Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor

There was no "Call Me Ishmael" nonsense for this Hanna-Barbera concoction that originally ran on CBS-TV from September 9, 1967 until September 6,1969. Only 15 episodes were produced for the first season while repeated episodes appeared in its second season. This was one of the best that was one of the action-adventure Hanna-Barbera produced shows that emerged during this period. This was in fact two shows packed into a half-hour. First up is "The Mighty Mightor". In this segment,prehistoric teenager Tor(voiced by Bobby Diamond)had the ability to raise a club given to him by an old hermit,thereby transforming himself into the Mighty Mightor(Don Stewart)to fight crime in the stone age along with his faithful companion and pet dinosaur Tog(voiced by Hanna-Barbera stock player Don Messick)turns into a superhero as well by transforming into a fire-breathing dragon. The animation here was very good since this was the action packed version of "The Flintstones",but it wasn't(Imagine if you will Fred Flintstone with superpowers saving Bedrock from certain doom). It was set in the stone age where we have a superhero that takes on formidable villains that set out to destroy Tor's village. Mightor was The Flintstones by way of Space Ghost in prehistoric times. But here the action was good with some of the best animation around by the head master of the Hanna-Barbera action adventure shows-Alex Toth(the same who brought Space Ghost and Jonny Quest). In some of the episodes,Mightor and Tog usually saved Tor's teenage sister Sherra(Patsy Garrett)from a sinister fate or from some disaster that is about to happen to the village. Pondo was the head leader of the tribe(John Stephenson,another Hanna-Barbera stock player)while in some episodes Mightor ends up having to save one or the other by one of the most infertile of characters(Little Rock!!!-voiced by Norma McMillan)who every time our hero has to keep this annoying brat from getting into more trouble. Some of the episodes are worth seeing that are very good with Mightor and Tog taking out the baddies one by one with their amazing superpowers.

The other segment is "The New Adventures of Moby Dick." In this segment,the lead character of Herman Melville's classic 1851 novel is not a monster but a creature of superstrength who protects his domain under the sea. In this second part of the show,Moby becomes the protector of two orphaned children,Tom and Tubb(Bobby Resnick and Barry Balkin)protecting them from such dangers as white sharks in the sea and other dangerous stuff that lies beneath them not to mention taking on some formidable villains and astounding creatures with incredible powers-all under the sea!!! Assisting them is Scooby(Don Messick)their seal pal. This was a very good show until CBS-TV dropped them altogether in the fall of 1969 to wussie cartoons ending Hanna-Barbera's array of superhero cartoon shows. The reasons why Mightor and Moby Dick were dropped from the Saturday Morning schedule,along with several other cartoons as well including Filmation's "Batman & Superman Show",and Hanna-Barbera's "Space Ghost" and "The Herculoids" was due to the excessive violence that it contain towards children and from there disappeared from oblivion never to be heard from again. However,in the fall of 1977,Mightor and Moby Dick did returned in repeated episodes for the syndicated "The Fantastic Worlds of Hanna-Barbera" aka "Hanna-Barbera's World of Super Adventures",which not only featured Mightor and Moby Dick but also other lost Hanna-Barbera superhero characters as well including joining forces with Space Ghost, Frankenstein Junior and The Herculoids.

The Mighty Mightor was a prehistoric human who could change into a masked superhero by raising a stick in the air and shouting "Mightor!" He was magically transformed into a being with great strength who could fly with the aid of his club. His dinosaur pet would also morph into a dragon. He'd take on a T-Rex or anything else that threatened his tribe. The program had many of the same sound effects and feel of Jonny Quest. While it may not have been higher quality animation, the mixture of a superhero, dinosaurs, cavemen, and fierce battles looked pretty cool to a 9 year old back in the 1960s and an old baseball bat was the perfect "club" to imitate The Mighty Mightor. I never could get mine to fly though.

for many years, I had this image of a flying caveman superhero, stuck in my head. Other folk only ever came up with "Captain Caveman", when asked about it, but I knew it wasn't that. The first time I ever got to see Cartoon Network, there Mightor was, amongst similar Hanna-Barbera heroes of the time, and it all made sense again. Honestly, my vague memories were more fun, because this was mostly leftover sound effects from "Jonny Quest", and the typical vocal processing of the day, for the hero

Still, it's a painless 12 minutes or so. Don't remember "Moby Dick" at all, though my fond memories of "Mightor" could be clouding my memories. My favorites at the time, would have been "Shazzan", and an obscure "Lone Ranger and Tonto" cartoon, featuring Tonto's trained hawk, "Taka". Cartoon network would earn an even more special place in my heart, if they ever excavated this Lone Ranger, since I had an inflatable hawk for years, also named Taka. But I haven't seen a hint of that show, since I was 8, and am prepared to survive on my memories. Still, in this modern age, I can't believe Cartoon Network/Boomerang, hasn't brought these back yet. I think this "Lone Ranger" was a Filmation product, but can't be sure. Maybe one day....

"Mightor" is god-awful in every respect: animation, story, voice acting, sound, music, etc. Each episode is nearly identical: some bad thing kidnaps the chick, then Ken-doll caveman turns into Mightor, while his kid brother (son? whatever?) puts on a Mightor mask and pretends to be the hero. The kid attacks the bad guy and his Mightor mask covers his eyes. Whilst he can't see, the real Mightor defeats the bad guy. The kid lifts his mask and thinks he did it himself. Rinse, repeat, show after show.

HOWEVER. There is an entity that makes "Mightor" look good: "Moby Dick." This show is too awful to even discuss. Its very existence will depress you like a rainy Sunday after the funeral of a close friend. Cheap, eye-straining (from the constant blurry underwater effects seemingly achieved by wiggling the lens around while printing the film), and soul-draining. If you must watch this, keep some Prozac or St. John's Wort around so you don't kill yourself.

Moby Dick And Mighty Mightor is one of the many superhero-themed cartoons released by Hanna-Barbera, and these two are the standard two-pack of adventure in the vein of Frankenstein Jr. And The Impossibles, as they focus on heroes and adventures.

The main draw with the two segments is that unlike the previous show, each segment has an opening that explains the origins of each show. Mighty Mightor is set in the prehistoric era, where a teenage caveman named Tor saves an old hermit while on a hunting trip, and is granted a club that allows him to transform into Mightor, and change his dinosaur friend Tog into a dragon. Using his new powers, Mightor protects his village from all threats, and even save love interest Sheera or her brother, Little Rok, whose habit of pretending to be Mightor sometimes gets the kid into a situation.

Moby Dick is set in present time, as teenagers Tom and Tubb befriend the great white whale after he saves them from being shark food after a typhoon sweeps the two far from their uncle's sea vessel. Together with a pet seal named Scooby, Moby Dick protects the boys as the four take on the perils of the deep together.

Each of the 18 episodes contains two Mightor adventures and one Moby Dick episode. Each of the shorts chronicles a random adventures the heroes have. I prefer the Mightor shorts, mainly the ones without Little Rok, as I found that character to be a prehistoric pain in the neck made to always need rescuing and never learns to stay out of danger. The Moby Dick shorts I do not care about, as they are more light-hearted and are boring compared to the Mightor ones. I recommend this for those who are into classic cartoons.