Wednesday, June 19, 2019

From my pal Jerry Eisenberg!

 My pal Jerry Eisenberg designed the characters for the 1968 Hanna-Barbera series The Banana Splits Adventure Hour!  Jerry and I discussed former Rankin/Bass designer/Storyboarder Steve Nakagawa.  Iwao Takamoto told me about Steve as well.

 Don Sandburg (Producer of Bozo's Circus and Sandy The Clown) left Bozo's Circus to work on the 2nd season on The Banana Splits Adventure hour.
I actually saw a live performance of the Splits, when they appeared on WFLD TV in The 1970s at the Apollo Field House in Alsip, IL.   The shows were re-edited and shown with a variety of cartoons through the 1970s.  I think this is why it has never seen a dvd release yet, as the original one hour versions are tough to come by.   There is one available on DVD on the set SATURDAY MORNING CARTOONS 1970's Volume 2, but it looks to be from 16 mm (Still great to see with Kellogg's bumpers).  I have a few dvds of The Banana Splits in Hocus Pocus Park (the ABC Saturday Superstar Movie) and the dvd has a few of the half hour shows.  I also transferred the one VHS release to DVD.   Now they are getting a bizarre treatment in some low budget horror thing.  I think the Banana Splits' initials say it all in regards to that....BS!

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