What Ever Happened to the Shirt Tales

If the Care Bears can make a comeback then where the heck are the Shirt Tales? Man, that was a great show! Shirt Tales started out as a line of greeting cards from Hallmark. They were cutesy little pictures of fuzzy animals wearing shirts that said stuff like "Hot Stuff" or "Congratulations" or anything else you might find on a greeting card. These cards became one of Hallmark's biggest sellers in the early `80's so like everything else that became popular in the 1980's they got their own Saturday Morning Cartoon show! That's the single greatest things about the 80's...everything was turned into a cartoon! The Shirt Tales went from anonymous garmet wearing forest creatures to Rick, Tyg, Digger, Pammy, and Bogey.

In their cartoon show, the Shirt Tales lived in a tree in a city park. They divided their time between harassing the park ranger Mr. Dinkle and fighting crime/saving the world. Inside the Shirt Tales' tree house was a giant computer where they communicated with the commissioner who sent them on missions of a crime fighting/world saving nature. At least once in each episode one of the Shirt Tales would display their emotions through a message on their shirt. It was never revealed if these were special battery powered shirts or if they were just magical. Either way the most intriguing part of the show is that not one person seemed alarmed that a panda bear was living in a city park. These things are endangered species and we've got the commissioner sending Pammy Panda all over the globe to hunt down jewel thieves and kidnappers!

You'll notice in the picture above the addition of another Shirt Tale, Kip. She was a little kangaroo (voiced by Nancy Cartwright of Bart Simpson fame) that was added to the cast in the second season. Back then, ever year a show had new episodes it was customary to add a new character so that children knew they were watching "one of the new ones."

Anywho...the Shirt Tales were awesome. Saturday mornings...NBC...right between Snorks and Smurfs...Good times! Shirt Tales, it's time for your comeback!