TV Funhouse/Futurama connection

TV Funhouse did an animated segment (Smiegel cartoon) with the Harlem Globetrotters and the First Christmas, where they go back in time to meet the Baby Jesus and play basketball with the three wise men.

(x-posted to alt.tv.snl courtesy of Smiegel).

Alex Cain wrote:

To my addled recollection their was A Harlem Globetrotters Saturday morning cartoon show Wherein the said Baketballers would travel through time saving the day. Both instances of Globetrotter temporal mobility are probably based off that show.

Hey, I heard they're cancelling the show! (tv funhouse) Is this true? I think probably not, because they keep showing repeats. Then again, there hasn't been a new episode in... I don't know how long!

That Harlem Globetrotters cartoon originally aired on SNL, during the Alec Baldwin Christmas episode from 99-00 if I remember correctly. That might be why it was cut from Comedy Central's version.

Smiegel got them to agree to "x" number of episodes. Don't quote me on this, but I believe standard for a season is 13(?) However TV Funhouse not being a mid-season replacement and a rather tentative idea to begin with they made only 8 or 9, or something to that effect.

Basically Comedy Central gave him the go-ahead, but optioned out for only a single season. I would not doubt of the possibility exists highly for new episodes to be made, but what probably happened was that in the contract for the original episodes, there was a clause which stated that new ones would be made based on the ratings of the ones made already (or something to that affect).

Personally, I myself wouldn't MIND seeing another season---Smiegel IS a genius---but he'd need to work on it a bit. One reason people tuned in was because of Saturday Night Live; they wanted to see Ace and Gary, that sort of thing. But Smiegel wanted to do things he'd not done before, and he did. That could've lost some viewers right there.

I guess right now we just wait and see what the bigwigs at Comedy Central decide to do. Maybe throwing some new episodes in during the summer would work; look what it did for Big Brother and CBS. There was literally nothing else new on, since all other networks had their shows in re-runs and/or on hiatus. Comedy Central could take that same turn on that same bandwagon, and see how the ratings come out for TV Funhouse, when there's very little original programming to watch during that time. Takes awhile to make a single episode though, and with us already being in May, if they haven't started yet, I wouldn't get your hopes up.

Harlem Globetrotters had their own Saturday morning cartoon back in the '70s. It was really horrid with lots of hacky recycled plots and animation. Every week, the Globetrotters would play a basketball game against some unlikely antagonists after making an agreement that if the villains win they go on with their evil scheme, but if the Globetrotters win the villains will give up and turn themselves in. Does the eventual outcome need to be telegraphed? This same plot is used every single f*cking week. Worse than the Superfriends teaching some reluctant alien invaders about ecology over and over again. Worse than TNG or Voyager having a holodeck fubar or falling into some space time anomaly.

DGH

PS: The Globetrotters never challenged Death to a game of basketball. And certainly not chess either....

doug holverson wrote in message ...

What about Twister?

Just as long as they don't have to smell Death's tootsies! "Like bogus odor, dude!"

DGH

doug holverson wrote in message ...

odor,

Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey... a classic.

"doug holverson" wrote in message news:B71B8E86.5FDE5%[email]...

animation.

they

will

falling

Apparently, these villains must have been idiots. Don't they realize, A) They have no BBall skillz, and B) The Harlem Globetrotters never use to lose! Either that or the Globetrotters were world class at convincing people to do stupid things (like the one guy we all knew back in college that was the center of all drunk-fests).

Hey, stop making fun of me.

And so were the hack kiddie cartoon writers who didn't realize this too.

It believe there was at least one cartoon episode where the Globetrotters played a mad scientist's robots, predating the second (or later) Gilligan's Island reunion movie. BTW-In the cartoon, the Globetrotters outclassed and razzle dazzled the robots so much that they fell apart.

DGH