Die Barkleys

In Australia, "The Barkleys" was released on CBS-Fox with another show by the same producers "The Houndcats" in 1988. They both became a child hood favorite despite the shoddy animation.

The two shows seem to have been made at roughly the same expense; the animation and script-writing are at about the same level. The Barkley's might be a tiny bit more satirical and intelligent. Most episodes revolve around the pivotal character, Arnie Barkley, the patriachal father of three children - sometimes browbeating, often unrelentingly pedantic and demanding. He maintains a superiority of his well-meaning neighbor Beagle (the Flanders), but is constantly sycophantic towards the owner of the bus company he works for (the Burns).

Not bad, this little comedy. The shoddiness of the overall production is more likely to endear than repulse.

The Barkleys while certainly not the nadir of the (now sadly completed) world of Staurday morning network cartoon shows, it was seen as that by some at the time. In 1972, VARIETY editorialized on the weekend animation as "shrunken adult programming", because all of the shows seemed to be pale imitations of prime-time conterparts. George Heinemann, the man in charge of NBC's children's programming, weakly defended his products by citing a single example of where this might be true, in that Henry Corden was instructed to try to sound like Carrol O'Connor's Archie Bunker character when doing The Barkleys. I would say the show is somewhat, at least cast wise,like All In The Family, but at the same time it's like Life Of Riley, too. I'd guess that Corden's voice was probably closer to William Bendix anyway. That he (Arnie Barkley) is a loudmouth bus driver sort of reminds one of yet another classic character, too. "Arnie" was the name of a forgotten series starring Hershel Bernardi that ended the day "The Barkleys" debuted. Just saying. It and all the other kids shows were, at that time anyway, spared the relentless dogmatic militant politics that had spread like a grass fire through prime time. Arnie had nothing new or socially relevant to say, it was an easy-for-kids to understand slapstick sitcom. The writing flaws are numerous, the story logic fails on many levels, and as been said, the animation is typical low-grade TV value of the time. Did kids really like it? My guess is they ignored it, as it was pitted against The Brady Kids on ABC and Josie And The Pussycats In Outer Space over at CBS.

I'm all for using previous art as inspiration, but when TV writers make a show with characters that are nearly identical to the characters of the show before it - that's just lazy, in my opinion. It takes effort to think of something new. The Barkleys, a cartoon about an anthropomorphic family of dogs, was adapted from All in the Family. Arnie (Henry Corden), is a cantankerous, narrow minded bus driver. Agnes (Joan Gerber), his wife, is a homemaking pushover. They have three children: long-haired hippie Roger (Steve Lewis), boy crazy Terry (Julie McWhirter), and nerdy Chester (Gene Andrusco). I know All in the Family is a classic, but it grates my nerves. Archie Bunker is too unlikeable and one-dimensional to be funny. All he does is spout hateful rhetoric, verbally abuse his daughter's husband for being Polish American, and talk to his wife like crap. Put all of that together, and it's just a bunch of people shouting at one another. With The Barkleys being a family friendly cartoon, the humor is way more lighthearted. Episodes revolve around Arnie's get-rich-quick schemes, and struggling to understand his kids. So the writers touched on poverty and the generational gap, which are still issues today. However, I found nothing appealing about this show as someone who lives in the 21st century. The episodes didn't make me laugh or even smile. Not that I was offended or anything - I just thought they were boring. They've been using the same family structure and stereotypes in shows for decades. Opposite sex couple with three kids. The oldest is a male, the middle child is a female, and the youngest is also a male. The mother is nurturing, while the father is an idiot, who does love his children, but deep down inside, doesn't want to be bothered with them or his wife, and would rather spend all of his Friday nights playing poker with his buddies. The lack of originality with comedy programs, whether it's animated or uses real actors/actresses, is why I avoid them. If you don't like All in the Family, you won't like this show. I suggest The Flintstones (coincidentally, Henry Corden voiced Fred Flintstone after the death of Alan Reed in 1977, the original voice actor) or The Jetsons if you want a cartoon that's still entertaining in the modern age.

"The Barkleys" is one of my all-time favorite cartoon series. It, as well as two other favorites, "The Roman Holidays" and the kids' game show "Runaround," was part of NBC's Saturday morning schedule during the 1972-1973 season ("The Terrific Ten").

My favorite episodes had to be "For Love of Money," where Arnie tries to set Roger up with a stuck-up society girl named Elsie Schnauzer, and "The Great Disc Jockey," in which Arnie, fed up with the music the kids listen to, takes a job at a radio station playing "square" music, which the kids strongly objected to. (I received a cassette tape recorder for Christmas in 1972 - I was 10 - and recorded the soundtrack of the latter episode. I drove everybody in my family nuts after playing said "Barkleys" audio track incessantly!)

And if Agnes Barkley's voice sounded familiar to some people, it was actress Joan Gerber; she was in another concurrent animated "All in the Family" spoof, "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home," as the Boyle family's matron, Irma. Ms. Gerber's characters, Agnes Barkley and Irma Boyle, sounded very much alike.

After "The Barkleys" left NBC in September 1973, it would be quite some time before I would enjoy the series again. (I was unaware that around 1986 Family Home Entertainment released select episodes of "The Barkleys" on VHS tape; this was still when Marvel Comics Animation - the successor to DePatie-Freleng Enterprises, who made "The Barkleys" - still owned the copyrights to the show. Pity I didn't know about that when my family bought their first VCR in the spring of 1987.)

So, it would be *43* years before I would see "The Barkleys" again; in March 2016 it was picked up by Retro TV after NBC Universal had cheerfully taken the rights to the Filmation series Retro was airing away from them (NBC Universal had just completed its purchase of DreamWorks Classics, which owned the Filmation shows; they have *hoarded* all those Filmation series ever since).

So, I finally got to enjoy "The Barkleys" again; it was a real treat after a long absence, but once Retro aired the series after four rerun increments I stopped watching. I didn't want the special memories of when I first watched the show as a kid in 1972 worn away, and I didn't want to memorize the dialogue a la that one syndicated set of "Looney Tunes" many stations aired at that time.

Retro had aired "The Barkleys" continuously until earlier this year, on Saturday, February 22, 2025, after which they replaced it with a set of uninteresting Australian live-action kids' shows. Thus, Retro TV has now joined the ranks of those networks no longer airing cartoons on Saturday mornings. (Apparently Marvel didn't renew the copyright on "The Barkleys" after it expired in 2000, possibly explaining why Retro reran the series for nearly a decade.) So, Saturday mornings have for the most part been a good reason for me to sleep in, with the exception of a few shows on MeTV Toons, which I receive over-the-air where I live. So apparently now MeTV Toons is *the* only place you can see classic cartoon series on Saturday mornings. (Weigel Broadcasting, owners of MeTV Toons, claims they are seeking more over-the-air stations to carry the network, but so far nothing has come of it. I guess we'll just have to wait and see.)

But - all is *not* lost. I discovered "The Barkleys," along with another DFE show from the same time, "The Houndcats," was released on DVD by Film Chest Media Group, and in March of this year I purchased a copy from Ebay. Now I won't have to worry ever again about "When will I see 'The Barkleys' again?;" I can see them anytime I want without it being continuously run over and over again, and without those special childhood memories getting erased (certainly at age 63 I have more will power). There was one episode on the disc Retro failed to rerun during that near decade, the last one entitled "The Great Talent Scout Caper," in which a con artist named Bilkhound tries to make stars out of Chester, Terry, Roger, and Arnie, but fails (why *didn't* Retro air this one? I didn't see anything politically incorrect or otherwise in it). So now I can rest easy knowing I have the entire "Barkleys" series on DVD (and somehow I seemed to enjoy it *even better* after hearing Retro no longer airs the show, because I now own the DVD for posterity)!

For the special memories it evokes whenever I watch it again, I give "The Barkleys" a perfect 10!