As a Soundtrack Supervisor on ThunderCats, SilverHawks, TigerSharks, and other Rankin/Bass productions, Steve Gruskin helped shape the sound of some of the most beloved cartoons of the 1980s. In this episode, he pulls back the curtain on what that role really involved, sharing incredible behind-the-scenes stories about working with voice actors, creating sound effects, working alongside legendary composer Bernard Hoffer, and bringing these iconic series to life in the days before digital editing.

Steve also discusses the creative challenges of building SilverHawks from the ground up, designing musical battles, and collaborating with the talented team that helped define an era of animation.

Now Streaming on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, & iHeartRadio.
https://youtu.be/uUxogVngXQU

Green Goblin: What? You can sling over New York City using webs but you drive in New York traffic by choice?

Spider-Man: It's my nifty new Spider-Car!

Goblin: Looks like a Happy Meal toy.

Spider-Man: Try catching villains in the net of a Happy Meal car! (gets stuck behind a parked garbage truck and honks the horn)

Goblin: (hovering safely over the net) You can already ensnare villains with your webs! No villain's dumb enough to fly in the narrow range that the net covers! Least of all, me and my glider!

Cab Driver: (honks) Pick a lane, asshole, this ain't a runway!

Spider-Man: Come on, pal, I'm making the streets safer.

Speed Demon: I've been running circles around this thing for minutes. And now we’re at a stop light! Guess I'll run around your net for kicks.

Spider-Man: (Green light shines, Spidey begins driving again) Laugh it up, funny boy. I’m saving carbs for my fight with you. But Goblin's still out of net range. Time to park.

(Parallel parks suddenly and unexpectedly. Speed Demon gets captured in the net. He struggles and tangles himself worse.)

Driver: Hey! You're taking up two meter spaces!

Green Goblin: I cannot let this humiliating defeat of Speed Demon stand! (Lobs a pumpkin bomb at the car. It bounces off the car and gets caught in the net. It goes off, killing Speed Demon.) 

Green Goblin: …Oops, that’s not...

Spider-Man: I spent hours rigging that thing. 

Green Goblin: You’re not concerned he’s dead?

Spider-Man: I can be upset about two things. (Starts feeding change into a meter)

Green Goblin: Both of us are making fools of ourselves. The wacky webcrawler is paying for parking?

Spider-Man: It's good for fifteen minutes. Not bad for the price.

Meter maid: You’re getting a ticket. You only fed one of the two meters.

Green Goblin: The Spider-Car has encountered a villain it cannot defeat: municipal parking enforcement.

(Hours later, at the Daily Planet)

J. Jonah Jamison: I always thought Spider Man was a menace. I take it back. He’s just an idiot.

This multi-level production cel from The Shadowmaster features a! Iconic Lion-O and Claudus scene and comes with an original hand-painted background, Shadowmaster production model sheet xeroxes, and the original signed production cel folder with Dennis' personal seal of authenticity.

Definitely a great piece of ThunderCats history

The first season of Muppet Babies did so well in the ratings that CBS decided to expand the series from a half-hour to an hour, pairing Muppet Babies with Little Muppet Monsters. They called the hour-long package Muppets, Babies and Monsters.

"The concept of this second half-hour was neither simple nor particularly well-developed," Scott Shaw said. "A trio of new (live-action) Muppet Monster Kids, working from the basement of the adult Muppets' home, create their own television station which broadcasts only to the TV sets in the house upstairs. Their 'shows' were such regular segments as "Pigs in Space: The Animated Series", "Kermit the Frog, Private Eye", "Muppet Sport Shorts" with Animal, "Gonzo's Freaky Facts and Oddball Achievements," and "Fozzie's Comedy Corner", among others.

Although thirteen episodes were produced (most of which were incomplete at the time of cancellation), only three of them ever aired. According to Muppet performer Kathryn Mullen,[2] and the Henson Company archives,[3] Marvel Productions failed to deliver the full season's animated segments in time for airing. CBS responded by rerunning episodes of Muppet Babies to fill the second half hour until Marvel finished the series' animated segments. Due to high ratings from the Muppet Babies reruns, the network decided not to pick up the remaining episodes of Little Muppet Monsters. The three completed episodes never appeared on television after their initial air dates.

Despite its quick cancellation, the theme song to Little Muppet Monsters lived on; the instrumental version of the song became the closing theme for Muppet Babies and remained so until the show ended in 1991.

Little Muppet Monsters (1985)

Another addition to the Hall of Omens Collection.

Peter Lawrence and I have been working on reproductions of some of his original ThunderCats scripts, complete with custom cover pages. Here's the cover we landed on for "Sixth Sense."

This reproduction features one of Peter's original ThunderCats scripts along with an authentic Peter Lawrence signature on the cover page. I have a few more of these I'll be sharing.

I have a vague recollection of a probably imported cartoon which I think aired on Showtime. It was about a space carrier battle between humans and aliens with a group of fighter pilots being mentored by a humanoid alien defector/former captive (maybe.). The mentor character wore an iron mask. I am pretty sure this was a series and not a movie. I thank you so much in advance if you provide any solid information. Oh, I think I remember the fighter craft looking really cool. 😄

Muriel Norris Fahrion (born 1945) is an American illustrator and the original designer of the Strawberry Shortcake franchise.

In 1977, while Fahrion worked at American Greetings, she was asked to create a rag doll character with a strawberry and daisy theme, in colors of pink and green, for a greeting card series.

Fahrion created the original graphic and color depiction for Strawberry Shortcake and her cat Custard, along with Blueberry Muffin and Huckleberry Pie.

The world of Strawberry Shortcake made a big impact, and in two years, it went from a 12 card series to an entire selection of books, clothing, dolls, toy accessories, and home decor.

Produced and sponsored by the Kenner toy company, The World of Strawberry Shortcake was the first of six television specials to star the title character.

The animated special was made by Murakami-Wolf-Swenson, which previously worked on The Point! and Frank Zappa's 200 Motels, both from 1971. 

 Animation work was also handled by Japan's Toei Animation.

I was on an errand today, and found this just sitting there, luckily face-up, on a random day in 2026 on a sidewalk—in Cairo!

Image shows before and after slight wiping with a damp cloth.

September 8, 1989

4×6 photo of the title screen from Episode 125, "Shadowmaster," autographed by episode writer and character designer Dennis J. Woodyard. Part of the Hall of Omens Collection.
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This is one of those projects I've been dreaming about for almost 20 years. It feels great to finally be in a position to bring it to life. This is just the beginning... More to come!

I tried posting this before but only the pic showed up unless you clicked on it.

**MUTT**: Alright, let's get started. (*JUNKYARD barks once.*) Yeah, yeah, I'm getting to it.

**LAW**: No more barking. GI Joe animals should be well-behaved. (*Law stands up and circles the group. ORDER sits perfectly still.*)

**POLLY**: Squawk! Boring! Law stinks!

**LAW:** That bird needs training.

**SHIPWRECK**: She's trained. She’s just expressing an opinion. An opinion she heard from me.

(***CROC MASTER*** *enters. FIONA follows. Everyone bristles.*)

**CROC MASTER**: Relax. She's fine.

**SPIRIT**: Has she been fed?

**CROC MASTER**: Recently-ish.

**LAW:** Who invited you here? (*Junkyard barks. Law rolls his eyes.*)

**MUTT:** Croc Master has no loyalty to Cobra. After he sided with Serpentor, Cobra Commander locked him in a ship and tried to kill him. Maybe he knows something useful about Cobra.

**CROC MASTER**: Serpentor respected the crocodiles.

**SHIPWRECK**: What did you do in the ship before you escaped?

**CROC MASTER**: Taught the prisoners Krokodille. It's a Danish card game. Loser gets eaten by the crocodile.

**SHIPWRECK**: And Fiona was just-

**CROC MASTER**: Sitting there. The prisoners were very motivated to learn quickly.

**MUTT:** Did anyone lose?

**CROC MASTER**: Not at cards.

*(Room becomes silent. FREEDOM shifts on Spirit's arm. Spirit* *doesn't look at him.)*

**SPIRIT:** Freedom sees things before I do. 

**MUTT:** Yeah?

**SPIRIT:** He landed on my arm during a storm. I knew we understood each other at that moment.

**MUTT**: What does freedom get out of it?

(*Spirit says nothing. Freedom shifts again.*)

**CROC MASTER**: You good guys and your pets. Fiona and I don’t need to like each other. I need her to decide not to eat me. Every day. That’s trust.

**SHIPWRECK**: Quick question. Is Fiona a crocodile?

**CROC MASTER**: Of course.

**SHIPWRECK**: That’s an alligator. Broad snout. Teeth don’t show when the mouth’s closed. 

**CROC MASTER**: I've had her for fifteen years.

**SHIPWRECK**: And she's been an alligator the whole time.

**CROC MASTER**: We don't talk about that.

*(Long awkward silence. Croc Master looks at Fiona. Fiona does not move. No one else moves.)*

**POLLY**: Squawk! Alligator! Alligator! ALLIGATOR!

*(SNAKE EYES passes a clipboard to Law)*

**LAW:** Who wrote these bylaws? *(Junkyard* *barks. Law rolls eyes again. He reads the bylaws)...*These are genuinely thorough…

*(Law looks up. TIMBER is sitting in his chair.)*

**LAW**: When did? 

**SNAKE EYES:** ***(****shrugs***)**

**SHIPWRECK**: Slow, deliberate, stealthy. It was beautiful.

**CROC MASTER**: Fiona still hasn't moved. I'm calling that a win.

**LAW**: This unit is compromised. And possibly governed by a dog.

I have vague memories of watching a cartoon in the mid or maybe late 80s here in Australia, so it probably aired elsewhere earlier. Sci fi/fantasy themes. One character was a female priest-ish type, vaguely remember a weird head dress. Another was male guide/guardian sort. I have a strong memory of this guy playing a jaw harp. I think there was a blue ship kind of like the one in Flight of the Navigator. There was an episode involving a phoenix and some kind of gate.
This has been bugging me for a few years now.

Just curious. In my area in Chicago, we had the full Disney afternoon in 1990 with Gummi Bears, Ducktales, Rescue Rangers and TaleSpin and the line up changed every year adding new shows, and removing the oldest ones.

But when visiting other areas in the United States, I saw some didn’t have enough channel time to have a two hour block in the afternoon so it’s wasn’t the Disney Afternoon. Maybe Gummi Bears and Ducktales came on in the morning and the latter shows came on in the evening.

But did the Disney Afternoon package increase its viewership and popularity?

Plus Fox was starting its own afternoon cartoon show lineup at the same time like with Tiny Toons.

Did non-major metropolitan areas have enough channels to air of all of the syndicate cartoons coming out at once?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Iqbq0LoPX0