Agro's Cartoon Connection: Sailor Moon Week
The North American Dub of Sailor Moon was aired in many countries besides America, Australia being one of those... lucky? few. While it was a mainstay on Fox Kids, it was previously being hosted on a children's morning cartoon collection called Cheez TV. But even before that it was being aired on the whacky, outrageous kid's morning show, 'Agro's Cartoon Connection'.
Agro the grumpy, brown!Oscar puppet was the cynical and surprisingly witty host marionetted and voiced by Australian comedian Jamie Dunn, starring alongside whoever happened to be his cohost at the time, in this case Teresa Livingstone (who you may know as Lilly from 'Lost'). Although the TV show was aimed at kids getting ready for school - and letters to Agro showed their target demographic was somewhere in the 5-10 range - Agro threw in countless jokes that were somewhat risque and no doubt passed over the viewer's heads, to be caught by the parents watching and finally get a chuckle in their dreary Monday mornings. But what ties Agro's Cartoon Connection to Sailor Moon (besides hosting it, of course) is that very quickly they found it was one of their most popular cartoons, and a lot of the fan mail was about it. So they staged a week themed solely on Sailor Moon, ingeniously named 'Sailor Moon Week'. All the tiny between-cartoon clips pertaining to Sailor Moon week have been stripped from the show and put up on YouTube, available to view here.
Agro got dressed up as Tuxedo Mask and Teresa was a very cute Sailor Moon. As the week starts, we are treated to Teresa and Agro reading out letters to the show from the fans ('Agro's Mailbox').
![]() Actually, this is pretty much what every Australian TV show looks like. After Agro has recovered, we are treated to a guest appearance from Luna, played by a man dressed up in a big black cat costume with a crescent moon on his forehead. I'm a bit too young for Agro's Cartoon Connection but I believe this man was Ian Calder, who often made cameo appearances on the show as various characters. He comes on stage, ask what was wrong with the mailbox (?) and coughs up a furball before leaving. Teresa picks up the furball (which is red) and looks at it. Agro + Teresa have a "This is what passes for a punchline around here?" moment and we quickly transition on to the next segment.
![]() Hey, didn't this happen in one of the Musicals?
Teresa eats some candy, dresses up Agro and introduces a few more comics before breaking her Moon Stick and introducing us to 'Agro's Wheel', a gameshow where a member of the audience will come up and spin a cheesewheel covered with Agro plush dolls. The contestant picks a number on the wheel and if it lands on it then they win... at least, I think. While I do remember this game, the details are somewhat hazy - I'm pretty sure there's a consolation prize anyway. This particular part of the show at this time was being hosted by Holly Brisley, who this week was dressed up as Sailor Mercury. To put the icing on the cake, the member of the audience was also dressed as Sailor Mercury, although a much older, mother version. In an obviously scripted gag about Mercury being smarter than necessary, when Holly!Mercury asks Mom!Mercury to pick a number she chooses 13, 673. For some reason she faked (at least, I hope it was fake) a South American accent. Maybe she doesn't quite grasp the concept of 'British'?
![]() This is just like that one episode of SuperS except much, much better.
"Intellectually she is the smartest of the Scouts, her golden tiara turns into blue glasses that are used as a computer screen to help battle evil."
In that brief moment where we see the audience, we can see that there are truckloads of little children dressed up as characters - I spy some Moons, a baby Mercury and a couple of school-uniform Minakos. Their costumes aren't bad, either, for kids.
![]() I like the part where they just stop caring.
While entertaining, nothing really noteable happens for the rest of the Episode. The clip is hilarious in my opinion and you should definitely watch it. I've also made an animated GIF of Agro!Moon because I liked it so much, which is available along with the other icons. It's impossible that they'll ever bring Sailor Moon back onto TV, so if we're going to hope for the impossible, why not hope that Agro's Cartoon Connection comes back to host it, too?
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