"Freak-a-Panel" is a segment in Episode 20. It was written by John P. McCann.
Synopsis[]
Busy Filler[]
Freakazoid and Cave Guy duke it out on a yacht, killing time due to the episode being short, while Joe the Announcer voices his displeasure with the producers' lack of professionalism.
Freak-a-Panel[]
Freakazoid pursues Cave Guy to the Anaheim sci-fi convention, where he finds himself recruited to represent his show on a Kids' WB! panel.
Characters[]
- Joe the Announcer
- Cave Guy
- Chip Clavicle (smarmy Kids' WB! promotional rep; voiced by Larry Cedar)
- Fan Boy (nonspeaking)
- Freakazoid
- Guy in Cave Guy costume (voiced by Jeff Glen Bennett)
- The Huntsman
- Lord Bravery
- Mo-Ron / Bo-Ron (nonspeaking)
- State institution guy (voiced by John P. McCann)
- Teenage Boy (voiced by Dave Coulier)
Trivia[]
- The questions asked of Freakazoid all relate to the animated Superman series, which at the time was Warner Bros. Animation's and Kids' WB!'s most prominent new series.
- Freakazoid threatens to replace Joe with the announcer from Earthworm Jim, the other Kids' WB! action-comedy superhero show, which aired after Freakazoid! for the duration of the two shows' time on the Saturday morning lineup. (It was also the only Kids' WB! show in this era that was not produced by Warner Bros. Animation.) The Earthworm Jim narrator was Jeff Glen Bennett (voice of the Huntsman, Cave Guy, Lord Bravery, Candle Jack, and many more).
- At the Kids' WB! panel are caricatures of Tom Minton (producer / story editor of The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries, as well as visual model for the Brain and writer of "Doomsday Bet") and Paul Dini (producer / story editor of Superman, as well as writer of several first-season Freakazoid! episodes). The surreal Minton caricature was drawn by Bruce Timm during the Tiny Toon Adventures era. The bizarre "Yogi Bear is made of metal" sign is an in-joke (according to Minton, you had to be there). Minton was asked to show-run a new version of Yogi Bear; Minton, who had no interest, said he would only do so if Yogi were made of metal (the people in the room understood that he was referencing the prominence of DC Comics superhero shows on WBA's slate at the time).[1]
- The episode includes a random one-line guest appearance by Full House's Joey, Dave Coulier, as the kid Freakazoid hands the Klingon costume to. Coulier appeared earlier this same season in the Pinky and the Brain episode "Brain's Song," playing Tom Hanks.
- Despite this episode including a great number of jokes revolving around Kids' WB!, this is one of two Freakazoid! episodes never to have aired on the network. The episode only aired on Cartoon Network after The WB had cancelled the series.
- The Klingon dictionary is written by Hilary Bader, a series writer on Superman (and later on The New Batman Adventures and Batman Beyond). Bader had written several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
- The Warner Bros. water tower (made famous by Animaniacs) appears in the final shot of the episode, as the Huntsman, Lord Bravery, Fan Boy and Bo-Ron wash the Freakmobile on the Warner Bros. Lot.