Pound Puppies

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA BWAHAHAHAHAHA This is the Brain,

and you're listening to the GeekCast Radio Network.

Next! It's the Pound Puppies! Here's Cooler!

Whopper! Nose Marie! Bright Eyes! And... Howler!

Howler! Hello? Shut the hell up! Jesus Christ!

You throw me off and I'm trying to do the fucking

intro! What the hell? Hello and welcome to the

53rd episode of Tooncast brought to you by the

Geekcast Radio Network, and I am your host, Tee

of Joe and Mike, and I'm joined by a bastard.

53 episodes in and I've lost my mind. Oh god,

hell, you lost it way, way earlier than that.

I watched it when you made me watch, never mind.

I didn't make you watch anything. Sorry. Besides,

we're both gonna have a hard time going through

every single Scooby -Doo episode for episode

77. Yeah, exactly. Long live Scrappy -Doo! Oh,

shut the hell up. I love Scrappy. Scrappy's awesome.

Anyway... So, how are you, sir? Well, besides

the fact that I've apparently lost my mind, um...

And the reason I lost my mind was because I had

to watch all the cartoons for episode 52 that

we did last week. That's what caused my mind

to go. But on a bright side, we have jumped from

the 60s to the 80s, and that always makes me

happy. No comment? Oh, I'm chewing on a piece

of chocolate. Oh, Jesus. This guy has no podcasting

etiquette. I'm just kidding. So what have I...

Oh, that's nice. That's nice. This episode is

rated... No, I'm just kidding. All of our episodes

are rated at least quadruple X. So what have

you been up to lately besides eating chocolate

and burping into the microphones? Well, not much.

I got... Oh. I'll have to go back and... I already

mentioned this in episode 50. Um, my cell phone

just died. Nice. I was sitting here, I don't

know, a couple nights ago or whatever, watching

TV, playing a game with a little fortune on my

cell phone, all of a sudden the screen stopped

responding. Like, okay. That's good. Yeah, like,

okay, because it's mainly a touch screen phone.

It only has the sidebar button, the volume buttons,

and then the end send button. So it's mainly

a Samsung Behold. It's not the Behold 2, it's

the original one. Scream friggin' died. I hard

reset it. I soft reset it. The only thing I could

think to do, Scream just would not respond. I

know I didn't drop it in any water. It didn't

get flushed down the toilet. There wasn't any

sticky ice cream in it or anything like that.

Take it to the G -Mobile store and said, I don't,

yeah, those, I don't know what's wrong with the

thing. Well, let's get you a free replacement.

I was like, oh, okay, cool. So, got, well, it's

the same phone, but, I mean, hey, as long as

I have the phone. But yeah, that's going on.

By the time this episode airs, I will have finished

this project, but I'm currently in the middle

of doing, going through every single season one

episode of Justice League and pulling out the

best quotes for our recap episode over on Secret

Origins, which records in two days. So yeah,

I've got to do that. I've got a couple of good

ones so far. Other than that, not much else is

going on. What about you? I'm still trying to

get through all the G .I. Joe episodes and that's

an ongoing project and getting all the characters

and helping that. I have Transformers up to the

second most characters on BehindTheVoiceHackers

.com. The only show that has more characters

listed right now is fucking Pokemon. But! I am

going to go through and find all the guest roles

from Transformers and make Transformers number

one. Something I can't do with G .I. Joe, the

most I can hope to get G .I. Joe up to is like

number six. Because there just wasn't as many

characters on G .I. Joe as there was Transformers.

But anyways, I'm a screen cap and fool. And just

regular fool too. That's very true. History lesson,

date away. All righty then. Today's history lesson,

like I said, we're moving it on up into the 80s

for the first time. Well, I guess we haven't

done it a couple times since Hanna -Barbera,

but it's always good to be in the 80s. Pound

Puppies was a toy line, in case you didn't know

that, sold by Tonka. I didn't know they were

sold by Tonka, though, in the 1980s. It later

inspired an animated TV special, then an animated

TV series, and then actually another animated

TV series. and feature film. Shipments of the

toys over five years generated sales of 300 million

in over 35 countries. The puppies have a variety

of plush stuffed dogs. That's hard to say. plush

stuffed dog vows with floppy ears and droopy

eyes. They came in a variety of colors, some

with spots, some without spots. Each one comes

in a carrying case with an adoption certificate,

kind of like Cabbage Patch vows. Smaller versions

were also created, approximately five inches

long, and a line of cats called Pound Purries

was also released. Each authentic puppy had a

heart -shaped emblem near its tail. or what I

like to say near its rear end, and that sported

a... It's always good to have a PP logo near

your rear end. With either a dog or a cat peeking

around it. In 1987, Hardee's... God, that's old

school. Hardee's, yes, when they still existed,

also offered a series of pound puppies with their

children's meals. It has not been released on

DVD yet, but the Pound Puppies trademark is held

by Pound Puppies Inc. And that does it for the

history lesson. What do you remember about Pound

Puppies and it better be something? First of

all, you know how people always say they wear

their hearts on their sleeves? Yep. These things

wear their hearts on their ass. And it reminds

them that it's to pee pee with. Oh, God. Just

pissing your heart away. What the hell? Oh, God.

Um... It's actually more of a recent memory,

unfortunately. I might have remembered the theme

song when I was a kid, but back when I had boomerangs,

though, with... It should be a non -digital cable

channel. It should be just a regular, basic,

classic cable channel. But anyway... Agreed.

Yeah. They ran a whole... They would run them,

I think, every morning or every afternoon. I

remember the premise of it, and I remember Cooler,

who was voiced by none other than Dan Gilbazan.

Exactly. Yes, and people are probably looking

at their iPods saying, what the fuck is Dan Gilbertson?

Well, if you didn't grow up in the 80s or the

60s, you probably wouldn't know him. He was the

original voice of Spider -Man, the amazing Spider

-Man and his friends, or Spider -Man and his

amazing friends, I don't know what the hell the

name of the show was. And he also voiced Bumblebee

slash Goldbug in Transformers. Don't ever say

slash Goldbug again. I love Goldbug! Don't ever

say that. I love gold bug. It's much shinier.

So what the hell do you remember about the damn

show? Nothing? I've gone from just being plain

old bumblebee to a gold bug. Oh my god. Then

that's what you shall be called! Yes! I love

gold bug. Anyway, um... I remember the fact that...

They always had these damn dogs dressed up. I

think this was the first show that introduced

people to dressing their dogs up in fucking clothes.

Oh, I'm gonna have to like the show less now.

Damn it. I actually remember the stuffed animals

more than I remember the show. I had a big...

I don't know what character it was or what the

name of the damn dog was but I had a big like

gray dog with I think a couple black spots on

it and he was sweet because he was big and you

could almost use him as like a freaking pillow

but I remember the adoption papers and the carrying

case and all that and my sister had a different

one I don't remember which one she had but all

I had was one I didn't have any other ones I

had some of the smaller ones I think I had one

big one and two small ones, and that's all I

had, but I really liked them. I would have, you

know, if I was in charge of the spending in the

house, I probably would have gotten more when

I was a kid. But, you know, I remember the cartoon

a little bit. I do remember the theme song. I

remember the main characters. I remember the

movie. I don't remember as clearly as I remember

a lot of the other things in the 80s, but I remember

being a fan for at least a short period of time,

if not a decent amount of time. Yeah, this is

one of those shows again that kind of boomerang

caught me up on. I don't really remember the

toy, I don't remember the cartoon that much when

I was a kid, because obviously when this came

out, when was the cartoon on? It was on in the

80s. I don't have a specific year on this one.

1986, 1987. Yeah, that was Transformers time.

Yeah, one reason why I don't remember it as well,

but I will say that to me it's kind of like you

had a lot of these types of shows where you had

like Stuffed animals or something like that that

you could buy or that where you had like these

adoption things or they came in carrying cases

But usually they were all Geared towards a female

audience like like you had the cabbage patch

dolls, but you had like my little pony which

was very similar but mostly female. And I think

one thing cool about this one is it gave you

that opportunity but it was more friendly to

both male and female audiences. Like you didn't

have to feel queer if you had a pound puppy.

Whereas if you had a My Little Pony doll. Yeah,

no. Anyway. So, I don't know, I liked it, but

it was, it was, you're right, it was coming out

at a time when I was more into other stuff, so

I probably watched it when it was on, but I didn't

go crazy over it, because I liked other stuff

better, but that's not taking necessarily anything

away from Pound Puppies. I, I, I envisioned Pound

Puppies being for, like if you took people that

were two to four years younger than me, I could

see Pound Puppies being like, Care Bears or Smurfs

was for me. Right, yeah. You know, if you were

at the right age when it came out, it was probably

awesome for you. To me, it didn't come out at

the right time in my life for it to be awesome,

but I still liked it. Right. You know, I'm just

kind of going down here through the casting characters.

This was probably the first 86, yeah. This was

the first... I will say though, before you say

that, that the cast for this is very confusing

for a lot of people. Because they had a special

before the series started, formally. See, I'm

just talking about the series. I'm talking about...

No, no, but what I'm saying is the voice cast

for the special is almost completely different

than the voice cast for the series. Right. So

a lot of people get confused as to who actually

voiced who. Well, Dan Gilbertson voiced Cooler.

That's really all I care about. I didn't know,

though, that Bright Eyes was voiced by Bart Simpson.

We heard Bart Simpson's female voice, Nancy Cartwright,

before we ever heard Bart Simpson in 1989. Yeah.

This cast is actually phenomenal. Yeah. Ruth

Buzzy, who did Nose Marie. is in my newly, I

haven't done the 80s male voice actor top 10

list yet over at BTBA, but I did recently post

the top 10 female voice actors of the 80s and

Ruth Buzzi is in my top 10 and she does Nose

Marie. Like you said, Dan Gilwas, Anna's Cooler,

Nancy Cartwright, Bright Eyes, BJ Ward, Whopper,

I mean this is a good cast. Frank Welker was

Catgut. And he was actually a couple other characters,

but I can't... Well, I'm sure he was, obviously.

He's a couple other ones that I have up on his

page, but... Captain Slaughter that... Oh god,

Captain Slaughter was voiced by Colin. You know

what's funny about the two of them, Peter Colin

and Frank Walker? The more that we do this podcast,

and obviously this will kind of go away once

we get into like the 80s and the 90s and the

final episodes of this podcast, but... There's

so many damn roles that they just keep, like,

okay, Welker aside, I mean, we all know Welker,

but, like, there's so many damn roles that Cullen

keeps popping up in that I just don't expect

him to. Yeah, that's what I found out, because

he was one of the first pages that I tackled

behind the voice actors trying to get actual

sound clips from all his different characters,

because I was interested in how often you could

hear Optimus Prime in him. How or if he changed

it up a lot and he actually does change it up

quite a bit um? So I was trying to find all these

different sound clips and stuff and I was like

holy cow He does way more than I thought he did

I thought he was kind of like one of those guys

like I keep bringing this guy up, and I don't

know why but You know Chris Lada didn't do a

ton of roles obviously he died so he couldn't

but uh But you know he was one of those guys

that just had those couple iconic roles And I

always thought the same way as Peter Cullen like

oh He was Optimus Prime, and he probably didn't

do much else And that can't be farther than the

truth. Oh, I know it. Yeah. Good. I was just

going to give a quick rundown. But for those

of you that aren't familiar, Cooler is the leader

of the pound puppies. And then you have Nose

Marie is the oldest female. She has good etiquette,

kind of boastful. She kind of has a crush on

Cooler and some of the other male dogs. Howler

is the inventor of the pound puppy squad. often

kind of the crazy inventor guy. Bright Eyes is

the young female, and then Whopper is the youngest

of the main puppies. Obviously there's lots of

other puppies that come and go. But those are

the main ones, and then you have the main antagonist

of the show is Katrina Stoneheart and Melissa

Trueblood, which they're always trying to...they

run... I haven't watched an episode for a while

because I didn't think I needed to. But I watched

them a few months ago. Katrina runs the pound.

Yeah, they run the pound and they're basically

always trying to get the pound puppies back into

the pound or trying to capture them, doing stuff

like that. Oh, and Bertina, sorry. That's Katrina's

equal evil daughter. They kind of remind me of

Cruella de Vil and people from 101 Dalmatians

and stuff like that. Yep. That's kind of what

I get from them, but... You know, they were kind

of creepy, bad characters, easy to hate. Oh yeah.

As far as the dogs go, my favorite dog... I'd

probably say Cooler, but I liked Whopper, too.

And somewhat liked Howler. I kind of liked them

all, but Cooler was the coolest, obviously. It's

a nice name. Yeah, Kuro was my favorite out of

all the characters. Yeah, my least favorite character

was the humans. Yeah, pretty much. I know that's

easy to say, but they were easy to hate. The

girl was alright. The girl that was on their

side, Holly, she was cool, but as far as just

overall characters, as far as voices go, Kuro

was the best. Yeah. Plus, you know, Goldbug,

so... Shut up. Oh my god. So, you know, it is

what it is. It's kind of like one of those shows

where there's enough characters out of the good

characters where everybody can find their favorite,

whether it was Cooler or one of the girl, you

know, one of the female dogs. Sorry, that sounds

funny to say. One of the female dogs or, you

know, whoever it was. There was a little something

for everybody, which was good. Yeah. Stay away

from that other term there. Okay. I guess we

can, I mean, do you have anything else to say

about characters or voice cast? No. Okay, so

I mean there's cool characters, good voice cast.

Going into the behind the scenes, there is quite

a few people that either directed or wrote on

this that we have talked about in previous shows.

As far as the directors, I don't really recognize

any. Well, Arthur Davis, I recognize him. Carl

Urbano has come up in a bunch of our shows. I

don't remember which ones, but his name we've

said quite a few times. The main director was

Don Lusk. But as far as writers, there's one,

two, three, at least three main writers. Yeah,

there's three that I know. Tom Ruber, Earl Kress.

And Paul Dini. Right. And Paul Dini didn't do

as much writing for this show, but Paul Dini

is obviously a great writer. Earl Crest has his

moments, but Tom Ruger is. I mean, this had to

be one of his earlier roles. Well, if this was

in 86, 87, it was right before Pup Names Could

Be Due. Yeah. So I mean, this is kind of in his

early days. close to when he's getting into his

prime. The actual writing in this show is pretty

decent. It's not out of this world great, but

it's not crappy. Without watching the whole series,

I can't speak specifically about it, but the

writing is underrated. I think the writing is

better in this show than people would give it

credit for just on surface value. Oh yeah, no,

I mean, you know, you got great people that wrote

this, you know, well, Dini, even though he did

two episodes, but I mean, you know, look what

he would go on to do. Batman, the animated series,

and all that stuff. So I guess we can go into

the actual show. The TV special. In 1985, Hannibal

Perra made an animated television special which

aired in syndication that October paired with

Star Fairies. Oh god, thank god we're never even

heard of that, but sounds like Tinkerbell inside

of a enterprise. Oh god. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it

was a television special. included the Fonzie

style bleeder Cooler, voiced by Dan Gilbertson,

and the cheerleader Bright Eyes, voiced by Adrian

Alexander, and the dog with a very nasal -like

New York accent, known only as the Nose, voiced

by Joanne Worley, and the goofy inventor, aptly

named Howler, voiced by Frank Walker, who can

only howl. A female dog from the wealthy aristocratic

family named Violet Vanderbuck, voiced by Gail

Mathis, is being pursued in dog nappies when

she is picked up and taken to the city pound.

There she meets the gang and discovers their

mission to find homes for themselves. The film

plot centers on Violet, whom Cooer insists on

referring to as Sam. As they reunite with her

family, ultimately succeeding, two other dogs

appear in the special. They were the upper class

snob Barkerville, voiced by Alan Oppenheimer,

oh that's cool, and the garbage can digging Scrounger,

voiced by Ron Paleo, who later appeared in the

season two episode Garbage Night, the musical,

oh god. The three of them appeared briefly in

a flashback to the episode Wagga Wagga Wagga,

oh god. The special is available on a DVD which

comes with certain Pound Puppy toys. The characters

Bright Eyes, Howler, and the Nose, slash Nose

Marie, would be voiced by different actors in

the regular series, although Adrian Alexander

and Frank Welker would return as Bertina and

Catgun. So there's where the main switches are

from the special to the TV series. The special

was a success. Hannah Barbera gained the rights

to create an animated TV series in 1986, loosely

based on the special. The series was broadcast

on ABC between September 86 and February of 1989.

In this series, no mention is made of Violet's

whereabouts. The series found itself under a

lot of competition from competitors, such as

Fluffy Dogs, which I've never heard of. That

could not have been that big of competition,

which was a Disney show. Anyway, so I mean, it

aired for almost at least two full years, almost

three seasons. So I mean, it was successful enough

to keep keep on the air. Right. You know, not

getting too far into it, but I mean, do we want

to say much about the individual seasons? Not

really. Yeah, there's basically two main seasons.

The theme song, I did notice, changed a lot.

There's a lot of different theme songs and openings

for this. They change the graphics and the sound

on it quite often. But, I mean, any show that

lasts for a second season has something to it.

I mean, I know it was only 26 episodes, but I

don't know. I'm a fan, just not a huge fan. Cooler

is where I draw the line with this show. I love

Cooler, but other than that, this show, meh.

It's alright. It's alright. In 1988, TriStar

Pictures released, and I remember this from when

I was a kid, a Pound Puppies movie titled Pound

Puppies and the Legend of Big Paw. And the film

was panned by critics like most animated movies

that aren't made by Disney or Pixar. Poorly received

at the box office. shoddy animation, character

inconsistencies, and a color palette that differed

from the show or among the chief complaints,

which is stupid why they would do that. The movie

was also not part of the show's continuity. Which

is stupid why they would do that either. Yeah,

fans were also confused by the apparent romantic

pairing of Nose Marie and Cooler, which contradicted

events that had taken place in the first season

of the series. In addition, the movie is set

in the 1950s with the story being narrated by

Whopper, who in the present day is now an older

dog who tells the story to his nephew and niece.

Also, Katrina and Bertina Stoneheart, along with

Catgut, do not appear at all in the movie. So

I don't know who is in charge of this damn movie,

but yeah. This is like the biggest flop since

they killed Optimus Prime. Oh, God. Well, I'm

just saying it's that it's the same thing. Kinda.

Going into the music segment, yes, you are correct.

So there were like two or three or four or ten

different variations of the theme song. Surprise,

surprise, Hoyt Curtin is the music director,

music supervisor, whatever the hell it was. Because

this is a Hannah Barbera show. Yeah, true. Which

is fine. I mean, yeah. Whatever. Alright, so

getting into the legacy segment. Yeah, this is

going to be an awfully short legacy segment.

Not on DVD. You know, you can still... Pound

Puppies did make a couple different comebacks

as far as toys go. I wouldn't be surprised with

the recent trend where you've seen a new Strawberry

Shortcake, you've seen a new My Little Pony,

you've seen a new Care Bears. If at some point

we see a new version of this, I wouldn't be shocked,

but... I think the toys is the main legacy here.

The toys obviously came first. They were the

most popular thing. They were way more popular

than the cartoon. And I'm sure there's still

big time collections of these toys out there

somewhere, just like there is for most different

toys that are out there. But the toys are the

legacy at this point. Yeah, pretty much. I mean,

the show does rerun or it did rerun on Boomerang.

I don't know if it does anymore. So, you know,

it's kind of cool to see the show there, but

it's, unfortunately, it's not on DVD. Yeah. So,

I guess we can go into our final thoughts. Yeah.

You know, I watched it. I was a fan. I had the

toy. I remember more of it than I do some cartoons

from that time, but, you know, Like you said,

it was a time where there was a lot of other

cartoons that were more captivating and less,

like I said, you were at the right age for this.

If you were at the right age, this probably holds

a lot of a special part in your heart. Special

place and all that stuff, kind of like Smurfs

does or Care Bears does for me. But I was G .I.

Joe, Transformers, Thundercats, Silverhawks,

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I was moving on

into that. Yeah, yeah, pretty much. It's nice

to look back and like I said, you know, with

it at the time being unboring, it's kind of nice

to see the stuff, but yeah, this is not one that

I really, really remember. And a lot of people

may ask us, well, why the hell are you covering

it if you don't remember it? Well, it's one of

those things where it's a, you know, it's kind

of a fluke thing. Where it's part of these and

that's that was the original main concept of

this show that You know 80s and 90s cartoons,

and then of course we expanded to include Majority

of the 30s 40s 50s 70s cartoons It was it's not

like it's not like a show though. That was not

known everybody Oh no, it's very popular! Hunterdog!

Yeah. I'm so tempted to put the end of this episode...

that whole scene where Bumblebee transforms into

Gold Bug. I'll kill you. You gotta find me first.

I'll send Underdog after you. Yeah, right. Thank

you for joining us here on DuneGast. He'll make

you eat an energy pill. Thank you for joining

us here on DuneGast. There are several ways to

get in contact with us. Leave feedback for the

show. We're not counting anymore. That was last

week. Read the website, geekcastradio .com. There

you can comment on each episode if you'd like.

Join the forums, predicatempire .com slash nexus.

Leave the show feedback in iTunes. Please do

this. Follow us on Twitter. The show in there

is GCRNTunecast. That's all in one word. Mine

is TFG1Mike. What is your Twitter? Boss Kid on.

Become a fan on Facebook, search Geekcast Radio

Network, call the voicemail on, tell us the show

you're leaving a message for, and your name,

502 -526 -5821. We hope you enjoyed this episode

of Tooncast, and this show is on us when we will

be reminiscing on Teddy Ruxpin. For now, I am

Toofdew and Michael is... Optimus Solo, come

talk to me at the BehindTheVoiceActor .com forums.

Yes. He doesn't have his gold bug anymore. I'm

gonna take gold bug off the damn page. No, you

better fucking kick your ass. I'm just kidding.

Until next time. Wait, did I already say that?

Hell, I don't remember. I'm back, and now so

are you. Back? I'm better than ever! Look at

this new paint job! I've gone beyond being just

plain old Bumblebee, I'm a gold bug! That you

are, Bumblebee. So from now on, that's exactly

who you'll be. Gold Bug. We're Pound Puppies!

We'll find a pup for you! You Pound Puppies!

I hate them, yes I do! You Pound Puppies! They're

yucky, icky, pups! Soon I'll catch every pup,

and then I'll lock them all up! You Pound Puppies!

You're rebel devils! We're Puppet Puppet, a happy

home we will get We're Puppet Puppet, a happy

home we will get