Wacky Races Dick Dastardly and Muttley Animation Art

 

Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines was a Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions for CBS from 1969 to 1971.

The show features Dick Dastardly and Muttley, the comic villains from Wacky Races, as World War I flying aces and members of the "Vulture Squadron," a crew of aviators who're on a mission to stop a homing pigeon named Yankee Doodle Pigeon from delivering messages to the enemy. The show was unusual in having only two voice actors—Paul Winchell as Dastardly and the indistinctly heard General, and Don Messick as everybody else. Each half-hour episode typically features two stories, plus "Wing Dings" (short, corny gags) and "Magnificent Muttley" (Muttley's Walter Mitty-style daydreams).

The show's theme song is notable for repeating the phrase "Stop the Pigeon" many times, with the result that many have come to believe that this was what the show was called.

Wacky Races Characters

Members of the Vulture Squadron include:
Dick Dastardly — ex-Wacky Racer turned aviator, and the leader of the Vulture Squadron.
Muttley — Dastardly's bungling canine sidekick. Able to speak, after a fashion. Since leaving the Wacky Races, Muttley has learned to fly by spinning his tail like a helicopter rotor. This enables him to save Dastardly from falling, although Muttley usually demands a medal for doing so. He also has his own segment, Magnificent Muttley, in which he daydreams that he is a different hero each week, usually with Dastardly as the villain.
Zilly — a pilot in the Vulture squadron. He is a cringing coward, forever running away and having to be fetched by Muttley. Each new plan fills him with dread, and he usually utters his catchphrase, "Ohhh dear!" before retracting his head into his collar like a tortoise retracting into its shell. Dastardly puts up with his cowardice because he is needed to fly planes and interpret Klunk's gibberish.
Klunk — the Vulture Squadron's chief designer. Each episode sees him developing aircraft with odd features and attachments designed to catch Yankee Doodle Pigeon. His attempts to explain his inventions are complicated by the fact that he apparently suffers from Tourette syndrome: his speech is punctuated by howls, clicks, whistles, and growls, accompanied by bizarre facial contortions. Only Zilly can understand him.

Other characters include:

Yankee Doodle Pigeon — a patriotic American homing pigeon carrying a mail bag, and a bugle which he always plays to announce his presence in defiance of the Vulture Squadron.
The General — Dastardly's superior, who always speaks (or rather, bellows) to Dastardly on the telephone. He is always able to reach Dastardly by phone even when Dastardly is flying (or, more often than not, falling), although it is never explained how. He is an unseen character except for his uniformed arm, which occasionally emerges from the telephone earpiece to grab or strike Dastardly. In one episode he pays a personal visit but is still never seen on camera.
Muttley's Girlfriend — only seen in some of the Magnificent Muttley shorts. She is usually the damsel in distress whom Muttley has to rescue from Dastardly's clutches. She looks like a female of Muttley's breed (whatever that may be) but unlike him she is able to speak distinctly. She may be a figment of his imagination.

Story

Each story features variations on the same plot elements: the Vulture Squadron tries to trap Yankee Doodle Pigeon using an airplane or airplanes equipped with Klunk's latest contraption(s), but one or more of the Squadron messes up the attempt and the plane(s) crash or explode.

While they are falling out of the wreckage, Dastardly calls for help, which Muttley either offers or refuses depending on whether Dastardly agrees to give him a medal. Even when Muttley does agree to fly Dastardly out of trouble, Dastardly seldom has a soft landing.

At some point the General calls Dastardly on the phone to demand results. Dastardly assures him that they will soon capture the pigeon, but the General disbelieves him and either bellows down the phone or reaches through it and grabs Dastardly's collar.

Klunk then comes up with a new invention and "explains" it in his own unique way. Dastardly says "What'd he say? What'd he say?" and Zilly interprets, before attempting to run away. Once Muttley has "persuaded" Zilly to return, the Vulture Squadron take off in their new plane(s) to repeat the whole procedure over and over again. Eventually the Squadron are left to lick their wounds as Yankee Doodle Pigeon flies off over the horizon, blowing his bugle triumphantly.

Like its predecessor Wacky Races, Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines owes a great deal to the Road Runner cartoons, with Dastardly once again taking the Wile E. Coyote role. Both characters are fanatics, incapable of giving up even in the face of repeated and painful failure. Michael Maltese, who wrote or co-wrote many of the original Road Runner shorts, is also credited as a writer on both Wacky Races and Dastardly and Muttley.

Muttley is a Hanna-Barbera animated fictional character that was voiced by Don Messick (who also voiced Scooby-Doo). Muttley, a dog, first appeared in Wacky Races in 1968, as the sidekick of a nasty but incompetent and horribly accident-prone villain named Dick Dastardly. While Dick was created as the equivalent of Professor Fate from the 1960s movie The Great Race, Muttley mirrored the film's character of Max Meen. Dick and Muttley were paired together in various later Hanna-Barbera series as bumbling villains.

Muttley does not really talk; his main examples of speech are his trademark snicker---a wheezing, asthmatic laugh (usually made at Dick's expense)---and a mushy, low-in-the mouth grumble against an unsympathetic or harsh Dick (usually along the lines of "Rassum brassum msblsssl Rick Rastardly!"). Don Messick had used Muttley's distinctive laugh for another Hanna-Barbera canine, Precious Pupp, several years earlier, and repurposed it for Alexandra Cabot's cat Sebastian on Josie and the Pussycats in 1970.

Muttley wore only a collar in Wacky Races, but in Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines he donned a World War I style aviator's uniform, and served as a flying ace along with Dastardly and two other pilots as members of the "Vulture Squadron." In this spinoff, he also sported many medals, of which he was particularly fond, and constantly demanded new ones from Dastardly for following his commands. Similarly, Dastardly frequently ripped medals off Muttley's chest as punishment for his incompetence. When he received a new medal, Muttley would hug himself happily, jump into the air and float back down like a feather. This gag is almost identical to the behavior of Snuggles, a dog who appeared on the series Quick Draw McGraw in the late 1950s, when he received a dog biscuit.

Also in Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines, Muttley gained the ability to fly for a brief period by spinning his tail like a propeller. This trait often proved useful when he was about to crash. Muttley also enjoyed his own short segment in this series, The Magnificent Muttley, where he would engage in Walter Mitty-style fantasies.

Muttley is sometimes confused with Mumbly, a crime-fighting dog who tracked down criminals using his dog senses and drove around in an old, beat-up car. Mumbly looked exactly like Muttley and had a similar laugh, except Mumbly had grey fur, and wore a trenchcoat. Ironically, Mumbly later showed up as the captain of the villainous Really Rottens in Laff-a-Lympics along with his master "The Dread Baron" who happens to resemble Dick Dastardly. Both characters (The Dread Baron and Mumbly) later appeared in the TV movie Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose.

An early version of the Muttley/Mumbly character appears in the 1964 Hanna-Barbera feature film Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!. This prototype Muttley (named "Mugger") is a mean-spirited dog with a travelling circus who has a penchant for biting his owners on the leg. The character may also have been inspired by the Atom Ant show's "Precious Pupp" who was known for laughing the exact same way.

Muttley in other languages

Spanish: Patán/Pulgoso (Spain)
Japanese: Kenken
Portuguese: Rabugento

Dick Dastardly, voiced by Paul Winchell, is a fictional character and villain who appeared in various animated series by Hanna-Barbera Productions. Dastardly's most famous appearances are in the series Wacky Races, his initial appearance, and Wacky Races spinoff Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines.

Wacky Races

In Wacky Races, Dick Dastardly was one of the racers who competed in every episode for first place in a long and hazard-filled cross-country road rally. As his name implies, Dastardly aimed to win solely through cheating and trickery. His race car, named "The Mean Machine," featured all sorts of devious traps for him to use against his opponents. As Wacky Races is inspired by the film The Great Race, so was Dastardly derived from the movie's chief villain, Professor Fate. Dastardly in this series wore old-fashioned racer's gear---a long violet overcoat, long red gloves, and a large striped hat with driving goggles attached. Dastardly also, like the cartoon villain Snidely Whiplash, sported a luxurious handlebar mustache.

Dastardly was aided in his schemes by his sidekick, a scruffy dog named Muttley who had a distinctive wheezy laugh.

Despite Dastardly and Muttley's attempts, the "double-dealing do-badders", as the opening theme of Wacky Races describes them, failed to win a single race. Dastardly's plans were always foiled either by his or Muttley's incompetence, the actions of another racer, or sheer bad luck, resulting in Dastardly crossing the finish line last, if at all. One of the great ironies of the show was that, if Dastardly had not bothered to cheat, often he would have won fairly. Upon tasting defeat, Dastardly would utter his catchphrase: "Drat, drat, and double drat!" His other main catchphrase was: "Muttley, do something!"

Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines, and later spinoffs

Dick Dastardly continued his villainous career in the Wacky Races spinoff Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines, also informally known by some as Stop That Pigeon! (due to the theme song using this phrase repeatedly). In this series, Dastardly and Muttley, as flying aces, with two other pilots, composed the "Vulture Squadron," which tried constantly to stop a messenger pigeon from delivering messages to an opposing army. As in Wacky Races, Dastardly continued to fail miserably at his mission.
In later years Dastardly and Muttley were the nemeses for Yogi Bear and his friends in the 1980s series Yogi's Treasure Hunt and the 1970s series Yogi's Gang. This time, Dick repeatedly failed at discovering hidden treasure before Yogi and his team on Yogi's Treasure Hunt and he becomes a spy on Yogi's Gang. Dastardly and Muttley also appeared as teenagers in the short-lived series Yo, Yogi!. The final regular appearances of Dastardly and Muttley were in the "Fender Bender 500" shorts on the early 1990s short-lived series Wake, Rattle and Roll; in those segments, the duo once again appeared in the Mean Machine, but raced against such Hanna-Barbera stalwarts as Yogi Bear and Quick Draw McGraw.

In the TV series Laff-A-Lympics, there was a similar looking (and sounding) character to Dastardly named "The Dread Baron," voiced by John Stephenson. The character's name is an obvious pun on the name of the infamous World War I fighter pilot, the Red Baron. In this series, the Dread Baron was seen wearing a World War I-era German fighter pilot's uniform. The Dread Baron also had a dog similar to Muttley, with grey fur, an orange trenchcoat and a similar name: Mumbly. (Mumbly actually had his own series in which he was a detective.) The two later appeared in the made-for-TV movie, Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose.

Diversity

In 1994, British men's magazine Loaded nominated Dick Dastardly as one of the "Greatest Living Englishmen," despite the fact that the character is (from the context of the various series he appeared in and other indicators) an American.

Dick Dastardly in other languages

Brazilian Portuguese: Dick Vigarista
French: Satanas
Spanish: El Barón Rojo