THE BEST OF TENNESSEE TUXEDO AND HIS TALES
DVD Review by Jon Cooke
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Tennessee Tuxedo and Chumley. |
Today Tennessee Tuxedo is best remembered as being a supporting segment on Underdog's show. However, people tend to forget that the series Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales predates the super-powered canine by a few years. The show was also groundbreaking in the fact that it was one of the first cartoon shows that made an attempt to educate its younger audience as well as entertain. A big difference between Tennessee and many of the shows that would attempt to try to do the same thing in years to come is these cartoons were actually fairly entertaining and still hold up well watching them as an adult (I would even argue that TT was a better Total TV production than Underdog was). The show managed to fit the educational bits into the plots without talking down to kids like they were idiots or slowing things down too much. You also get some funny character designs, great voice work by Don Adams (the title character) and Larry Storch (Prof. Whoopee), and enough slapstick and jokes to keep things moving. These aren't laugh-out-loud funny cartoons, but are enjoyable anyway.
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The 3D-BB knows all. |
Out of the 70 Tennessee cartoons produced, 15 of the "best" are included on this DVD. Since a complete Tuxedo DVD doesn't seem to be on the horizon, this might be the most we see for awhile (remember we are still waiting for Classic Media/Sony to release those Harveytoons and Mister Magoo Show box sets they promised us...). The packaging (and even the front of the actual disc itself) will make anyone who is familiar with the show smile. It's eye-catching and funny (especially proclaiming the disc includes "15 (sort of) Educational Adventures" and having Prof. Whoopee on hand to explain how the bar code on the back of the box works). However, somebody got lazy with the description on the back and pretty much copied it word-for-word from Toon Tracker's Total TV/Tuxedo website (go take a look for yourself!).
The picture quality looks very good throughout the disc. However, the original title cards have been snipped off each short for some reason and there is some slight DVNR at times. The disc opens and concludes with the Tennessee Tuxedo show opening and closing (mysteriously, an alternate version of the theme song seems to have been dubbed over the original footage). It should be noted that the opening and closing themes will only play if you select "Play All."
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Tennessee Tuxedo will not fail! |
The selection of TT cartoons seem to be good. Such memorable cartoons such as "Rain Makers" where Tennessee and Chumley the Walrus take jobs as weathermen and attempt to make it rain for an irate rifle-toting farmer and "Wreck of a Record" where Tuxedo and pals attempt to produce a hit record ("Abera cabdabra change-o, range-o, ree...") are both included. Many adventures follow the formula of the penguin and walrus attempting to prove they can do anything just as well as a human being can and eventually needing to get some help from their friend Professor Phineas J. Whoopee (the "man with all the answers") and his three-dimensional blackboard (also known as the 3D-BB). At times the antics of the duo seem to be inspired by Laurel and Hardy. At the end of one tale, Tennessee turns to his pal and says "Well, this is another preposterous
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"Pineas J. Whoopee, you're the greatest!" |
pickle you've got us in." a la Oliver Hardy. Oftentimes Tennessee and Chumley had to fix a mess before getting caught by short-tempered zookeeper Stanley Livingston. Stanley would often get so angry that he'd threaten to skin our heroes alive (Livingston probably never got any awards from any animal rights groups).
Believe it or not, they even included some extras on the disc. First is a series of the bumpers used on the show of Tennessee and Chumley asking Whoopee a different riddle. These were NOT meant to be viewed back-to-back like this and quickly become VERY repetitive (due to the fact that the same couple of pieces of animation are reused over and over with only a different "riddle" dubbed in). It is still nice that they were included. Also included is an interesting piece of audio of the original recording session of the TT and His Tales theme song. You get to hear the singers flub their lines and do multiple retakes.
Overall, Classic Media has put together an entertaining little package and for less than ten dollars you can't go wrong. While TT isn't as witty as a Jay Ward production or as funny as an early Hanna-Barbera production like Huck Hound, it is worth another look and will certainly bring back memories to anyone who grew up with the penguin and his pals. You might even learn a thing or two.
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All cartoon characters are (c) and TM their respective owners. Images © Classic Media. Textual content © 2006 by Jon Cooke.