The Banana Splits elephant. Fleegle would assume the role of leader of the Banana Splits, and preside at club meetings. The characters were played by actors in voluminous fleecy costumes, similar to later Sid and Marty Krofft characters such as "H.R. Pufnstuf". While Snorky "spoke" in honking noises, the other three spoke in English—Drooper with a Southern drawl in the manner of Michael Nesmith, and Fleegle with a pronounced lisp. The Splits' segments, including songs-of-the-week and comedy skits, served as wraparounds for a number of individual segments. In the second season, "The Three Musketeers" segments were replaced with repeats of "The Hillbilly Bears",
Banana production in Ecuador decade of the 1990s. In 1998, there were 4,941 banana planters employing a workforce of 98,000. In 1999 Dole established a new loading terminal at Bananapuerto in 1999. In 2003 the Food and Agriculture Organization reported that the country's banana workers received lower wages than banana workers in all other Latin American banana-exporting nations. A study conducted three years earlier stated that the country's banana worker's average monthly wage was US$56. In 2012, Ecuador reported losses of $600 million due to the Black sigatoka fungus, with 40% (85,000 hectares) of the country's banana plantations affected by it. Production of banana