The Banana Splits Adventure Hour

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"One banana, two banana, three banana, four!
Four bananas make a bunch, and so do many more!
Over hill and highway the Banana Buggies go,
Coming on to bring you the Banana Splits show!"

The Banana Splits Adventure Hour was a Saturday morning series from Hanna-Barbera shown on NBC in the late 1960s. Live actors in full-body costumes portrayed Fleegle the dog (voiced by Paul Winchell), Drooper the lion (voiced by Allan Melvin), Bingo the gorilla (voiced by Daws Butler) and Snorky the elephant. Sid and Marty Krofft Productions designed the Banana Splits' character costumes.

The foursome did comedy sketches, performed songs and introduced the following action segments:

  • The Arabian Knights: A Five-Man Band of heroes fought evil in pre-Islamic Arabia.
  • The Three Musketeers: These short adventures were adapted from the book by Alexandre Dumas père.
  • Micro-Ventures: A scientist and his two teenage children visited Mouse World to observe insects up close.
  • Danger Island: This was the serialized live-action segment, set on and around a Pacific island. Memorable for the Catch Phrase, "Uh-oh, Chongo!". Directed by future-Goonie Richard Donner.

After the Banana Splits became popular, Hanna-Barbera tried to duplicate its success in 1977: Skatebirds on CBS. (Some sources had 1969's The Cattanooga Cats on ABC as live/animated with the Cats live costumes, but it was all animated.) When The Banana Splits was shown in broadcast syndication, and later on TBS, the following series were added to the package:

Interesting trivia: The Banana Splits title song (or rather, a high-speed cover version by The Dickies) puts in an appearance as Hit Girl's theme music in Kick-Ass.


Tropes used in The Banana Splits Adventure Hour include: