Revamped ‘Birdman’ Solves Cartoon Rumors

Cartoon Network has long played with the mythology of its beloved characters. In clever promos and elaborate specials like the ones it would concoct around Super Bowl time, the network would mix and match its animated roster with a cutting modern wit.

The channel had never actually gone to court, though, until now.

The network has dusted off one of Hanna-Barbera’s worst-conceived superhero characters, Birdman, and given him new life, as was done for Space Ghost before him. Instead of a clueless, argumentative talk-show host, though, Birdman has been reincarnated as the loopy “Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law.”

His cases are those that cartoon fans have pondered for ages:

Were Scooby-Doo and his crew stoned all the time? Is that what caused the needless guffaws and the constant hunger for snacks?

What exactly was the relationship between Dr. Quest and Race Bannon on “Jonny Quest”?

And barring lingering questions about cartoon behavior, why not make up some dark secrets about the two-dimensional:

Yogi Bear sidekick Boo Boo as a masked bomber: the Una-Boo-Boo? Or Fred Flintstone as a mob boss who hangs out at the Dabba-Doo, a strip club not unlike Tony Soprano’s Bada-Bing? And cross this Hanna-Barbera kingpin, and you might end up, as Harvey Birdman did--with the severed head of Quick Draw McGraw in your bed.

Of course, these are the kinds of twisted questions better suited to an older (although not necessarily grown-up) audience.

Hence, “Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law” appears Sundays at 11:30 p.m. as part of the Cartoon Network’s “Adult Swim,” a collection of cartoons of interest to older viewers shown on weekend nights.

Since “Harvey Birdman” first appeared nearly a year ago, the favorable reaction has led the network to order 20 new episodes, which began last month.

Creators Michael Ouleween and Erik Richter say it’s the kind of series they were born to do.

“It is kind of weird,” Ouleween told a group of TV critics recently. “I almost feel like when I grew up watching this stuff that I was going to do this. I don’t know if that makes any sense, but I would watch ‘Super Friends’ and go, ‘God, why did they put those stupid sidekicks in?’ Like I was already writing then.”

He gets his chance now, as in the new episode in which minor super friend Apache Chief sues after hot coffee scalds him.

But they don’t want to go too far. “We consider ourselves kind of caretakers of these characters in a way,” says Richter, who notes that the approach has to be, well, “careful is not the word.”

“Respectful but irreverent,” Ouleween offers.

“Yeah,” Richter assents, “because there are still people who watch these shows--like us--who watch Huck Hound or whatever.”

“Without irony,” Ouleween says, finishing Richter’s thought.

Therefore, Richter says, “you want to take gentle shots at these characters and not body blows.”

“We like to take people and play upon the rumors that people have had for a number of years, like about Shaggy or Race and Dr. Quest,” Ouleween says. “And sometimes we like to just come up with something new. But either way, we’re left to play with it as we will. And no character is sacred.”

“And one of the beauties is that Fred Flintstone is not going to sue you for defamation of character,” says Brad Siegel, president of Turner Networks, which owns the Cartoon Network.

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Roger Catlin is television critic at the Hartford Courant, a Tribune company.