A Salute to My Favorite Really Bad

Cartoons

The Dick Tracy Show

Space Angel

In reality, this show was truly terrible, but when I was five I really lked it.  It was  a staple on our local afternoon kiddie carton show.  The racial and bumbling cop stereotypes were awful and as others have noted, Tracy himself was only a supporting player..  But as bad as it was, it had a few redeeming features.  It had a compelling opening, Everett Sloane gave Tracy a distinctive and definitive voice, but most of all it introduced me to Chester Gould's characters.  The real Tracy became a lifelong favorite.

The NES Dick Tracy video game paid homage to the opening segment by the way they formatted  the game.

One product that was spun-off from the show was the Ideal Copmobile.  I wanted that toy so bad but never got one.  When I finally saw one in real life I was disappointed.

SPACE ANGEL was actually a great cartoon that inspired my lifelong love of science fiction and kindled my desire to be a writer.  It was drawn written, and voice acted well.  What made it a bad cartoon was that it was produced by the same people who did CLUTCH CARGO.  The animation was done in the same limited and weird style.  But I loved Clucth as well because I loved the adventure.  SPACE ANGEL was very significant in my life.

Linus the Lionhearted

This was a truly terrible cartoon that I really liked even though it was a blatant thirty minute "infomercial" for Post cereals.  It is impossible to tell where the advertising stopped and the commercial began.

Super Six

This was one of the dumber takes on the mid-sixties superhero craze.   IHowever I still watched it and to this day I still occasionally break loose with Super Bwoing's immortal battle cry, "ZIP, ZAM, ZOWIEAM, SWOOSH!"