Tuesday, 2/16

 “’Hong Kong Phooey’??????????”

So read the note (in its entirety) I received last night from a listener, who was listening late yesterday when I started to talk about something and then saw everything moves sideways until I tried to extricate myself out of it by mentioning the cartoon and how much I liked it as a kid.

Some days, I really don't think I'm cut out for this radio thing.

But yes, I actually did reference an obscure cartoon from the 1970s. You see, before I discovered (as an adult) the verbal joy of listening to (and watching) “Rocky & Bullwinkle”, “Hong Kong Phooey” was indeed one of my favorite cartoons as a kid.

Now, I’ll admit “HKP” is probably not the first cartoon from our youth that most of us would recall, but for a small and certifiably, uhm, intelligent group of us, the “number one super guy” was the best reason to get up on a Saturday morning. HKP was actually Penrod Pooch, mild-mannered police janitor, who would slip into a file cabinet, change into a kung fu robe, and go out to fight crime whenever the need arose. Of course, he actually sucked at it, and kind of stumbled into solving the mysteries, but that was one of the charms of the show, and maybe why those of us who liked it really liked it.

Unfortunately “Hong Kong Phooey” was never marketed the way some classic cartoons have been. I think I may have the only toy ever made of a character from the show, a stuffed “Hong Kong Phooey” doll that sits on a shelf in our apartment. I was so excited when I found it in a store a bunch of years ago that I thought I was gonna cry. Loraine just looked at me and shook her head in bemusement.

This may be hard to believe, but she does that a lot. Or maybe it's not THAT hard to believe...

Like so many things from youth, I watched an episode of the show a few years ago and was, well, underwhelmed. The animation was very bad, and the story itself kinda creaky, but I still did find a great deal of joy in hearing the late, great Scatman Crothers voice the title character. And while I don’t know that I’d watch the 17 episodes of the show over and over and over (like I did as a kid, and like I still do with “Rocky & Bullwinkle”) I did indeed purchase the DVD of the show, just to have it.

One of these days, in fact, I might even watch it!

So, Kristin of Marquette, that’s the story of “Hong Kong Phooey”, and why I used it in a vain attempt to make people think that I'm not as stupid as I seem to be. We all have our dirty little secrets; I guess “Hong Kong Phooey” is one of mine.

8-)

(jim@wmqt.com)