Deserting Dogpatch.

Of all the Hanna-Barbera cartoons that premiered in 1979, the only one I gave a five-star rating was "The New Shmoo."

Yes, it followed the "Scooby" format like so many others. But it held my interest as Shmoo, Mickey, Nita, and Billy Joe traveled to different towns and islands to observe and expose phony ghosts, monsters, and aliens. Some adventures took place right there in their hometown, which obviously wasn't Dogpatch. But Billy Joe, with his southern accent, sounded like he left L'il Abner territory, and took Shmoo with him.

This show would alternate between two short episodes, and one full half-hour one. The short ones had the gang meeting a female psychic who predicted crimes in advance, a mystical pyramid that restored youth, and a robot whose efforts to repair damage during a storm were mistaken for brutal attacks. The half-hour ones had Shmoo and company investigating sightings of mythical creatures on an island, visiting an underwater city that was probably Atlantis, and even going to Transylvania for an encounter with Dracula himself! Always, Shmoo's shape-shifting skills saved the day.

The show also had a segment called "Sing Along With Shmoo." This had the cast singing classic kiddie songs like "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt," "Down By The Station," and "The Old Gray Mare." I sort of liked these, despite the fact that I was 18 by then.

H-B must have decided that the original Shmoo's abilities to mass produce eggs and milk would have been out of place in an animated series. But I didn't mind one bit. I continued to follow it when it became part of "Fred And Barney Meet The Thing," and it was retitled "Fred And Barney Meet The Shmoo."

But that was a foreshadowing of things to come, for a year later, Shmoo really did meet Fred and Barney when he was featured in "The Bedrock Cops" segment of "The Flintstones' Comedy Hour." I did see a couple of these episodes, but they couldn't hold a candle to those from the previous year. I kept thinking, " Put him back with Mickey, Nita, Billy Joe, and Mighty Mysteries Comics! Please!"

Sadly, by coincidence, Al Capp died the same year Shmoo became a cartoon character. So perhaps all this was an intentional tribute. I wish this one would come out on DVD. There's just one full episode on YouTube, and that just isn't enough for me.

Trivia Question 39: In the episode "Swamp Of Evil," what unusual physical trait did the swamp animals have?

Answer: They had two heads.

The cartoon Shmoo changed shape like Gloop and Gleep from "The Herculoids". Frank Welker used a charming falsetto gibberish speaking voice for the Shmoo. Chuck McCann played Billy Joe, Dolores Cantu-Primo played Nita, and Bill Idelson (who played teenagers on various radio programs in the 1940s and later became a writer of tv series episodes) played Mickey.

Al Capp's comic strip Shmoo never changed shape but the creature was still very versatile... Shmoos can become loyal loving pets, and can lay fresh eggs in cartons, give milk in bottles, and can be used for food (one has to look hungrily at a Shmoo and the Shmoo dies of sheer happiness and flings itself into a skillet to be cooked...tasting like chicken when fried, tasting like steak when broiled, tasting like pork when roasted, tasting like catfish when baked, and tasting like oysters in the half shell when eaten raw...Shmoos are boneless and therefore there is no waste). Their whiskers can be used for toothpicks, and their eyes can be used for shirt buttons, and they reproduced like crazy...and threatening the world's economy. The Army was usually called in to violently eradicate the Shmoo population to save the world...but there were always Shmoo survivors to start a new booming population for the next storyline.