The Best of Tennessee Tuxedo
and The Best of Go-Go Gophers

With the success of March of the Penguins, it's only proper that the original educational Arctic native gets reintroduced to America. Tennessee Tuxedo (voiced by Don Adams of Get Smart fame) was a bowtie-wearing penguin that hung with a walrus buddy named Chumley. The twosome would escape from the zoo and land weird occupations like weathermen and deep sea divers. After screwing up on the job, Phineas J. Whoopee (Larry Storch from F Troop) would explain the tricks of the trade using his 3-D BlackBoard (3DBB). Instead of being mindless entertainment, this cartoon fooled us into comprehending science. I remember learning how to make a toy parachute from Mr. Whoopee. The show definitely worked its magic on me.

The Tennessee Tuxedo DVD contains 15 of the 70 cartoons featuring the polar pals. It's a shame that ClassicMedia and Sony Wonder didn't give us the real show with The World of Commander McBragg shorts included, though. There's no news if this single DVD is a teaser for a complete box set.

Some people have wondered why this show's writing wasn't as freakishly fun as Rocky and Bullwinkle and other cartoons made by Jay Ward Productions. That's because Tennessee Tuxedo was made by Total TV (they also produced Underdog and King Leonardo). It's easy to be confused. Both companies used the same Mexican animation factory, which is why they have roughly the same aesthetic. Also, they had the same TV syndicator that shuffled around the cartoons, which is why you might remember Underdog and Bullwinkle in the same show. Still, it's easy to tell these shows apart. Instead of a moose and squirrel outsmarting evil no good-nicks, the Penguin and Walrus smartened up their audience.

In direct contrast, we have Go-Go Gophers, which has zero educational content except to prove that gophers dressed up as Indians will always bring the pain upon coyotes masquerading as calvary. This is about as academic as the Three Stooges. The DVD has 21 of the 45 Go-Go Gopher cartoons. While this cartoon was fun when it played between Underdog episodes, if you hit the "play all" button, your mental health is at risk.

The big bonus feature on TT is numerous versions of "the riddle" segment. The bit featured Tennessee and Chumley giving Mr. Whoopee a kindergarten riddle that would be solved on the 3DBB. This is a landmark of limited animation. It allowed Total TV to reuse the same piece of animation a dozen times by just recording a new soundtrack and replacing a single frame for the punchline, They also have a few alternate takes of the theme song. There are no bonus features on Go-Go Gophers.

These DVDs are not a great gift for animation purists -- ClassicMedia and Sony Wonder cut out the title cards and used an alternate audio track for the TT theme song -- but at least they are priced low enough to compensate for such compromises. -- Joe Corey