Chuck's animated self seemed to spend a lot of time in what can only be described as classic 80s, homoerotic attire. (Check out that lovely side knotted scarf.) With tight white vests, or simply topless in tight pants. Being produced by Norris himself, I'm sure he missed the obvious in retrospect campness of the whole animated adventure that he entered into.

The rest of his crew, the "Karate Kommandos", would fight alongside Chuck against the evils of VULTURE, and their leader Claw. The Kommandos included brother and sister Reed and Pepper, Kimo a Samurai warrior, Tabe a sumo wrestler, and "Too Much" who was Chuck Norris's ward. (A bit of Batman and Robin about that.) In the opening credits, Chuck's name is mentioned 9 times, with actual footage of Chuck book-ending each episode. Ending with a moral lesson delivered by the great man himself.

Good old Chuck is the butt of many a joke on the Internet, and has been mentioned a few times on Weird Retro. From the 1983 video game Chuck Norris Superkicks, and his Kickin' Action Jeans. But the most popula Chuck Norris related Captain's blog posts have been the infamous Japanese Chuck Norris Action Sex Doll, from back in November 2014. And its sequel, the Chuck Norris Transgendered Action Sex Doll, from the beginning of April 2015. 

Take a creepy opera singing Christian ventriloquist, add a surreal cast of characters, truly trippy graphics, and put it all on a Public Access cable TV channel, and you are somewhere towards the complete package of madness that is puppeteer David Liebe Hart's world.

Hart himself claims to have been one of the first Afican-Americans to have been abducted by aliens. The nature of their mission was revealed to him by one alien that looked like Bettie Page, named Jezebel. Who also took the form of a giant insect.  

Aside from the puppets, there's a strange cast of human characters that join Hart in the show. These include Count Smokula, the accordion playing vampire that smokes cigarettes on screen, and a variety of seemingly whacked out musicians, in costumes and masks. Including the guitarist in the alien mask, which is more than enough to give any kid nightmares. Making Junior Christian Science Bible Lesson, a show that has gained a cult status, and has to be seen to be believed.

Now there have been a number of attempts to make a good Fantastic Four animated series over the years. All of them have failed. Possibly because the Fantastic Four, just really aren't that "fantastic". There was the 1967 version, 1994 they tried again, and more recently in 2006. But the biggest "fail" of them all has to be the utterly awful 1978 version, entitled The New Fantastic Four, due to the fact that the makers decided to replace the Human Torch with a cute little robot called H.E.R.B.I.E (Humanoid Experimental Robot, B-type, Integrated Electronics). As with many animated series of the period, it (and I find I'm repeating myself with this) only ran for one season of 13 episodes. The show was first aired on NBC

There are rumours abound as to why the Human Torch wasn't included in the series. Which include the wild urban legend that the makers thought that the Human Torch was an inappropriate role-model for kids. That his ability to set himself on fire, may influence kids to try and become a human torch themselves. All complete rubbish. The truth is simply that the rights to use the character had been optioned to Universal Studios, for a possible pilot TV movie and series of the Human Torch. And so the executive decision was made to replace him, not with another wise-cracking superhero, but with a cute robot with no discernible super-powers at all. Now some cynics claim that Stan Lee introduced H.E.R.B.I.E the robot side-kick, as a blatant rip-off of the popular robot side-kicks R2D2 and C3PO from Star Wars, which had been released only a year earlier in 1977.   

The show was briefly revived in the July of 2012, with some major changes. When the Disney company, who originally distributed the show re-cut, edited, and re-dubbed some of the scenes from The New Fantastic Four. They turned them into self-referential and irreverent comical shorts as part of their Disney XD's Marvel Mash-Up shorts for their "Marvel Universe on Disney XD" block of programming. 

Saturday morning  kids animation series from the 80s. The story of a magical Rubik's Cube called... Wait for it... Rubik! The premise being that Rubik had fallen off the back of an evil magician's stagecoach, and was found by the three Rodriguez kids. Rubik could only be brought to life, if he was solved. Luckily the Rodriguez kids were among the few people able to solve the puzzle cube. Once solved, Rubik possessed magical powers and had the ability of flight. The show featured some tense moments, as the kids struggled to solve Rubik, in times of dire need. For some unknown reason Rubik had no arms, just a head and legs that appeared out of the cube. (I'm really not making this up, and I've not had any drugs!) 

The show aired on ABC in the United States for only one season of 18 episodes from 1983 to 1984. It was shown in a double bill with the Pac-Man animated series. With the kids being Hispanic, the the makers kept up the theme with the opening titles song performed by the 70s Puerto Rican boy band Menudo. The bands line-up changed throughout the years, and once featured the singer Ricky Martin for a period during the 80s. The Rubik theme is a pre-Ricky song however.

Saturday-morning situation comedy, that ran only for one season of 13 episodes in 1976. The story of John Marton, a middle-school science teacher who comes across the famed Fountain of Youth, and takes a drink from it. The result is that he periodically turns from "big" John into "little" John. The show revolved around the various predicaments that John found himself in, as he changed back and forth between his 40 year old and 12 year old self.

The show ran on NBC in the United States and the BBC in the UK. It starred Herbert Edelman as "Big John" and Robert "Robbie" Rist as "Little John." Edelman a known character actor, who'd appeared in the Neil Simon comedies The Odd Couple (1968) and Barefoot In The Park (1967). And regularly appeared in popular TV shows during the 70s and 80s.

Robbie Rist, best known for playing Cousin Oliver in The Brady Bunch, and for voicing characters in TV Shows and movies like Stuffy the overly proud stuffed dragon in Doc McStuffins. He later went on the voice the character of Michelangelo in the film of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Big John, Little John may have only ran for one season, but for anyone growing up in the 70s and 80s, the theme song still sticks in your head.

Originally an hour long animated series from Hanna Barbera, CB Bears was split into two 30 minute shows on syndication. Shows became CB Bears and Heyyy, It's The King, and were first aired in 1977. As with most Hanna Barbera animated series, it only ran for one season, or 13 episodes. And again like most of them, it was repeated regularly through the late 70s and into the 80s. The show was later shown on the Cartoon Network in the mid-90s. The original hour long show featured six separate segments.

On syndication CB Bears featured the CB Bears themselves, 3 trash-collecting bear crime solving detectives. They had a striking resemblance in both look and character to the Hair Bear Bunch. Also featured were Blast-Off Buzzard and Crazylegs the snake, which was a non-speaking segment almost identical in style to  Wile E. Coyote and The Road Runner.  And finally they had the Posse Impossible, made up of  Sheriff of Saddlesore, and his posse of cowboys.

Heyyy, It's The King featured the Fonzie (from Happy Days) like king, and his band made-up of school mates. Undercover Elephant and his sidekick Loudmouse the Mouse who work for a detective agency and solve mysteries. The joke being that whatever Undercover Elephant disguised himself as, he always looked like a big blue elephant. And finally Shake, Rattle & Roll,  three ghosts who run a hotel for ghosts and other supernatural creatures. 

Back in 1980s and 90s, there was a rise in paranoia from the right-wing Christian fundamentalists, that kids TV shows were the work of Satan. That characters like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, He-Man and the Care Bears were brainwashing kids to fall under Satan's command. 

And one the top crazies peddling this utter nonsense was an author called Phil Philips. Who claimed after he "studied over a thousand hours of cartoons", that they were full of occult messages and satanic practices. His book Saturday Morning Mind Control, published in 1991, was just one of fanatic Phil's works of raving religious lunacy. He had previously published Turmoil In The Toybox in 1986, which argued that the Smurfs, He-Man, Care Bears, My Little Pony, Cabbage Patch Kids, Mighty Mouse and Rainbow Bright are all the devil’s toys concocted in the deepest layers of hell to lead our children to doom. (Actually he may have a had point with Cabbage Patch Dolls.)

He followed that up with Halloween And Satanism (1987), then Saturday Morning Mind Control (1991), and finally Dinosaurs: The Bible, Barney, and Beyond (1994). An indictment of the evil nature of the big purple singing and dancing demonic dinosaur. 

Turmoil In The Toybox attempts to claim that toy makers purposely use pagan symbolism in toy design. My Little Pony unicorn? Pagan! He-Man? Totally pagan, no question! Yoda and Darth Vader? Big bad pagans! Barbie? A godless pagan worshipping slut! Now rational people can laugh and poke fun at Phil's crazy Christian ravings, but there must be plenty of brainwashed fundamentalists out there who fell for his idiocy. Chucked out all the plastic, turned off the TV and shoved a copy of the Bible in little Johnny's hand. As later copies of Turmoil claimed it had sold over 135,000 copies. 

Originally a Japanese manga series in the late 1950s by manga and anime artist Tatsuo Yoshida, Mach GoGoGo was developed into an animated series in the late 60s. The story of teenage race-car driver Gô Mifune (known as "Speed Racer" in the American version) who aspires to be the world's best with the help of his friends, family and his father's high-tech race-car, the Mach 5. The series was originally syndicated to the United States, and ran for 2 seasons, totalling 52 episodes. With some of the violence of the Japanese animation cut, and redubbed it became an instant cult classic, that inspired an over-the-top colour saturated CGI movie in 2008.

His often repetitive adventures centered around Speed's car built by his Pops (the Mach 5), his girlfriend Trixie, his little brother Spritle (with his pet chimp Chim-Chim), and his mysterious brooding older brother, Racer X. 

The show's success in the United States spawned a whole Speed Racer franchise, ranging from comics, video releases, merchandise, the live-action film, and new animations in the 1990s and 2000s.

An early 70s live-action kids TV show that was shown both in the UK and USA. The show featured a gang of 7 kids whose clubhouse was an old red London double decker bus, sat disused in a junkyard. The show was a British and American co-production, that ran for only 17 episodes, and told the misadventures of the gang. All the child actors were unknown at time, and were joined on the show by well known comedy actor Melvyn Hayes. Hayes who would become best known for his campy role as, Gunner "Gloria" Beaumont, in the mid-70s sitcom It Ain't Half Hot Mum. Hayes played the only regular adult, as a street sweeper who befriended and looks out for the Double Deckers.

Among the child cast of the show, which appeared on the BBC in the UK and ABC in the United States, some went on to success in the entertainment industry. Actress Gillian Bailey, who played Billie, went on to star in the children's TV series Follyfoot. Peter Firth who played Scooper, would find international acclaim in the lead role of the both the theatre production and the movie adaptation of the controversial play Equus. Established child actor Brinsley Forde, who played Spring, would go on to appear in a number movies, and form the British reggae band Aswad. 

Even though the show wasn't a musical based show unlike, The Monkees or The Partridge Family. It did often feature catchy musical numbers. The Double Deckers is well remembered for its happy up-tempo and annoyingly catchy theme tune, that seems still to this day to get stuck in your head after a listen to it. Warning... Listening to the Double Deckers theme tune may result in you humming the bloody thing all day long.

Chocky was a creepy 1984 sci-fi series, based on a John Wyndham novelette, first published in the March 1963 issue of Amazing Stories. And later developed into a novel, which was published in 1968. Although before the publication of the novel, there was a 60 minute BBC radio play adaptation of the original story, written by John Tydeman. The story revolved around a young boy called Matthew, who developed a bizarre relationship with what his parents think is an imaginary friend. 

The friend however is an extra terrestrial being, that communicates with and through Matthew to gain an understanding of humanity, as part of a potential colonisation mission that the being is a scout for. Through its connection to Matthew, Chocky imparts extraordinary intelligence and abilities to Matthew. Which come to the notice of shadowy groups that wish to exploit Matthew, and ultimately get access to Chocky.

It is the ITV adaptations that most people remember, which were produced by Thames Television. Chocky ran for three series, each made up of six 30 minute episodes. They were Chocky, Chocky's Children and Chocky's Challenge. They were written by Anthony Read, who was previously a writer and script editor for Dr. Who and co-wrote the fifth season of the dark and creepy sci-fi series Sapphire & Steel.  Apparently Wyndham's estate considered Read's adaptation to be the best.

Apparently the series was very popular in Czechoslovakia, where it was translated and dubbed into both the Czech language and Slovak language. It was also dubbed in French and broadcast in Canada in the late 1980s and early 90s. It was also released in the mid-80s, in the French speaking part of Switzerland, Spain, the Netherlands, Sweden and Finland. Of all places, where it was known as Ystävä avaruudesta. Which means "a friend from space".