My buddy Dave referred me to an older animated movie, “The Point”, which has Ringo Starr as the main voice, which in turn reminded me of this one and led me to rent the first season from Netflix. I did so before Tom Bosley died, but his passing ended up being an interesting coincidence.
This was an animated series from 1972 to 1974 in the US, courtesy of Hanna-Barbera, the same folks who gave us the Flintstones, Jetsons, and Scooby Doo. This was considerably more adult fare, a biting social commentary on the state of the nation (California in particular) in 1972-74 (3 seasons), of which season 1 is on DVD.
It centers on a small suburban family, the Doyles. The father, Harry (Tom Bosley), is self-employed. Mother, Irma, stays home and cooks, cleans, raises the kids, a typical American suburban housewife. The older son Chet is a slacker whose job search efforts are few and far between. The daughter Alice is…well, Peg from “The Family Guy” is probably based on her. She could stand to lose a few pounds. The younger son Jackie, voiced by Jackie Earl Haley, better known these days as Rorshach from “The Watchmen”, is quite the schemer, described by my friend Dave as a prototype Ferengi, the avaricious aliens from “Star Trek: The Next Generation”.
Harry winds up stuck in the middle between his arch-liberal teenage kids and his next-door neighbor Ralph (voiced by Jack Burns) who seems to have a NY accent despite the California setting. I’ve noticed that Chet’s politics seems less sincere than an excuse not to work, whereas Alice sincerely believes in her new ideas – even joining a commune briefly; Ralph correctly makes the link between “commune” and “communist” but incorrectly assumes they’re all nudist colonies (!). The mother is tolerant without agreeing. For his part, Ralph sees conspiracies everywhere – mostly Russkis and Red Chinese, to whom he attributes Pearl Harbor (???) - and mobilizes a local militia neighborhood watch including an Army chaplain, a jeep, a tank, and an oversexed old woman referred to as “Whittaker”. I don’t recall seeing Ralph’s wife, and he says his son is away at military school. For his part, Harry rebuffs and complains about the kids’ socialism but also accuses Ralph of being “a prime candidate for a brain transplant.”
If there is one mantra, one recurring theme repeated ad nauseam, particularly through the voice of reason – the father – it’s that “this country is going down the toilet”. And it seems that, at every point in history, that sentiment is consistently felt. I recall an episode of “Dobie Gillis”, the TV show Bob Denver was on before “Gilligan’s Island” (for which he’s known as the title character). Denver, as Maynard, some beatnik (proto-hippie) is obsessed with nuclear war (this must have been around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis). He’s freaking out. So Gillis reads him a letter, full of doom and woe, the end of the world is near, etc. (very articulate and melodramatic), prompting excited grunts of approval and agreement from Maynard. Then Gillis reveals that the letter in question was written in 1905! Some things never change. The Harry Doyle’s laments fall short of Maynard’s hysterics, but the idea is certainly similar.
While we’re on the topic of “lost HB cartoons” (NOT a topic I want to explore at length, as that would take a book, not a blog), I recall “Roman Holidays”, which ran in the 70s on Saturday mornings. It was similar to “Wait” except set in ancient Rome (“wait until Pater returns to the Domus?”). Unfortunately, it doesn’t seem to be on Netflix, and the YouTube episodes are in Portuguese (???).
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