Bands Play In ‘Toon For Album Tribute To Saturday-Morning Television

When it comes to low-brow art, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more perfect marriage than rock ‘n’ roll and cartoons.

The two go together as perfectly as Lucky Charms and chocolate milk on “Saturday Morning” (MCA), a tribute album that has 19 alternative-rock acts covering the theme songs of animated kiddie shows.

“Being onstage in a rock ‘n’ roll band isn’t all that different than being in a cartoon - it’s your job to make funny faces at people,” says bassist Jimbo Wallace of Reverend Horton Heat, which performs the theme from “Jonny Quest.”

The album, now in record stores, includes the Ramones singing the praises of Spiderman, Liz Phair tra-la-la-ing through “The Banana Splits” and Matthew Sweet posing that time-honored question “Scooby Doo, Where Are You?”

Four Texas bands also attended the rock ‘n’ cartoon summit: Joining Horton Heat on the disc are Fort Worth’s Toadies, Dallas’ Tripping Daisy and Austin’s crazed Butthole Surfers, who bark their way through “Underdog.”

“Our band is a cartoon,” says Surfers guitarist Paul Leary. “We’ve always gotten a lot of inspiration from Underdog. … He’s a blundering idiot who always wins in the end, which gives hope to … losers like us.”

“Saturday Morning” isn’t the first time rock ‘n’ roll has visited ‘toonsville - or vice versa. Over the years, everyone from the Beatles to New Kids on the Block has had his or her own show. The Archies, a studio band invented to cash in on a cartoon, scored a No. 1 hit in 1969 with “Sugar Sugar” (sung here by alterna-folkie Mary Lou Lord). Josie and the Pussycats - a band of female pseudo-Monkees - followed suit in 1970 (Juliana Hatfield and Tanya Donnelly’s trademark girlish voices are just right for the Pussycats theme).

And countless cartoons have had a “rockstar episode”: Frente’s version of “Open Up Your Heart and Let the Sun Shine In,” for example, comes from “The Flintstones” segment in which Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm became a pop singing duo. And Judy Jetson’s date with rock star Jet Screamer (from “The Jetsons” in 1962) spawned the song “Eep Op Ork A A (Means I Love You),” which the Violent Femmes turn into psychotic folk-abilly.

If you’re hoping to find deep meaning hidden in the loony tunes of “Saturday Morning,” you’ve landed on the wrong channel. No matter how passionately Sweet sings the line “Scooby Doo, if you come through, you’re gonna have yourself a Scooby snack,” it’s still not “The Times They Are A-Changin’.”

Yet like “If I Were a Carpenter” - 1994’s rock ‘n’ roll tribute to the Carpenters - “Saturday Morning” turns cheese into pure gold.

The album is the brainchild of Ralph Sall, the 32-year-old Los Angeles record producer behind 1989’s Grateful Dead tribute album, “Deadicated,” and last year’s “Common Thread: The Songs of the Eagles.” Sall admits a lot of the songs he picked for “Saturday Morning” are hokey but says that’s missing the point.

“Nobody takes these songs and these cartoons seriously. But the weird thing is, everyone remembers them. When I met Tim (DeLaughter) from Tripping Daisy in the studio, it turned out he’s an over-the-top Marty Krofft fan,” Sall says, referring to the producer of live-action puppet series such as “Sigmund & the Seamonster” (Tripping Daisy recorded the theme song for the album). “So I took him to meet Marty Krofft and introduced him to the guy who plays H.R. Pufnstuf. You should have seen him - he was genuinely excited.”

The Toadies pay tribute to “The Groovie Goolies,” a horror-themed takeoff on “Laugh-In”’ that ran from 1970 to 1972. “The Toadies suit the song ‘Goolie Get-Together’ perfectly,” says Sall. “They make this great, dark music and The Goolies have this dark connotation.”

Reverend Horton Heat collides the theme to “Jonny Quest” with the song “Stop That Pigeon” from “Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines.” As obscure as those cartoons are, people recognize the tunes at the trio’s concerts.

“Their jaws start dropping, especially when we go into ‘Stop That Pigeon,”’ said Wallace, speaking by phone from a concert hall in Lawrence, Kan. “It’s become a real showstopper - even people who aren’t familiar with it start moshing.”