The Banana Splits

File:Bananasplits-longlivelove.jpg

The Banana Splits as pictured on the cover for their 45 RPM single "Long Live Love".

For the dessert, see banana split.

The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, syndicated as The Banana Splits and Friends Show, was an hour-long American package television program featuring both live action and animated segments, that ran for 31 episodes on NBC Saturday mornings from September 7, 1968 to September 5, 1970. The series was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions; the Banana Splits characters were designed by Sid and Marty Krofft; the series' sponsor was Kellogg's Cereals.

Television series

The wraparounds featured the adventures of a musical quartet, meant to be reminiscent of The Beatles and The Monkees, consisting of Fleegle, a beagle; Bingo, a gorilla; Drooper, a lion, and Snorky (called "Snork" in the theme song lyrics), an elephant. Fleegle would often assume the role as leader of the Banana Splits. The characters were played by actors in fleecy costumes similar to later Sid and Marty Krofft series such as H.R. Pufnstuf. (Krofft Enterprises designed the costumes and sets for The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, and their work impressed NBC-TV executives, who picked up the Krofft's own H.R. Pufnstuf for the following season.)

The Splits' segments, including songs-of-the-week and comedy skits, served as wraparounds for a number of individual segments. In the United States, The Banana Splits Adventure Hour featured the first appearances of the animated segments The Arabian Knights, The Three Musketeers, and Micro Ventures. In the second season, The Three Musketeers segments were replaced with repeats of The Hillbilly Bears, a cartoon segment that previously appeared on The Atom Ant Show (1965-1968).

Some of the live action segments (specifically those used during the musical segments) were shot at Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington (during the first season) and, the following year, at Coney Island located in Cincinnati. In many episodes you would see The Banana Splits riding on the Runaway Mine Train rollercoasters, Log Flumes, Bumper Cars, Merry-Go-Rounds, and many other rides. Contrary to popular misconception, the amusement park scenes in the original series actually were not filmed at Kings Island; Kings Island did not open until 1972, while filming for The Banana Splits Adventure Hour wrapped in 1969. However, some of the rides seen in the series eventually were relocated to Kings Island (following a flood which led to the closing of Coney Island; the park later reopened on a smaller scale) and the live-action scenes in the 1972 production The Banana Splits In Hocus Pocus Park were indeed filmed at Kings Island.

During the first season, the Banana Splits segments often concerned the group's confrontations with a rival club, the Sour Grapes Bunch. The Sour Grapes were not seen on camera, but would send notes (usually a challenge or some other kind of threat) delivered by one of the "Sour Grapes messenger girls," who would dance into the Splits' clubhouse wearing purple leotards and go-go boots. Five young actresses appeared as the messenger girls: Debra Thibodeaux, Colette Chenault, Julie Graham, Kathy O'Dare, and Shirley Hillstrom. Their dance instructor was Byron Gilliam. Only one of the girls (always called "Charlie" in the context of the show) would appear at a time, except for the performance of the song "Doin' The Banana Split" (the segment first appeared in show #5, originally telecast October 5, 1968) which featured all five girls dancing with the Banana Splits. The Splits also occasionally were visited by the Mariachi-tuned Dilly Sisters (an actual musical act from Mexico), who would appear at their door playing guitars and singing "The Mexican Hat Dance" or "Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay". In other recurring features during the first season, Drooper and Bingo offered advice to viewers in the "Dear Drooper" segment, while Fleegle served as the reporter for Banana Splits News.

In the second season, Fleegle attempted (quite unsuccessfully) to perform magic tricks as alter ego The Great Fleegali, while Super Drooper fought crime and Coach Bingo kept the rest of the group active in sports competitions. Other new elements included School Time, Nursery Rhymes and a Gag Wall segment (reminiscent of Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In), as well as Fan Club meetings where the Banana Splits would read viewer mail. Goofy Gopher (voiced by Paul Winchell) would pop out from a flower pot to deliver the occasional one-liner, joining the Cuckoo Clock and Banana Vac as secondary characters. The characters' costume designs also received an overhaul (introduced in the next-to-last Season 1 episode, The Great Banana Splits Buggy Race), with Snorky now sporting a yellow and blue striped vest.

In syndication, the show was re-edited into a half-hour format and retitled The Banana Splits And Friends Show. That package consisted of 125 half-hours, including 36 Banana Splits Adventure Hour cutdowns (edited from the 18 original first season shows; 13 additional episodes produced for the 1969-1970 season were not included in the syndicated package; this is the version that continues to air on Boomerang today). Four other Hanna-Barbera series (originally unrelated to The Banana Splits, apart from having been produced by the same studio) were folded into the syndicated series as well: Atom Ant (26 half-hours, also featuring Precious Pupp and The Hillbilly Bears), Secret Squirrel (26 half-hours, also featuring Squiddly Diddly and Winsome Witch), and The Adventures of Gulliver (17 half-hours), as well as The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (20 half-hours, originally seen in prime-time and here introduced as The Adventures Of Huck Finn) which combined live-action with animation. The four unrelated shows in question can occasionally be seen on Boomerang in their original, non-Banana Splits configurations. (The syndicated Atom Ant, Secret Squirel and Gulliver episodes had a rotation of eight repeating clips edited into them, with Paul Winchell redubbing Fleegle's voice to introduce various cartoon segments. This footage, all one and a half minutes of it, originated from Season 2 shows, as did the syndicated series' opening and closing titles. It was the only Season 2 material included in the syndicated package.)

The original show, as well as the syndicated package, also contained the live-action segment Danger Island, a cliffhanger serial starring a young Jan-Michael Vincent, billed as Michael Vincent, as Lincoln "Link" Simmons. Also, Ronne Troup, who later joined the cast of My Three Sons, played Leslie Haydn. (Each of the ten-minute chapters was cut into two five-minute segments in syndication.) The first season of The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, including Danger Island, was directed by future Superman director Richard Donner. Danger Island was meant to be a live action equivalent to Jonny Quest, another Hanna-Barbera property. (Just to keep things as confusing as possible, the second season closing credits were edited onto the syndicated half-hour episodes, crediting Tom Boutross as the show's main director. This led to a long-standing and commonly-held misconception that Donner only directed Danger Island. Syndicated reruns of other Hanna-Barbera series, including The Flintstones, Top Cat and The Jetsons, frequently aired with only one set of credits tacked onto the end of many if not all episodes, often resulting in incorrect writer and voice credits.)

After the cancellation of the original series, the characters were revived in the TV special The Banana Splits in Hocus Pocus Park, which first aired as an hour-long installment of The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie on Saturday, November 25, 1972. Unlike the television show, The Splits spent most of the film in animated form.

Music

Main article: Banana Splits discography

The Banana Splits' bubblegum pop rock and roll was provided by studio professionals, including Al Kooper ("You're the Lovin' End"), Barry White ("Doin' the Banana Split"), and Gene Pitney ("Two Ton Tessie"). The music director was prolific songwriter and producer Mark Barkan who also co-wrote the main theme (as well as other songs used in the series) with Ritchie Adams.

Trivia

• The Banana Splits lived in Hocus Pocus Park, where the cuckoo clock always read 6:55. This trivia "fact", from Fred L. Worth's Trivia Encyclopedia, is only partly correct. The cuckoo clock in the Banana Pad does indeed always read 6:55. However, the Splits only visited Hocus Pocus Park once, for a 1972 one-shot revival.
• Fleegle was the only character that did not wear eyeglasses.
• Snorky was the only character that did not talk. He made a sound like a bicycle horn, the meaning of which was interpreted by the other characters. There were two different costumed versions of Snorky used during the show's run.
• The arch-enemy gang of the Banana Splits were the Sour Grapes Bunch, represented by one of five young girls. All five appeared together during the performance of the song "Doin' The Banana Split;" the segment first appeared in show #5, aired October 5, 1968. The Splits also occasionally were visited by the Mariachi-tuned Dilly Sisters (an actual musical act from Mexico), who would appear at their door playing guitars and singing "The Mexican Hat Dance" or "Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay".
• The song "Wait Till Tomorrow" (written and sung by Ritchie Adams and Mark Barkan) appeared in two different episodes during the first season. On one airing (Show #7, first aired October 19, 1968) the footage was filmed in San Francisco, including the Golden Gate Bridge and Fisherman's Wharf area, which is frequented by tourists. The other airing's footage (Show #6, first telecast October 12, 1968) was shot at Six Flags Over Texas, most notably on the Log Flume and the rowboat attraction.
• Paul Winchell (the voice of Fleegle) also performed the voice of the cuckoo bird (who occasionally pops out of the cuckoo clock). The cuckoo bird's voice is similar to that of Winchell's dummy, Jerry Mahoney, while Fleegle sounds more like Knucklehead Smiff (a voice Winchell later used for Walt Disney's Tigger). The aforementioned Trivia Encyclopedia states the bird's name is Kookie, but in the episodes, the character is simply called Cuckoo. Winchell also voiced the Goofy Gopher (who would pop up from a flower pot) in the second season. Allan Melvin (the voice of Drooper) also performed the voice of Banana Vac, the character resembling a moose head mounted on the wall of the Banana Pad. (In a 1970 licensed coloring book, the character is drawn as a moose.)
• The Banana Splits are mentioned in the Saturday Night Live Bill Brasky sketches:
• The Banana Splits went on tour with Barnum and Bailey's circus in 1968 or 1969.
• The Banana Splits and Friends Show was syndicated by Taft-HB Enterprises, and later by Worldvision Enterprises. The show, now consisting solely of the 36 "Banana Splits Adventure Hour" cut-downs, can currently be seen on Boomerang, Cartoon Network's sister channel featuring classic cartoons.
• Although fewer episodes were produced during the second season (13 compared to 18 in the first season), NBC repeated five Season 1 episodes (re-edited to feature the final five chapters of Danger Island) to maintain continuity of story line immediately following the first run of the 13 Season 2 episodes.
• The group originally was to be called "The Banana Bunch," but legal concerns resulted in the name being changed to "The Banana Splits" before the show went on the air. (The name was already in use for a show airing in the UK.) This necessitated the scrapping of a sizable number of Kellogg's cereal boxes promoting the show.

Cast

• Fleegle: actor: Jeffrey Winkless (as Jeffrey Brock); voice: Paul Winchell
• Bingo: actor: Terry Winkless (as Terrence Henry); voice: Daws Butler
• Drooper: actor: Dan Winkless (as Daniel Owen); voice: Allan Melvin
• Snorky: actor: James "Jimmy" Dove, later replaced by Robert Towers (Although Snorky's voice often has been mistakenly credited to Don Messick, the character never actually spoke. Messick did perform Drooper's voice in some portions of The Banana Splits In Hocus Pocus Park, with Allan Melvin voicing the character in other scenes).

Jeffrey, Terry, and Dan Winkless are brothers, the sons of N. B. Winkless Jr., a jingle writer for the show's sponsor, Kellogg's. Winkless composed some of the memorable Kellogg's cereal jingles, including "The best to you each morning", and also co-wrote (with Hoyt Curtin) "The Beautiful Calliopa", a song used on the series. The actors' names were changed in the show's credits to avoid the appearance of nepotism. (Sadly, Jeff Winkless succumbed to cancer at age 65 on June 26, 2006.)

DVD release

Earl Kress, a reputable source in the animation industry who holds close ties with the Hanna-Barbera crew, posted on his blog that The Banana Splits Adventure Hour was tentatively scheduled to be released on DVD in 2007. After further research had been done on available master materials needed to reconstruct the shows for proper DVD release, the project was cancelled.

In his original blog post, Kress stated: "Notice I said these are tentative. As you all know by now, releases get cancelled, rescheduled and shuffled around depending on condition of masters and how much work needs to be done on them. I know, for instance, that the Banana Splits is going to be very difficult to piece back together."

External links

• Doin' The Banana Split! featuring interviews with the original cast
• Banana Splits site
• The Banana Splits Adventure Hour at IMDb
• Template:Tv.com show
• Puppet Wikia: Banana Splits

http://home.comcast.net/~bubblegumusic/banana.htm