Growing up in the 1970s, my Fab Four were never John, Paul, George and Ringo. They were Snorky, Fleegle, Droopy and Bingo—The Banana Splits. Conceived by Hanna-Barbera, the show featured four creatures who, like prototype sports team mascots, were blokes dressed in furry outfits and firefighter helmets.
They were a pop band, lived in a shared psychedelic house and got into Three Stooges-style slapstick scrapes. Hey, it was conceived in California in 1968, what do you expect? It was still being shown on UK TV years later, when it served as a sun-drenched 30 minutes of primary-colored eye candy, especially for a kid in a home-knit jumper, growing up in the washed-out, drizzle grey of northern England.
But what stuck in my mind most is the six-wheel Amphicat all-terrain buggies the stars tore around in during the title sequence of the show.…