Each show represented a meeting of the "Banana Splits Club", and the wraparounds featured the adventures of the club members, who doubled as a musical quartet, meant to be reminiscent of The Beatles and (especially) their NBC counterpart, The Monkees. The main characters were Fleegle, a beagle; Bingo, a gorilla; Drooper, a lion, and Snorky (called "Snork" in the theme song lyrics), an elephant. Fleegle would assume the role as leader of the Banana Splits and preside at club meetings. The characters were played by actors in voluminous fleecy costumes similar to later Sid and Marty Krofft characters such as H.R. Pufnstuf. They all spoke in English (Drooper with a Southern drawl in the manner of Michael Nesmith, Fleegle with a pronounced lisp), except for Snorky who "spoke" in honking noises.
The show's live-action segment Danger Island, a cliffhanger serial, as well as the short-lived Micro Ventures, an animated series consisting of only four episodes, ran alongside with the animated segments Arabian Knights and The Three Musketeers.
Actor Jan Michael Vincent (billed as Michael Vincent) appeared in the live-action component Danger Island; all the live-action material filmed for the series' first season (including the Banana Splits and Danger Island segments) was directed by Richard Donner.
No comments:
Post a Comment