I have always been a big Banana Splits fan! My living legend friend Jerry Eisenberg designed the characters at Hanna-Barbera and Sid & Marty Krofft made the costumes, but it was the great voice actors that really brought the characters to life with a wonderful personality!
Paul Winchell gave the leader Fleegle a wonderfully, funny voice as he did his many other characters including Tigger.
Daws Butler brought Bingo to life in perhaps the funniest of the bunch! They all had an over the top delivery!
Drooper was a favorite of mine too! I loved them all! Melvin did such a wonderful job with Magilla Gorilla that Hanna-Barbera had to use him again for something and Drooper was a winner!
Snorky was a mute with a horn sounding off ala Harpo Marx. I have The Banana Splits in Hocus Pocus Park on dvd and it is interesting to watch the Splits, both in live action and cel animation with their great voice counterparts,
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!
I like the cover leaps and bounds better than the DVD set. I always knew the end credits were wrong and glad they fixed that! I am not sure how much footage or dialogue was trimmed to be Politically correct, but so glad they restored! I finished watching the set and am happy with it. I like that they added 3 bumpers to each episode and the correct end credits. I just read up on the missing dialogue and it was minor, but glad it's back!
