''Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines'' (or simply ''Dastardly and Muttley'' in the UK and Ireland) is an American

animated television series An animated series is a set of Animation, animated works with a common series title, usually related to one another. These episodes should typically share the same main characters, some different secondary characters and a basic theme. Series can ...

produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, and a spin-off from ''

Wacky Races Eccentricity (also called quirkiness) is an unusual or odd behavior on the part of an individual. This behavior would typically be perceived as unusual or unnecessary, without being demonstrably maladaptive. Eccentricity is contrasted with norm ...

''. The show was originally broadcast as a

Saturday morning cartoon "Saturday-morning cartoon" is a colloquial term for the original animated series programming that was typically scheduled on Saturday and Sunday mornings in the United States on the "Big Three" television networks. The genre's popularity had a br ...

, airing from September 13, 1969, to January 3, 1970, on CBS. The show focuses on the efforts of Dick Dastardly and his canine sidekick

Muttley Muttley is a fictional dog created in 1968 by Hanna-Barbera Productions; he was originally voiced by Don Messick. He is the foil to the cartoon villain Dick Dastardly, and appeared with him in the 1968 television series ''Wacky Races'' and its 196 ...

to catch Yankee Doodle Pigeon, a

carrier pigeon The homing pigeon, also called the mail pigeon or messenger pigeon, is a variety of domestic pigeons (''Columba livia domestica'') derived from the wild rock dove, selectively bred for its ability to find its way home over extremely long distan ...

who carries secret messages (hence the name of the show's theme song "Stop the Pigeon"). The title is a reference to the film and song ''

Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines ''Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines; Or, How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours and 11 Minutes'' is a 1965 British period comedy film that satirizes the early years of aviation. Directed and co-written by Ken Annakin, the film ...

''. The original working title of the show was ''Stop That Pigeon''. The peppy and memorable theme song by William Hanna and

Joseph Barbera Joseph Roland Barbera ( ; ; March 24, 1911 – December 18, 2006) was an American animator, director, producer, storyboard artist, and cartoon artist who co-founded the animation studio and production company Hanna-Barbera. Born to Italian im ...

(based on the jazz standard " Tiger Rag") has a chorus that repeats the phrase "Stop the pigeon" seven times in a row. The show had only two voice actors: Paul Winchell as Dick Dastardly, the indistinctly heard General and other characters and

Don Messick Donald Earle Messick (September 7, 1926 – October 24, 1997) was an American voice actor. He was best known for his performances in Hanna-Barbera cartoons. His best-remembered vocal creations include Scooby-Doo, Bamm-Bamm Rubble and Hoppy in ...

as Muttley, Klunk, Zilly and other characters. Each 22-minute episode was broadcast over half an hour on the network, including network breaks, and contained: two ''Dastardly & Muttley'' stories, one ''Magnificent Muttley'' story (Muttley's Walter Mitty-style daydreams), and two or three short ''Wing Dings'' (brief gags to break up the longer stories).

Plot

In Germany, Dick Dastardly and Muttley, the villains from ''

'', are now flying aces in World War I-styled aeroplanes and members of the Vulture Squadron, on a mission to stop a messenger pigeon named Yankee Doodle Pigeon from delivering top-secret messages to an opposing army. The other members of the Squadron are Klunk, an inventor who speaks an unintelligible language (punctuated by howls, clicks, whistles, and growls, accompanied by bizarre facial contortions), and Zilly, a panicky pilot whose main role is to translate for Klunk, and who tries to

desert A desert is a barren area of landscape where little precipitation occurs and, consequently, living conditions are hostile for plant and animal life. The lack of vegetation exposes the unprotected surface of the ground to denudation. About on ...

the mission at any given opportunity. Each story features variations on the same plot elements: the Vulture Squadron sets out to trap Yankee Doodle Pigeon, a process which begins with Zilly trying to escape and being retrieved by Muttley, and Klunk introducing a plan that involves using one or more planes equipped with his latest contraptions. Inevitably, either the plan is flawed, or one or more of the Squadron messes up and the plane(s) either crash, collide or explode (or all of the above). While they are falling out of the wreckage, Dick Dastardly calls for help, which Muttley offers depending on whether Dastardly either agrees or disagrees to give him medals. Even when Muttley does agree to fly Dastardly out of trouble, Dastardly seldom has a soft landing. At some point the General calls Dastardly on the phone to demand results, and while Dastardly assures him that they will soon capture the pigeon, the General usually disbelieves him and bellows unintelligibly to Dastardly through the phone and extends his hand from it to either grab Dastardly by the nose or his mustache. By the end of every story, Yankee Doodle Pigeon escapes while the Vulture Squadron is often left in backfiring predicaments. In a contemporary comic book/comic digest series of ''Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines'', Dastardly and Muttley still failed to stop Yankee Doodle Pigeon, except for three times: the first time when accidentally knocking out and capturing Yankee Doodle Pigeon with falling ice cubes; Dastardly and Muttley finding to their surprise that the pigeon's satchel contained nothing but moths. The second time, they salted his tail for the purpose of again retrieving his satchel, only to discover it contained a jigsaw puzzle that read "Sucker!", while the pigeon had the real message under his helmet. The third time, Dastardly and Muttley lured Yankee Doodle to their side during a 24-hour truce, hypnotized him and set him up to be a traitor. The show also featured ''Wing Dings'', short clips with jokes, and ''Magnificent Muttley'', where Muttley encounters Walter Mitty-esque daydreams.

''Magnificent Muttley''

There was one ''Magnificent Muttley'' episode in each of the 17 broadcast episodes. Muttley is the main character and imagines himself in a lot of situations, with Dastardly in the role of the villain; each episode was about three minutes long. Dastardly's car from ''Wacky Races'' made a cameo in a few of these shorts, namely "The Marvelous Muttdini" and "Admiral Bird Dog".

List of episodes

Episode credits: Story: Larz Bourne; Dalton Sandifer; Mike Maltese. Story direction: Alex Lovy, Bill Perez

Voice cast

* Paul Winchell as Dick Dastardly the First . Winchell also voices the General. As well as an occasional guest character. *

, Klunk and Zilly Messick voices the Narrator and practically all of the guest characters.

Syndication

After its original CBS run, ''Dastardly and Muttley'' was shown in syndicated reruns on local stations between 1976 and 1982. Some episodes were subsequently distributed on VHS tape by

Worldvision Enterprises Worldvision Enterprises, Inc. was an American television program and home video distributor established in 1954 as ABC Film Syndication, the domestic and overseas program distribution arm of the ABC Television Network. They primarily licensed p ...

Home video

On May 10, 2005, Warner Home Video released the complete series on Region 1 DVD. On July 31, 2006, the series was released on DVD R2 in the United Kingdom, but only in HMV stores and its online site as an HMV Exclusive.

References in popular culture

Rockabilly/

psychobilly Psychobilly is a rock music fusion genre that fuses elements of rockabilly and punk rock. It's been defined as "loud frantic rockabilly music", it has also been said that it "takes the traditional countrified rock style known as rockabilly, ram ...

group The Reverend Horton Heat covered the theme song in 1995 as a medley with the theme song from '' Jonny Quest'' on the cover album '' Saturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits'' with other various artists. Hip-Hop group Madvillain references the characters in their song "Accordion" off their debut album Madvillainy. In the BBC '' Robin Hood'' episode "Lardner's Ring", when Robin Hood is trying to send a message to King Richard via pigeon, at one point the Sheriff of Nottingham yells out "We must catch the pigeon! Catch the pigeon NOW!" Despite being a British show, the writer was obviously familiar with this show, as the Sheriff said it exactly the same way as Dastardly.

Other appearances

Yankee Doodle Pigeon and Klunk appear in '' Jellystone!'' with Klunk voiced by Fajer Al-Kaisi. Yankee Doodle Pigeon made background appearances. Klunk appears in "Lady Danjjer: Is It Wrong to Long for Kabong?" where he steals Jabberjaw's ice cream that she got from Shazzan only to be defeated by

El Kabong Quick Draw McGraw is a fictional anthropomorphic horse and the protagonist and title character of ''The Quick Draw McGraw Show''. He is a white horse, wearing a red Stetson cowboy hat, a red holster belt, a light blue bandana, and occasionally ...

. Yankee Doodle Pigeon appears stuffed and mounted in Dick Dastardly's quarters aboard his flying machine in the 2020 animated film '' Scoob!''.

References

External links

Toonopedia's entry on ''Dastardly and Muttley''
* {{War pigeons CBS original programming American animated television spin-offs 1969 American television series debuts 1970 American television series endings 1960s American animated television series Television series by Hanna-Barbera Aviation television series American children's animated comedy television series Wacky Races spin-offs Animated television series about dogs English-language television shows