The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley

The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley was a 1988 animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera starring Martin Short's Ed Grimley as well as other characters and actors from Second City's SCTV. Only one season of 13 episodes was produced. Despite the short run, the show is considered the only Saturday morning animated adaptation of both an SCTV character and a Saturday Night Live character (for the latter show, it is actually the second animated adaptation of an SNL recurring character, as NBC once aired a pilot cartoon/animated special of The Coneheads). Episodes featured Ed Grimley in adventures, which start out as mundane, but turn very surreal and cartoonish, interspersed with science lessons from The Amazing Gustav Brothers, Roger and Emil, and a live-action segment with a "scary story" presented as a show-within-a-show by Grimley's favorite television host, SCTV's Count Floyd (played by SCTV cast member Joe Flaherty). Grimley's fellow cartoon characters included Grimley's landlord Leo Freebus (voiced by Jonathan Winters), Leo's wife Deidre (voiced by Andrea Martin), his ditzy, amateur actress neighbor Ms. Malone (voiced by Catherine O'Hara; a female character by the name of Ms. Malone did appear on an SNL version of an Ed Grimley sketch on the season ten episode hosted by Alex Karras, but Ms. Malone was played by that episode's musical guest Tina Turner), and her little brother Wendell (voiced by Danny Cooksey). Ed owns a goldfish named Moby and a clever pet rat named Sheldon (voiced by Frank Welker). At the end of each episode, Ed would write in his diary about what happened in his day.

Guest stars on the show included Christopher Guest and SCTV alumni Eugene Levy and Dave Thomas. The show also featured the voices of René Auberjonois, Kenneth Mars, and Arte Johnson. While not renewed for a second season, the show was seen in reruns in 1996 on Cartoon Network's unnamed pre-Adult Swim-era late-night programming block, which consisted of such shows as Space Ghost Coast to Coast and reruns of classic Looney Tunes shorts and Hanna-Barbera programming, then The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley reran again on Boomerang. Hanna-Barbera sponsored an Ed Grimley look-alike contest midway through the first season, which was won by 10-year-old Matt Mitchell from Des Moines, Iowa.