The Banana Splits Adventure Hour (partially found Hanna Barbera live-action-animated TV series; 1968-1969)
The Banana Splits Adventure Hour is a live-action-animated hybrid series created by Hanna Barbera that originally aired on NBC from September 7th, 1968, to November 29th, 1969. The series is named for its hosts, an animal band consisting of Fleegle the dog, Bingo the gorilla, Drooper the lion, and Snorky the elephant. The Splits appeared in no segments of their own, instead appearing in song and comedy sketches in between the show's segments. Although the series aired for two seasons, only the Splits themselves appeared in new material for the second season; the segments they bordered were repeats.
After the series ended, the first-season episodes were edited for syndication, and while the syndicated episodes can be found easily, the same cannot be said for the original episodes.
History
After reruns of the original series were taken off NBC in 1970, the 18 episodes composing the first season were divided into 36 half-hour installments and put into a syndication package composing of it and several other 1960s Hanna Barbera series. This package was originally broadcast from 1971 to 1982 and is the version shown on Cartoon Network and Boomerang. By contrast, the original episodes have not aired since 1970.
Availability
Although the original episodes are extremely rare, they are believed to be held in the Warner Bros. archives - in 2007, Earl Kress reported development for a DVD set of the original Adventure Hour episodes was cancelled due to the materials being too expensive to restore at the time.[1] As of 2021, they have still not been released, with only the first episode being available on the Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1970s Volume 2 DVD.
Of note is the rarity of the second season - since the package contained only the first season's Splits segments, the second-season Splits sketches are considered lost outright.
On February 18th, 2021, the first two Adventure Hour episodes were uploaded to the Internet Archive by SirPlays. The episodes were taken from studio tapes, resulting in their low quality, while his upload of the second episode is no longer available, the first one can still be viewed.
On the 4th of June, 2024, LMW Forums user somebody32 uploaded the first 14 episodes throught the file hosting site MEGA.[2] [3]
See Also
Hanna Barbera media
- Boss Cat (found British opening and ending titles of "Top Cat" animated series; 1962-1989)
- CBS Storybreak "What Happened in Hamelin" (lost episode from animated series; 1987)
- Dastardly & Muttley - Operation: Pigeon Pursuit (lost build of unreleased PlayStation 2 video game; 2007-2008)
- Fender Bender 500 (partially found episodes of "Wacky Races" reboot animated series; 1990s)
- Jetsons: The Movie (lost Janet Waldo vocal performance of animated film; 1988-1990)
- Jokebook (partially found Hanna-Barbera animated series; 1982)
- Gotcha (partially found full version of "Jetsons: The Movie" song; 1990)
- Midnight Patrol: Adventures in the Dream Zone (partially found episodes of syndicated animated series; 1990)
- Return of the Bunjee (lost ABC Weekend special; 1985)
- Rock Odyssey (found Hanna-Barbera animated film; 1987)
- Showbiz Pizza (found Yogi Bear and Boo Boo animatronic audio showtape; 1987)
- The Flintstones (partially found production material for cancelled Seth MacFarlane reboot of animated series; 2013)
- The Flintstones Movie (partially found Sega Channel exclusive build of 2D movie tie-in platformer; 1995)
- The Funny World of Fred and Bunni (partially found live-action/animated variety show pilot; 1978)
- The Hanna-Barbera Happy Hour (partially found NBC comedy variety show; 1978)
- The Moxy Show (partially found episodes of CGI anthology series; 1993-2000)
- The New Teen Titans "Just Say No!" (partially lost Hanna-Barbera anti-drug animated PSA; 1983)
- The Ruff and Reddy Show (found episodes of NBC Hanna-Barbera animated series; 1957-1960)
- The Snorks (partially found unaired pilot of Hanna-Barbera animated TV series; 1982)
Other Banana Splits Media
References
- ↑ TV Pasts forum post talking about the show. Retrieved 07 Aug '21
- ↑ LMW Forum post by somebody32 about uploading the first 14 episodes. Retrieved 04 Jun '24
- ↑ MEGA link for the first 14 episodes. Retrieved 04 Jun '24