Eric is - Bananaman!

These days, the only chance you'll ever see a popular book brought to animation or "reviving" a classic animated series is either through;

A) an unnecessary, clichéd Hollywood movie stuffed with big stars and poor storytelling, or;
B) a chunk of episodes for a series that maintains no continuity at all and/or bears little resemblance to the original book whatsoever.

Case in point in terms of Yogi Bear and Muddle Earth. If you have never seen/read the original versions - PLEASE DO SO, for the sake of today's generation.

Back in the day, whenever a children's book or comic was brought to the small screen it was done properly: faithful to the writer/s's work and their followers. Cosgrove Hall did fantastically with Kenneth Grahame's Wind in the Willows and Terry Pratchett's Truckers - but though you're welcome to Marvel if you're into that sort of thing, one of my favourite comic strips was Bananaman... =D

Drawn by John Geering, Bananaman originally featured in a British Comic known as Nutty during the '80's before it merged within The Dandy. A funtastic series which is a complete farce on Superman, featuring villains galore (including General Blight and Dr. Gloom). But it still gave plenty of nods towards Silver Age and Marvelman whilst chock-a-blocked with our surreal British Humour.

The premise is simple: whenever schoolboy Eric eats a banana, he transforms into Bananaman, "ever alert to the call of action!", with helpful allies Crow and Chief O'Reilly by his side.

Then three years after his comic strip debut, the creators approached animator Terry Ward of Flicks Films (Mr Men, Nellie the Elephant, Junglies, Beano Videostars among others) to turn their comic into an animated series by the BBC and 101 Productions. So they did, with voices and ad-libbing provided by The Goodies (Tim Brooke-Taylor, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie), three talented chaps who aren't afraid of still being silly after a successful live-action cartoon-type series of their own - which only goes to prove that with the right people involved, a truer and memorable adaptation can be made possible (without too much tweaking)!

Though Bananaman still roams within the Dandy today, he just doesn't feel the same as he used to - but at least the original series has had enough a-peel to earn itself a massive DVD release. So check out an episode or two below and laugh yourself silly!




....and afterward, be sure to visit the following pages also!

An interview with Terry Ward of bringing Bananaman to animation

Toonhound's Bananaman Page

Bananaman on Wiki