Saturday Night Live on Saturday Mornings

As a kid of the 80s, I naturally loved Saturday morning cartoons. Some of my favorites included Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, Turbo Teen, The Littles, and Dungeons & Dragons. Then there were shows that I watched just because they were on, like Gummi Bears, Thundarr the Barbarian, The Wuzzles, and Snorks.

Nowadays, the ritual of watching cartoons on Saturday mornings doesn’t exist anymore, but there’s a fairly new TV channel that just plays classic cartoons all day. It’s called MeTV Toons, and it’s available over the air with an antenna, or on the paid streaming services Philo and FrndlyTV (me neither). As of last week, it’s also available on DirecTV.

Since I actually have a rooftop TV antenna, I was interested when this channel launched just about a year ago, and I’ve enjoyed occasional nostalgia trips watching MeTV Toons.

Their lineup includes older cartoons like The Flintstones and Tom & Jerry, but also 80s classics like ALF, Captain Planet, GoBots, Pac-Man, Mister T, and Police Academy, which is a cartoon that exists. [There are big omissions in their line-up that I hope they’ll eventually include, like after-school shows G.I. Joe, MASK, Voltron, Thundercats, and adapted oddities Rambo, Robocop, and Rubik The Amazing Cube].

And they also show The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley, a short-lived Saturday morning cartoon based on Martin Short’s Saturday Night Live character of the same name.

That got me wondering whether there were any other SNL skits that became cartoons. Sure, there have been cartoons on SNL, like The Ambiguously Gay Duo and other TV Funhouse skits, but did any characters besides Ed Grimley go from SNL to their own animated shows? I couldn’t think of any, but maybe I missed some. So I did a little research.

It turns out, Ed Grimley was not the only SNL character to get animated. Here’s a look at some of SNL’s animated hits and misses.

Ed Grimley

Based on Martin Short’s sketch character, the Ed Grimley cartoon aired in 1988 for just a single 13-episode season.

I was a big fan of Martin Short back then. In 1985, my friend Scott had a video of Short’s first comedy special, and we watched it so much we had it memorized. So when the cartoon came out, I was interested and almost immediately disappointed. To be honest, I found the character design slightly off-putting. With wide hips and pointy toes, it just didn’t feel like Ed Grimley to me. And the show didn’t quite work at this longer runtime. I found it boring. But now somehow when I watch it, I feel like they actually really did a good job with it. The character design feels right. I can’t explain why time has changed my opinion on it.

The Coneheads

For the first few years of SNL, the Coneheads was a popular recurring sketch, featuring an alien family from the planet Remulak living on Earth. Its popularity was enduring enough that in 1993, long after the last Coneheads sketch had aired, they even released a Coneheads movie. But in between, they made a little-known Coneheads cartoon. In 1983, a pilot for a potential animated series was made by Rankin/Bass, best known for their stop motion animated holiday specials.

The pilot gives the Coneheads an origin story beginning on Remulak and ending with them being stranded on Earth with their daughter Connie, determined to make the best of it.

It was written by Al Franken and Tom Davis, and the original SNL actors played their respective characters, including Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, and Laraine Newman.

It didn’t go to series, but it did air as a special in ’83 and I’m actually pretty impressed by the animation. You can watch it on YouTube:

The Blues Brothers

Another Dan Aykroyd character got a chance at animated stardom with The Blues Brothers, a 1997 series that never aired. It was created for UPN, with Dan’s brother Peter playing Elwood and Jim Belushi playing Jake. Other notable voice actors included Mark Hamill, Tim Curry, Don Novello, and Pamela Segall.

The show was canceled before it could ever be aired, and no episodes have been made available to the public. But some elements can be found online, like these character designs, apparently inspired by R. Crumb.

And there are some animatics floating around YouTube, like this one for an episode where the brothers have to move a piano:

Additional animatics, background art, and links to scripts can be found at the Lost Media Wiki page for the show.

David S. Pumpkins

For a week or so in October 2016, America got some good laughs at David S. Pumpkins, a silly SNL character played by guest host Tom Hanks. (Sorry, I just got lost in thought reminiscing about October 2016. It was a simpler time). You couldn’t escape it. So naturally, he got a full-length special the following year.

It was not very well received, and the best review came from Slate’s Matthew Dessem, who wrote his review in verse. Two excerpts:

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
While visions of Halloween danced in their heads;
“They’re asleep!” said Lorne Michaels. “Each girl and each boy!
Let’s broadcast a show only kids could enjoy!”

“We’ll take a bad sketch people enjoyed ironically,
And animate it, cheaply and electronically!”
“But why?” asked the writers. “That doesn’t sound funny.”
Lorne Michaels assured them they’d make lots of money.

....

“Now, Tom Hanks! now, Dinklage! now, low-rent cartoonists!
On, Bobby! on, Mikey! on, rank opportunists!
Who cares if it’s dumb or the plot is unsturdy?
If they liked it at five, then they’ll love it at thirty!

The writers signed on and the talent was willing,
Hanks worked for ten minutes and still got top billing.
They carefully crafted a seasonal parable,
And just like they planned it, the whole thing was terrible.

That’s pretty much all that needs to be said about that one.

The SCTV Version Of This Newsletter

Now you might be thinking: David, your whole premise of this newsletter is flawed. You started with Ed Grimley as a jumping off point, but he wasn’t originally an SNL character. Martin Short played that character on SCTV before he was ever on Saturday Night Live.

You’re right. So let’s game it out. What would this newsletter be about if it focused on other SCTV characters who became cartoons?

Bob and Doug McKenzie

Bob and Doug McKenzie were brothers played by Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas on SCTV. In 2002, a short animated film was included in the DVD for their movie Strange Brew, with both actors voicing their characters.

This eventually led to a TV series in 2009, but with Dave Coulier playing Rick Moranis’s role. It was originally planned for FOX but ultimately only aired on Canadian TV.

Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas also played Bob-and-Doug-like Canadian moose in the animated Disney film Brother Bear.

Those are the only SCTV characters who got their own show. Joe Flaherty’s character Count Floyd appeared on the Ed Grimley cartoon, but in live action segments.

But there are a few SCTV-adjacent honorable mentions:

Camp Candy

In 1989, John Candy played an animated version of himself as a summer camp director. This was an odd show. While Candy wasn’t playing a character from SCTV, some SCTV characters apparently showed up on this show as guest characters. But I found the show fairly generic and if not for the fact that it had John Candy, it would be completely forgettable.

The most memorable thing about it might be the opening theme song, which somehow was written by Harry Nilsson!

Gravedale High

In 1990, Rick Moranis played Max Schneider, a teacher who bore a striking resemblance to Rick Moranis, who accidentally ends up working at a high school where all the students are monsters.

It didn’t really have anything to do with SCTV besides Rick Moranis’s presence, so I guess it doesn’t really qualify for this newsletter. But since Rick Moranis is awesome, here’s two hours and ten minutes of Gravedale High anyway:

Before I wrap up, here’s a little personal connection I have to some of these shows: I have original artwork by the producer/director of both the Ed Grimley and Camp Candy cartoons:

Back in the late 1980s, when I used to attend San Diego Comic Con, one of my favorite people to see there was a guy named Scott Shaw, who worked in various capacities on a ton of comics and animated shows that 80s kids watched (and he co-founded the convention). He was always just really nice, made you feel like he remembered you even when he surely couldn’t have, and would take the time to draw pictures for people of whatever he happened to be working on at the time. I had never heard of him before the first time I met him at the convention, but afterwards I would notice his recognizable signature on lots of things that weren’t even specifically comics, like Flintstones vitamins ads. He spent 10 years working at Ogilvy & Mather in advertising, writing all those Fruity Pebbles commercials you remember, among other things.

Wait, hang on a second. I think I have – (Rummaging through files). Found it. Here’s an unflattering photo of me with Scott Shaw as he’s drawing the picture of John Candy that you see above:

On the table in front of him, you can just make out some character style guide sheets with the DiC logo on them. And above his head is a a group image of the main characters from Camp Candy.

And that’s it for another newsletter! As always, thank you for reading. See you next time!

David