''The Robonic Stooges'' is a
Saturday morning animated series featuring the characters of
The Three Stooges
The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy team active from 1922 until 1970, best remembered for their 190 short subject films by Columbia Pictures. Their hallmark styles were physical farce and slapstick. Six Stooges appeared ...
in new roles as clumsy crime-fighting
cyborg superheroes
A superhero or superheroine is a stock character that typically possesses ''superpowers'', abilities beyond those of ordinary people, and fits the role of the hero, typically using his or her powers to help the world become a better place, ...
. It was developed by
Norman Maurer
Norman Albert Maurer (May 13, 1926 – November 23, 1986) was a comic book artist and writer, and a director and producer of films and television shows.
Comic books
Maurer's lifelong association with the Three Stooges began about the time ...
and produced by
Hanna-Barbera Productions
Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. ( ) was an American animation studio and production company which was active from 1957 to 2001. It was founded on July 7, 1957, by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera following the decision of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to c ...
from September 10, 1977, to March 18, 1978, on
CBS and contained two segments: ''The Robonic Stooges'' and ''
Woofer & Wimper, Dog Detectives''.
''The Robonic Stooges'' originally aired as a segment on ''
The Skatebirds
''The Skatebirds'' (onscreen title: ''Skatebirds'') is an American live-action/animated package program produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and broadcast on CBS from September 10, 1977, to January 21, 1978.
Overview
The Skatebirds consisted of t ...
'' from September 10, 1977, to January 21, 1978, on
CBS. When CBS canceled ''The Skatebirds'' in early 1978, the trio was given their own half-hour timeslot which ran for 16 episodes.
This was the second animated series starring the Stooges, following the 1965 series ''
The New 3 Stooges
''The New 3 Stooges'' is an American animated television series that ran during the 1965–66 television season starring the Three Stooges. The show follows the trio's antics both in live-action and animated segments. The cast consisted of Moe H ...
''.
In 2021, it was announced ''The Robonic Stooges'' would become a comic book series with new stories published by American Mythology Productions. Issue #1 was written by
S.A. Check and
Jordan Gershowitz with interior art from Philip Murphy and Jorge Pacheco and main cover art by
Eric Shanower
Eric James Shanower (born October 23, 1963) is an American cartoonist, best known for his Oz novels and comics, and for the ongoing retelling of the Trojan War as '' Age of Bronze''.
Early life
Eric Shanower was born on October 23, 1963. Upon hi ...
.
Overview
Moe, Larry and Curly are
junkyard-based superheroes who fight crime with their often malfunctioning
bionic
Bionics or biologically inspired engineering is the application of biological methods and systems found in nature to the study and design of engineering systems and modern technology.
The word ''bionic'', coined by Jack E. Steele in August 1 ...
powers and are given assignments via film projector from their frustrated boss Agent 000 (pronounced "oh-oh-oh") who runs the Superhero Employment Agency.
Since all of the original
Three Stooges
The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy team active from 1922 until 1970, best remembered for their 190 short subject films by Columbia Pictures. Their hallmark styles were physical farce and slapstick. Six Stooges appeared ...
had died when production began (
Moe Howard
Moses Harry Horwitz (June 19, 1897 – May 4, 1975), known professionally as Moe Howard, was an American actor and comedian. He is best known as the leader of The Three Stooges, the farce comedy team who starred in motion pictures and television ...
and
Larry Fine
Louis Feinberg (October 5, 1902 – January 24, 1975), known professionally as Larry Fine, was an American actor, comedian, and musician. He is best known as a member of the comedy act the Three Stooges.
Early life
Fine was born to a Russian Je ...
had both died in 1975,
Shemp Howard
Samuel Horwitz (March 11, 1895 – November 22, 1955), known professionally as Shemp Howard, was an American actor and comedian. He was called "Shemp" because "Sam" came out that way in his mother's thick Lithuanian Yiddish, Litvak accent.
He is ...
died in 1955 and
Curly Howard
Jerome Lester Horwitz (; October 22, 1903 – January 18, 1952), known professionally as Curly Howard, was an American actor and comedian. He was best known as a member of the American comedy team the Three Stooges, which also featured his elder ...
died in 1952), other voice actors were used to impersonate them, mostly veteran voice actors from other Hanna-Barbera productions.
Paul Winchell
Paul Winchell (''né'' Wilchinsky; December 21, 1922 – June 24, 2005) was an American actor, comedian, humanitarian, inventor and ventriloquist whose career flourished in the 1950s and 1960s. From 1950 to 1954, he hosted ''The Paul Winchell S ...
voiced Moe,
Joe Baker
Joseph Henry Baker (17 July 1940 – 6 October 2003) was an England international footballer. Born in Woolton in Liverpool, England, he spent virtually his entire childhood growing up in Motherwell, Scotland. He is notable for being the first ...
voiced Larry, and
Frank Welker
Franklin Wendell Welker (born March 12, 1946) is an American voice actor. He began his career in the 1960s, and holds over 860 film, television, and video game credits as of 2022, making him one of the most prolific voice actors of all time. With ...
voiced Curly (Welker had previously used his Curly impression for the titular character in ''
Jabberjaw
''Jabberjaw'' is an American animated television series created by Joe Ruby and Ken Spears and produced by Hanna-Barbera which aired 16 original episodes on ABC from September 11 to December 18, 1976. Reruns continued on ABC until September 3, 1 ...
''). Unlike cartoon series produced by Hanna-Barbera in the 1970s, ''The Robonic Stooges'' did not contain a
laugh track
A laugh track (or laughter track) is a separate soundtrack for a recorded comedy show containing the sound of audience laughter. In some productions, the laughter is a live audience response instead; in the United States, where it is most common ...
.
This was the second animated adaptation of the Three Stooges, the first being
Cambria Studios
Cambria Productions was the West Hollywood, California animation production studio most famous for its wide usage of the Syncro-Vox technique of animation developed by Edwin Gillette, who was a co-partner in the studio.
Owned by Clark S. Haas, ...
' ''
The New 3 Stooges
''The New 3 Stooges'' is an American animated television series that ran during the 1965–66 television season starring the Three Stooges. The show follows the trio's antics both in live-action and animated segments. The cast consisted of Moe H ...
'' in 1965, which used the actual Stooges' voices.
Norman Maurer
Norman Albert Maurer (May 13, 1926 – November 23, 1986) was a comic book artist and writer, and a director and producer of films and television shows.
Comic books
Maurer's lifelong association with the Three Stooges began about the time ...
, who was married to Moe Howard's daughter and had acted as the Stooges' agent during their lifetimes, worked on both series. The Stooges had previously appeared in another Hanna Barbera-created series: ''
The New Scooby-Doo Movies
''The New Scooby-Doo Movies'' is an American animated mystery comedy television series produced by Hanna-Barbera for CBS. It is the second animated television series in the studio's ''Scooby-Doo'' franchise, and follows the first incarnation, ''Sc ...
'' (1972), this time as Moe, Larry and
Curly Joe. With the deaths of Fine and Howard in 1975, other actors were engaged to voice the roles of Moe and Larry; neither of the surviving "third" Stooges, Joe Besser or Joe DeRita, was asked to participate (even though Besser was working for Hanna-Barbera for other series at the time).
''The Robonic Stooges'' episodes were occasionally seen between shows as interstitial segments on
Boomerang.
Voices
* Joe Baker — Larry
*
Ross Martin Ross or ROSS may refer to:
People
* Clan Ross, a Highland Scottish clan
* Ross (name), including a list of people with the surname or given name Ross, as well as the meaning
* Earl of Ross, a peerage of Scotland
Places
* RoSS, the Republic of Sout ...
— Agent 000, Count von Crankenstein, Blackbeard
*
Frank Welker
Franklin Wendell Welker (born March 12, 1946) is an American voice actor. He began his career in the 1960s, and holds over 860 film, television, and video game credits as of 2022, making him one of the most prolific voice actors of all time. With ...
— Curly, Narrator, Ludwig Lillyput
*
Paul Winchell
Paul Winchell (''né'' Wilchinsky; December 21, 1922 – June 24, 2005) was an American actor, comedian, humanitarian, inventor and ventriloquist whose career flourished in the 1950s and 1960s. From 1950 to 1954, he hosted ''The Paul Winchell S ...
— Moe, Mummy/Amazing Bordoni, Professor Octane
Additional voices
*
Henry Corden
Henry Corden (born Henry Cohen; January 6, 1920 – May 19, 2005) was a Canadian-born American actor, best known for taking over the role of Fred Flintstone after Alan Reed's death in 1977. His official debut as Fred's new voice was in the 1 ...
- Hercules, Pierre Le Sly
*
Scatman Crothers
Benjamin Sherman Crothers (May 23, 1910 – November 22, 1986), known professionally as Scatman Crothers, was an American actor and musician. He is known for playing Louie the Garbage Man on the TV show ''Chico and the Man'', and Dick Hallo ...
- King
*
Casey Kasem - Atlantean Scientist
*
John Stephenson - Achilles the Heel, Cardinal Poreleau, Genie, Poodleman
Episodes
''The Skatebirds'' (1977)
''The Three Robonic Stooges'' (1978)
References
External links
*
''The Robonic Stooges''at
The Big Cartoon DataBase
The Big Cartoon DataBase (or BCDB for short) is an online database of information about animated cartoons, animated feature films, animated television shows, and cartoon shorts.
The BCDB project began in 1997 as a list of Disney animated featu ...
''Three'' [sic/nowiki> ''Robonic Stooges''">ic">''Three''
[sic
/nowiki> ''Robonic Stooges''at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
Archived
from the original on January 24, 2017.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Robonic Stooges, The
1977 American television series debuts
1978 American television series endings
1970s American animated television series
American children's animated comedy television series
American children's animated superhero television series
Television series by Hanna-Barbera
Cultural depictions of The Three Stooges
Robot superheroes
CBS original programming
Animation based on real people
American animated television spin-offs