WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO THE HEROES?????
Notes on Roger
Ramjet.
As this palpitating
episode begins....... One of the meagerly insignificant contributions
to the world of low budget animation, Roger Ramjet, has disappeared
from evident history. Even the supergeek highway, the internet, has
little in the line of praise, or anything, for this “ Internationally
well known good guy “. For the uninitiated, Roger Ramjet, a dimwit
hero with a big chin was created in the early ‘60s by animator
Fred Crippen. He was a strange crossbreed of Marlon Brando’s muscular
awkwardness and Groucho Marx’s unashamedly low humour, and fought
all manner of ruthless villain, turncoat, criminal and general scum,
with the aid of his trusty cohorts, Yankee, Doodle, Dan and Dee, otherwise
known as the American Eagles.
I always kinda wondered
where these kid’s parents were........ Roger always had that weird
scout leader/child abductor air about him. I mean, who were these kids
and where did they come from.... how were they ever entrusted into the
parental guidance of Roger?.... Even watching back on the episodes,
it’s difficult to ascertain what these kids get out of it. Doodle,
the small fat cynic, crops up most, but he’s more likely to be
found with his head in the fridge than bounding enthusiastically towards
possible danger. Dan, the bespeckled brilliant young inventor is usually
busy creating something with no possible realistic application. Dee,
the pony tailed girl with big eye lashes - Rarely seen, but more likely
to be a hindrance to the entire operation than anything else..... definitely
a kidnap victim waiting for an opportunity. As for what we assume to
be the eldest, Yankee....... well, he’s just there..... says next
to nothing, rarely contributes significantly to any situation. A sub-mental
perhaps?
Roger’s mid
‘6Os adventures and escapades, more often than not, commissioned
by General GI Brassbottom at the Pentagon, took him up against the scum
of the earth. These included Arnold Overprice - a dodgy real estate
agent, Professor Mayoyourty - The 73rd most dangerous man in England
, Red Dog the pirate and his feathered friend - Coral Bob, Those negative
bad guys from outer space - The Solarnoid robots, and most evil of the
lot, a kind of disgruntled “Lex Luthor in a beige trench coat”
type called Noodles Romanoff.
It was always obvious
when Noodles was going to crop up in an episode..... Roger would be
relaxing by the phone in American Eagles Headquarters and the commentary
would cut to... “In that little den of iniquity half way up the
next alley, The National Association of Spies, Traitors and Yahoo’s,
otherwise known as N.A.S.T.Y., the organisation dedicated to crime,
espionage and being bad in general”..... This was always followed
by a harrowing close-up of the man from N.A.S.T.Y., Noodles Romanoff
as he addressed his No-goods, 3 incapable stuttering fools named Gerard,
Milton and Sylvia !?!?! Funnily, the N.A.S.T.Y headquarters varied in
physical appearance from a shitty run-down shack with planked up windows
to a slick, slender fortress with numerous turrets of machine guns....
I suppose it all depended on how “Crime, espionage and being bad
in general” was paying at any given time.
On many an occasion,
“the arch criminal, master spy and enemy of Roger Ramjet”,
Noodles Romanoff plotted and devised to rid himself of this flying do-gooder
on account of him being bad for business. These plans were carried out
in the form of kidnapping Ma Ramjet, setting Roger up for assault on
innocent citizens and the old favourite, trying to drop a safe on his
head...... needless to say, Noodles was always caught off guard by small
details he overlooked. On the occasion of the kidnapping of Ma Ramjet,
she agreed to get in the car with them claiming it was “The best
offer I’ve got all day”. Being a card shark, she subsequently
stole all their money at a poker game while waiting for Roger too save
her. Noodles got wise and accused her of cheating.... bad move.... Ma
Ramjet took one of her “Ma Ramjet’s Atomic Vitamins For
Senior Citizens (with get up and go got up and went)” which transferred
her from a mild mannered old lady into super mother..... you can guess
the rest......
And those pills.....
Roger’s Proton Energy Pills that gave him “the strength
of 20 Atom Bombs for a period of 20 seconds”...... the small white
tablets he popped every time a bad guy was about to be bashed.......
could those small pharmaceuticals be the reason why Roger had disappeared
from our TV screens........ Could it be that Roger is to blame for “The
Generation of the Pill Popping Fuckwit”, that is the 1990’s???????
It’s quite obvious that such an action in a childrens programme
is a total no-no these days, but was Roger actually responsible for
it all?????
Noodles wasn’t
the only cause for concern however..... as the highly irritating theme
music ended and “As this extruded episode begins.... ”,
of equal concern was the taste of Mr Morton Pumpkin of Lumpoc’s
morning cup of coffee.......... (as a general tidbit of information,
Lumpoc is suggested in many episodes to be Roger’s home town).
.................. In the world of Roger Ramjet, such a predicament
was likely to cause a national emergency. And it wasn’t only humans.........
machines also had it in for Ramjet. One particular call from General
GI Brassbottom declared that, “the machines of the world are taking
over...”, Roger’s reply was, “You can say that again,
just the other day a parking meter said to me....” .......the
General cuts him short and his words of wisdom are lost forever. Later,
it is discovered that a gang of machines hiding in a warehouse, “built
by the government to house surplus Green Bay Packer victories”,
are the ringleaders. Headed by a disgruntled Jukebox who’d been
replaced by a rock’n’roll group, the machines decided that
they’d had enough of not being given their “Just due”.
Particular trouble makers were traffic lights.... and a seedy looking
bubble gum dispenser is seen lurking in the background. When Ramjet
comes to save the day, the jukebox sets type writers on our hero, instructing
them to “Semi-colon him to death”.
Which brings us
to the non terrestrial fiends........ it makes you wonder what sort
of technology created the Solarnoid robots. Of all arch enemies of Ramjet
and the American Eagles, they are the most banal. Their masterplan was
to land on earth, act like everyone's friend, gain confidence until
the entire planet is taken in by them, and then run for president of
the USA, thus taking over the world. On hearing the bad news from a
panicking General GI Brassbottom, Roger calms him down with the reassurance
that , “It’d never happen. They haven’t established
residency yet”.
And finally, a word
on the creator of this superhero..... little is publicly known about
Fred Crippen, aside from his involvement in running the annual Screen
Cartoonists Golf Classic...... a Hollywood tradition, started in the
early ‘50s for animators, which has seemingly survived recession,
the collapse of old studios, strikes and overseas job losses. As a result,
the odd reference to the sport is understandably made in Roger Ramjet,
mostly by General GI Brassbottom. It’s possible that the general’s
character is Crippen himself - a cantankerous old troglodyte - as you
would expect most golfing animators to be. In one particular episode,
Brassbottom is heard warning our hero, “This better be good, I
broke a golf date to come here.......” Other
than that, the only other evidence that Fred Crippen still exists is
the odd production credit on JOHNNY BRAVO....... a stroke of genius
which contains the same robust humour. It has been suggested that Buzz
Lightyear is a possible distant relation of Ramjet.... a fair deduction,
but Johnny Bravo in particular bears all the marks of a family strain
of genes which have been kept reasonably pure.......
“What’s
important in life is Liberty, the pursuit of happiness and the occasional
candy bar”.
- BOZ
back to top
site by dopolous at
