The Get Along Gang

The Get Along Gang were characters created in 1983^[1] by American Greetings' toy design and licensing division, "Those Characters from Cleveland" (now American Greetings Properties), for a series of greeting cards. The Get Along Gang was a group of twelve (and later, fourteen) pre-adolescent anthropomorphic animal characters in the fictional town of Green Meadow, who had formed a club that met in an abandoned caboose and who had various adventures whose upbeat stories intended to show the importance of teamwork and friendship. The success of the greeting card line led to a Saturday morning television series, which aired on CBS for two seasons, from September 1984 until June 1986.

Each of the characters had obvious faults, which they learned to overcome with the aid of their friends. Montgomery Moose, the group's leader, was quite clumsy, Woolma Lamb was extremely vain and self-centered, Dotty Dog could be careless, Portia Porcupine had temper tantrums, Zipper Cat could be overbearing, and Bingo Beaver could be greedy and tended to get himself and/or others into trouble, although he was not mean-spirited like the Gang's enemy, Catchum Crocodile.

Characters

The Get Along Gang franchise was loosely inspired by Hal Roach's Our Gang series of short films.^[1] The following six members of the gang were the core members:

• Montgomery "Good News" Moose (Sparky Marcus) - The leader of the Get Along Gang who was sometimes awkward. Well-rounded, he excelled in athletics while tinkering in electronics and science.
• Dotty Dog (Bettina Bush) - A cheerleader and second-in-command to Montgomery, who was not always careful.
• Woolma Lamb (Georgi Irene) - An aspiring ballet dancer who seemed to be defined by her vanity. She was often seen carrying a mirror to admire herself.
• Zipper Cat (Robbie Lee) - An athletic feline who was always playing the tough guy, despite being friendly to the rest of the gang.
• Portia Porcupine (Sherry Lynn) - The youngest member of the Gang. She was very inquisitive, but tended to cry or throw tantrums when frustrated.
• Bingo "Bet-It-All" Beaver (Scott Menville) - A prankster and gambler who was, on the other hand, quite nice.

Six other members of the gang did not make many appearances in the series, but they were regulars in merchandising and on storybooks:

• Braker Turtle (Frank Welker/Don Messick) - Ironically, the fastest runner in Green Meadow. He enjoyed being hip, despite his nerdy appearance. Braker made occasional speaking appearances in the DIC cartoon series, usually as a friend of the gang kids, but did not appear to be a full-time member of the gang.
• Rocco Rabbit - A reformed bully.
• Rudyard Lion - A foreign-exchange student, who had a crush on Woolma.
• Flora "Forget-Me-Not" Fox - An avid botanist and photographer who was extroverted despite appearing shy to others.
• Bernice Bear - Very sensible and liked to keep things neat and tidy. She was also proficient in cooking and sewing.
• Lolly Squirrel - Her father owned a candy factory. She tended to be a bit of a tattletale at times.

Two new members to the gang were added sometime after the thirteen television episodes were produced:

• Hocus Hare and Pocus Possum - A pair of magicians.

The two regular villains of the show were the only non-mammals in the series (Braker excepted):

• Catchum Crocodile (Timothy Gibbs) - A constant troublemaker who was always trying to take whatever he wanted, regardless of whose it was. More than once he tried to steal the Gang's clubhouse caboose.
• Leland Lizard (Nicky Katt) - Catchum's dopey sidekick, who was sometimes not as dumb as he looked. In the pilot he was able to change color, but he showed no such ability in the series. His main clothes worn were his pants, suspenders, captain hat, and shoes. He later wears a shirt.

Other characters included:

• Officer Growler (Don Messick) - A bulldog police officer.
• Mr. Hoofnagel (Don Messick) - An old goat who owned and operated the local ice cream parlor.
• Miss Deering (Sherry Lynn) - A deer who was the kids' teacher.
• Susie (Sherry Lynn) - Bingo's pen pal, a squirrel who likes exercise.
• Mayor Bascombe Badger - The mayor of Green Meadow.
• Schneider Squirrel - Lolly's father and owner of the candy factory. Schneider appeared only in the Marvel comic book stories.

TV series

Nelvana produced a pilot episode of The Get Along Gang, which was broadcast on the Nickelodeon cable network in April 1984. The plot revolved around the twelve members of the gang as they try to win a scavenger hunt despite Catchum's cheating and their own competition-fueled infighting. Although all twelve characters were involved, only the six core gang members (Montgomery, Dotty, Zipper, Bingo, Woolma, and Portia) had speaking roles. Among the voice talents in the pilot were Charles Haid (then of Hill Street Blues) as Montgomery and Dave Thomas (fresh from his days on SCTV) as Leland. The pilot also aired in syndication nationwide during the summer of 1984. John Sebastian, famous for working for Nelvana at the time, wrote and sang for the pilot.

For reasons unknown, in between the pilot episode and the series premiere on CBS, production of the series was handed over to DIC Entertainment. Thirteen half-hour episodes were produced, each containing two eleven-minute segments. As with the pilot, the focus was on the six core members of the gang, with the other six members making very sporadic appearances. Out of those six, only Braker Turtle had a regular speaking role. The show returned to CBS in reruns from January–June 1986. From September 1986 until August 1987, all thirteen DIC-produced episodes were rerun as part of a short-lived syndicated cartoon package called Kideo TV. Reruns of the series later aired on The Family Channel (now ABC Family) from 1990–1993 and on the children's programming block of Pax TV (now Ion Television) from 1999-2001.

Voice talent on the DIC-produced series included Timothy Gibbs (Catchum), Scott Menville (Bingo), Don Messick (Officer Growler, Mr. Hoofnagel, others), Frank Welker (Braker, others), and a young Nicky Katt (Leland).

Other merchandise

The brief series spawned a large range of merchandise and spin-off projects including stuffed toys and action figures made by Tomy and a series of storybooks published by Scholastic Press. The Tomy action figure line and Scholastic Press books actually lasted longer than the DiC cartoon series itself.

The characters were also adapted into comic books. In America, their series, which ran for six bi-monthly issues in 1985 and 1986, was published by Marvel Comics' Star Comics imprint. In the United Kingdom, Marvel UK published a weekly Get Along Gang comic, which ran for 93 issues from April 1985 until January 1987.

Reception and criticism

In 1986, Ralph Novak of People Weekly observed that Nelvana's pilot special "is enlivened by the music of John Sebastian and some relatively sophisticated (for television) animation. Cartoon violence is only the most innocuous sort."^[2]

The series was the product of an era in the 1980s when television watchgroups held great influence over children's programming, demanding that shows intended for young viewers emphasise positive values rather than violence or conflict. Consequently, critics of the series accused it of attempting to reinforce the importance of group harmony over individualism.

In an August 8, 1997 article written by television/cartoon writer Mark Evanier for his website, POVonline, in which he recalled writing for the Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series, which premiered one year before The Get Along Gang, Evanier noted:

[Television watchgroups] all seek to make kidvid more enriching and redeeming, at least by their definitions, and at the time, they had enough clout to cause the networks to yield. Consultants were brought in and we, the folks who were writing cartoons, were ordered to include certain "pro-social" morals in our shows. At the time, the dominant "pro-social" moral was as follows: The group is always right...the complainer is always wrong.

This was the message of way too many eighties' cartoon shows. If all your friends want to go get pizza and you want a burger, you should bow to the will of the majority and go get pizza with them. There was even a show for one season on CBS called The Get-Along Gang, which was dedicated unabashedly to this principle. Each week, whichever member of the gang didn't get along with the others learned the error of his or her ways....

...I don't believe you should always go along with the group. What about thinking for yourself? What about developing your own personality and viewpoint? What about doing things because you decide they're the right thing to do, not because the majority ruled and you got outvoted?^[3]

Decline and attempted revival

In mid-to-late 1985 the toy and greeting card sales began to decline, the first sign of the Gang's popularity waning. A few products (plastic figurines, some greeting cards, and a coloring book) were released, with Hocus Hare and Pocus Possum joining at the tail-end of the Gang's run. The greeting card and toy line ended in 1987.

In mid-2004, the Joester Loria Group, a licensing and marketing agency, announced the addition of The Get Along Gang to its stable of classic properties. Plans called for the availability of merchandise, such as clothing, toys, games and home decor;^[4][5] this relaunch never materialized. In 2005, American Greetings started plans for an official relaunch of the franchise, which was going to feature 5 new characters: Mogo (a moose), Reagan (a dog), Hatch (a cat), Mayfield (a lamb) and Domino (a beaver), accompanied by an elderly Portia Porcupine, now named Mrs. Bristlemore.^[6] There was even a CGI pilot in development at Richcrest Animation (an unfinished version of this pilot has been posted online). However, for unknown reasons the revival project was shelved by late 2007.

Home entertainment releases

Karl-Lorimar released the Nelvana pilot on VHS shortly after it premiered on television in 1984. During the show's run, Kideo Video released several VHS tapes that included select episodes.

In April 2007, plans for a DVD release of the series were announced by S'More Entertainment (who released The Littles, another DIC series, to DVD); however, the planned release was announced to be cancelled a month later because American Greetings, who owns the property (and thus had the final say on the matter), would not approve it.^[7] Before the announcement of the cancellation, a representative of S'More stated that it was unlikely the release would include the pilot episode, since it involved royalty issues with Nelvana (producer of the special) and with John Sebastian (whose performing in the episode required music clearances).^[8]

On July 19, 2011 Mill Creek Entertainment released The Best of The Get Along Gang, a 1-disc set featuring 10 of the 13 half-hour episodes (20 of the 26 individual stories).^[9][10] The episodes not included on the set are Nose for News, Camp Get Along, School's Out, The Bullies, That's the Way the Cookie Crumbles and Snowbound Showdown.

In other countries

While the characters' popularity was strong only in the United States, the series was released in several countries and dubbed into local languages. In Spanish, the series was translated as La Pandilla Feliz (The Happy Gang) and aired on local channels in Mexico, Costa Rica, Venezuela and Chile, but did not have the same impact or popularity of other 1980s cartoons. In Brazil the series was translated as Nossa Turma (Our Gang) and was a modest success running on SBT during the late 1980s and early 1990s. In France, it was known as Les Amichaines. The series also aired in the United Kingdom in the late 1980s, where it was a modest success too, also generating merchandise in the country.

Episode guide

Nelvana

Pilot: The Adventures of the Get Along Gang (1984)

DIC

References

External links

• Don Markstein's Toonepedia entry on The Get-Along Gang
• The Get Along Gang at the Internet Movie Database
• The Get Along Gang at TV.com
• Adventures of the Get Along Gang (pilot) at 80sCartoons.net
• Yahoo group - Get along Gang
• The Get Along Gang Central