Tommy Blacha

“Saturday TV Funhouse” is the title of a recurring skit on NBC’s Saturday Night Live featuring cartoons created by longtime SNL writer Robert Smigel as well as a short-lived spinoff series TV Funhouse that ran on Comedy Central. “TV Funhouse” frequently satirizes public figures and corporations.

In between the host segments, it would show either parodies of 1950s educational films or cartoons most frequently drawn in the flat, limited-animation style of Saturday morning Hanna-Barbera/Filmation cartoons of the 1970s and 1980s. Another frequent target is the classic 1960s “Animagic” stop motion animated holiday specials of Rankin/Bass.

The animation was originally produced by J.J. Sedelmaier Productions for three seasons until Wachtenheim/Marianetti Animation in association with Tapehouse Toons took over primary animation production duties. When featured on Saturday Night Live, the opening features an SNL bumper being torn by a small, white dog, revealing the TV Funhouse screen underneath. A caricature of executive producer Lorne Michaels appears, sees the dog, and yells, “Come back here with my show!” before going after the dog. The closing features Michaels still grappling with the dog over the torn piece of the bumper.