Quite off topic, but I think I recall while watching the "slide show" feature of misc. Bob Clampett photos on the wonderful Beany & Cecil DVD that there photographs of Beany & Cecil Restaurants back in the day (1950s?)

Has anyone ever heard of these? Am I cornfoosed?

Might as well take your "off-topic" more off topic. I know nothing of Beany & Cecil Restaurants. However, I do remember as a child being taken to a Rocky & Bullwinkle restaurant(!) that was in the same vein as the Chuck E. Cheese chain with characters done animatronicaly, hosting pizza laden birthday parties, and rooms full of arcade games or tubs full of plastic balls. My most vivid memory of the whole joint was the animatronic Boris Badenov who was located near the exit in his own personal jail cell. I was shocked when the robotic Boris started shouting at me in the Paul Frees voice, "Hey you! Yeah, you! Little boy with the red hair! Let me out of here! Take your red hair and go find the key, little boy!"
I guess it was some employees job to sit somewhere near by with a microphone and do his best Boris impression at passerby. I recall it both thrilled and amazed me.

Does anybody out there recall the Bedrock City amusement parks? They died a slow and drawn out death in the late 80s/early 90s remaining in only the most obscure of locations. The one I frequented as a child was in Kelowna, British Columbia which was the last one in North America. The last ones to go I believe were in Kelowna, BC, Tuscon, AZ and somewhere in North Carolina. The theme park included giant stoney replicas of both the Flintstones and Rubbles homes which were true to the show. Poor teenagers (presumably) dressed in giant foam Barney Rubble (wearing Grand Puppa hats ... pubba ... poobaa ... ?). One of the coolest things of all was their giant stoney lookin' movie theatre in which you could watch episodes of the Flintstones on the big screen, round the clock.

I recently found two big orange "Bedrock City, Chilliwack 1975" buttons at the flea market, and was very pleased.

There are still a few R & B restaurants around- a little google search showed me them a while ago.

The pictures I saw of the Beany restaurants were more like a Bob's Big Boy or Dennys.

My family went to a Flintstones theme park in South Dakota during my summer vacation between second and third grade. That would place it in '69. They had a little theater that was cycling the Christmas Special over and over again in the middle of summer. With the both door open and their standard issue Bell & Howell projector in plain view, not one made of sticks and stones and cranked by a small trained dinosaur. The Flinstonemobile not running and parked off in a corner, It was some foreign car with a fiberglass shell poured over it. Little rubber tires protruding under non-rotating mock stone wheels. When the six foot tall costumed "Barney" came up to greet my family, I was stuck by shyness and hid behind a concrete palm tree. Wasn't he only three and a half feet tall on TV?

That's interesting.



Guess they didn't have any other episodes to use up (could've spring for a print of "The Man Called Flintstone" if they bothered).



That would've been cute!



Just can't expect miracles.



Truth is stranger than fiction!

Hey Shecky. I too have a pennant and a coffee cup from the Chilliwack Flintstone park. I'm sure what they call Dinoland or whatever it is now, uses some of the old equpment ,rides and sets.

As for Rocky and Bullwinkle I read about those restaurants in The Moose That Roared. Seems they had TTV characters in the decor too thus heightening the confusion.

Maybe Beany & Cecil restaurant was just one.

There was a "Bullwinkle's" in Atlanta in the '80s. I bought a cool necktie there in the gift shop.

Has anybody heard of Laurel and Hardy Pizza Palaces? Larry Harmon was supposedly going to franchise these in the '70s, but I wonder if it ever happened.

A couple of R & B Restaurant sites;


http://www.fun-center.com/or/index.php?flash=yes

http://dreamation.com/Bullwinkle's.htm

And some merchandise from the aforementioned Beany's restaurant;

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...Bay_Pr4_PcY_BIN

Whoa, $98.00 for a paper cup!

I wish I could own that giant "Beany's" neon sign pictured!

There used to be a Bullwinkle's at a mini-golf place in Upland, Ca. me and my buddys would go to. Never went inside, but I do remember the outside decorated with totem poles of the various Ward characters. It's now owned by Boomers and has a fifties theme.

That sign would rock in my backyard! At least knowone bothered to buy the cup.

This is becoming off topic..but Does anyone remember "Red Barn" Restaurants? I had been thinking about them and found this website:

www.barnbuster.net

They were in 22 states, mostly the midwest and west at their peak..The company that owned them was bought by Motel 6 and just let the restaurants run down..they were gone by the mid 1980's. Many of the "Barns" are still in use, as the buildings were actual "Red Barns" One can tell sometimes is a building once housed a Red Barn Restaurant. They had an animated ad campaign.."The Hungries"..(When the hungries hit..hit the Red Barn)

Anybody remember Wilkins Coffee? They had these two puppets and they were called Wilkins and Wontkins. Some of the commercials had some animation in it. Are they still around? I've been searching high and low for the Wilkins Coffee and I have seen nothing, zip, zilch, nada.

HELP!!!

BJ

Believe it or not those Wilkins Coffee Puppets were courtesy a young Jim Henson. I remember seeing footage of the commercials on the great Muppets 30th Anniversary Special back in 1986.

More about the special (but not Wilkins Coffee):
www.imdb.com/title/tt0323321/usercomments

Wilkins Coffee

Yes, yes! I remember Red Barn. We had them in Detroit. Actually, the ad campaign featured the Muppets (I can still hear Jim Henson's "Ralph the Dog" voice singing the jingle). I suppose they might have run an animated version later.

RobEB,
The Muppets weren't a part of Red Barn's ad campaign. Red Barn did had some pseudo Muppets called The Hungries who were so Muppet like that Henson could have sued.

Now presentign..

B etter Business Bureau (sp?)

The Ritts Puppets..Magnolia Ostrich. Flamingo and Abominable Snowman (No name)-Abominable is not to be confused with Rankin Bass's SNOWMAN from RUDOLPH (1964) .Chester Chipmunk.

Acutlaly going back years as well.Were on the PINK PANTHER in early 70s

While It Is'nt said that Henson himself sued, Children's Television Workshop (Producers of Sesame Street) did find similarities between Character Ernie and Red Barn's Hamburger Hungry

http://www.barnbuster.net/page7.html

Were the Wilkins Coffee commercials the ones where the one Muppet blew the other one away with a cannon for not liking the product, then pointed the cannon at us the audience and asked us if we liked it?

This is a little bit off- topic, but does anybody know if there are any Jellystone Parks still operating?

Are you sure? I'll admit, it was a very long time ago, but it sure sounded like Henson's voice to me (I swear I can still hear it in my head. I think I need help!). I also remember a bunch of Muppet (?) chickens running around in the barn.

Yes, that's right. Later on they used the same pitch for Kraml milk.

Yes, there are still Jellystone Park campgrounds all over the country. I know of one in Washington and another one in Montana. If you do a search on the web for Yogi Bear, a whole bunch of their individual campsites come up. Check it out.

Also, there used to be Yogi Bear restaurants in the 1970's in Sacramento, California. I bought a Yogi Bear comic book there and a Dakin toy. The employees were dressed in ranger outfits. Good food too.

So far we've got:

Rocky & Bullwinkle Restaurants
Beany & Cecil Restaurants
Yogi Bear Restaurants and Campgrounds
Flintstone Bedrock City Amusement Parks


Any other odd classic animation related things from yesterday you can think of (excluding all things Disney, and Warner Brothers for that matter).

Not including McBrontosaurus Ribs or Looney Tunes Arby's packs and those kind of things. I'm sure if a Sponge Bob Theme park or a Rugrats Restuarant were to open up today, I would be duelly disgusted, and yet since these other campy dives occured between the 1950-1980 they somehow are okay in my mind. Strange how nostalgia can make one a complete hypocrite.

I don't know if it is classic but a local burger place in my small town in the 80's was mad about Shirt Tales, the windows had images of the Shirt Tales that looked to be hand painted. This theme stayed up until they closed long after Shirt Tales vanished from television and the paintings remained until they tore the building down but I don't think it was anything official.

Popeye's Fried Chicken is not based off Popeye but they have teamed up before and some older stores that are now closed kept Popeye themed decorations up. My parents tell me there was a Wimpy Burgers.

I think I saw a Bullwinkle Pizza Place still open a few years ago on a bus trip to Disney World, I believe I also saw something that was either Laurel & Hardy or Marx Bros themed but we passed it so fast and it was too long ago for me to recall.

I've been to Jellystone and it isn't as fun as it sounds.

Popeye's Fried Chicken was started by a guy (from the New orleans area) who had the nickname "Popeye." After the chain started to grow, King Features swooped in and demanded money. So, in a legal sense, the restaurant chain is named after Popeye (although a Fish 'n' Chips place would make more sense for a sailor).

There is (or was) a chain of Wimpy's Hamburger joints in the UK.

Jellystone Parks were just campgrounds that stuck Yogi and Ranger Smith up on the marque.

I do remember Arby's deal with Looney Tunes. I still had a complete set of the Looney Tunes/Pepsi drinking glasses (although I had to pick up two or three of them through the collector's market) and an unopened set of "Looney Tunes Toppers" - baseball-style caps with Bugs, Daffy, & Tweety heads mounted on them.

Off-topic - are there any Big Boy restaurants still operating? They were the original double-decker hamburger (the Big Mac a pale rip-off in both name and taste) and they gave away that cheesy comic book! They have vanished from both Florida and my original home town of Milwaukee.

Yes, Big Boy (and the comic book) is still popular in Michigan, where the chain is known as Elias Brothers' Big Boy. In Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky, they're called Frisch's Big Boy. California has Bob's Big Boy. There are probably other chains too.

When was the last time you visited one? I was out in the L.A. area last year and could not find a Bob's Big Boy. Frisch's Big Boy used to be in Florida, but all of them have closed.

I just recently picked up a sheet of Big Boy Rub On tattoos that seem to be from the 70s, at a sewing/craft shop my girlfriend dragged me into. This, despite the fact i've never eaten at a Big Boy. They ain't got 'em in Canada.

It's been about a year since I've actually eaten at a Big Boy (while on vacation in the Upper Peninsula), but we have two near us that do a brisk business. Seems like there's at least one Big Boy in every Michigan city or town.

This thread has gone far off topic, but I think it's been one of the most enjoyable in a long time!

When I was in Rochester, NY in 1982-83 there was a restaurant called "Gadgets" where audio-animatronic Warner Bros. characters performed on a stage. They had about 3 or 4 shows in rotation, which meant if you were there more than an hour you'd see the same thing. The restaurant itself was in "TGIFridays" style; I don't know if they were all like that---I don't know how many there were---or if that was because Friday's was the only decent restaurant in Rochester at the time :-). I don't know how long they were around. Anyone else experience this fine piece of WB marketing?

Bob's Big Boy was all over the place in California when I was growing up, but now only a handful remain. I believe the Big Boy in Burbank was designated a historical landmark. You can still buy their salad dressings in grocery stores.

Going even farther off-topic: Has anybody here ever attempted to steal one of those Big Boy statues, or known somebody who has? There use to be one near my high school and the kids from time to time would take the thing and stick it on top of one of the buildings as a prank.

That's interesting.

Here's the link to that restaurant...
Bob's Big Boy

I think the only franchisee remaining in the US is Frisch's. The other guys who once owned the empire, Elias Brother's, have since sold the rights and such to someone else, according to the news on these links...
Big Boy Parent Company Files Chapter 11
Elias Bros.' Sale of Big Boy Rights Ok'd

Here's the official site for the Big Boy Family Restaurants, whom like to add the disclaimer that they aren't affiliated with Frisch's!
Big Boy Restaurants, LCC

Here's Frisch's...
Frisch's Big Boy



Heh, that has been going on my my hometown for ages!

For the Toledo area, Big Boy has yet to go on life support in an era of changing tastes and decreasing locations. For many decades, the Frisch's chain had served the Toledo area well. I can remember the days when there was practically a Big Boy's resaurant on every street corner. Sometime in the '90s they must've pulled out of the area, and since then, the remaining restaurants are being operated through a local franchisee named Bennett Enterprises, Inc. Though they would rather call them "Big Boy Family Restaurants" rather than in the days when they would put the franchisee name before the "Big Boy".

Toledo Area Big Boy Restaurants

Yet people here (including my mom) still calls them Frisch's! You just can't knock tradition!



Though Frisch's isn't no longer in the Toledo area, they do offer a Golden Corral restaurant just down the street from me!

Going to the bottom of the barrel, here's a link to a urnial from a Big Boy that begs me to ask, why?
The Urinals of Big Boy

People just can't leave well enough alone :(

Thank you one and all! It's nice to know that Big Boy is alive & well. Hopefully, his new owners can begin to expand his empire again! Back in the 70's the "Steak 'n' Shake" restaurant were teetering on the brink of extinction and they've come back strong. Let's hope the Boy can do it, too!

You gotta love the Internet. Where else could I pose an idle, off-topic question and be innundated with a wealth of information in a day?

When I grew up and had the comcis in the 60s, and 70s, I always thought that a la LINUS THE LIONHEARTED that the next step, was to the Bob, gal pal Dolly and odd eared doggie Nugget an animated series (I mentally imagined: Dick Beals as Big Boy,m Janet Waldo as Dolly and Mel Blanc thinking (in the voice of the Barnyard "Dawg" from WB's Foghorn Leghorn shorts), as Nugget!) Of coruse thru the sevneties, the decade fol,lowing LINUS and HTO WHEELS such a commericla venture would nevr happen (though if the characters had remained thru the 80s and on, looser FCC regulations WOULD allow such a show just now with the comics advertised even though this intermingling of ads and shows HAS conti9nued,at leats on prime time--my ALLY McBEAL costarring dreamvessell Courtney Thorne Smith (Georgia on said show) hawkins ALMAY womens comsetics theroen..yeah,why not Calista Flockhart,thestar,but getting back on topic.)

Bkb Big Boy Statue figures in AUSTIN POWERS>.are you referring to the HUGE one outside..or a smaller one..how anyone could take those statues or remove them in the first palce THEN reaffix it to a SCHOOL's beyond me and no, no one has here in California. We DO have the original from 1949 (as seen in the 1985 and 1997 book GOGOIE ARCHETIUCTRE dealing with odd style of buildingsmostlypost ware which I was reaading the other dya at a BRODERS bookstore at Puente Hills mall City of Industry,CAL -the original Bob;'s Big Boy--in my early hom,etown Glendale.

Oh..does anyone recall in California at elast.,.

PIONEER TAKE OUT CHICKEN??

We stilkl have a nukber but not as much..like Big Boy it seems to have limited outlets.

Here are those I know.Is till eat at the first tow
(These are all L.A.Basin Pioneer's)

BELL: Garfield/Imperial. Northwest corner.

L.A.Soto/Whittier Boulewvard. Southeast corner.

HOLLYWOOD: Hollywood Blvd, about three four blocks east of Vermont.

ECHO PARK: Hollywood Blvd. and Echo Pk.Road,by some shopping cente.r.

I tihnk there are others as wlel.

Time for me to get off this topic..

BULLWINKLE resturant WOULD have TOTAL TV (IUNDERDOG,etc.) characters given the several working arrnagemnts -- the same adveertising agecy and anaimaiton studio (but not produciton co.) and ssmae ownerships over the years (I'm gettin' off this topic unless anyone has some cogent rpelies..adn I agree that this HAS led to VERY interesting comments.)

Toledo just got it's first Steak 'n Shake a few years back. Not sure if we ever had one before then, but I never knew about them before in my youth.



Yep! That's where people like us come in!

Not just in the UK. Your post reminded me that, as a kid, I used to eat at a hamburger joint named Wimpy's here in the Chicago area. They were a nationwide chain of "upscale" burger restaurants, and at one point in the 1970's there were over 1500 of them in the US. I read that the owner died in 1978 and his request was that the restaurants be closed after his death.

I never pass up a chance to contribute useless information!

Don't forget the Jellystone Park trailer stops.They sold alot of Hanna barbera stuff in the stores, I have a few things from there.

twice I ate at a Bob's Big Boy in the Valley and found myself sitting in the booth they used for the scene in Heat. It was nice to know that DeNiro and Val Kilmer had pressed down on that booth cushion.