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JERRY BECK
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Bakshi and Mighty Mouse circa 1988
by jerry
February 24, 2009 10:30 am


Ralph Bakshi and his Mighty Mouse crew in a TV news piece circa 1988. John K., Jim Reardon, Eddie Fitzgerald, Tom Minton and Kent Butterworth can be spotted. I don’t know what show this is from or who posted it, but it’s priceless.

(Thanks, Jeff Pidgeon)

02/24/09  10:43am
ash says:

that’s soooo awesome!!!!!! i would love to see more videos of these guys… geez that’s so awesome… did john use a curling iron to get that style???

02/24/09  11:37am
Chris Sobieniak says:

I remember seeing this clip probably around the early part of the decade as a RealVideo clip on a site (perhaps TV Party).

02/24/09  11:52am
Steve K. says:

Cool clip!

02/24/09  12:44pm
Craig D. says:

This is a hoax. If these people were really cartoonists, they’d all be wearing Hawaiian shirts, just like in the Disney DVD bonus features.

02/24/09  12:53pm
Albert says:

Very awesome! Love John’s mullet!

02/24/09  1:14pm

Nice bit of history here. I can’t tell if I should be inspired or warned, as I am a blind devotee of Ralph Bakshi.

02/24/09  1:22pm
Sean says:

Yeah, WHERE ARE THE HAWAIIAN SHIRTS? Where’s Lasseter? These are all fakes.

02/24/09  1:56pm
Christopher Cook says:

I’d have loved to see the story session for the Mighty Mouse episode “Don’t Touch That Dial.” That episode was probably CBS’s finest moment.

02/24/09  2:02pm
GameOverGirl says:

Wow, this is fantastic!

02/24/09  2:54pm
Mike Fontanelli says:

And the reason Bakshi’s innovative MM has NEVER been released to home video in ANY format is… ?

(There’s a rumor going around that the time is coming. Does anyone in the know care to comment on that?)

02/24/09  4:01pm

Mike - It is coming. I’m in the midst of it. I can’t speak about it publicly at the moment, so no more questions. But you’ll hear more about it on Cartoon Brew in the near future.

02/24/09  4:07pm

John K. had the gall to razz Eddie for wearing a pink shirt all while he was sporting a mullet like that.

02/24/09  4:08pm
Michael says:

Oh man, that’s great! Termite Terrace’s second-coming.

02/24/09  4:17pm
Tom Minton says:

That rail-thin, blue-jacketed kid at the very start of the clip with the beard is a youthful Jeff Pidgeon. This PBS footage was shot in January, 1988 in the Bakshi-Hyde Ventures studio where the first season of “Mighty Mouse:The New Adventures” was done.

02/24/09  4:29pm
Jorge Garrido says:

I’m the one who put the clip up. It was in .rm format, the WORST video format in existence, so I converted it to .wmv and put that on youtube. The quality really took a dive as a result.

I’m gonna fix those crappy mistimed annotations. Jeff Pidgeon, Jenny Lerew and Tom Minton all identified people in the clip. This was from a PBS documentary.

Also Jerry just made my day.

Apparently they filmed for a few hours but only used this footage. I bet all the unused footage is lying in storage somewhere at PBS.

02/24/09  4:49pm
s porridge says:

Second the motion on “Don’t Touch That Dial.” Along with first viewing of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” the two occasions where I fell to the floor laughing, and gasping for air long after.

Get a bowl of Bilkos, ’cause “now it’s time for The Jetstoooones!”

02/24/09  5:13pm
Tom Minton says:

The other person, with the big curly hair, is layout artist J.C. Wegman.

02/24/09  6:09pm

So then John K. took the “gum” idea and ran with it in The Ripping Friends episode, The Indigestible Wad. =)

02/24/09  7:30pm
Chris Sobieniak says:

Thanks Jorge or clearing up on the details. It does feel a lot like a PBS documentary the way it’s presented. I thought I saw one such report on this show way back in the 80’s that showed a few clips of the show in workprint order while showing off Ralph and the guys in the studio. Wished I had a copy of that to throw up on YT for posterity.

Being reminded of the way Reardon dresses here, as I think they called attention to it when they stuck a caricature of him on The Simpsons in some of the early seasons, waiting for the train!

02/24/09  8:39pm
Ryan says:

Jim Reardon has the most amazing hat. The Disney gang should wear hats as well as their Hawaiian shirts. Perhaps.

02/24/09  9:41pm
Saturnome says:

I’d love to see Coonskin on DVD some day…

02/24/09  10:26pm
kelly says:

It’s not a documentary. It’s from the McNeil/Lehrer News Hour on PBS.
The full clip of Bakshi shows him meeting Judy Price at CBS about Mighty Mouse.

02/24/09  11:36pm
rhinotonight says:

saturnome- i own coonskin on dvd. you can find t online and in most “edgy” video stores.

any how. that’s one hell on an office they had. all brown with that tiny couch….

02/25/09  1:33am
Doug says:

If you want to sign a petition for a special edition coonskin dvd with proper extras etc, here’s the link:

http://www.petitiononline.com/DVDcnskn/petition.html

02/25/09  4:29am
Christopher Cook says:

There’s one thing about Bakshi’s Mighty Mouse the puzzled me. Why, from the episode “This Island Mouseville” on, did they stop drawing Mighty Mouse without a tail?

02/25/09  5:50am
Jorge Garrido says:

kelly, thanks for clearing that up, I’ll add it to the video.

Tom Minton, thanks for indentifying JC Wegman.

02/25/09  6:07am
Ryan says:

I have Coonskin on DVD too, and it’s got a trailer and those fan-made Batman films that were out a few years ago. You know, Grayson and the one where he’s fighting the Predator. I’ll sign the petition anyway.

02/25/09  8:30am
pudleiner says:

ahhh the hip styles of the 80’s …..
Brings back memories… thin leather ties etc… lol.
I think the only one who doesn’t look dated, is Ralph. :-)

02/25/09  4:04pm
stavner says:

This came out on the McNeil/Lehrer News Hour.

02/27/09  7:13pm
Amir Avni says:

Wonderful! The clip and the good news in the comments made my week! :)

04/15/09  12:00pm
Isaac says:

Coonskin was never officially released on DVD. Bootlegged, but never officially released.

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