The show featured the adventures of a musical quartet, meant to be reminiscent of the Beatles and the Monkees, consisting of Fleegle, a beagle; Bingo, a gorilla; Drooper, a lion and Snorky, an elephant. The characters were played by actors in fleecy costumes similar to later Krofft series such as H.R. Pufnstuf.
The Splits' segments, including songs-of-the-week and comedy skits, served as wraparounds for a number of individual segments. In the United States, The Banana Splits Adventure Hour featured the first appearances of the animated segments The Arabian Knights, The Three Musketeers, Micro Ventures, and The Adventures of Gulliver, as well as The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn which combined live-action with animation. It also contained the live-action segment Danger Island, a cliffhanger serial starring a young Jan-Michael Vincent as Lincoln "Link" Simmons. Danger Island was directed by future Superman director Richard Donner and was meant to be a live action equivalent to Jonny Quest, another Hanna-Barbera property.
After the cancellation of the original series, the characters were revived in the 1972 TV special The Banana Splits in Hocus Pocus Park. Unlike the television show, the Splits spent most of the film in animated form.
Music
The Banana Splits' bubblegum pop rock and roll was provided by studio professionals, including Al Kooper ("You're the Lovin' End"), Barry White ("Doin' the Banana Split") and Gene Pitney ("Two Ton Tessie"). The music director was prolific songwriter and producer Mark Barkan who also wrote the main theme. David Mook produced some of the tracks. At least three singles, "The Tra La La Song", "Wait Till Tomorrow" and "Long Live Love" were released by the Splits along with an album, We're the Banana Splits. Two 45 RPM EP records with four songs each were available via an offer on the back of Kellogg's cereal boxes.
A bootleg CD of all the released Splits recordings was made and released in the late 1990s on the "Hollywood Library" label.
The Californian punk band The Dickies released a sped-up version of "The Tra La La Song" as the "Banana Splits (Tra La La Song)" which entered the UK charts in 1979.
In 1983, Bob Marley and the Wailers released the song "Buffalo Soldier" on the album Confrontation. Some have said the song was highly deriviative of "The Tra La La Song." Liz Phair and Material Issue recorded the "The Tra La La Song" for the 1995 compilation album Saturday Morning Cartoons' Greatest Hits.
In 2005, "I Enjoy Being A Boy" was covered by They Might Be Giants for their first podcast. The separate mp3 was released for free on their site.
Trivia
The Banana Splits lived in Hocus Pocus Park, where the cuckoo clock always read 6:55.
Fleegle was the only character that did not wear eyeglasses.
Snorky was the only character that did not talk. He made a honking sound whose meaning was interpreted by other characters.
The arch-enemy gang of the Banana Splits were the Sour Grape Bunch, which were always represented by individual young girls who would dance messages to their front door.
Cast
Fleegle: Paul Winchell
Bingo: Daws Butler
Drooper: Allan Melvin
Snorky: Don Messick
Author
Topic: The Banana Splits! (Read 5791 times)