Mach Five

The Mach Five (マッハ号, Mahha-gō) is the racing car Speed Racer (Go Mifune in the Japanese version) drives in the anime series of the same name (known as "Mach Go! Go! Go!" in Japan). The car was designed, built, and created by "Pops Racer" (Daisuke Mifune), Speed Racer's father. It features a set of special devices which Speed Racer uses throughout the series. In the original 1967 series, the Mach Five is a white racing car with an 'M' written on its hood (which does not stand for "Mach 5", but instead stands for "Mifune", both Go's last name, and the name of his father's motor company). In the 1993 American remake, the design was completely changed.

Its name probably derives from the fact that speeds above Mach 5 are known as hypersonic. However, the Mach Five cannot reach Mach speeds. The name is also a pun in two languages: the word for "five" in Japanese is "go". However, the "go" used for the car's name is a suffix attached to the names of ships, etc. Thus, the car is known in the Japanese version as simply the "Mach".

An actual race car that most closely resembles the Mach Five would be an early Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa, designed by Scaglietti around 1958 through 1961. Another possibility of inspiration could be the Ford GT40, which was a very popular and successful racecar, mainly in Le Mans and other Touring series, in the 1960s. Another similar car is the Chaparral 2C.

Dethklok

Dethklok is both a virtual band featured in the Adult Swim animated program Metalocalypse, as well as a real band created to perform the band's melodic death metal music in live shows. The band was created by Brendon Small and Tommy Blacha. Dethklok is sometimes cited as an example of "comedy rock" on par with bands such as GWAR and Spinal Tap. The music heard on Metalocalypse is performed by Brendon Small, with others as needed. The first official Dethklok album was released on September 25, 2007, entitled The Dethalbum. The album debuted at number 21 on Billboard Magazine's Top 200 list. The band released Dethalbum II on September 29, 2009, and toured with Mastodon, High on Fire and Converge. Small and drummer Gene Hoglan performed on both albums.

In the Metalocalypse series, Dethklok is depicted as an extremely popular and successful death metal band. The band's fan base includes billions of metal fanatics, who frequently endanger themselves to watch the band perform live. With their widespread commercial success and lucrative sponsorship contracts, Dethklok is ranked as the world's seventh largest economy by the end of the second season.

The members of Dethklok are often portrayed as incompetent at almost everything not related to their profession. The band struggles to perform everyday tasks, including shopping for groceries, preparing food, and maintaining proper social relationships. They are often assisted by their manager and lawyer, Charles Foster Ofdensen, who frequently attempts to prevent the band from making poor decisions.

House of Cosbys

House of Cosbys was an animated cartoon about a Bill Cosby fan who creates a cloning machine to clone a series of Cosbys, each with a different personality.

There were four episodes made by Justin Roiland, each about five minutes. An unofficial fifth episode was also made.

It was first aired on the internet television channel Channel 101, and was the first of Channel 101's programs to spend three consecutive months at number 1.

The cartoon, which is based loosely on a true story, features main character Mitchell Reynolds (voiced by Jeff Davis) who invents a cloning machine in order to create his own personal Bill Cosby to entertain him. He then begins cloning several more Cosbys to help him around the house, much like in the plot of the 1996 film Multiplicity. However, the quality of the clones seems to deteriorate as the process is repeated, and he decides to stop using the machine, but when one of the clones subversively activates it, he discovers that every tenth Cosby he clones has super powers. At the suggestion of Data Analysis Cosby (the first super-powered Cosby) they decide to continue cloning Cosbys so that their super powers can be used to help the world.

House of Cosbys was cancelled when series creator Justin Roiland and Channel 101's site administrator Dan Harmon received a cease and desist letter from Bill Cosby's attorney in June 2005. One of the issues under contention is whether House of Cosbys is covered under the fair use, as parody. Supporters point out that many TV shows like Family Guy and The Simpsons have used Cosby's likeness, and have not been sued. However, there also is the factor that House of Cosbys used risque subject matter not in accordance with Cosby's character and comedy.

As a result of the cease and desist letter, the fifth episode was created by a different contributor and functioned primarily as an attack on Bill Cosby and his attorney.

Gleek

Gleek is a fictional character appearing in the animated series Super Friends and its related spinoffs. He debuted in The All New Superfriends Hour, which first aired September 10, 1977. Gleek's vocalizations were provided by Michael Bell.

Gleek is a blue "space monkey" and the pet of Zan and Jayna, the Wonder Twins. Gleek is often used as comic relief for the series, as the character often gets into mischief. A joke involving Gleek often ends episodes of the Super Friends in which he appears. Gleek has a stretchable, prehensile tail which can be quite useful. Gleek is also highly intelligent, as he clearly understands spoken English, even somewhat complicated concepts such as the various stages of simple strategic planning.

He communicates through the use of sign language, acting out scenes, and chattering in an unintelligible alien tongue. Gleek also helps the Twins when they need to travel: Jayna becomes an eagle, Zan becomes water, and Gleek produces a bucket to hold Zan while Jayna carries them both. A joke observation about this is that Gleek's other power is to materialize a bucket out of nowhere on demand. Possibly unrelated, the verb "to gleek" is the projection or "spitting" of saliva from the submandibular gland underneath the tongue.

Gidney & Cloyd

Gidney and Cloyd are fictional characters originally appearing in the American animated television program Rocky and His Friends (now known, along with The Bullwinkle Show, as The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show). Their names were adapted from the names "Sidney" and "Floyd", which Jay Ward said were the most boring names ever.

Gidney and Cloyd are both "Moon Men", inhabitants of Earth's Moon. They are essentially anthropomorphic but are shorter than most humans. Their skin is green with black spots and they have tufts of hair on the tops of their heads; they appear to be unclothed. They are able to disappear and reappear at will; they can disappear completely but sometimes their eyes remain visible (like the Cheshire cat's smile). Physically, they are nearly identical, although Gidney has a mustache, while Cloyd wears a belt and holster for his scrootch gun. The scrootch gun has the power to immobilize its targets for a variable length of time.
The Moon Men appeared in Jet Fuel Formula, the first Rocky and Bullwinkle story arc, broadcast 1959-1960. In this story they come to Earth in an attempt to thwart a rush of tourists to the Moon, only to become media celebrities themselves. They initially succumb to the temptations of fame but soon tire of it. With the help of Rocky and Bullwinkle they are eventually able to get home.

Peter Puck

Peter Puck is a hockey puck-shaped cartoon character. The puck, whose animated adventures appeared on both NBC's Hockey Game of the Week and CBC's Hockey Night in Canada during the 1970s, explained ice hockey rules, equipment and the sport's history to the home viewing audience. The voice of Peter Puck was provided by Ronnie Schell; the animation was produced by Hanna-Barbera studios. Nine episodes, each approximately three minutes long, were broadcast between periods of NHL hockey games.

The brainchild of NBC executive and New York Rangers season ticket holder Donald Carswell, who conceived the idea and scripted first drafts of the initial episodes, Peter Puck was developed for the television network in partnership with Hanna-Barbera. Designed to help introduce and popularize ice hockey among non-fans (especially children), Peter Puck became an instant and enduring hit with existing hockey fans. When they stopped carrying NHL games in 1975, NBC sold Peter's rights back to Hanna-Barbera, which later sold them to Brian McFarlane, a member of the network's NHL broadcast team (and the son of Leslie McFarlane, also known as author Franklin W. Dixon of Hardy Boys fame.)

Peter Puck made a comeback during the 2007 NHL Playoffs, as retailers began selling a line of retro apparel with the Peter Puck logo. That same year, PeaceArch Entertainmentreleased the entire series to DVD.

Since December 2007, the original Peter Puck has been shown during the first intermission of Toronto Maple Leafs games broadcast on Leafs TV. The clips are seen in their original form, with outdated rules and references omitted.

For the 2009-10 NHL season, Peter Puck returned to the CBC. He can usually be seen during the pre-game show, often known as Scotiabank Hockey Tonight but sometimes between games that make up the traditional doubleheader.

One Froggy Evening

One Froggy Evening is an approximately seven-minute long Technicolor animated short film written by Michael Maltese and directed by Chuck Jones, with musical direction by Milt Franklyn. This popular short contained a wide variety of musical entertainment, with songs ranging from "Hello! Ma Baby" and "I'm Just Wild About Harry", two Tin Pan Alley classics, to "Largo al Factotum", Figaro's aria from the opera Il Barbiere di Siviglia. The short was released on December 31, 1955 as part of Warner Brothers' Merrie Melodies series of cartoons.

A mid-1950s construction worker involved in the demolition a building finds a box inside a cornerstone. He opens it to reveal a singing, dancing frog, complete with top hat and cane. The box contains a document dated April 16th, 1892. The man tries exploiting the frog's talents for money, but as it turns out, it will not perform in front of anyone else. For the rest of the cartoon, the man frantically tries to demonstrate the frog's abilities to the outside world (first by trying to get an agent to accept him, then by renting out a theater), all to no avail. The haggard man spies a construction site and joyfully hides the box in the cornerstone of a building that is under construction. The timeline then jumps to the year 2056, where the building is demolished, and the box with the frog is discovered yet again by a 21st century demolition man, starting the process all over again....

Some critics and observers regard this cartoon short as the finest ever made. Steven Spielberg, in the PBS Chuck Jones biography Extremes & Inbetweens: A Life In Animation, called One Froggy Evening "the Citizen Kane of animated film." (Looney Tunes Golden Collection, Volume 5, Disc 2) In 1994 it was voted #5 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field. The film is ranked at IMDb as the sixth best short movie ever. In 2003 the United States Library of Congress deemed the film "culturally significant" and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Acme Corporation

The Acme Corporation is a fictional corporation that exists in several cartoons, films and TV series, most significantly in the Looney Tunes universe. It appeared most prominently in the Road Runner/Wile E. Coyote cartoons, which made Acme famous for outlandish and downright dangerous products that fail catastrophically at the worst possible times.

The company is never clearly defined but appears to be a conglomerate which produces everything and anything imaginable, no matter how elaborate or extravagant—none of which works as desired or expected. An example is the Acme Giant Rubber Band, subtitled "(For Tripping Road Runners)", which would appear to be produced specifically for Wile E. Coyote.

While their products leave much to be desired, Acme delivery service, on the other hand, is second to none; Wile E. can merely drop an order into a mailbox and have the defective and/or dangerous product in his hands (or on top of him) within seconds.

Snagglepuss

Snagglepuss is a Hanna-Barbera cartoon character created in 1959, a pink anthropomorphic mountain lion voiced by Daws Butler. He is best known for his famous catchphrase, "Heavens to Murgatroyd!", along with phrases such as "Exit, stage right!"

Snagglepuss first appeared in several episodes of The Quick Draw McGraw Show^[2] and became a regular segment on The Yogi Bear Show, starring in a total of 32 episodes. (See the list of episodes.) He also appeared in other Hanna-Barbera series such as Yogi's Gang in 1973, as a co-host for Laff-A-Lympics in 1977 and 1978, Yogi's Treasure Hunt in 1985 and as a teenager on Yo Yogi! in 1991.

Snagglepuss lives in a cavern, which he constantly tries to make more habitable for himself. No matter what he does, however, he always winds up back where he started or worse off than he was before. In some episodes, Snagglepuss is chased by Major Minor (voiced by Don Messick), a tiny-sized hunter, whose chases seem similar to the ones which involve Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny.

Butler's voice characterization is reminiscent of the more soft-spoken aspect of Bert Lahr's broad-ranging characterizations, specifically the Cowardly Lion in the 1939 MGM movie The Wizard of Oz.

Snagglepuss has three signature catchphrases. Before dashing off (whether to escape or for some other reason), he exclaims "Exit, stage left!" (or stage right, and sometimes even up or down), a phrase used in theatrical stage directions. Snagglepuss typically appends the adverbial focus particle "... even" to seemingly every phrase. His most famous is his perpetual exclamation, "Heavens to Murgatroyd!" - a line first uttered by Bert Lahr in the 1944 film Meet the People.

When the character of Snagglepuss was used for a series of Kellogg's cereal television commercials in the 1960s, Lahr filed a lawsuit, claiming that the similarity of the Snagglepuss voice to his own might cause viewers to falsely conclude that Lahr was endorsing the product. As part of the settlement, the disclaimer "Snagglepuss voice by Daws Butler" was required to appear on each commercial, thus making Butler one of the few voice artists to receive a screen credit in a TV commercial.

Yosemite Sam

Yosemite Sam is an American animated cartoon character in the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons produced by Warner Bros. Animation. The name is somewhat alliterative and is inspired by Yosemite National Park. He is commonly depicted as a short-tempered and extremely grouchy cowboy with an intense hatred of rabbits, especially Bugs Bunny. In cartoons with non-Western themes, he uses various aliases, including "Chilkoot Sam" (named for the Chilkoot Trail; Sam pronounces it "Chilli-koot") in 14 Carrot Rabbit (although in the same cartoon, when he tries to gain Bugs Bunny's trust, he cleverly invents alias "Square-deal Sam"), "Riff Raff Sam" in Sahara Hare, "Sam Schulz" in Big House Bunny, "Seagoin' Sam" in Buccaneer Bunny, "Shanghai Sam" in Mutiny on the Bunny, and "Sam Von Schamm the Hessian" in Bunker Hill Bunny and many others.

While Sam's basic character is that of a cowboy, he wears a black mask (or actually, just a wide black outline on the outer sides of his eyes) to show that he's an outlaw. This is so associated with his persona that he still wears the mask, even when dressed as a duke, a riff, a pirate or a viking.

With all his bluff and bluster, Sam stands in contrast to Freleng's calmly cocky rabbit. Sam is significantly tougher and more aggressive than Elmer Fudd when challenging Bugs. He is also quicker to learn from his mistakes, and never falls for the same ploy twice. However, it is Sam's own cockiness that always gets the best of him; Bugs learns to deal with Sam upon learning that he is incapable of turning down a challenge. Every time Bugs dares Sam to "step across that line", Sam can't help but do so, even if he steps off into empty space or down a mine shaft.

While unscrupulous and ornery himself, Sam consistently displays an odd respect for religious conventions. Whenever he is preparing to shoot Bugs, he says, "Now say your prayers, Varmint!" Which of course gives Bugs enough time to foil his intentions.

Another chief foil of Sam's humor is the ludicrous lengths he'll go to just to "get even" -- often with disastrous results to himself and his surroundings.

Astro

Astro is a canine character on the Hanna-Barbera cartoon, The Jetsons. He was designed by Iwao Takamoto, and originally voiced by Don Messick. Astro was more advanced than present-day dogs, in that he had a rudimentary grasp of the English language, albeit with r's in many places it shouldn't be, or replacing other letters. For example, "I love you, George" would be "I ruv roo, Reorge".

Astro was found by Elroy in the fourth Jetsons episode, "The Coming of Astro". When Elroy, Jane and Judy proposed keeping the dog to George, he was against it. To try and stay out of the "doghouse" with his family, he got an electronic dog. The electronic dog was supposed to be the new hairless, non-eating, protect your house, way to go. When a cat burglar tried to rob the Jetsons, the electronic dog attacked him (which he did to anyone wearing a mask). Elry tried waking Astro to get him to stop the burglar as a way to prove himself, but Astro turned out to be more interested in hiding in fear. However, when trying to escape, the cat burglar put the mask on George. The electronic dog then proceeded to chase after George. It was Astro (who was trying to run from the cat burglar) that inevitably caught the criminal (by accident) by crashing into him. This prompted George to decide that the electronic dog was not the way to go. They gave the electronic dog to the police and kept Astro as part of their family.