The Mighty Heroes

Premise

The team members were accident-prone bunglers who often found themselves in silly situations. A typical occurrence had them hopelessly tangled together offering each other stock apologies, often while falling en masse into an even worse situation. In combat, they continually got into each other's way until they were all captured by the villain. However, having escaped the villain's death trap in the cliffhanger, the team always managed to regroup and fight with proper coordination to win the day.

Concept

The series came about when the Terrytoons staff were pitching series proposals to the animation company's parent corporation, the CBS television network, only to have them all rejected. When the CBS representatives asked if there were any other proposals, Bakshi, at the time a former "boy wonder" animator who had been recently promoted to director and invited to the meeting, spoke up and improvised the proposed The Mighty Heroes on the spot.

Production

The cartoons originally appeared as a segment of the long-running Mighty Mouse Playhouse during the 1966-67 season, which was renamed "Mighty Mouse and The Mighty Heroes" in recognition of the new segment. Some weeks during the network run, two complete "Mighty Heroes" segments would open and close the show with a classic Mighty Mouse cartoon in-between. In other weeks, one Mighty Heroes episode would be split in two to open and close the show, with two Mighty Mouse cartoons broadcast in-between.

Talent

The character voices were provided by Herschel Bernardi, who provided those of Strong Man, Diaper Man, and Tornado Man, and Lionel G. Wilson, who provided those of Cuckoo Man and Rope Man. Bernardi was also the original provider of the "Ho Ho Ho" voice of the Jolly Green Giant and of StarKist's Charlie the Tuna voice in commercials. Wilson was also the voice of the title character in another famous Terrytoons series, Tom Terrific. Only 20 episodes were produced; the series came to an end when Bakshi left Terrytoons in 1967.

Post first-run syndications

Reruns of The Mighty Heroes were eventually syndicated by Viacom (now CBS Television Distribution) in the 1970s as part of the Mighty Mouse package. There have also been licensed VHS releases. Episodes of The Mighty Heroes also appeared in movie theaters for a time, with an episode shown to audiences, preceding the main attraction.

They appeared in animated form as guest stars in the episode "Heroes and Zeroes" of the late 1980s series Mighty Mouse: The New Adventures, produced by Bakshi, in which they had all retired and were running the accounting firm of Man, Man, Man, Man and Man. Even Diaper Man had grown up, evidenced by his wearing a mustache.

They were in the 1999 pilot Curbside.

The individual Mighty Heroes

All five of the Mighty Heroes had the power to fly. Individually, they were these:

Episodes

Almost all of the 20 episodes were named after the enemies the Mighty Heroes encountered in each.

1. The Plastic Blaster
2. The Frog
3. The Junker
4. The Shrinker
5. The Ghost Monster
6. The Stretcher
7. The Monsterizer
8. The Drifter
9. The Shocker
10. The Enlarger
11. The Toy Man
12. The Dusters
13. The Big Freeze
14. The Timekeeper
15. The Scarecrow
16. The Time Eraser
17. The Return Of The Monsterizer
18. The Paper Monster
19. The Raven
20. The Bigger Digger

Although some sources list The Proton Pulsator as a 21st episode, this was actually an episode of The Astronut Show.

The series had no opening/closing titles of its own.