« TeeVee: March 2006 | Main | TeeVee: September 2006 »

Evolution of a Shmoo

The ancient ancestors of the the Shmoo lived on the planet Quasar and were a member of the Herculoids, the coolest Hanna-Barbera cartoon ever. They were Gleep and Gloop. They were weird. I never knew anything about Shmoos; i just figured that Gleep and Gloop had somehow jumped shows and joined the Flintstones.

And just to totally outgeek everyone, it turns out that the NES videogame A Boy And His Blob was inspired by The Herculoids, but not the Shmoos:

I got word straight from A Boy and His Blob creator David Crane on the origins of Blobert:

"The fact is that Blobert was inspired by a cartoon show from my childhood - way before the Shmoo - called The Herculoids. This was a humanoid family that lived on a planet with several alien friends, including a flying dragon and a rock monster. Two of their more talented friends were Gloop and Gleep, who were shape-changing blobs.

To a fertile pre-pubescent mind there would be no better companion than a shape-changer. What mischief you could cause! I remembered these blobs fondly when creating A Boy and His Blob. And the idea of using a shape-changing companion as a tool to help you to navigate a platform adventure was quite unique for its day."

If this weren't a family blog, i might have mentioned something about how a fertile post-pubescent mind also might find a few uses for a shape-changing companion. Instead let's just end with a nice Herculoids group shot: