Mission: Magic!

This Saturday morning ABC cartoon showcased Rick Springfield's pop songs accompanying "groovy" montages ala "the Brady Kids" cartoon series. Rick was at the time being positioned as a sort of Aussie David Cassidy. The show was cute, harmless and, unfortunately, short-lived. (I still remember the catchy theme song over thirty years later: "Do you believe you believe in magic? Cause I believe I believe that I do. If you believe you believe in magic and your mission is magic your love will shine through. If there's one thing that the world needs it's a magic singing song. And I'll teach it to the whole world and make them sing along. Do you believe I believe in magic? Cause I believe I believe that I do. Yes, I can see you believe in magic. If your mission is magic your love will shine through. If your mission is magic your love'll shine through..." Rick Springfield not only provided the vocals for the musical interludes but played a character named "Rick." Animated "Rick" was drawn to look like a then-long haired Rick Springfield and in providing the voice for "Rick" Rick Springfield spoke with his native Australian accent.

Eight years before he began stealing hearts on "General Hospital", Rick Springfield made his national television debut (albeit it was animated) on this rather forgettable animated series. Like so many shows that came out in this era, it tried to be both entertaining and educational at the same time. Unfortunately, it didn't leave much of an impression on me. No wonder there was an eight year gap between Springfield's first hit ("Speak to the Sky") and the song that begun in earnest his career as a major teen idol ("Jesse's Girl"). To me this show was a bump in his career and it took him eight years to recover. As for the show itself, it was neither entertaining or educational. If the only character you can remember from this show is a cat statue that becomes alive at the beginning of each episode, then you know something is wrong. This had to be one of the most forgettable shows of the 1970's.

With these words, the teacher's seemingly ceramic cat statue, Tut-tut, would come to life and the sparkling doorway would appear on the chalkboard. I never knew the performer who later appeared on 'General Hospital' and sang 'Jessie's Girl' was the animated character here, namely Rick Springfield. I could never tell those teenie-bopper singing guys apart.

Can't recall any of the other characters' names, but the students all seemed very cartoon cliches of adolescents.

The only adventure I do recall was when they were all put in jail and they escaped by teacher's spell which made the bars grow very big so they were able to just walk out from between them. Now this wouldn't have worked the way it was depicted in the cartoon, but read that last word: "cartoon." It was all fun.

"Do You believe I believe in magic? Yes I believe that you believe it is true. Do you believe I believe in magic, Mission: Magic is right here for you." or something like that. Not sure about the last line. This was the theme song for the show.

Beleive it or not, I do recall the Friday night preview for this show as well. Some jokers were trying to be quiet so the child could get to sleep and get up Saturday morning to watch the new shows. One by one, the new shows would enter the home in some capacity. Rick Springfield appeared with a stiff dog leash and only a collar on the end, signifying Goober, the dog who when he got scared turned invisible, of "Goober and the Ghost-chasers", another HB offering like Scooby Doo.

As a Filmation show, this and other toons by that same studio weren't among the shows I watched in my childhood. I've checked out a few of them sometime after I reached adulthood. For a while, I avoided Filmation's works, due to reading about their subpar quality and was hesitant to try any of them. But in my view, from what I've seen, some of these are somewhat better than others and I believe this to be such an example. Even though Filmation may had been one of the biggest, but not most flawless, cartoon studios at the time, again, I still consider, at least some of the materials, to be better than others anyway and would rather watch some, certain ones than the majority of cartoons that have emerged in recent years that are a bunch of dreck. I find this to be more worthy, despite some imperfections and would take this over the aforementioned any day. In an online search, I came across this show a while back. After not thinking about it for some time, I happened to come across this again, being reminded of it, a few nights ago, and decided to look it up on Youtube and check it out there. Despite it not being one of the most sophisticated cartoons ever made, I find it fascinating but alright enough regardless after watching the first three episodes. At least the creators and rest of the crew tried putting some effort into this, more than some others by the animation company.

This series is actually a spin-off of The Brady Kids and I thought this was a spin-off that outdid the predecessor. The lead character, the teacher Miss Tickle, was introduced in an episode from the forerunner's second season, which led to this. Even though it features a cartoon version of Aussie rocker, Rick Springfield, I'm not sure I can quite call this a celebrity cartoon, in spite of featuring a celebrity like him, since he's not quite the lead. But this has a hodgepodge of celebrity, edutainment, musical, fantasy, comedy, and mystery elements, all rolled up into one.The fantasy element may be the main one. There have been similarities compared between this and the original Magic School Bus T.V. show that followed almost a couple decades later. I wondered if the creator/author of the Magic School Bus books, Joanna Cole, was inspired/influenced by this, but looking for that on the book series's Wikipedia page, I didn't see any mention of that. Anyway, other reviewers before me have already described the plot of this, which has each episode revolving around Miss Tickle and her ethnically-diverse group of six students who make up the Great Adventures Club, traveling through a portal that's a chalk drawing of a door that magically opens and can be physically used to enter other worlds, after being contacted by Rick via a gramophone whenever there was help needed. The ceramic cat, Tut-Tut, would also come to life and become a live cat who accompanied the others and meet up somewhere with Rick, who has his own pet, an owl named Potamy. Concerning the blackboard aspect, it's also similar to Chalkzone, except there aren't chalk drawings brought to life in this. Another thing this show may have in common with is Here Comes The Grump, particularly due to teacher, students, and pet traveling to various lands. Not getting into much more of the concept, I'm going to comment on the technical aspects of this next.

Like several, other T.V. programs by the studio and others from the same decade, the animation is limited, but not so limited that it's in the synchro-vox style of things like Clutch Cargo, so it's not as limited nor cheap as a cartoon can get. There are a few reused scenes in each episode, repetitive, scrolling backgrounds, and the like, but that was the norm. The colors are moderate, not too dark nor too bright, but just right, such as those of the psychedelic designs in the background when Miss Tickle and the students are flying from the classroom to another world. Speaking of colors, there's some animation goofs involving them, but a few, as is also the norm in cartoons, unless this occurs too much, as in the various Super Mario Bros. cartoon series. Some of the objects and buildings in the sceneries are detailed, while others are flat. I can't find much to complain about the writing of the stories and scripts, as they may be simple, but also satisfactory enough. The character designs are probably simple, I'm not very sure, but easy on the eyes. Although the characters themselves may not be the among most complex one will ever see, they're just likable enough. The theme song is a great association with one of the sub-genres that were big at the time, as are other songs performed within the episodes. The voice work for the characters is well-done and notably the cast has both male and female voice actors, rather than just limiting to male voice actors who try to do impressions of feminine voices for female characters, unlike some of the other oeuvre. There's also a laugh track, which is used at just the right moments.

I read that Rick hated on this show and the fact that, early on, this was one of the ways used to showcase his songs, and career, by his involvement. But then again, he had to start somewhere. I don't see it as being all that bad. There may have been other toons that came along later to outshine it, but I say it has some merits. I view it as fun nonetheless and it's some breath of fresh air from the middle of the Scooby Doo clone-trend that was common back then, so there's that as well. Some may think that the initial Magic School Bus is better as far as production quality goes, but if this isn't better than that, then it's on the same level as that. One difference is, although there was magic involved in that show too, Ms. Frizzle and her students never went world-hopping, but they remained in the real world. Aside from the theme song, Magic School Bus never had any musical numbers. This is one Filmation series I can take for what it is and from my viewpoint, it's one of the better products. It's better than or better next to The Brady Kids, M.U.S.H., and Friday Cat, and I haven't seen it mentioned as getting as much detestation as those. Following the Civil Rights Movement, it's great to see shows with ethnically-diverse characters such as this. That's one of the brighter spots about it. I would like to think that had this gotten a second season, it hopefully would've been improved somehow, disregard-fully knowing Filmation's typicalities. To anyone who might be curious as to what this is all about, I say give it a whirl. It's worth a shot. This is one of those I prefer and would still take over things like Mega Babies and Almost Naked Animals, once again, any day. Recommended.

I remember being 12 and having my first real crush on a star and it was Rick Springfield in the "Mission Magic" animated series. The tunes heard every week were short but catchy. I have collected all of his earlier works and this Saturday morning series was a bright spot in my pre-teen day. Thanx Rick