7.6 /10 1 Votes
6.4/10 TV Country of origin United States No. of episodes 16 Final episode date 22 December 1973 Presented by Filmation | 8.7/10 IMDb Genre Cartoon series No. of seasons 1 First episode date 8 September 1973 Number of seasons 1 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Voices of Lola Fisher
Howard Morris
Erika Scheimer
Lane Scheimer
Rick Springfield Producer(s) Norm Prescott
Lou Scheimer Network American Broadcasting Company Cast Rick Springfield, Erika Scheimer, Howard Morris, Lola Fisher Similar Will the Real Jerry Lewis Ple, The Brady Kids, Lassie's Rescue Rangers, Fantastic Voyage, The New Adventures of Gilligan | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mission: Magic! is an American Saturday morning animated series starring rock star Rick Springfield and is a spin-off of The Brady Kids, produced by Filmation. Although only 16 episodes were produced, the series aired on ABC from September 8, 1973 to December 12, 1973. It was also shown on television in Springfield's native Australia, where Springfield was then a bigger celebrity.
Contents
Mission magic tv cartoon intro
Characters and format
Even though Springfield still spoke with a pronounced Australian accent in the mid-1970s, he provided his own voice for his animated doppelgänger. On the show, Springfield always wore white pants and a white sweater which sported on the front an encircled lowercase "r" with a lightning bolt in the background; this design was taken from the back cover of his 1973 album Comic Book Heroes.
Springfield was joined by a cast of characters:
These were involved in a weekly after-school group called “The Adventurers Club,” although it was the subject of debate whether the organization was a social club or an actual class as Miss Tickle often incorporated various school subjects into the group's adventures, added to which before and after every adventure they would be visited in the classroom by Mr. Samuels, the principal of the school, who knew nothing of Miss Tickle's magical abilities.
Each Mission: Magic! adventure began by way of an enchanted Gramophone; Rick would communicate with the Adventurers via the Gramophone telling them where he was and invite them to come along. At this point Miss Tickle would aim her magic ring at Tut Tut, a ceramic cat on her desk who would come to life after Miss Tickle recited the incantation:
"O Tut Tut, cat of ancient lore, "'Tis time to draw the magic door."After drawing a magic door on the blackboard, Miss Tickle, Tut Tut and the students would meet up with Springfield and his familiar, an owl named Ptolemy, and then in their travels to mythical lands and various times solve a variety of mysteries encountered. At the end of each show, Springfield would perform a song, the theme of which was usually tied into the moral of the story. Springfield wrote, composed, and performed all of the songs on the program. An album with all of the songs, titled “Mission: Magic!” after the program, was released only in Australia in 1974. A CD version was released in 2004.
Although Mission: Magic! was primarily intended to promote Springfield's teen idol status in America, the cartoon itself would be a forerunner for the 1990s PBS series, The Magic School Bus, in which Lily Tomlin provided the character voice of Miss Frizzle.
Both shows featured redheaded teachers who possessed magical powers, and both featured groups of students from diverse ethnicities and backgrounds. Moreover, the themes of both shows were twofold: entertainment and educational. On each weekly episode, both groups would go off on a variety of adventures, transcending both time and space, by use of magical means.
Ironically, Springfield himself eschewed this series years later, claiming that it "scarred me for life."
Voice cast
DVD release
BCI Eclipse LLC, under license from Entertainment Rights, released Mission: Magic!: The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1 on May 8, 2007. The 2 disc set includes many special features.