TV Review #10: Goldie Gold and Action Jack (1981)

 

When I cross over to the Astral Plane of the afterlife, The first people I will talk to will be members of my family. Then friends I have lost. The first person I plan to meet that I had no interaction with before then would probably be Jack Kirby, creator or co-creator of like 98 thousand great comic book related things. The second person I would want to talk to is Steve Gerber. I'd like to talk to them together because they did several things together. I hope this encounter would happen in a pizza place on the astral plane called Original Ray's. All pizza places no matter where is called Original Ray. Even if the owner isn't named Ray. I did this really terrible opening paragraph to make a joke about Astral Plane pizza places. I'm nothing if not willing to go far for a dumb joke.

Anyway Steve Gerber was a great creator. His comic books were weird and wonderful. The man had a majestic spark within him. He would talk about social issues. He would create weird stories. He didn't even like horror related stuff yet still wrote the greatest issues with the Man Thing. Like I don't even know if anyone needs to try to do a story where the main character is The Man Thing because they can't beat his stuff. Also I just wanted to say The Man Thing as much as I could before do anything. Steve Gerber created Howard the Duck! I think besides Mr. Jack Kirby, Steve Gerber is my favorite comics creator. 

The reason I'm going gaga over Steve Gerber is in a TV Review and not like Howard The Duck #13 or something is because well he also worked in animation, and you guys know how I love my cartoons like the big child I am. Steve Gerber went to work for Ruby-Spears in 1980, he created Thundarr the Barbarian (with Jack Kirby), and I'm just realizing that this entire crappy intro would work better for this show because I've also mentioned Jack Kirby a few times too, but I never really put much thought into these things.  No, what I'm going to talk about is the far less remembered and probably far less good (I still haven't seen Thundarr the Barbarian as shameful as that my sound but even though I liked this show that show sounds much more bonkers) Goldie Gold and Action Jack.

Not to completely trash the 1981 Saturday Morning cartoon that only lasted for uh, one whole season. It was actually pretty enjoyable somewhat weird little show. Goldie Gold owns more money than Batman and has more gadgets than Batman does. Batman still is the World's Greatest Detective where Goldie is a bit of a dope, so there's still that. Scrooge McDuck still has more money than either of them. Goldie Gold does spend a lot of money on a lot of crazy shit though. She owns a fucking mansion in space AND a mansion underwater AND a fucking mansion within a tree in the damn jungle. I'm pretty sure it was a weird running joke within this show that she owned a mansion all over the place. I didn't watch every episode of this show because It's the kinda show you can know if you will enjoy or not after 3 or so episodes. 

Action Jack despite his name is not as willing to get into fights as Goldie is, Goldie is like FUCK THAT SHIT I'MMA BEAT HIS ASS and Action Jack is like hey wait let's check shit out first. It's wild. He's a reporter for her newspaper the GOLD STATE JOURNAL. Everything is about Gold with this lady. There's also a dog named Nugget because well Ruby-Spears worked for Hanna Barbera and it was like outlawed that the show not have an animal sidekick and they probably forgot that they didn't actually need to include dogs in their shows.  Goldie Gold also knows an entirely amount of weird people like Hobo Joe (you know you could have given him a million dollars for his help he seems to give you) and a Astrologer who hangs out in a Balloon. One of these episodes was written by Steve but I wonder if he told the other writers "yeah she knows weird people so put some in there" 

The voice actors aren't anyone I've ever heard of but they still lived interesting lives, one of them was a Motown executive. I wonder how the hell he got into this show. Another was a radio DJ and the last one who voiced Goldie Gold was DynaGirl from a short lived show called Electra Woman and DynaGirl. I know too much about television no one cares about. She also voiced characters in Hanna Barbera cartoons that I have yet to talk about. There's 42,000 of them and I don't think I could ever review all of them. I'm not Superman, but yeah this was the first time I had ever heard of Booker Brandshaw, Sonny Mendelenz, and Judy Strangis.

FINAL VERDICT: This was a fun action cartoon but I'm pretty sure it was cancelled because in 1981 there was like 92 thousand fun action cartoons on the air. I was entertained by the episodes I watched and will probably end up watching the last 10 episodes. Goldie Gold is now on my list of Rich people I trust and like. Alongside Batman, Scrooge McDuck, and the Black Panther, and yes I know they are all ficitonal. That's the joke. I don't trust or like any real like rich people. Fuck you Jeff Bezos