Starting out as a series of greeting cards, the Shirt Tales would be popular enough to get a TV series from Hanna-Barbera. In this, the Shirt Tales, Rick Raccoon, Tyg Tiger, Pammy Panda, Digger Mole and Bogey Orangutan, are five little animals living in Oak Tree Park in Mid City. Unknown to their caretaker, Mr. Dinkel, and everyone else, the Shirt Tales are local heroes, as they are called by the commissioner when something strange is going down in their city.
So, basically, this show is a neat one. The Shirt Tales are good (Bogey is my favorite due to the fact he is based on Humphrey Bogart, as his name is a version of Bogart and he speaks like the legendary actor), and the stories all vary. And Mr. Dinkle is basically the Shirt Tales' take on characters like Ranger Smith and Sarge from Hong Kong Phooey, as he keeps watch in Oak Tree Park like Ranger Smith does for Jellystone Park, but like Sarge is clueless about Penry being Hong Kong Phooey, he is also clueless that the five animals he has to work in the park are the Shirt Tales that are in the news for busting crime. As the greeting cards have the character wearing shirts with message (hence the name), the characters also wear shirts that sometimes flash messages (how their shirts can do that is never explained), and each episode has two short adventures where the five take on villains like the video game-themed Game Master, Mesmo the evil hypnotist, or even helping animals in their plight.
However, it is not perfect, as some of the plots feel like they were repeats of older H-B show (one short has the gang taking on a ghost in a museum, which sounds like a Scooby-Doo plot). Also, the second season takes a huge drop when it comes to continuity, as Tyg replaces Rick as the leader (while the latter gets little to no time to shine like he did first season), and giving the team the power to activate Shirt Tale Time (which seems to do nothing more than turn shirts a matching red with no added powers), and a member named Kip, who is added in to give another female to the group (but is only there to be the kid of the group, effectively making the poor girl the Shirt Tales' Scrappy as well as a new character to make new toys of), with both the red shirts and Kip being added in without any explanation of how Kip came to be or how the Shirt Tales got their ability to change their shirts red (which is a major problem with most cartoons made by Hanna-Barbera, as most of these older cartoons have no origin story for the heroes or characters, or even a way to explain characters or abilities added in a new season). Yeah, I recommend watching for the first season, as it is the better season., but this is a good show and a neat 80's cartoon from an animation legend.
