Crusader Rabbit

I was sitting at the computer and remembered an old show that I watched in the 1964-65 era. It was Crusader Rabbit and Rags The Tiger. I decided to look it up on this site, since this site has just about everything! Low and behold here it was. My family had just moved back from the navy base at Pensacola, Florida to Brooklyn, N.Y. to stay with my grandparents. We were awaiting housing at the military base in Keflavik, Iceland which was our next assignment. I remember for about 4-5 months getting up very early on Saturday mornings and watching "The Modern Farmer" at 5:30 A.M. since this was the only thing on T.V. Then at 6:00, on came a full hour of Crusader Rabbit. The must have played all the week's episodes at one time because you watched the entire show to 7:00. I sat there and ate my giant bowl of cereal and was glued to the set. It was great. Of course later I would be watching Fury, Roy Rogers, Sky King, etc. Then my mother would chase me out of the house to play stick-ball and handball with the old 25 cent pink Spalding rubber ball we could buy back in those days at the candy store. This was a great time for television shows back in the day. The family that lived next to my grandparent's house in Brooklyn was the Allegretti family. Their son, who was near my father's age, was Cosmo Allegretti. He was Mr. Moose and Bunny Rabbit on the Captain Kangaroo show. As kids we thought that was absolutely fantastic. Well anyway we were off to Keflavik for 2 years and would miss T.V. for that time. However not having T.V. and being on a base was great too. You went out and did things and everything was free or cheap. I would catch up on T.V. when I got back and sit with my cereal bowl again.

Ah Yes, the fantastic days of early New York TV, let see, what channels were available?? Ch 2, 4, 5,9, 11, and 13 before it was a Public Station.

Thank, gawd, I wasn't the only child to get up early to watch Modern Farmer, ha ha ha ha There was another farm related program which I can't remember the title, about an old geezer and his daughter. Then of course Crusader Rabbit, fantastic, some of the episodes can be seen on Youtube. I'm trying to figure out the theme music to Crusader Rabbit. I watched as a very young kid and then as a teenager, does anyone know if the 2nd version in the 60s used Swedish Rhapsody as the theme music or am I remembering wrong?

For some reason, the great hour-long Crusader Rabbit cartoons are unavailable. They had "punny" titles like:

If Anyone Can Yukon Sahara You Nothing Atoll Gone With the Wind-up Gullibles Travels Schmerwood Forest

And there were a few others. I would love to purchase this entire collection but they seem to be totally missing!

My sister, who is now 63, and I (60) still enjoy reminiscing about Crusader Rabbitt, which in 1952 was on in the late afternoon or early evening. She and I would rush home from playing outside, eat dinner, and frantically wash and dry the dishes so we could watch Crusader Rabbitt. After all these years I really do not remember specific details about the cartoon, but I do remember that Crusader was my hero, that I always wished the show were longer, and that there was always a cliffhanger at the end to ensure that you would watch the next day. Crusader Rabbitt, Space Patrol, and Super Circus were my favorite programs.

I was born after the original set (1949) of Crusader Rabbit cartoons, but the second set, in 1957, were a scream. They featured the irreverent style, chockful of puns, that made Jay Ward's later show, Rocky And Bullwinkle, such a huge hit. "The Yukon Adventure" took place in "If Anyone Can, Yukon"; characters had names like "Bilious Green" and don't forget the miserly "Titus Canby"; an episode that took place on "Nothing Atoll" with castaway Enrico Crusoe; and so on.