Saturday Morning Cartoon

"Okay, maybe my dad did steal Itchy, but so what? Animation is built on plagiarism! If it weren't for someone plagiarizing the Honeymooners, we wouldn't have the Flintstones. If someone hadn't ripped off Sgt. Bilko, they'd be no Top Cat. Huckleberry Hound, Chief Wiggum, Yogi Bear? Hah! Andy Griffith, Edward G. Robinson, Art Carney. Your honor, you take away our right to steal ideas, where are they gonna come from?" - Roger Meyers from The Simpsons episode "The Day the Violence Died".

After the success of creating one of the most iconic superheroes ever, Bob Kane eventually moved out of the comics field and in 1960 started "creating" characters for cartoons. He came up with Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse - a parody of his Batman and Robin characters. Strangely this cartoon foreshadowed the more campy version of Batman that would soon follow.

The only opening credits I could find are in another language but it adds some charm to the show.




In 1966 Kane did what everyone else was doing - he jumped on the super spy bandwagon with Cool McCool. McCool was an inept spy that managed to save the day in spite of himself.

It's awfully similar to the earlier 1965 live action TV series Get Smart but with Dick Tracy inspired villains. For that matter the later cartoon series Inspector Gadget is similar to Cool McCool. They even both have mysterious characters who are always sitting in chairs (in McCool it's his boss Number One, in Gadget it's the evil Dr. Claw.) The recycle never ends.