The Robonic Stooges
7.1 /10 2 Votes
Duration Language English | 6/10 IMDb Country United States | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Director Charles A. NicholsChris Cuddington Release date September 10, 1977 – March 18, 1978 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
The Robonic Stooges is a Saturday morning animated series featuring the characters of The Three Stooges in new roles as clumsy crime-fighting bionic superheroes. It was developed by Norman Maurer and produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions from September 10, 1977 to March 18, 1978 on CBS and contained two segments: The Robonic Stooges and Woofer & Wimper, Dog Detectives.
Contents
The Robonic Stooges originally aired as a segment on The Skatebirds 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.
Overview
Moe, Larry and Curly are superheroes who fight crime with their special bionic 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 had died when production began (Moe Howard and Larry Fine had both died in 1975, Shemp Howard died in 1955 and Curly Howard died in 1952), other voice actors were used to impersonate them, mostly veteran voice actors from other Hanna-Barbera productions. Paul Winchell voiced Moe, Joe Baker voiced Larry, and Frank Welker voiced Curly (Welker had previously used his Curly impersonation for the titular character in Jabberjaw). Unlike cartoon series produced by Hanna-Barbera in the 1970s, The Robonic Stooges did not contain a laugh track.
This was the second animated adaptation of the Three Stooges, the first being Cambria Studios' The New Three Stooges in 1965, which used the actual Stooges' voices. Norman Maurer, 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 (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, were asked to participate (even as 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
1977
Aired as part of The Skatebirds:
1978
Aired as part of The Three Robonic Stooges (2 shorts aired per 30-minute episode):
References
The Robonic Stooges WikipediaThe Robonic Stooges IMDb