.

The characters were basically cardboard cutouts mounted on a stick, and were moved along realistically by some poor sod in behind that bush-looking thing.

No one can quite guess the identity of this odd jungle-dwelling creature with the W. C. Fields nose and top hat. The horn-rims do look a mite familiar.

I used to wonder why you never saw their feet. Now I realize they had no feet. They had STICKS.

And now comes the uncomfortable issue of the relationship between Clutch Cargo and Spinner. Clutch isn't Spinner's uncle or Dad or anything, just some guy who wants an eight-year-old boy with him when he goes on his adventures. His name, too, is problematic. Just what does it mean? And why is Paddlefoot a dachschund instead of, say, a black lab or a Doberman pinscher? The mysteries just multiply with time. 

Clutch Cargo DID pass on a certain legacy. One of the strangest feats of animation I've ever seen is The Annoying Orange YouTube series, featuring a throng of loquacious fruits and vegetables (with the odd marshmallow thrown in). Obviously it uses the same Syncrovox technique, only with more prominent teeth (and the addition of eyes, even creepier than the mouth). As with Clutch and the gang, these characters can't walk and have no feet, though I suppose they can be thrown. With great force.

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