When I first stumbled upon this show last Summer, I really wasn't too pleased. TNT had replaced its industrial-strength WB/MGM 2-hour cartoon bloc with this show, and I felt awfully betrayed. After all, it was way better just seeing the cartoons without some retarded puppet show breaking in to them. In the first episode I saw, they actually inserted the characters: Rudy, a Howdy Doody-esque redheaded white boy puppet, JB, a dreadlocked little black boy puppet, and Go Go Goat, a live goat animated with some sort of computer pixillation; into the cartoons themselves. For a big-time fan of the classic WB shorts, that was SACRILEGE!!!!
This policy, thankfully, did not continue. From the next show on, the puppet show asides were kept out of the cartoons.
Sometimes, the screaming and endless tape loops of cartoons get a little tedious to say the least. But other times, the puppet shows reach a level of avant-garde art meets kid show that only the classic Pee Wee's Playhouse show matches. There is a streak of mutant humor running through this that you either like or don't like...there is no middle ground. It's like eating Sushi. You either take to eating raw fish, rice and atomic-strength horseradish, or you don't and you criticize those who do.
A lot of adults got their first dose of Rudy And Go Go on New Year's Eve, when Rudy, JB and Go Go Goat hosted the "Flaming Cheese Ball," a collection of truly cheesy old movies introduced by the puppets and their quadruped buddy. The producers of the show managed to scrape together a treasure trove of weird shorts that they interspersed through the show, along with the retarded puppet show. Most notable were a couple of Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys shorts filmed for the "Soundies" machines of the 1940s...pretty hip, guys! They also introduced a thread which I suspect they're going to beat to death this year...they're running Go Go Goat as a Presidential candidate. Well, just about anything's better than Clinton and his Republican challengers...I can say that I give my qualified support to the Go Go ticket this year, provided that JR "Bob" Dobbs doesn't throw his pipe into the ring.
It's retarded, it's weird, it's sometimes annoying but damn if I don't find it a lot of fun. Another thing that the Rudy And Go Go crew seems to be doing is sneaking in less cut-up versions of the WB and MGM shorts. I saw one version of Fresh Hare they have not shown in years, complete with the Minstrel Show finale, and reports on rec.arts.animation suggest that this is not the first time. If this was intentional and not a goof, I applaud them. I have always thought the politically-correct, "sanitized for your protection" versions of the Golden Age cartoon shorts were far more offensive than the violence, racial characterizations and occasional ribaldry that the censors were editing, and it wouldn't hurt parents to sit their kids down and explain that:
All in all, The Rudy And Go Go World Famous Cartoon Show is worth watching. My only regret is that they cut the show first from two hours to one hour, then to the half-hour length the show is currently running at. What do we need, another dose of Scooby Doo and The Flintstones, when TNT's sister station TBS already plays the hell out of them? No, we need Rudy And Go Go, classic shorts, perhaps some old little-seen H-B shows like Atom Ant, Super Secret Secret Squirrel and Ruff & Reddy, and more of the retarded, infectiously funny and surreal puppet show.
(NB: The show is now "down for retooling"...an ominous sign.)
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