Animal Crack-Ups

As kids TV on the broadcast networks was on the verge of decline due to competition from cable, a rare Saturday morning game show aired on ABC titled Animal Crack-ups. Hosted by Alan Thicke (who also wrote and sung the theme song "Animals are Just Like People Too"), the show featured four celebrities playing for an animal related charity answering questions about the animal world. Correct answers earned toy monkeys and the celebrity with the highest number of toy monkeys won a $2500 bonus for their charity.

On the plus side, it was educational as young viewers learned about animals. The show made extensive use of footage from the Tokyo Broadcasting System. Thicke did an outstanding job as host. It's a shame he hasn't hosted any shows since Pictionary since he is very personable and interacts with the celebrities very well. He also gets help from Debbie Bartlett, who handles the animals used for certain questions. It's also opportunity to see Betty White test her animal knowledge in an episode. The only minus is that it's an all-celebrity show, which IMHO usually doesn't work since game show fans like to see civilians win money. It would have been better off to have the celebrities play for members of the studio audience like The Movie Game or Celebrity Bowling.

There have been very few successful Saturday morning game shows aimed at kids and Animal Crackups stands out mixing education and entertainment.

Alan Thicke hosted this show and it only shows Fred Savage on the credits? What's up with that? I was thinking about this show because because I just saw Alan's son Robin Thicke play and I was thinking, "What was that show Alan Thicke did on Saturday mornings on ABC about the animals." It was this show but you'd never know from IMDb. This is one of the few times I've found IMDb to have incomplete info on a mainstream network show. The thing that I always remembered about this show was the theme song. It went something like, "Animals are the funniest people, we love animals." I also remember this really good bit they had they're panel (who were playing for their favorite animal charity) guess what monkeys and squirls would do to get food and it was hilarious. The snow monkeys in particular stand out in my mind. I think they had so much about snow monkeys because the show had some deal with Tokyo television to get footage from them. They were always showing snow monkeys (not that I'm complaining).