The Mumbly Cartoon Show

The Mumbly Cartoon Show was a Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions featuring the titular Mumbly, a cartoon dog. The show aired on ABC from 1976–1977.

Overview
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 on 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 appeared on the animated series 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 (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. Mumbly would return as a villain alongside the Dread Baron (resembling the team of Muttley and Dick Dastardly) in 1987's TV movie Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose.

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.

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.

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 Tom & Jerry / Grape Ape / Mumbly Show (1976)
All episodes of The Mumbly Cartoon Show were shown on ABC in original production order.


 * #85-1: "Fleetfeet Versus Flat Foot" (September–11-76)
 * #85-2: "The Great Car Heist" (September–18-76)
 * #85-3: "The Magical Madcap Caper" (September–25-76)
 * #85-4: "The Big Breakout Bust" (October–2-76)
 * #85-5: "The Return of Bing Bong" (October–9-76)
 * #85-6: "The Super-Dooper Super Cop" (October–16-76)
 * #85-7: "The Big Ox Bust" (October–23-76)
 * #85-8: "The Great Graffiti Gambit" (October–30-76)
 * #85-9: "Taking Stock" (November–6-76)
 * #85-10: "The Littermugg" (November–13-76)
 * #85-11: "The Perils of the Purple Baron" (November–20-76)
 * #85-12: "The Fatbeard the Pirate Fracas" (November–25-76) *
 * #85-13: "The Big Snow Foot Snow Job" (November–27-76)


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

The Tom & Jerry / Mumbly Show (1976–77)

 * #85-14: "Sherlock's Badder Brudder" (December–4-76)
 * #85-15: "The UFO's a No-No" (December–11-76)
 * #85-16: "Hyde and Seek" (December–18-76)

Production credits

 * EXECUTIVE PRODUCERS: Joseph Barbera and William Hanna
 * DIRECTOR: Charles A. Nichols
 * CREATIVE PRODUCER: Iwao Takamoto
 * ASSOCIATE PRODUCER: Alex Lovy
 * STORY: Bill Ackerman, Larz Bourne, Tom Dagenais, Alan Dinehart, 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
 * VOICES: 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, Jamie Diaz, Hak Ficq, Owen Fitzgerald, Mo Gollub, Gary Hoffman, Jack Huber, Larry Huber, Alex Ignatiev, Ray Jacobs, Homer Jonas, Lin Larsen, Warren Marshall, Gregg Nocon, Tony Rivera, Linda Rowley, Bob Singer, Terry Slade, O. Wilson, Donna Zeller
 * ANIMATION SUPERVISORS: Ed Barge, Bill Keil
 * ANIMATION: Carlos Alfonso, Ed Barge, O.E. Callahan, Lars Calonius, Rudy Cataldi, Olivia Clark, Bob Goe, Bill Hutton, Volus Jones, Ed Love, Tony Love, Ken Muse, Margaret Nichols, Jon Patterson, Juan Picu, Tom Ray, Veve Risto, Jay Sarbry, Ken Southworth, Dave Tendlar, Dick Thompson, Carlo Vinci, Xenia
 * BACKGROUNDS: John Currin, Dennis Derrell, Robert Gentle, Al Gmuer, Richard Khim, 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 EDITOR: Chip Yaras
 * 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.
 * © 1976 Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc.