Sunday, October 13, 2013

31 Werewolves | Fangface



Fangface was a Saturday morning cartoon that ran for a couple of seasons in 1978-79. It was produced by Ruby-Spears, an animation production company started by a couple of guys from Hanna-Barbera. Ruby-Spears is best known for Fangface, the Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show (a favorite of mine as a kid), a short-lived and critically panned Superman cartoon, and the notorious Rubik the Amazing Cube. They also did the '80s version of Alvin and the Chipmunks.

I always liked the idea of Fangface more than the execution. Like a lot of Saturday morning cartoons in the '70s, it stole a lot from Scooby Doo, Where Are You with it's gang of teenagers who traveled around solving mysteries in a cool ride with a unique companion. (Funky Phantom is my favorite of these rip-offs, but that's a post for another year.)

Fangface is the werewolf name of one of the teenagers, cowardly Shaggy-analogue Sherman Fangsworth. Whenever Sherman sees the moon (or a picture of it or anything slightly similar to it) he spins around and turns into the Tasmanian Devil-like Fangface. He also has a weird habit of howling at himself any time he looks in the mirror. It was a bad, unoriginal show and we didn't watch it as kids until it got rolled in with the superior Plastic Man as part of his Comedy/Adventure Show. But what would childhood be without memories of awful cartoons?

5 comments:

Wings1295 said...

Remember it well. These cartoons always seemed like they went of for years and I am constantly surprised when I find out how short their runs really were.

Erik Johnson Illustrator said...

Phil LaMarr frequently mentions the early days of his career working on Ruby Spears Mr. T Cartoon, often citing the studios as the poor man's version of Hanna Barbera.

Michael May said...

Joe, I know exactly what you mean.

Erik, that's a perfect description.

Paxton said...

Michael, we are going to have to agree to disagree on Fangface. I think it's pretty awesome. Scooby Doo but with a f'n WEREWOLF. It doesn't get much more awesome than that. Until Baby Fang shows up. Then the wheels came off.

But the early eps are amazing. I love that cartoon SO MUCH.

Michael May said...

It's entirely possible that my memory of the show is from the Baby Fang episodes. I think he joined when Fangface became part of Plastic Man's show, and I know I watched those, but I can't swear that I saw the first season.

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