Wolf Rock TV was an animated series produced by Dick Clark and originally broadcast in 1984 on ABC. It starred famed radio DJ "Wolfman Jack" (real name: Robert Weston Smith) as a fictionalized cartoon version of himself.
Plot[]
In the show, he would host a rock music TV program with three teenagers, Sarah, Sunny and Ricardo, while playing some real live action music videos. A parrot named Bopper also appeared as their pet (and likely comic relief). They had a manager, Mr. Morris, who would show dislike towards the kind of music Jack showcases.
A segment was Wolf Rock News and another was The Rock N' Roll Museum with live-action interviews.
Aftermath[]
The series was reaired in 1989 with the other animated series Kidd Video (also music-themed, featuring teen heroes and live action music videos) in a segment known as "The Wolf Rock Power Hour". While Kidd Video’s episodes survive on unlicensed VHS recordings, there are no known viewable copies of full Wolf Rock TV episodes.
It is very unlikely that the series would ever come out on DVD, due to the great number of music/music videos used in the episodes that would be very expensive to license (the same problem that happened with Kidd Video).
Several animation cels have popped out on websites such as Ebay or The Deep Archives. At least one of them has come out from the Van Eaton Galleries, in California.
Excerpt[]
ABC Saturday Morning Preview Park with "Weird Al" Yankovic
A short preview of "Wolf Rock TV" at 1:14
A VHS recording of ABC's Saturday Morning Preview Park (dated September 7th 1984) has surfaced on YouTube, starring "Weird Al" Yankovic with two actors in full-body suits impersonating Scrappy-Doo and Scooby-Doo. The three characters are at the "Knott's Berry Farm" theme park while talking about three upcoming animated series: Turbo Teen, Dragon's Lair and Wolf Rock TV. A very short preview of each is given at first and then Yankovic, accompanied by the dogs, visits a ride that is theme-related to the cartoon (bumper cars for Turbo Teen and a cave that hides a fire-breathing dragon for Dragon's Lair) while more details about each show is given. However, the available VHS recording stops while the "dragon cave" skit ends, and the uploader claims this is the only part he has.
The short preview of Wolf Rock TV shows a dancing young man, Wolfman Jack in an extreme close-up and Hopper breakdancing and described by the voice-over as "hip-talking and moondancing" with no mention of the other characters.
Gallery[]
