The Mumbly Cartoon Show

Overview

Mumbly is a cartoon dog character famous for his wheezy laugh, voiced by Don Messick. Mumbly appears to be the twin brother of 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 broken 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.

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:

When the show was broadcast on Spanish television (channel TVE1), the character was named 'Risitas' which translated literally means 'little laughs'.

Episodes

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

Production credits