Australian singer-songwriter Rick Springfield made his first inroad into the American pop charts in 1972 with "Speak to the Sky", and was being compared favorably to actor-singer David Cassidy (The Partridge Family). Somehow, Filmation convinced Springfield he was just the guy they needed to headline a new animated series they'd sold to ABC, Mission: Magic!, which in fact was spun-off from The Brady Kids, as Miss Tickle, the school teacher/sorceress who was the real heroine on this show, had appeared in a back-door pilot on the latter series the year before. In truth, Springfield fit about as well as a square peg in a round hole, and if you go by the open, you'd think that he & the teacher were involved in a relationship. Here is said open, uploaded to YouTube:
Filmation's luck was starting to run out at ABC. Mission: Magic! was a dud, the weakest link among the network's freshman class of '73 among Saturday morning shows. Springfield would launch his acting career in earnest with a few guest appearances here & there before ABC came calling in 1981, bringing him aboard their flagship soap, General Hospital. Of course, the rest is history. As for Miss Tickle, if it ever happens that Classic Media, which currently holds the rights to a majority of Filmation's library, decides to bring her back, I'd not be surprised if they rebooted her as a sexy hottie to attract the teenagers in the audience. Not that it would be an improvement over time, but stranger things have happened.......
Rating: B-.
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