The Mumbly Cartoon Show

The Mumbly Cartoon Show
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Genre	Animation
Directed by	Charles A. Nichols
Voices of	Don Messick John Stephenson
Theme music composer	Hoyt Curtin
Country of origin	United States
Original language(s)	English
No. of episodes	16
Production
Executive producer(s)	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Producer(s)	Iwao Takamoto Alex Lovy
Running time	30 minutes (6 minutes per segment)
Production company(s)	Hanna-Barbera Productions
Release
Original network	ABC
Original release	September 11, 1976 – September 3, 1977

The Mumbly Cartoon Show is a Saturday morning animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and featuring the titular Mumbly, a cartoon dog. It was broadcast on ABC from September 11, 1976 to September 3, 1977.

Overview

File:Mumbly.gif

Lt. Mumbly from The Mumbly Cartoon Show

Mumbly is a cartoon dog character famous for his wheezy laugh, voiced by Don Messick. Mumbly bears a strong resemblance to Muttley from the animated series Wacky Races and Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines. Like Muttley, Mumbly does not really talk; he mumbles and grumbles unintelligibly, and often uses his trademark snicker. Detective Lieutenant Mumbly's boss is Schnooker (inspired by Telly Savalas' Kojak detective and voiced by John Stephenson), an aptly named egotistical police chief who tries to take credit for nearly all of Mumbly's heroic deeds.

Mumbly may have been inspired by Peter Falk's TV character Columbo, as the two share a similar sartorial style and speech patterns. In addition, both are police lieutenants, wear trench coats, and drive old broke down cars. A further link is that Muttley was based on a similar premise to Peter Falk's character Max Meen in The Great Race, as noted in the Wacky Races article.

Broadcast history

Mumbly appeared on the animated series The Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape/Mumbly Show (1976) and The Tom and Jerry/Mumbly Show (1976–77). He made a brief cameo appearance in an episode of Dynomutt, Dog Wonder (1976). Ironically, Mumbly later appeared on the opposite side of the fence as the captain of the villainous Really Rottens on Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics / Scooby's All-Stars (1977–79), alongside Dread Baron, who bore a great resemblance to Dick Dastardly. Mumbly was the only member of the Really Rottens that wasn't created for Laff-A-Lympics. The good-guy teams, The Scooby Doobies and The Yogi Yahooeys, were composed of characters from previous cartoons.

In his villainous appearances, Mumbly's former occupation as a police detective is never referenced and there is no in-universe explanation for his retcon as a villain. Nor is Mumbly simply Muttley by a different name although one episode of Laff-A-Lympics accidentally refers to Mumbly as Muttley in a script blooper. While Muttley was consistently depicted as a villain's sidekick and comic foil, Mumbly was depicted as independently clever and cunning in both his heroic and villainous appearances. Additionally, Laff-A-Lympics, Mumbly was the leader of the Rottens team with Dread Baron acting as his right-hand man.

The reason for the use of Dread Baron and Mumbly as substitutes for Dastardly and Muttley is not certain. The most commonly suggested reason is that the Wacky Races Characters (including Dastardly and Muttley) were created as a co-production with Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley Productions, meaning that they were not fully owned by Hanna-Barbera, and thus could only be used with permission. Mumbly would return as a villain alongside Dread Baron in the 1987 TV movie Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose.

Since the original run, Mumbly was syndicated with all 16 6-minute episodes repackaged as The Mumbly Cartoon Show in 1977; it was shown as part of USA Network's Pumpkin Creek in the mid-1980s and The Family Channel's Toon Toast in summer 1994. A clip from a Mumbly cartoon (episode #85-2, "The Great Hot Car Heist") was heard in the 1979 Peter Sellers film Being There.

The Mumbly Cartoon Show was broadcast in these following formats on ABC:

• The Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape/Mumbly Show (September 11, 1976 – November 27, 1976, ABC Saturday 8:00-9:00 AM) (rerun of Tom and Jerry and Grape Ape)
• The Tom and Jerry/Mumbly Show (December 4, 1976 – September 3, 1977, ABC Saturday 8:00-8:30 AM) (rerun)
• The Mumbly Cartoon Show (international reruns)

Episodes

No.	Title	Original air date	Production code
1	"Fleetfeet Versus Flat Foot"	September 11, 1976	85-1
2	"The Great Hot Car Heist"	September 18, 1976	85-2
3	"The Magical Madcap Caper"	September 25, 1976	85-3
4	"The Big Breakout Bust"	October 2, 1976	85-4
5	"The Return of Bing Bong"	October 9, 1976	85-5
6	"The Super-Dooper Super Cop"	October 16, 1976	85-6
7	"The Big Ox Bust"	October 23, 1976	85-7
8	"The Great Graffiti Gambit"	October 30, 1976	85-8
9	"Taking Stock"	November 6, 1976	85-9
10	"The Littermugg"	November 13, 1976	85-10
11	"The Perils of the Purple Baron"	November 20, 1976	85-11
12	"The Fatbeard the Pirate Fracas"	November 25, 1976*	85-12
13	"The Big Snow Foot Snow Job"	November 27, 1976	85-13
14	"Sherlock's Badder Brudder"	December 4, 1976	85-14
15	"The UFO's a No-No"	December 11, 1976	85-15
16	"Hyde and Seek"	December 18, 1976	85-16

^* Telecast at Noon (EST), Thursday afternoon, November 25, 1976, a Thanksgiving, as part of ABC's Thanksgiving Funshine Festival.

Production credits

• EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Joseph Barbera and William Hanna
• PRODUCER: William L. Hendricks
• DIRECTORS: Charles A. Nichols, Robert McKimson, Alex Lovy
• CREATIVE PRODUCER: Iwao Takamoto
• ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Alex Lovy
• STORY: Bill Ackerman, Larz Bourne, Tom Dagenais, Alan Dinehart, Cal Howard, Don Jurwich, Joel Kane, Dick Kinney, Frank Ridgeway
• RECORDING DIRECTORS: Wally Burr, Alex Lovy
• STORYBOARD DIRECTION: Tom Dagenais, Howard Post, Art Scott, Don Sheppard, Paul Sommer
• VOICE CHARACTERIZATIONS: Norman Alden, Henry Corden, Joan Gerber, Kathy Gori, Virginia Gregg, Bob Holt, Allan Melvin, Don Messick, Alan Oppenheimer, Joe E. Ross, Hal Smith, John Stephenson, Jean Vander Pyl, Janet Waldo, Lennie Weinrib, Frank Welker
• PRODUCTION DESIGN: Bob Singer
• CHARACTER DESIGN: Marty Murphy
• PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR: Victor O. Schipek
• GRAPHICS: Iraj Paran
• MUSICAL DIRECTOR: Hoyt Curtin
• MUSICAL SUPERVISOR: Paul DeKorte
• LAYOUT: John Ahern, Ed Benedict, Jaime Diaz, Hak Ficq, Owen Fitzgerald, Bob Givens, Mo Gollub, David Hanan, Gary Hoffman, Jack Huber, Larry Huber, Alex Ignatiev, Ray Jacobs, Homer Jonas, Lin Larsen, Warren Marshall, Greg Nocon, Tony Rivera, Linda Rowley, Bob Singer, Terry Slade, Al Wilson, Donna Zeller
• ANIMATION SUPERVISORS: Ed Barge, Bill Keil
• ANIMATION: Carlos Alfonso, Ed Barge, Ted Bonnicksen, O.E. Callahan, Lars Calonius, Rudy Cataldi, Steve Clark, Jim Davis, Bob Goe, Laverne Harding, Bill Hutten, Volus Jones, Ed Love, Tony Love, Norm McCabe, Ken Muse, Margaret Nichols, Bill Nunes, Don Patterson, Juan Pina, Tom Ray, Veve Risto, Jay Sarbry, Ed Solomon, Ken Southworth, Dave Tendlar, Dick Thompson, Carlo Vinci, Xenia
• BACKGROUNDS: Bob Abrams, John Currin, Dennis Derrell, Robert Gentle, Al Gmuer, Richard Khim, Bob McIntosh, Fernando Montealegre, Bill Proctor, Dennis Venizelos
• TECHNICAL SUPERVISOR: Frank Paiker
• CHECKING AND SCENE PLANNING: Evelyn Sherwood
• INK AND PAINT SUPERVISOR: Billie Kerns
• XEROGRAPHY: Robert "Tiger" West, Star Wirth
• SOUND DIRECTION: Richard Olson, Bill Getty
• SUPERVISING FILM EDITORS: Larry Cowan, Chip Yaras
• FILM EDITORS: Donald A. Douglas, Hal Geer
• MUSIC EDITORS: Pat Foley, Greg Watson
• EFFECTS EDITORS: Richard Allen, Terry Moore
• NEGATIVE CONSULTANT: William E. DeBoer
• POST-PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR: Joed Eaton
• CAMERA: George Epperson, Charles Flekal, John Curtis Hall, Ron Jackson, Jerry Smith, Norman Stainback, Roy Wade, Dennis Weaver
• PRODUCTION MANAGER: Jayne Barbera
• A HANNA-BARBERA PRODUCTION
• RCA Sound Recording
• This Picture Made Under the Jurisdiction of IATSE-IA Affiliated with A.F.L.-C.I.O.
• Copyright © 1977 by Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc. All Rights Reserved

External links

• Tom and Jerry's mid '70s co-stars
• The Mumbly Cartoon Show at IMDb