Back in 1965, one of those cartoon studios that is no longer around produced 39 half-hours of a silly, hip, cheaply-animated series called Roger Ramjet. Like the Jay Ward cartoons (which they vaguely resembled), the shows made up for the factory-second animation with superior voice work and very funny, very hip scripts. The latter — and some of the former — were provided by the comedy writing team of Gene Moss and Jim Thurman, while the lead role was essayed by the unparalleled Gary Owens. Gary (seen above, at right) is easily one of the funniest, nicest men in the teevee/radio business.
Two DVDs of Roger Ramjet episodes have just been released. If you ever saw the show, no further recommendation is necessary. If you never had the pleasure, believe me — it's a pleasure. The shows move like gangbusters, paced in a manner that reminds one of another Owens enterprise, Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, of which it was said, "If you don't like a joke, just wait. Another will be along in twenty seconds." Moss and Thurman had a wickedly wonderful sense of humor which also manifested itself in a hilarious local kids' show they did for L.A. television called Shrimpenstein. (One of these days, I'll have to write a long piece for someplace on Shrimpenstein but I can't resist quoting one thing here. It was a live show with Moss playing a character not unlike what Boris Karloff would have done if he'd had Soupy Sales's job. It was on Channel 9 here opposite Roger Ramjet on Channel 11. One afternoon, a Shrimpenstein sketch became hopelessly fouled-up. A prop didn't work and so they had no ending. Moss sighed, turned to camera and said, "While we try to fix this, kids, why don't you turn over to Channel 11 and watch Roger Ramjet? It's a lot funnier than anything you're going to see here today.")
Having the two programs opposite one another was agonizing for me since, in those cro-magnon, pre-VCR days, I had to pick which to watch. Figuring that since Roger Ramjet was animated, it would get rerun, I usually opted for Shrimpenstein — a sound strategy but, alas, it meant I didn't get to see all the exploits of the fearless Mr. Ramjet. I remember some of what's on these new DVDs but some of it is new to me. Please buy these so they'll make more and I'll eventually be able to see all the episodes of one of the cleverest cartoon shows ever done for TV.
You can find out more about Roger Ramjet over at www.rogerramjet.com. You can also order the DVDs (or the primitive VHS releases) on-line from Amazon, either over at that site or by clicking on the Amazon box farther down on this page. Either way, you'll get to see a lot of very funny cartoons that you've probably never seen before. And how often we do get that opportunity?