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Disclaimer: All opinions expressed here are of my own and may or may not be the opinion or opinions of the reader and/or viewer. You may leave comments about this and future editorials by E-Mailing me at: gweagle@eastlink.ca or signing the Kit Cloudkicker guestbook.

Happy birthday Talespin?

Editorial Written by: Kristof

Some of you know,others suspect it and others should really look up Talespin's history: on the Ninth of September 1998 it will be exactly eight years ago that Plunder and Lightning first appeared(unedited and uncut) and really got the Talespin-train going. In my first editorial you can expect a brief rundown of Talespin's history and my personal thoughts about the too-short lifestory of this magnificent series.How many among you remember this?!

As far as I know not many should. This is a preview promotional picture as it appeared in a German magazine (if my info is correct of course; BTW this picture is taken off Aviar's image page).As you all see there were many changes to the concept before the first TaleSpin episode aired the fifth of May (I Only Have Ice for You). Notice the oval airboard of Kit, his clothes and baseball cap.Also take a good look at Baloo; not quite that half-lazy cargo pilot we know, huh? The duck doesn't look like a cargo plane either, does it? The weird contraption in the background is "The Sky Shark", a very early version of "The Iron Vulture". It is my guess that originally Talespin wasn't the peaceful(?) cartoon we all know and love but a rather hard series in which Baloo and Kit finished off the pirates.Of course I can be wrong and am now making a total fool of myself(but then again I may now become a target of an assassin hired by Disney because I know too much, hehe :-) Am I boring you with an unproven hypothesis? OK, here are the facts:

[1.] The very first TS episode aired 05/05/90.It was titled I Only Have Ice For You. Below is a promotional picture:

Now, the reason I'm writing this editorial is for the birthday of Plunder and Lightning. It aired on 09/09/90 in the full version: unedited, uncut and without interruptions.for me and much of the TS community this episode marked the birth of one of the finest animated cartoons of Disney's history. I had the pleasure of viewing this episode on a local network, two or three years after it was first aired.I was hooked after the first time I saw the beautiful artwork and caracters that somehow appeared natural to me.I'm sorry but I have not been able to find a picture of Plunder & Lightning that fairly represents the spirit of that episode. TaleSpin was then seen on syndication with "From Here to Machinery" on the tenth of september, one day after Plunder & Lightning had left the American population speachless. Plunder & Lightning, however, had to wait until November to get its debut on syndication (if someone knows the exact day, E-Mail it in! I sure hope it was the 18th since that's my birthday). The fans of these early days are shocked to find that two songs were brutally cut and some scenes were edited or worse: cut! This was the first mistake of Disney! But Disney wouldn't be Disney if they didn't try to make the fans happy again. They thus created a special Christmas episode of TaleSpin entitled: "A Jolly Molly Christmas" which aired 20/12/90. I consider it to be one of the finest Christmas special ever made by Disney (but then again, I am a loyal TaleSpin fan). This successtory was brutally grinded to a halt when disney released the very last TaleSpin episode"Flying Dupes" on 08/08/91.With only 65 episodes made it certainly wasn't the longest running cartoon ever, but hey: Quality beats Quantity! As if selling this series short wasn't bad enough, Disney decided to take TaleSpin off of syndication on 01/09/94. I still haven't fogiven them. It is a black day for the fans... But TaleSpin was never forgotten,by now the web is crawling with sites of the true fans who wanted to carry Disney's greatest series into the next millenium.Although in my country TaleSpin is no longer on the cable or any local network, I will remain loyal to the best seeries ever created: TALESPIN!

TaleSpin is still alive!

See you all later, hopefully in another editorial (you can bet I will write one with the ten year anniversary!).

Kristof Van Craen(Kit)

1998 Gregory Weagle Says: I don't like doing this; however, I think it is worth mentioning anyway:

Plunder and Lightning aired officially in syndiction on November 19th,1990- November 22nd,1990 and there are reports that "I'm Gone" might have also been edited badly. Now it seems that today's Tale Spin has been edited to near death. I'll give you one example: In the episode: "Polly Wants a Teasure" there is a three second sence where Dumptruck takes the muzzle of the gun and shoves it up Baloo's nose. That part was in fact edited last year. In other words; the editing still continues even after Plunder and Lightning was in syndication in 1990. To makes matters worse; if they did censor Tale Spin why didn't they cut the sence where Kit Cloudkicker said "Shut Up!" to Molly Cunningham. (I betcha there were parents who cringed when they heard/saw that.) That makes no sense to me at all. But then again; this is Disney we are talking about. Tale Spin premise is one of most clearest in Walt Disney Television Animation; however, until December of 1997 when I saw the concept picture on the top. Now I'm not so sure anymore: maybe there was a hidden second premise. I have talk to the writer of the editorial about this and we even felt that maybe Disney could have a preview version of Plunder and Lightning locked up in their vault that will never be shown to the public. Now there is a feeling: The Tale Spin we got was the best: the original concept was even better. Of course; its only rumor and both Disney and Jymn Magon have so far denied such an intention.

Two more final notes: [1.] Did you know that Sony picked September 9th as the date to launch the Sony PlayStation video game system in the US. Hmmmmmm...and [2.] Even though this is Tale Spin's eighth birthday from the TV movie released on September 9th,1990; Tale Spin actually started production by Jymn Magon and company in 1988; making it really Tale Spin's tenth birthday from the start of production to present. I hope that clears everything up.

2015 Gregory Weagle Says: I have kept the editorial as is with formatting changes and some editing for clairty reasons. Toon Disney's editing of TaleSpin was no where near 1990 syndication editing of TaleSpin where scenes were reanimated, dialogue changes and all the 4Kids Entertainment edits they would have made. At least the scenes that Toon Disney cut were restored for the DVD release, and two blacklisted episodes are also on the DVD. The only disappointment is that the 1990 Disney Channel version of Plunder and Lightning is still on the blacklist. Only one song was brutally cut in syndication by the way; "I'm Gone" is the same in all versions of Plunder and Lightning. While Jymn Magon has denied such a thing; please remember that he has also flip-flopped on pretty much everything and getting a straight answer out of him is impossible at this point. I'm guessing that he was shocked that anybody liked TaleSpin since he was told that everyone hated it. It's not hard to see why; I mean, regardless of what Jymn Magon thinks, people saw TaleSpin as a parody to the Jungle Book and parodies often cause people to be offended. That's where the "disgrace to the Jungle Book" and "discriminate our tastes" come from. I don't what the point was to mention the Playstation thing other than to make bee impersonations. If you are looking for Aviar's website, don't bother; it has disappeared down the memory hole as well. One final note: The second premise thing is a fairy tale; but it did to a certain extent play into the work Kit and Wildcat were playing in Captains Outrageous where they pretended to be Air Pirates to give Oscar Van Der Snoot an adventure of his own. Sure; they had no intention of killing anyone, they just wanted Oscar to have some fun. Strangely; that premise would be great for a grand finale series of episode to end the series outright. Of course; Disney execs screwed that up, so it never came to that.

Gregory "White Phoenix" Weagle

Fellow Tale Spin and Kit Cloudkicker Fan

09/06/98

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