Video: Loni Anderson and POGO

From May 15, 1980: here is a 90 second clip of Loni Anderson, hosting CBS Television THE FANTASTIC FUNNIES special, giving all of America its first look at the then-new I GO POGO feature film. The one and only Jonathan Winters voices Porky Pine.

Lee Mendelson Productions made the TV special, which showcased many comic strips. I GO POGO would be a direct-to-VHS release in the fall of 1980. My thanks to Twonky1701 for posting this clip.



From Twonky1701:

This was the first look at the I GO POGO (1980) stop motion animated feature length film. Introduced by actress Loni Anderson, The 1:11 movie clip (featuring the voice of Jonathan Winters as Porky Pine) aired as part of a one hour TV special THE FANTASTIC FUNNIES on the night of Thursday May 15th 1980 at 8pm eastern standard time on the CBS Television Network.

The movie itself was based on characters created by syndicated newspaper cartoonist Walt Kelly, that ran in comic books starting in 1943, and then transitioned to the newspaper comics pages from 1948 until 1975.

The show was produced by Lee Mendelson Productions (famous for the animated PEANUTS TV Specials) and featured appearances by a variety of famous comic strip characters. This scene appeared in a slightly edited form in the final film which was initially released direct-to-video in September of 1980 by Fotomat. It was never released to theaters as planned (though there is a movie poster that survives from the aborted theatrical attempt). It has never been officially released on DVD, only on VHS and Beta home video, in 1980, 1984 and 1989 (respectively).

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