Once Upon a Time in the 60s, British band The Beatles decided to make a cartoon of themselves, they didn't like what they saw and saved animating for their Yellow Submarine.
After that the Osmonds & the Jackson 5 also tried their hand at their own cartoons, and a new genre was born.
Back then it wasn't unusual for a celebrity to be animated and turn up in Scooby Doo, but appearing as yourself in your own cartoon was something else.
The core of the 70s also found other celebrities wanting to give it a try, this time being sportsman such as legendary boxer Muhammad Ali & performance Basketball team the Harlem Globetrotters.
Muhammad Ali would be an adventure hero while the Globetrotters became weird superheroes, but the cartoon scene also worked for comedy acts as well.
Laurel & Hardy had a lengthy run in the 60s under Hanna Barbara, the late Gary Coleman used a character from one of his films to create his own show and lastly Bill Cosby's project Fat Albert & the Cosby Kids, which trademarked the catchphrase "Hey Hey Hey!"
The 80s on the other hand saw the big muscled icons step into the fray with cartoons from Chuck Norris, Mr T & Hulk Hogan, each one keeping to the extended toy advert style that so defined 80s cartoons.
But its in the 90s where everyone wanted to give it a try, so I'll divide this group into categories.
Music Stars
I believe I've already covered Hammerman, MC Hammer's overly ambitious cartoon project but this is gold compared to other celebrity cartoons such as "New Kids on the Block" & "Kid N'Play", the latter is some rap duo that even I've never heard of and I'm a 90s child.
It got better in the 00s with Class of 3000 by Outkast front man Andre 3000 restoring some pride in self promoting music stars
Comedy Actors & Stand ups
The problem with trying to appeal to a lower age group is that kids would never have heard of you, this was true with shows like "Life with Louie" & "Bobby's World" with Louie Anderson & Howie Mandel, both of which I've never heard of but I've seen both cartoons and Bobby's World was actually quite good, but I wouldn't have guessed they were both celebrity cartoons at the time. Animated film fared no better when Rodney Dangerfield thought it was a good idea to create a cartoon film about him as a dog called Rover Dangerfield.
Who here remembers Roseanne? Yes even she made herself a cartoon and was more than happy to ruin a number of other cartoon characters with it, with a number of pointless cameos. But the worst of this group is Dr Katz, the shaky animated adult cartoon, promoting the works of comedian Jonathan Katz; it's on my list of 100 worst cartoons.
Sportstars
When I say Micheal Jordan you automatically think Space Jam, that is true but not the one I'm on about, in the early 90s Micheal Jordan joined Ice Hockey hero Wayne Gretzky and Baseball & Football star Bo Jackson in a very cheesy cartoon where they help kids and stop evil bad guys with rocket shoes and the powers of love & friendship and recycling, yes the 90s legacy was unkind to the Captain Planet generation.
Movie Stars
A couple of real failures first: John Candy's "Camp Candy" didn't exactly fare well, Macaulay Calkin's "Wish Kid" didn't last long in another screw on his terrible downfall and Pamela Anderson thought she was still Baywatch's number one when she made Stripperella.
It wasn't all bad though, Rick Moranis actually took a backseat in his own cartoon "Gravedale High" about a school for monsters, (No not that one, sweet jesus not Monsters High) Gravedale High was a charming little series if not strikingly similar to alien high school cartoon "Galaxy High"
The Olsen Twins were quick to respond with teen spy cartoon, "Mary Kate & Ashley in Action" which goes nicely with all their other crap films, to be fair on the cartoon it wasn't that bad, passable at best.
Bruce Willis had great fun with his creation "Bruno the Kid", where the title character convinces an international spy organization to hire him using a 3D avatar of Bruce Willis making them think he's an adult, it's a little silly but great fun as well and Bruce has lots of fun singing the opening theme.
But the cream of the celebrity cartoon is "Jackie Chan Adventures" where Jackie is an archeologist getting dragged into an Indiana Jones plot, with it's own tagalong kid and crazy old guy.
Japanese Stars
The Japanese aren't exactly immune to this either, Eriko Tamura made herself into a downtrodden heroine in Idol Densetsu Eriko, which gets rather uncomfortable to watch quite early on.
Punk band Hi Hi Puffy AmiYumi took their cartoon idea to America, to promote the new wave of Japanese culture hitting the shores in the early 00s, although Puffy AmiYumi is basically the Dirty Pair if they were rock stars.
Finally the most obscure comes from Saban when they made a show about Japanese Magician Mariko Itakura called "Tenko and the Guardians of the Magic", It was meant to make up for losing Sailor Moon but failed to go further than one season.
In this day and age, the celebrity cartoon is more or less extinct, which considering what we did get is probably for the best.
