The Pogo Special Birthday Special (1969)

The greatest movie ever made..!

i know i wasted 90 mins of my life.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Walt Kelly's beloved "Pogo" comic strip was a major piece of my childhood. Even at age four or five I relished the challenge of deciphering its tangles of semi-literate southern dialect. I just cherished the characters. Kelly was one of the unbeatable masters of the humanized animal. I watched this special about three times as a fifth-grader. A lot of the content was over my head, though I did find the animation delightful. I responded happily to Chuck Jones' work, as did any kid. What I hadn't any idea of the bickering that took place behind the scenes: Kelly and Jones had a huge dispute over the script. Jones was main producer, however, and his way of adapting the strip to TV won out over Kelly's; after production was completed and the show aired, Kelly went on record as calling Jones an SOB.I rented out the videocassette about thirty years ago. I still recall it as so much gobbledygook, with the realization-only now-that Jones mercilessly dispensed with the simplicity of the original characters and merely having them spout endless non-squitors. For whatever reason, he also chooses himself to do the voice of Poriy-pine.Anyway, it still gave me a pleasant memory.

It used to be easier.We used to be smarter. Our politics was simple and reflected in the popular culture. For example, "liberal" meant that you had a more intellectual approach to difficult problems, and "conservative" designated a more common sense or direct philosophy.We had comics that reflected these two now obsolete poles. On the conservative side was "Lil Abner" of dogpatch written by Al Capp. And for the more nuanced thinkers we had Pogo. Pogo was pretty deep and often very timely. I know of no regular strip of today that has the same power through metaphor. Well, meanwhile in the late sixties we had a spate of TeeVee versions of Comic strips, a trend started by "Peanuts." Now Peanuts was easy to adapt for TeeVee audiences because it had a homely humor, a sort of early Lake Woebegon template centered on children. Unfortunately for us, it was successful, so Pogo was enlisted and bent to the model.This is an absolute disaster. None of Walt Kelly's wit is apparent. What we have is some unholy merger of Winny the Pooh and Peanuts but with Pogo's characters. Stay away; this will burn you.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

***SPOILERS ON THE BARBIE***This spaces out like a made-for-TV holiday special. It would have been nice if Pogo had had more of a television presence, but I suppose they DID cover every single holiday (plus a few) in this one half-hour.I don't agree with all the voice characterizations, but since Walt Kelly was involved, one can only assume he had final approval, so what we get from him and Mel Blanc are the voices Kelly had in mind for the characters, all along.The special itself is your typical light feel-good fare with a little bit of swamp humor sprinkled in, such as the eternal disagreement over the words to 'Deck Us All With Boston Charlie'. For me, the biggest treat was hearing Kelly's inimitable songs and poetry on the screen.

Those loveable characters from the swamp are trying to decide which holiday is the best, and so you get a clever mixture of 4th of July, Christmas, Valentine's Day, and Arbor Day, as only Walt Kelly can. Fans of the strip will recognize parts of the storyline. The only thing missing is the running gag about Porky's glum demeanor. The perfect ending would have been a demonstration of how the strip handled Porky smiling.