TV Reviews : Comic Strip Stories Lose Something in Translation

Two animated specials based on newspaper comic strips airing tonight on CBS (Channels 2 and 8) suffer from weak stories and pedestrian direction that leave the viewer wondering what made the original strips so popular.

The rewarmed sitcom inanities in “Blondie & Dagwood: Second Wedding Workout” at 8 p.m. and “Hagar the Horrible” at 8:30 p.m. have little to do with the humor that attracts readers to more than 2,000 comic pages around the world each day. Only the names have been left unchanged, to protect the ratings.

Dik Browne’s “Hagar the Horrible” seems an improbable choice for an animated special. Unlike “Peanuts” or “Calvin and Hobbes,” “Hagar” never featured characters with strong personalities that would be recognizable on film. The simple gags in the strip didn’t offer writer Douglas Wyman much to work with, and neither he nor director Ray Patterson brought much imagination to their work. The program is about as entertaining as a compulsory holiday visit to a dreary distant cousin.

“Second Wedding Workout” casts Dagwood as a building contractor, struggling to meet a tight deadline that conflicts with his 20th wedding anniversary. The story and characters remain mired in ‘50s sitcom schtick, despite heavy-handed attempts to update the material with references to computers, dweebs and Roger Rabbit.

The Bumsteads actually had a second wedding ceremony in a Sunday strip in 1955. Two friends planned to use their house for a wedding, which then was canceled at the last minute; rather than waste the food, decorations and effort, Dagwood insisted that he and Blondie go through the ceremony a second time. Writers Barry O’Brien and Bob Smith might have come up with a better show if they’d kept Chic Young’s plot.