The Funny Company (TV)

(1963)
Created by Kenneth C.T. Snyder
Voices by  Dick Beals,Robie Lster, Nancy Wible,Ken Snyder, Tom Thomas, Hal Smith
IMDB Entry

When people talk about Saturday morning cartoons, they’re usually referring to the theatrical cartoons that were repurposed for TV (Bugs Bunny, Tom and Jerry, Popeye) or half-hour made-for-TV shows (Rocky and Bullwinkle, Magilla Gorilla, Tennessee Tuxedo). But that was only a part of it. There were various short syndicated cartoons that were sold to local kid shows as filler. One example of this was The Funny Company.

The cartoon showed a group of kids as the Funny Company, which included Buzzy Bell, Jasper N Parks, Polly Plum, Terry Dactyl (a pterodactyl), Shrinking Violet* (who could shrink down to tiny size). and several others. Each episode had them doing some sort of task, where they crossed paths with Belly Laguna.** Laguna planned some sort of nefarious task, which failed due to the efforts of the Funny Company.

Most memorable was the show’s  theme song

The show came out at a time when television was being criticized for its lack of educational content, so,as a selling point, it stopped the story (what little there was) to show a two-minute educations film, usually with the help of their computer, the Wisenheimer machine.

Over 250 episodes were filmed, filling time not only on Saturday morning, but during the week.

______________________________________________________
*No relation to the member of the Legion of Superheroes, who came first. It wasn’t likely a case of plagiarism; both got their names from the flower.

**A Bela Lugosi ripoff.