| Mission: Magic! | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Cartoon series |
| Presented by | Filmation |
| Voices of | Lola Fisher Howard Morris Erika Scheimer Lane Scheimer Rick Springfield |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 16 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Norm Prescott Lou Scheimer |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | ABC |
| Original run | September 8, 1973 – December 22, 1973 |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | The Brady Bunch, The Brady Kids |
Mission: Magic! is an animated cartoon series starring pop singer and musician Rick Springfield. It was produced by Filmation, and was a spin off of the television show, The Brady Kids. Although only 16 episodes were ever produced, it aired on the US television network ABC weekly on the Saturday morning lineup from 1973 through 1975. It was also shown in television in Springfield's native Australia, where Springfield was a bigger celebrity.
Despite the fact that Springfield still spoke with a pronounced Australian accent in the mid-1970s, he provided his own voice for his animated doppelgänger. On the show, Springfield always wore white pants and a white sweater which sported on the front an encircled lowercase "r" with a lightning bolt in the background; this design was taken from the back cover of his 1973 album Comic Book Heroes.
Springfield is joined by a cast of characters:
They were involved in a weekly after-school group called “The Adventurers Club,” although it was the subject of debate whether the organization was a social club or an actual class as Miss Tickle often incorporated various school subjects into the group's adventures, added to which before and after every adventure they would be visited in the classroom by Mr. Samuels, the principal of the school who knew nothing of Miss Tickle's magical abilities.
Each Mission: Magic! adventure began by way of an enchanted Gramophone; Rick would communicate with the Adventurers via the Gramophone telling them where he was and invite them to come along. At this point Miss Tickle would aim her magic ring at Tut Tut, a ceramic cat on her desk who would come to life after Miss Tickle recited the incantation:
After drawing a magic door on the blackboard, Miss Tickle, Tut Tut and the students would meet up with Springfield and his familiar, an owl named Ptolemy, and then in their travels to mythical lands and various times solve a variety of mysteries encountered. At the end of each show, Springfield would perform a song, the theme of which was usually tied into the moral of the story. Springfield wrote, composed, and performed all of the songs on the program. A album with all of the songs, titled “Mission: Magic!” after the program, was released in 1974. A CD version was released in 2004.
Although Mission: Magic! was primarily intended to promote Springfield's teen idol status in America, the cartoon itself would be a forerunner for the 1990s PBS series, The Magic School Bus, in which Lily Tomlin provided the character voice of Miss Frizzle.
Both shows featured redheaded teachers who possessed magical powers, and both featured groups of students from diverse ethnicities and backgrounds. Moreover, the themes of both shows were twofold: entertainment and educational. On each weekly episode, both groups would go off on a variety of adventures, transcending both time and space, by use of magical means.
Contents |
BCI Eclipse LLC, under license from Entertainment Rights, released Mission: Magic!: The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1 on May 8, 2007. The 2 disc set includes many special features.
| DVD Name | Ep # | Release Date | Additional Information |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mission: Magic!: The Complete Series | 16 | May 8, 2007 |
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