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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
AH AL, who was that group in the sixties though who did a cover of 'all my loving', and it was like rats or gerbils singing it in really high squeeky voices, haha...well funny, you need to see the video of that, and i think (i kid you not) it was actually released as a single, lol!
alvin and the chipmunks did indeed do all my loving.....there was one by the grasshoppers too..and the barkers,barkers did i want to hold your hand......
I don't have any specific memories of The Banana Splits for some reason. I remember the later Krofft shows a litttle better. These shows are known for being influenced by drugs you know. Like The Muppets, Scooby Doo and weed. A bunch of ex-hippies making tv shows for kids I guess. Lucky us.
I have that Saturday Morning Cartoons CD. It's so cool. The Ramones do a really good Spiderman theme. Saturday morning doesn't mean anything to kids anymore. They've got cartoons on 24/7.
The Bugaloos theme song. They were supposed to be somehow based on the Beatles too. Forgive me for this, but t his song makes me think of early Syd Barrett era Floyd! http://krofft.dementedstuff.com/bugathem.wav
These shows are known for being influenced by drugs you know. Like The Muppets, Scooby Doo and weed. A bunch of ex-hippies making tv shows for kids I guess. Lucky us.
Don't forget the Smurfs. Whoever thought them up must've been stoned out of his mind. They're like... blue leprechauns.
You're so vain, you probably think this post is about you.
It seems all kids programme are given a drug connection. Magic Roundabout, The Telletubbies, Captain Pugwash, plus all the others. Puff the Magic Dragon was supposed to be a subversive drug song. All the people connected with the shows deny it of course. I think it's more likely that drug users connect with the simplicity of childrens programmes. (The Teletubbies is a delight on Ecstacy. For years folk delighted in recalling the subversive Captain Pugwash characters they watched as kids - Seaman Stains and Roger the Cabinboy (and Pugwash was supposed to be Victorian slang for a bl*w job). Yet it turns out none of these characters actually existed - yet everyone so wanted to believe that it passed into urban myth. A good example of mass misrecollection - and of people seeing what they wanted to see.)
Well, we can be naive and think that no one would EVER throw in a drug reference on a kids show, but I have a hard time believing that all those Scooby Snacks that Shaggy and Scooby craved after hanging out in their van weren't somehow a minor reference to the munchies. I also think the "Pufnstuf" in H.R. is a bit of a coincidence. It's not like the people that created these shows never had a drug experience. Remember, these people came out of the counterculture of the sixties. So maybe some of their experiences ended up on the shows. It's not that far fetched.
Well, we can be naive and think that no one would EVER throw in a drug reference on a kids show, but I have a hard time believing that all those Scooby Snacks that Shaggy and Scooby craved after hanging out in their van weren't somehow a minor reference to the munchies. I also think the "Pufnstuf" in H.R. is a bit of a coincidence. It's not like the people that created these shows never had a drug experience. Remember, these people came out of the counterculture of the sixties. So maybe some of their experiences ended up on the shows. It's not that far fetched.
I'd like to throw in, seeing as how I've watched many hours of scooby doo, very few things in the 70s could allow one to eat as much as shaggy and remain that skinny. Oh, and for christ's sake HE TALKED TO A GREAT DANE! I got into this with my English teacher, and then she threw in something about how she thinks I'm on drugs because I see things that aren't there. I called her a judgmental moron and got an in-school suspension.
My mom has The Banana Splits on DVD.
This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of Capitalism. Albert Einstein, "Why Socialism?" 1949
I don't have any specific memories of The Banana Splits for some reason. I remember the later Krofft shows a litttle better. These shows are known for being influenced by drugs you know. Like The Muppets, Scooby Doo and weed. A bunch of ex-hippies making tv shows for kids I guess. Lucky us.
I have that Saturday Morning Cartoons CD. It's so cool. The Ramones do a really good Spiderman theme. Saturday morning doesn't mean anything to kids anymore. They've got cartoons on 24/7.
The Bugaloos theme song. They were supposed to be somehow based on the Beatles too. Forgive me for this, but t his song makes me think of early Syd Barrett era Floyd! http://krofft.dementedstuff.com/bugathem.wav
Oh, and thats not really true for those of us without Cable/Satellite lke myself. Thats like the only time cartoons are on. Too bad with the exception of a few they all suck.
This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of Capitalism. Albert Einstein, "Why Socialism?" 1949
I guess they still have cartoons on on Saturday mornings, but not much, and like you said, they suck. They should just show old Bugs Bunny cartoons. You can't get much better then that.
Yeah. Well, you have Boomerang, which, I know from when I used to have satellite, shows exclusively the classics. But that still takes away from the saturday morning charm..
My mom and I were talking about cartoons a while back and she said they may as well have just called saturday mornings from when she was 8 or 9 The Weekly Trip or something, because by the time she was 15 or so they would watch those same cartoons (and Monty Python) high and get the same effect they got watching em straight when they were about 8 or 9.
This crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of Capitalism. Albert Einstein, "Why Socialism?" 1949
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there was one by the grasshoppers too..and the barkers,barkers did i want to hold your hand......
DM's Beatles forums › Other music forums › Various Artists, Lyrics, Discographies, URLs › The Banana Splits!