TVSquad

Marge Simpson's spread in Playboy was a groundbreaking moment for cartoon women everywhere. Her sensual skin pics paved new ground for the "feminine-animated."

She told the world that the women of animation aren't just vehicles for humor or straight characters to set up punchlines for the males on the paper. She helped us realize they have thoughts, feelings, emotions and yes, even urges that make them unique, infinitely interesting and utterly fascinating. They are, as Dr. Frasier Crane so eloquently put it, "like a fine wine: always intoxicated, ever surprising and only getting better with age."

And so, for the cause of gender equality and female empowerment, here are the ten cartoon chicks who should pose naked because it would be righteously awesome.

Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.

I find myself buying more old shows on DVD than I do new shows. I have no interest at all in buying C.S.I., Desperate Housewives, Two and a Half Men, Brothers & Sisters, or Supernatural, and there are no classic shows being released so it looks like I'm going to save money (again) this week.

Heroes? I like the show well enough, but I just can't imagine I'm going to want to watch this season again. Maybe I'll get it at some point, just so I can make sure I have the whole series, but who knows.

Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.

If you blinked last year, you probably missed NBC's Crusoe. It's now on DVD, and it's one of those "season one" sets that also serves as a "complete series" sets.

If you're an October Road fan, the season two set contains a 10 minute bonus episode that acts as the series-ender. It would be great if more shows did that when they're canceled.

• The Adventures of Black Beauty - Series 1
• Bleak House - Special Edition and Blu-ray
• Boston Legal - Season 5
• Crusoe - Complete Series
• Dexter - Season 2 (Blu-ray)
• Doctor Who - E-Space Trilogy and Battlefield
• Earth: Final Conflict - Season 1

Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.

Barney Miller is one of those sitcoms I never think about anymore. When I make my mental list of the best sitcoms I never even think of it, even though it was a very good show. I guess it's out of mind because it's not shown on TV that much. I'm surprised it's not part of the regular lineup of TV Land or Nickelodeon. Of course, they don't show The Dick Van Dyke Show much anymore either even though they own it, so nothing surprises me about those two channels anymore.

• Barney Miller - Season 3
• The F Word - Series 2: Uncensored
• Ghost Hunters - Season 4, Part 2

A strange thing happened between the 1968 and 1969 Saturday morning schedules -- the superheroes disappeared. After three straight seasons of Space Ghosts, Birdmans, Super Presidents, and Herculoids only The New Adventures of Superman remained. And, that show was pushed back into the 1:00 PM slot, practically eliminating it from the viewing times of children who, after four straight hours of cartoons, needed generous doses of sunlight.

To fill all of the vacant spaces left by the departed heroes and villains, the networks added twelve new series to their respective schedules. Most had one thing in common: comedy, an ingredient that had been absent from the schedule for a number of years. Needless to say, it returned with full force during this season. Another comeback was made by live-action programs that featured a mix of humans and not-so-human characters. In addition, one show premiered that was based on a popular series of toys, while two more premiered that featured the newest trend of animated musical groups brought on by last season's premiere of The Archie Show. Amist all of that came a program featuring a talking, mystery-solving dog and his slightly toasted friend.

So, if you have your Hot Wheels parked around your feet, let's go back to 1969.

Allan Melvin had so many roles on so many TV shows over the years that it's hard to know where to begin, but I guess the most logical spot would be The Brady Bunch, where he played Sam The Butcher, the guy Alice dated. He was also a regular on The Phil Silvers Show, played Archie Bunker's friend Barney on All in the Family, and also played Rob's army buddy on The Dick Van Dyke Show. He appeared on dozens of other shows over the years, from the Andy Griffith Show (he always played a crook - that's him on the right in the pic) and Gomer Pyle, USMC to Kung Fu and The Banana Splits (he was Drooper).

You would probably also recognize his voice in many cartoons, including Magilla Gorilla, The Flintstones, The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour, The Smurfs, Spider-Man and Friends, Foofur, Ducktales, Talespin, and others.

He died of cancer in Los Angeles.

Here are the new TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow:

• The All-New Super Friends Hour - Season 1, Vol. 1
• Between the Lions - Season 1
• Clifford The Big Red Dog - Playtime with Clifford
• Family Feud - All Star Family Feud with Richard Dawson
• Gunsmoke - Season 2, Vol. 1
• Lovejoy - Season 2
• MI-5 - Vol. 5
• The Naked Brothers Band - Season 1
• The Riches - Season 1
• Two and a Half Men - Season 2
• The Waltons - Season 6
• What's New Scooby-Doo? - Season 3

New TV DVDs, in stores tomorrow.

• Chappelle's Show - Best Of
• CHiPs - Season 1
• The Cosby Show - Seasons 3 and 4
• Dark Angel - Seasons 1 and 2 (Thin)
• The Dead Zone - Season 5
• Doctor Who - Stories 115, 116 and 117
• The Fall Guy - Season 1, Volumes 1 and 2 and also a Season 1 set
• The Henry Rollins Show - Season 1
• Hex - Season 1
• Hogan's Heroes - Season 6
• Mission: Impossible - Season 2
• The Outer Limits - Vol. 1
• Rescue Me - Season 3
• Robin Hood - Season 1
• Seinfeld - Season 8
• SpongeBob SquarePants - Bikini Bottom Adventures
• Survivorman - Survivorman
• The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson - Best of Standup Comedians and The King of Late Night
• Wait Till Your Father Gets Home - Season 1
• What's New Scooby Doo? - Season 2

The weekly cable ratings, by number of viewers.

1. WWE Monday Night RAW - 10pm (USA)
2. WWE Monday Night RAW - 9pm (USA)
3. Scooby-Doo 2 (Nickelodeon)
4. SpongeBob SquarePants (Nickelodeon)
5. Law and Order: SVU (USA)
6. Fairly Odd Parents (Nickelodeon)
7. Suite Life of Zack & Cody (Disney)
8. The Riches (FX)
9. Fairly Odd Parents (Nickelodeon)
10. SpongeBob SquarePants (Nickelodeon)

(Note: last week was a really slow week for TV DVDs, which is why we didn't have a post up. Though the first season of Martin was released.)

• America's Funniest Home Videos - Salute To Romance
• Extras - Season 1
• MI-5 - Vol. 4
• A Pup Named Scooby-Doo - Vol. 5
• SpongeBob SquarePants - Season 4, Vol. 2

It looks like the guys at Giant magazine's web site are at it again, trolling YouTube for videos that you may not have thought of. This time, they've dug up ten intros to Hanna-Barbera shows, in tribute to Joe Barbera, who passed away a couple of days ago. Among the selections are the wonderfully un-PC intro to Hong Kong Phooey (I guess it was OK for Scatman Crothers to sing "ching chong" back in the seventies... Rosie O'Donnell was born in the wrong time, I guess), and intros to The Herculoids, the "so hip it's square" Flinstones Comedy Hour from '72 ("We'll have a groovy time!"), The Jetsons, and one of H-B's Scooby-Doo clones from the mid-'70s, Speed Buggy. There's also an intro from the live-action show Korg: 70,000 B.C.

Speaking of Scooby, the intro they post is from a late-'70s revival of the show, which included the then-new character of Scooby-Dum. But they kind of miss the boat on this one; that's maybe the third-best intro, behind the originial Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? and my personal favorite, the oh-so-cheesy Scooby-Doo Movies from 1972. Remember the episodes with the Harlem Globetrotters, Sandy Duncan, Batman and Robin, and Tim Conway? That was from this series. In order to refresh your memory, I've embedded the intro to that after the jump.

Sad news in the world of animation tonight: Joseph Barbera, half of the mega-successful animation team of Hanna-Barbera, died today of natural causes. He was 95.

As most people know, Barbera and his partner William Hanna were responsible for creating the most endearing cartoon characters of all time. From their first major creation, Tom and Jerry, they went on to create memorable characters like Yogi Bear, The Flinstones, The Jetsons, Huckleberry Hound, Scooby-Doo, and Jabberjaw (well, the last one was only memorable to me, I think). Hanna died in 2001, so this is the end of an era.

The AP obituary for Barbera mentioned that his strengths, according to Leonard Maltin, were comic gags and the ability to capture emotion with subtle drawing techniques (never thought HB cartoons were subtle, huh?), while Hanna was good at timing and conveying warmth. Say what you will about how they cheapened animation with their TV cartoons, especially the ones from the seventies; they've inspired many an animator in the last fifty-plus years.

There are some cartoon characters that have a permanent shield of double-thick steel around them. When you think they're finally gone, they come back in a new form.

Take our pal Scooby-Doo, for example. Scooby and his Mystery Inc. friends have been with us since 1969. That's 37 years, kids; 259 in dog years (you knew I had to throw in that joke, didn't ya?). Since then he's been paired with Fred, Daphne, and Velma, the Scooby-Doobies (From Laff-a-Lympics), Dynomutt, Vincent Price and, ahem, Scrappy-Doo. After leaving Saturday mornings in the late '80s, he returned with the entire Mystery Inc in What's New Scooby-Doo for the Kids WB.

Now he's back again in this fall's 'Kids WB on the CW' (catchy, ain't it?) in Shaggy and Scooby-Doo Get a Clue. In this show... well, perhaps you should jump to find out what it's all about, and also see some of the other new series premiering next fall on Kids WB.