When I was a tiny girl, I used to watch this special Hanna-Barbera hour featuring such zany live-action costumed animals sharing a groovy 2-D pad splashed in such bright psychedelic colors that would remind you of Pee-Wee Herman's Playhouse several decades later. All donning cool shades and old-fashioned firemen's helmets, the funny furry foursome - Bingo the toothy gorilla, Drooper the swingin' lion, Snork the woolly elephant, and my most favorite of all, Fleegle the floppy beagle with a cherry red tongue - would all run, turn around, bump into each other, hop around, and go tumbling all down as well as being scared right out of their wits by the sudden appearance of a little girl, surviving a day at an amusement park, playing such silly tunes in a band typical of cartoons from the '60s-'70s, and just plain engaging in such wacky adventures that would set off any Gen-X off into helpless gales of laughs and memories. And then after a whole series of a cuckoo bird popping out its head and then getting it whacked by a closing clock door and an ape's head moving its motorized mouth over the doorway, our singing hippie hosts would suddenly scurry away to make the way for a few short cartoons featuring The Four Musketeers and the Aladdin-like characters with their pet donkey as well as a live-action quickie all about a group of shipwrecked adventurers living on a tropical island full of crocodiles, pirates, and native cannibals. But once those little shows are over, our most beloved Banana Splits will be suddenly back with their banana-crazy antics and even more off-the-wall musical numbers to send off anyone growing up at the time on a very pleasant nostalgic trip all the way back to their Brady-Bunch childhood of the swinging Sixties and Seventies. Today, you can still visit your old rockin' pals at the most ungodly hours during the weekends on the Cartoon Network!
