Toy collector, that's me. I'm not a psycho collector, just an old LA punk whos always collected little toys and nik naks to put up around the house. I'm pretty nostalgic, watch old cartoons, hum their tunes, you know... All of a sudden I remembered this CD and when it came out in the mid-90's. I found it for a great price here on ebay, and waited eagerly for it's arrival. When it did, of course I had to "test" it... Bands like the Ramones, Violent Femmes, Reverend Horton Heat, Sublime, and The Murmers, were all off the "grunge" radar at the time, and these little known bands were my play favs. Some had been around for a while, others with Sympathy for the Record Industry, etc...So when I saw the ads at the Hollywood Virgin store next to an equally awesome poster for the CD "If I were A Carpenter" (songs by great alt. bands of 70's Carpenters covers), I said "I got to have it!" Starting with the Tra La La song (from 60's Banana Splits show) sung by Liz Phair, it's enough to get you moving and singing along, after all if you're picking this up, you know the words...Sponge does a decent version of Speed Racer, and the Archies Sugar Sugar covered by Semisonic is just darn sweet. Collective Soul does The Bugaloos, Matthew Sweet does a 70's guitar omage to the original 60's Scooby Doo theme, The Ramones version of the dark, eerie, 60's cartoon Spiderman theme is their usual buzzsaw (kids now probably think they wrote it themselves) and Butthole Surfers' Underdog = Amazing! I could keep going, most of the CD's great till about track 13, The Fat Albert Theme, crappily done by Dig (remember them? Of course not), Face to Face's Popeye the Sailor had heart but honestly some of these guys were out of their element. Tripping Daisy's Sigmund the Sea Monster (the Sid and Marty Kroft 70's live action) was pretty forgetable (had to look it up) but then even though I watched Sigmund I was more of a Dr. Shrinker fan. Some bands you could tell really put some heart into these songs, others tried to hard to play them to their own style, and some just sounded like they were trying to make a buck (Helmut doing Gigantor for one, like those guys even remembered it, but I'm biased by the old Dickies version). The rest of the album starts to slow down with bands like Sublime, who great in their own right, shouldn't have done Hong Kong Phooey. However the Toadies doing the Goolie Get Together definately brought memories of that cartoon back, and the Murmers version of H.R. Puffnstuff was great as well. The fact they threw in the Happy Happy Joy song from 90's Ren and Stimpy should show just what a huge impact they were at the time but so wrong for this tribute. Perhaps the guys in Wax thought that was a Saturday morning cartoon and sent in in so late they just threw it in. The point is, this is an album of songs from old cartoons, songs some of us can never, ever forget. Songs that bring back bitter but mostly sweet memories of Saturday mornings, Capn' Crunch, Life cereal, Tang, Evil Knevel, Oscar Meyer, Zips sneakers, Toosie Roll, and Hostess' Twinkie the Kid commercials...Some of these bands actually got hits out of these (Violent Femmes, The Ramones), but the idea for this album was one of love and nostalgia. Frankly, it pulls it off.....Read full review
I love this CD. All the songs take me back to Sugar Corn Pops in front of the TV on Saturday morning in my pj's. This is actually the 2nd time I have purchased this CD. My original was destroyed, I couldn't find it anywhere locally, So I am very pleased to have found it here. I don't know any of the bands that play on the CD but think that they all did great work with the songs they perform.
The songs on this disk are from my childhood. The best thing about it is that modern artists are doing the songs and while they keep to the originality of the tunes, they put their own flavor on them. I have had this disk in the past and things happen to disks. I have gotten my kids listening to them and finding out that the bands on this disk have made other music which my teens are going to other outlets and hearing more and more music by the groups on the disk. I like it when I can give my kids the gift of learning new music, styles of music and all I had to do was use Cartoon cover tunes... Simple good fun music
It's just a fun punky little trip down memory lane. Some great classic theme songs redone by some great bands in the punk/alternative genres. With just enough variety in style and sound to please just about anyone! With tracks from artists such as Liz Phair all the way to the Ramones and Sublime. If you can find a copy, buy it and enjoy!
Great cartoon theme remakes. Brought back a lot of memories. Hard to find. Great Deal.
Verified purchase: Yes | Condition: New
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