The Banana Splits Cut Up Again
Warner Brother Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the Blu-Ray I reviewed in this blog post. The opinions I share are my own.
Back in February, there was a news item on various TV and cartoon oriented boards that a movie was in the works featuring the Banana Splits. For anybody under the age of 55, these were four live-action costumed characters who hosted a “Laugh-In” comedy and cartoon show on Saturday mornings, starting in 1968. Only there would be a twist: the Banana Splits movie would be a “made-for-TV splasher flick!”
This provoked the usual comment section outrage. Mostly along the lines of “How dare they do this to my cherished childhood memories!” Well, yeah, I liked the show too, when I was a kid. But like a lot of these people, I rarely gave a second thought to my “cherished childhood memory” over the intervening 50 years. Besides, it seemed like a waste of effort to put Bingo, Fleegle, et al, in a pedestrian slasher movie. Maybe it would have a twist that would turn the genre on its ear, like the reimagined “Flinstones” and other Hanna-Barbera comic books DC Comics put out a while back.
When I was offered a preview copy of the movie, I said “send it on,” hoping to find a surprising new twist on a couple of tired genres.
Continue reading “Movie Time: The Banana Splits”