The Banana Splits

Submission 2,776

About

The Banana Splits are a fictional rock-and-roll group consisting of four anthropomorphic animals (played by actors in suits) that starred in the 1968 Hanna-Barbera variety show The Banana Splits Adventure Hour. The show has seen a number of revivals, most notably a 2019 horror-comedy film from Warner Bros., resulting in a growing fanbase for the characters, largely due to their similarity to Five Nights At Freddy's (FNAF) characters.

History

Original Run (1968-1982)

On September 7th, 1968, the first episode of the variety television series The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, produced by Hanna-Barbera, aired on North American television (shown below). The show surrounds the adventures of a fictional rock group called The Banana Splits, made up of a monkey named Bingo, an elephant named Snorky, a lion named Drooper and a dog named Fleegle. It intercuts live-action segments featuring the characters played by actors in costumes, musical performances by the band and unrelated cartoon segments.

The Banana Splits Adventure Hour was a success, running for two seasons between 1968 and 1970, resulting in 31 episodes plus a number of shorts, a 1972 made-for-television movie and a number of educational films between 1972 and 1980.

2008 Revival

The Banana Splits Adventure Hour was revived for a new short in 2008 by Warner Bros., including a new website^[1] explaining the group (shown below). The special aired on Cartoon Network on September 2nd, 2008. That year also saw the release of an album from Universal Records and an amusement park at South Carolina's Myrtle Beach called Banana Splitsville, which was rebranded a year later as Freestyle Music Park.

2019 Horror Movie Reboot

On February 19th, 2019, Warner Bros. announced an R-rated comedy-horror film based on The Banana Splits, called The Banana Splits Movie.^[2] The plot of the film sees The Banana Splits, who are portrayed as advanced animatronics rather than people in costumes, learn that their show is getting canceled, causing them to go on a killing spree at the studio. On June 18th the trailer was released on YouTube^[3] (shown below).

Viewers of the trailer soon drew comparisons to the video game series Five Nights At Freddy's, similarly about animatronic creatures going on a killing spree (example comments shown below). Rumors of the script for The Banana Splits Movie being a reused script for a Five Nights At Freddy's movie have since circulated the web, but are unconfirmed.

Reception

The Banana Splits Adventure Hour holds a 7.3/10 star average on IMDb.^[4]

The Banana Splits Movie horror revival holds a 5.1/10 star average on IMDb,^[5] and a 63 percent critic score on Rotten Tomatoes,^[6] showing generally positive reviews. A positive review published by Forbes^[7] directly compares the film to Five Nights At Freddy's, writing, "until we get an actual Five Nights movie (if we ever do), this does deliver in that unique niche of furry animal animatronics gone scary."

On August 13th, 2019, film critic and YouTuber^[8] 3C Films gave the film a largely negative review, calling it a Five Nights At Freddy's knockoff and awarding it a "critic rating" of "F" (shown below).

Online Presence

Following the announcement of the 2019 horror-comedy film, The Banana Splits gained a renewed fanbase sharing considerable overlap with Five Nights At Freddy's fans. This has resulted in numerous works of fan art, animations and fanfiction. For example, a Deviant Art^[9] search for "The Banana Splits" results in over 3,000 results, including a considerable amount of crossover fan art with the FNAF series (examples shown below).

The fandom is also popular on YouTube, where a number of original animations and fan videos based on The Banana Splits with millions of views live (examples shown below, left and right).

On April 23rd, 2020, Josh Measimer published an article to Reel Rundown^[10] exploring the history of The Banana Splits.