Shirt Tales

The Shirt Tales are characters that were created in 1980 and were featured on Hallmark Cards greeting cards.

Cards

The animal characters wore T-shirts upon which a greeting card's message would appear. The Shirt Tale line of greeting cards were among Hallmark's best selling cards at that time, which led to the greeting card company teaming up with Hanna-Barbera Productions to adapt the Shirt Tales into a Saturday morning cartoon, which premiered on NBC on September 18, 1982.

TV series

Infobox Television
show_name = Shirt Tales


caption =
genre = Saturday morning cartoon series
creator =
director = Oscar Dufau
George Gordon
Bob Hathcock
Carl Urbano
John Walker
Rudy Zamora
developer =
presenter =
starring =
voices = "(See article)"
narrated =
theme_music_composer =
opentheme =
endtheme =
composer =
country = USA
language =
num_seasons = 3
num_episodes = 46
list_episodes =
executive_producer = William Hanna
Joseph Barbera
producer = Iwao Takamoto
Kay Wright
supervising_producer =
asst_producer =
co-producer =
editor =
story_editor =
location =
camera =
runtime = 30 min.
network = NBC
picture_format =
audio_format =
first_run =
first_aired = September 18 1982
last_aired = January 21 1984
preceded_by =
followed_by =
related =
website =
imdb_id = 0085090
tv_com_id = 22589The animated "Shirt Tales" cartoon featured Tyg Tiger, Pammy Panda, Digger Mole, Rick Raccoon, and Bogey Orangutan (so called because he spoke using a Humphrey Bogart-style voice). They all wore shirts which flashed various brightly lit messages reflecting the characters' thoughts. They lived in Oak Tree Park, and spent their time teasing Mr. Dinkle, the park ranger, and battling crime in and out of their hometown of Mid City. They zipped around the world in a vehicle known as the STSST (Shirt Tales' SuperSonic Transport) which could operate as a car, jet, boat, submarine, and just about any other form of imaginable ride.

After the TV show's successful first season, Kip Kangaroo was added to the cast of characters. However, no context was given for her joining the Shirt Tales.

On March 23, 1985, "Shirt Tales" was pulled from broadcast television for good, and the Hallmark franchise faded not long after as well. The show continued for a number of years as part of the USA Network's "Cartoon Express". "Shirt Tales" continues to be broadcast in selected countries around the world. In the U.S., it can occasionally be seen on the cable channel Boomerang.

In the two seasons of first-run episodes, a total of 23 episodes were made, 13 from the first season and 10 from the second. Each episode contained two 11-minute segments, for a total of 46 segments.

Episodes

eason One

# The Case of the Golden Armor/Crumblings Circus Caper
# Shirt Napped/Game Masters
# Elephant on the Loose/Big Foot Incident
# Horsin' Around/The Humbolt Ghost
# Mission Mutt/Vacation for Dinkel
# Digger Runs Away/Wingman
# Figby the Spoiled Cat/The Commissioner is Missing
# The Terrible Termites/Raiders of the Lost Shark
# Moving Time/Back to Nature
# Save the Park/Pam-Dora's Box
# Hapless Hound/The Nearsighted Bear
# The Magical Musical Caper/The Very Buried Treasure
# Dinkel's Ark/The Duke of Dinkel

eason Two

# Bogey Goes Ape/Digger's Three Wishes
# The Rain, the Park and the Robot/Digger's Double
# Kip's Dragon/Taj Mahal Tyg
# Double Exposure/The Outer Space Connection
# Brass Bogey/The Forbidden Island
# T.J.'s Visit/Pleasure Valley
# Saturday Night Shirt Tales/Kip's to Caper
# Dinkel's Buddy/the Big Setup
# The Ghost Out West/Dinkel's Gift
# Mayhem on the Orient Express/The Cuckoo Count Caper

Cast

* Richard Balin -
* Joe Besser -
* Joey Camen -
* Victoria Carroll -
* Nancy Cartwright - Kip Kangaroo
* Brian Cummings -
* Walker Edmiston -
* Marshall Efron -
* Bernard Erhard -
* Laurie Faso -
* Ernest Harada -
* Bob Holt -
* Buster Jones -
* Stanley Jones -
* Sherry Lynn -
* Tress MacNeille -
* Sparky Marcus - T.J. Tiger (Tyg's nephew)
* Kenneth Mars -
* Joseph Medalis -
* Howard Morris -
* Bob Ogle - Digger Mole
* Pat Parris - Pammy Panda
* Henry Polic II -
* Tony Pope -
* Robert Ridgely -
* Michael Rye -
* Steve Schatzberg - Tyg Tiger
* Ronnie Schell - Rick Raccoon
* Marilyn Schrefler -
* R. J. Segal -
* Michael Sheehan -
* Hal Smith
* John Stephenson
* Andre Stojka -
* Fred Travalena - Bogey Orangutan
* Herb Vigran - Mr. Dinkle
* Jimmy Weldon -
* Frank Welker -
* William Woodson - Commissioner
* Ted Zeigler -

Other media

* There were also two musical book-and-record sets released by K-tel International under the "Castle Rock" imprint: "A Song Saves the Park", and "Sunrise Surprise". However, both sets use sound-alikes for the voices, and are presented differently from typical read-alongs.

* The Shirt Tales appeared in the "Robot Chicken" episode Dragon Nuts voiced by Seth Green. The segment that features them involved some of the characters switching to more inappropriate slogans to attract the kids of the current (at the time) generation. A tiger (possibly T.J. Tiger) has the shirt "Tigga, Please" while saying this reason. Pammy Panda agrees with the slogan "More Trees, Less Bush." Digger Mole wears a shirt with a cannabis leaf and grows the plant in pots. Bogey Orangutan wears the slogan "Female Body Inspector." Rick Raccoon (with no speaking parts) shows the slogan "Pop 'n Lock," a reference to gun use. Then, a local zoo's ranger complains about the STSST buzzing around.

* Shirt Tales was also briefly mentioned by the character Nearl in Frisky Dingo.

External links

*imdb title|0085090
*tv.com show|22589