Toon In With Me

Toon In With Me is a live-action/animated anthology series created by Neal Sabin for MeTV. The show officially debuted on January 4th, 2021, but 2 preview episodes aired prior to this, both named 'The MeTV Cartoon Kick-Off Show' as a way to promote the cartoons coming to the channel.

The show is hosted by Bill Leff (known in the show as Bill, the 'Cartoon Curator') and a talking tuna-fish named Toony (who is puppeteered and voiced by Kevin Fleming, known for his work on New Looney Tunes). The show airs on weekday mornings at 7:00am ET, as well as weeknights at 9:00pm ET on MeTV's sister channel MeTV+. Each episode includes 5 to 6 cartoons. These cartoons include the likes of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies cartoons from the 1930's to the 2000's, Tom and Jerry and other MGM shorts, Popeye shorts made by both Fleischer and Famous Studios, Fleischer Betty Boop shorts, DePatie-Freleng shorts (The Pink Panther, The Inspector and Roland and Ratfink), and Columbia cartoons.

Unlike previous anthology series or reruns of these classic cartoons, many of these cartoons are remastered and restored. Many of these remastered shorts have not been released on home media or streaming, making these airings the first time some of the cartoons are seen remastered and restored in HD.

Premise And Characters[]

Toon In with Me harkens back to locally produced children's programs that aired from the 1950s through the 1990s, with a live-action host, comedy and puppet segments in between classic cartoons.

The show is hosted from the MeTV studios by Bill the Cartoon Curator. His co-host is Toony, a cartoon-loving tuna puppet, whom Bill has to take care of while Toony's owner, Goldie Fisher (Leila Gorstein) (Seasons 1-2), is away on a world tour. As they present all of the cartoons, Bill and Toony deal with various issues in the studio, video chat with Goldie and receive useful information from game show host Mr. Quizzer (also played by Fleming). Fleming and Gorstein also play many other characters, such as Teddy Roosevelt, a fictionalized version of the 26th president who serves as a foil for Bill.

Most shows end with Bill and Toony showing off drawings and photos sent in by fans via the show's website, and from September 3rd, 2021 until March 31st, 2023, had done "Fan-Tastic Friday", where almost every Friday, the crew would show cartoons, suggestions, art, questions and more submitted by fans.

On Friday, June 24, 2022, Leila Gorstein left the show in the episode "Farewell Goldie", and as Leila left the show, so did a number of her characters she played.

Whilst MeTV had originally allowed to air the DePatie-Freleng cartoons in May of 2021, it turns out it was only for 2 years, and wasn't renewed. The final time a non-Warner Bros. DePatie-Freleng cartoon aired on the show was on April 27th, 2023, with 1967's Pink Posies.

On September 11, 2023, Walter Lantz cartoons first appeared on the show, with 1963's Science Friction being the official first short shown (barring the public domain entry Pantry Panic).