Toon In with Me
Toon In with Me is an American live-action/animated anthology television series created by Neal Sabin for MeTV and MeTV Plus.[1][2] A special preview episode aired on January 1, 2021, with the main series officially debuting on January 4, 2021.
| Toon In with Me | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Comedy Anthology Puppetry |
| Created by | Neal Sabin |
| Directed by | Mike Schmiedeler |
| Starring | Bill Leff Kevin Fleming Leila Gorstein (Seasons 1-2) |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 638 (1 preview episode) (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer | Neal Sabin |
| Producers | Lisa Carl Adam Manta John Owens Rob Rodi |
| Running time | 60 minutes |
| Release | |
| Original network | MeTV MeTV Plus |
| Original release | January 1, 2021 – present |
| Related | |
| Sventoonie (2022–present) | |
The show is hosted in live-action segments by Bill, MeTV's "cartoon curator", along with his puppet friend, Toony the Tuna. Each episode contains five animated shorts taken from classic series including Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies, Tom and Jerry, Betty Boop, Popeye, Casper, The Pink Panther, The Inspector, Roland and Rattfink, Color Rhapsody, Woody Woodpecker and many others.[3]
Unlike previous anthology series or reruns of these classic cartoons, many of these airings are remastered from their original negatives. Many of these remastered shorts have not been released on home media or streaming, making these airings the first time some of the cartoons are seen remastered and restored in HD.
Premise and characters
Toon In with Me harkens back to locally produced children's programs that aired from the 1950s through the 1990s, with a live-action host, comedy and puppet segments in between classic cartoons.
The show is hosted from the MeTV studios by Bill the Cartoon Curator (played by Bill Leff).[4]
His co-host is Toony (puppeteered by Kevin Fleming), a cartoon-loving tuna puppet, whom Bill has to take care of while Toony's owner, Goldie Fisher (Leila Gorstein) (Seasons 1-2), is away on a world tour. As they present all of the cartoons, Bill and Toony deal with various issues in the studio, video chat with Goldie and receive useful information from game show host Mr. Quizzer (also played by Fleming). Fleming and Gorstein also play many other characters.
Each episode contains five or six classic animated shorts (except for "MeTV’s Cartoon Kick-Off Show", which contains ten), and most shows end with Bill and Toony showing off drawings and photos sent in by fans via the show's website.
On Friday, June 24, 2022, Leila Gorstein left the show in the episode "Farewell Goldie", and as Leila left the show, so did a number of her characters such as Boxcar, Bill's Mom, Lorna Green, Sue P. (from Sales) and others.
Episodes
Spin-off
Sventoonie, a spin-off television series of Toon In with Me as well as the Me TV hosted horror movie series Svengoolie, premiered on Me TV on March 26, 2022. Sventoonie is also hosted by Toony (voiced and performed by Kevin Fleming). His co-hosts are Blob E. Blob, a puppet blob fish DJ who speaks in sound effects, and Trevor Ground, an undead video store clerk (performed by Steven Fleming)[5] In the series, Sventoonie and his guests provide breakdowns and commentary of a condensed edit of a horror movie from the set of Svengoolie.[6]
On July 16, 2022, MeTV announced that Sventoonie would be renewed for a second season beginning in October 2022.[7]
Series featured
Toon-In With Me showcases classic animated theatrical shorts from the Golden Age of American Animation. Most of the cartoons shown are from Warner Bros. or subsidiaries owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, such as Turner Entertainment Co. This includes the original Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons made by Warner Bros. cartoons, cartoons originally made by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer cartoon studio (ie. Tom and Jerry, Droopy, Barney Bear, Screwy Squirrel, George and Junior, and Happy Harmonies) as well as the Popeye the Sailor and Superman shorts from Fleischer and Famous Studios originally released by Paramount Pictures (under licensed with King Features Entertainment for Popeye original comics and WB's subsidiary company, DC Comics for Superman characters).
Outside of Warner Bros, Toon In With Me also showcases cartoons owned by other studios such as Amazon's Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (ie. DePatie-Freleng cartoons: The Pink Panther, The Inspector and Roland and Rattfink), Sony's Sony Pictures (Screen Gems' Color Rhapsodies), Paramount Global's Paramount Pictures (under Melange Pictures, LLC) (Max Fleischer's Betty Boop and Color Classics), and Comcast's NBCUniversal (Walter Lantz's Woody Woodpecker).
References
- Beck, Jerry (January 25, 2021). "INTERVIEW: Cartoon Curator Bill from MeTV's "Toon In With ME"". Animation Scoop. Archived from the original on February 5, 2022. Retrieved February 25, 2022.
- Gables, Rick; Gables, Christina (January 12, 2021). "MeTV Celebrates 10th Anniversary with Launch of 'Toon in With Me'". TV Insider. Archived from the original on February 1, 2021. Retrieved January 26, 2021.
- "'Toon in With Me' Premieres January 4 on the MeTV Network". Animation World Network. December 22, 2020. Archived from the original on August 20, 2022. Retrieved February 25, 2022.
- Milligan, Mercedes (23 October 2020). "MeTV Announces Hosted Morning Classics Show 'Toon In With Me' for 2021". Animation Magazine. Archived from the original on 30 November 2020. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
- "IMDB.com Sventoonie". IMDb. Archived from the original on 1 August 2022. Retrieved 1 August 2022.
- Feder, Robert. "MeTV expands 'Svengoolie' franchise with fishy friend 'Sventoonie'". Daily Herald. Archived from the original on 21 June 2022. Retrieved 21 June 2022.
- "MeTV Sventoonie the Red Tuna of Terror will be Simming Back for a Second Season". Archived from the original on 1 August 2022. Retrieved 1 August 2022.