We start our intro by looking into a gross eye. Reflecting off his eye is our star, Char...Amazing Chan! He's a Chinese (or so I'm guessing) fat detective. But enough about him, because the intro really focuses on his kids, like number one and number two...
SHUT UP, THEY'RE NOT NUMBERED, BECAUSE THIS IS A TOTALLY NEW IDEA NOT STOLEN FROM ANYWHERE! Ahem. Anyway, the kids range from teenagers to little kids. There's also a cat, I think. You always have to have a mascot animal in the Scooby Doo era. As the kids run by, you can't help but notice a familiarity that the older ones have to certain Hannah-Barbara characters. Observe.
I think I know why there were some episodes of Scooby Doo where they didn't have Freddy or Daphne. They were moonlighting elsewhere.
The music is lowkey and mostly forgettable. It has someone whistling the tune and then whispering the cartoon's name. I say mostly forgettable because the tune is a stereotypical "Asian" do do do do do song. I don't even know if that stereotype matches what I'm sure is Chinese characters. There would be so many complaints if this intro was made or even shown today.
After we see all the characters run by (how do you balance that many characters?) we see the show's ridiculous gimmick. You see, Chinese people are so smart, that their Mystery Van can magically turn into trucks and merry-go-rounds. Look, I didn't make that up. Watch the linked video. The van isn't even leveled properly.
Next we see....one of the kids have a band.
REPEAT, ONE OF THE KIDS HAS A BAND! LOOK OUT FOR CHEESY 70s POP SONGS!
We see some Scooby style chases where one kid dodges a caveman by...the sheer fact that the caveman isn't following him. It's actually three feet to the left of the kid, as we can see when the kid grabs a hold of something and the caveman runs by before the kid can pull himself up. See HB, this is why you don't have a great reputation during this era.
We get a look at the Chan Clan band, and the daughter looks more Daphne-like than ever.
I think this the kind of thing Pup Named Scooby Doo was poking fun at.
I can't find any Amazing Chan cartoons right now. It's too bad because I wouldn't mind seeing 7-15 minutes of this cartoon to see how silly it is. Wikipedia has an entry, and it says that it is suppose to be Charlie Chan, but they never say his name on the show. His children aren't numbered, but have useless names I'm sure you'd forget even after watching a few eps. The guy who did Scooby Doo did the voice of Chu Chu the cat. (They say dog, but that thing is a friggen cat, ok?)
Special Trivia: The Daphne daughter is voiced by Jodi Foster.
2 comments:
As I understand it, from reading Poke's posts, his name is Frank Welker. Then again, Poke is hard to understand.
Well done, Tork!! Thanks!
Whooo! A new challenge!! Yay!
For the record, I don't even remember this cartoon and I grew up in the 70s. Hanna Barbera put out a whole lot of shit and I never ventured far beyond Scooby Doo or the Flintstones.
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