The Jackson 5ive | Andrew’s Funshine All-Star Superstar Supercade Saturday! …Show 71

Stop! This cartoon show is all our own,

Let’s not take it slow,

Let’s cause some mess and sing our so-ongs

Hi, everyone and welcome back to...

Andrew’s Funshine All-Star Superstar Supercade Saturday! …Show 71

Today, we're gonna Get It Together and pier Through the Lookin' Glass in one of those cartoon star (recreations and re-voicings of) the members of some of the greatest real-life bands of all time. One of them is one of Motown Records greatest success stories -- a family band from Gary, Indiana going from a huge pop and R&B sensation to one of the most iconic and enduring groups popular music has ever given us. So let's save our love and gather our ABCs and 123s with our Mamas Pearls. It’s The Jackson 5ive. 

Five-ive??

The series aired for two seasons on ABC from September 11, 1971 to October 23, 1972, and was a massive hit (usually most Saturday morning cartoons last one season and would be lucky to even get reruns). And since the series is a cartoon version of the biggest and baddest band in the land at the time, could you blame the Alphabet network for giving the viewers and fans another (briefer) taste of their wacky, goofy, colorful animated world?

The Characters (Usually I start with the plot, put I’ll get the obvious here first):

Everybody knows The Jackson 5, so I’ll be brief with their toon versions from oldest to youngest.

-Jackie: The (probably self-appointed) leader (and the oldest) of the band, and bosses them

-Tito: A hot rod enthusiast and girl-crazy. He also wears a big flat cap.

-Jermaine: The snarky, sloppy voice of reason and a great cook. And good at drag.

-Marlon: The smartest of the group in regards to technology

-Michael: Wide-eyed, sweet and adorable with a very wild imagination.

And like the youngest Jackson in real life, cartoon Michael owns pets, but he has three here:

--A pair of mice named Ray and Charles: Named after R&B icon and one of Michael’s idols, Ray Charles, they do their thing helping the band in any tight spots they end up in by the villain of the week and use their ingenuity to get our heroes back on top. They’re cute, funny and tons of fun, just like…

--Rosey “the Crusher”, a pink snake with hypochondriac eyes (one green one red), light pink scales and a bell for a tag. Their mischievous yet charming nature and attitude has helped the band on many an occasion out of many a sticky situation and put them on top. (Oh and yeah, I did say “their”, because Rosey’s sex changes from male to female halfway through season 1 for some reason.)

Because the family band were very busy with their music and touring throughout the cartoon’s run, the boys in the series were voiced in their places by young voice actors:

Donald Fullilove as Michael Jackson

Edmund Sylvers as Marlon Jackson

Joel Cooper as Jermaine Jackson

Mike Martinez as Tito Jackson

Craig Grandy as Jackie Jackson

along with Berry Gordy voiced in three appearances by Paul Frees (who is white).

I didn’t watch many of the boys’ earlier interviews during their run as a group before this review, but from the sounds of things, these actors did a hip-hop-happenin’ (that means good) job of replicating the voices of the boys for the series. Their performances inject energy, jive, humor and fun to the show and make the dialogue highly listenable. 

The Plot:

The series features the family band going on tour throughout the country, ending up in many strange places and predicaments, goofing around and joking about, and using their collective genius to fix or break out of these situations and perform their music along the way and after saving the day.

In fact that’s how they started their career in music....

The Beginning:

In the first episode, the apply-titled “It All Started With...”, the boys were having a regular day at home in their hometown of Gary, Indiana; meanwhile a pink snake is louse-ing about at the concert hall hosting none other than Diana Ross (voiced by Ms. Ross herself). That snake is Michael’s and he sets out to get him back, with his older brothers setting out to get him back. After some trickery against the security guard and wild automobile goose chase through the auditorium, Michael finally catches Rosey to the eternal thanks by Ms. Ross, who gives the boys front row seats to her concert that evening. While waiting, the boys kill time by playing “ABC”, which impresses the building’s staff and Ms. Ross herself, who invites them to a session at Motown Records in Detroit when they grow up a little. After a good night’s sleep (and dreams of other careers in their futures), they find a loophole in Ms. Ross’ promise and travel to Motor City for their recording debut at Hitsville USA. But some hurdles arise in the waiting room; but they somehow manage their way to a recording booth where Motown founder Berry Gordy is watching Diana Ross make his iconic music. He is not pleased with the boys’ antics and wants them out of the building, his company and town. But Ms. Ross helps him cool down and realize potential and success may be found in the young upstarts. You know what happens next and history is made.

This pilot is a fun, funny, exciting, crazy and well-put introduction to the series and its version of the band and the folks they associate with. Plus, Ms. Ross did a wondrous job voicing herself. She didn’t have to voice herself for the cartoon, but since she did discover the boys, she felt it was the least she could do. Plus, I don’t think anyone could replicate her sweet, silky-smooth, peaches-and-cream, laying-on-cloud-nine voice as well as her.

The Plot (Again):

Many episodes focus on the antics of Michael and/or his pets, with the other brothers taking a backseat. They all end in the rest of the band getting sore at or laughing at Michael for his wild seemingly lucid dreams either screwing them over or ending up with him not getting what he wanted. And while it makes sense (seeing as he is the lead singer and face of the band), it would've helped to give the brothers at least one episode. To be fair to the production crew, they are very entertaining and make the series memorable. “Cinderjackson”, “Jackson Island” and “The Michael Look” are highlights.

The Animation:

Considering it’s a cartoon produced by the guys behind Rudolph, Frosty and Santa Claus is Comin’ to Town, it makes sense that the ink-and-paint for this cartoon (and one based on one of the biggest music acts on the planet) has to be nothing less than top-notch. And it is. The animated versions of the band look close to the boys themselves (loud fashions notwithstanding), and they managed to make Marlon and especially Michael look as adorable as they were as young boys in real life. The one-shot characters look like people in real life - not too cartoony (with animated versions of Diana Ross and Berry Gordy look spectacular), Michael’s pets and other animals look extremely cute, and the backgrounds (whether with black lines or like works by Bob Ross on a bad day look bright, colorful and beautiful. And the musical romps look like a great Sid & Marty Kroft-style acid trip; the drawings, patterns, movements and graphics are fluid, and even the static movements (especially when the band does their thing) are well repeated.

This is seemingly lampshaded in “Cinderjackson”, when a sick Michael opens a care package of soup from the family back in Gary and gets a strange steam of color and Dolphin Entertainment-made visuals leaving him and the pets staring in shock; in “Ray and Charles: Superstars” where Michael and Marlon go to an animation studio to see how cartoons are made; and in “Rasho-jackson” (one of many a parody of Rashomon) where we see all of the Jackson boys’ versions of the story told in different colors.

The Laugh-Track:

The series has one. It’s annoying. And poorly timed. Every time there’s a joke - even one that isn’t a strong joke - one always comes up. And there isn’t an assortment of tracks either. Just the same few laugh tracks that act like they just watched a scene of the weakest episode of “The Honeymooners”. Fortunately, Rankin-Bass replaced the track package for season two with a track that’s better-utilized and better-timed. I do love that there is an applause track on the series; because its about The Jackson 5 and their music, it makes sense to feature it; It feels like a variety show in that way. I wasn't used to hearing a laugh track in older cartoons during my childhood, but since I get to hear it here, it feels less weird with an applause being used too.

The Writing:

The writing was top notch in more than one way: development of the personalities of each Jackson, clever jokes and innuendo, jokes including the now extremely outdated jive speak (I heard “Cat(s)” and “Dig?” about a ton), funny running gags (“You think the brakes stick a little?”). My picks for the best=written episodes are “It All Started With...” and "Rasho-jackson".

The Music:
It’s The Jackson 5. What more can I say?

Each episode features two of the band’s songs (one during the middle and one towards the end) play with varying links to the plot as they do their best to stop the episode’s villain(s) from wreaking havoc on whatever city/town/county/ravine/wooded area/etc. the boys are contracted to perform or happen to go to, or whatever other antics they fall into. The early episodes outing provides us with one song we know and love and one track most of us haven’t heard of but will enjoy after hearing it. There’s even one catchy and funky song (“Reach In” in “Cinderjackson”) and loved so much that I bumped it more than once that day. It that touched my soul. Discovering and hearing other songs by The Jackson 5 that I’ve never heard before this toon revealed a new level of how much I appreciate their music as an adult than as a kid hearing just the hits.

When the original recordings aren’t playing, the show features studio recreations of the band’s hits as background music during non-romp scenes by longtime R-B composer Maury Laws, which to me are just as great and memorable as the band’s tracks -- like “I Want You Back”, “ABC” and “I’ll Be There”. (There’s also a version of “My Cherie Amour” by Stevie Wonder featured in some episodes.) Whether soft, sweet and smooth or big, brash and bombastic (which I prefer), these secondary renditions cannot be denied.

Speaking of hits, let’s talk about the theme song. The series theme is a “specially-recorded” medley of four of the band’s big hits: “I Want You Back”, “ABC”, “The Love You Save” and “Mama’s Pearl”. And let’s be clear -- the medley is just as fun, infectious & high-energy as those tracks are individually. The arrangement is on a lower scale than usual but fits in all four songs perfectly. I can’t tell whether the theme was recorded by the band (remember, they were too busy to record their voices for the show) or by Laws and his team with vocals by the boys who VA the band’s animated counterparts, but either way, the theme song slaps something fierce. Every time I watch an episode, I totally look forward to the theme and sing and dance along 

The series is available on DVD and Blu-Ray. If you don’t want to shell out the bread for a copy, you can watch it in its entirety on YouTube, which I highly recommend. It’s a lot of fun and worth a watch and is a great way to listen to their songs and get some animated and humorous bang for your buck.

The Conclusion:

I adore this series. As odd as it sounds, this year isn’t the first I watched it. I actually started watching around 1999 when it aired on TV Land as part of its "Super Retrovision Saturdaze" block. I remember waking up early one morning and I turned on my TV, flipping channels to find something good, and TV Land was airing one of the most important things to a kid like me: cartoons. What was on at the time was The Jackson 5ive, and (probably not knowing what they were) I watched, eyes wide and jaw dropped. And fell in love. I was five that year… and never forgot it since (Well, I never forgot the J5 into-break graphic ever since.) Watching it as an adult brought back those child-like vibes and made me appreciate the writing, animation, consistency and especially the Jackson 5’s music even more. Like the Beatles cartoon before it (and others like The Osmonds et al) The Jackson 5ive was a great showcase of The Jackson 5, capitalizing on the band’s popularity and showing entertainment in their goofier side. I just wish I remembered watching it more strongly.

And that is my review of The Jackson 5. Thank you for checking out this and my new segment Andrew’s Funshine All-Star Superstar Supercade Saturday… Show! 71. This segment is a lot of hard work and determination, along with watching the fun cartoons of 1971 throughout the month of February and giving you my thoughts on them in my usual charming, lemony way. Now that this review and segment has concluded, I hope to do this again with you next year for 1972.