Rimmi's Cartoon Challenge #9

Today's cartoon is Punky Brewster. I did watch this as a kid, but I don't remember much. Despite watching this cartoon I never watched the show it was spun off from. I think I was aware of it but I didn't really watch prime time television back then.

The intro starts with Punky riding her bike while wearing a raincoat. Did anybody ever have any of those things? I had rain coats and rain ponchos but I hated them and would rather get wet then wear them to school. She's wearing the coat because it just rained, as we can see from puddles here and there. Her dog is running along side her. Did she have a dog on the show? I wouldn't be surprised if they added it here.



She sees the end of a rainbow, so she and the pup run to it. Meanwhile some bass singers are singing a catchy tune consisting entirely of "bow." Punky finds the end of the rainbow, and instead of a mischievous Irishman she finds a tiny city. The city is made up of some kind of gophers. Leprechaun gophers. Would I lie to you? The little houses have four leaf clovers on them. One of the gophers runs through the village and meets Punky at the outside of the rainbow. The rainbow has a border like plastic wrap and the gopher, who has a goatee, falls through it. Punky picks him up and hugs him, because she's a girl and stuff.



IN A STUNNING PLOT TWIST, the rainbow disappears! The goatpher is left behind. That's ok for Punky, because she gets to pick him up again. By the way, one of the lyrics describes him as "one of a kind." Did this creature have it's own toy line in stores? Given the time period, and the way they're trying to pump up his uniqueness, it's like they want you to really have one of your own versions of him.



Glomer (I had to look it up but that's the gopher's name) shows off his magical powers. He can fly and he has genie powers, without the nasty rules. Glomer creates a magic slide which Punky and her friends slide on. If I remember correctly, the boy was the doofus character and the blonde was a stuck up friend. The fantasy ends with Punky falling in her room which is now a big mess. She's all alone and her dad makes her clean it up. Glomer appears out of nowhere and cleans it up. Then we see Glomer in various disguises, which would put up a red flag in many cases. Luckily, I don't think he's the type who does many "funny" impressions. The kids push him around in a buggy, then the doofus boy falls down while skiing. I don't know if he was on the live action show, but I'm sure he's here so boy viewers won't be turned off by an all-girl show. The kids play in a band but I don't think that was an important part of the show. I mean, they already have the genie thing, so do they really have to pad the show with songs, too?

One more hug and the intro ends. Glomers were sold in stores in the mid-eighties, right?





I mentioned this before but I can remember two episodes of this show. One of them involved the kids winning money on a game show, and they could win more if they got rid of all the money. Somehow the game show knew that the doofus had two cents left because of change for a candy bar. I bought that as a dumb kid but that plot has a few problems. Do they have game shows like that now where the poin is to get rid of all the money they give you? You could just go online and paypal the contest money away in minutes.

Glomer's voice is done by Frank Welker, who gave us voices like Nibbler on Futurama and Goro in the first Mortal Kombat movie.

This show lasted two seasons and had 26 episodes. I think it's one of the earliest cartoons I watched on Saturdays consistently and was sad to see go. But don't hold me to that.