El escuadrón diabólico

As bad as Hanna-Barbera is at making spinoff shows, this "Wacky Races" spinoff is pretty good (as well as "The Perils of Penelope Pitstop"). It stars Dick Dastardly, and his dog Muttley who have traveled back in time to World War I. They along with some other pilots (Zilly, and Klunk) form the Vulture Squadron, and have one mission: To stop a carrier pigeon from crossing enemy lines. Like in "Wacky Races", Dastardly fails at his task, but still the results are humorous.

I really have to give Hanna-Barbera a lot of credit. Their spinoff shows were really bad, but their "Wacky Races" spinoff shows were great. 10/10.

Back when "Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines" debuted, I was a fan. I'd enjoyed the two in "The Wacky Racers" and so it was natural I'd watch this spin-off. And, for a five year-old, it was enjoyable. Several decades later, the show was shown on the Boomerang Channel and I decided to give it a watch for nostalgia's sake. And, to my moderate surprise, the show was absolutely terrible. A horribly low cel count (common in the poorly animated 1960s and 70s that was dominated by Hanna-Barbera), completely one-dimensional characters and terrible writing (with very repetitive and flimsy plots involving catching a stupid pigeon...PERIOD) made it an absolute chore to watch. After a few episodes, I swore I'd never see this abomination again!

So why do I think I liked it to back in the old days? Much of it simply was because bad writing and low cel counts were the norm for 1969. Now, with the improvement in the quality of cartoons, it's obvious when you watch any of the old shows of 1969 that they simply don't stack up with the recent offerings by Nickelodeon or the old classic Looney Tunes shorts. And, I assume with kids today seeing better quality cartoons, that they, too, would be a bit bored by this Dastardly cartoon.

As even the most shameless of us old-cartoon freaks will readily or reluctantly admit, most of Hanna-Barberra's made-for-TV output from around 1966 onward was, to put it plainly, *c*r*a*p*!. Severely limited, almost minimalist animation; lame premises; imbecilic storytelling and humor, and those uber-repetitive characterizations and chase sequences and whole entire series....BUT every now and then even the humdrum HB hive knocked one out of the ballpark. "Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines" aka "Stop That Pigeon!" was a rarity in its hilarity -- it couuld make you laugh until your head almost fell off. There was a lopt of funny there -- the flabbergastacious flying machines! those two maladroit minions! (especially KLUNK with his psychotic genius-jargon babble-gab)! The heroic pigeon who was just so freaking OBNOXIOUS with his little tootly-tootly bugle that you wanted the bad guys to shoot him right out of the sky! And of course that greatest of all bad meany cartoon canines, the masterful MUTTLEY! Oh, how I loves me some Muttley. He's one of the funniest two-legged dogs who ever walked the cartoon Earth on two legs, especially when he gets pissed off or disgruntled. I can still do a passable Muttley Mumble myself: "Saggafrassinbaggamakkinsuggasuumbtcgmuttafubbarickrassrdly!" Not his sneaky wheezy dirty-old-dawg laugh, though; that's actually inimitable.

OK, let me see if I've got this straight...

It's World War I, and retired Wacky Racers Dick Dastardly and Muttley the dog have got together with a couple of eccentric aviators, Klunk and Zilly, to form Vulture Squadron. Zilly is a devout coward whose catchphrase is "oh-h-h de-e-ear", and who frequently tries to hide by ducking his head inside his roll-neck sweater like a human tortoise. Klunk, the team's inventive genius, speaks in a mixture of English and bizarre noises which are accompanied by the most extraordinary facial contortions. Between them this not-so-intrepid crew spend all their time manufacturing incredibly elaborate machinery and aircraft designed to block American war reports by catching...wait for it..._a single homing pigeon_. And week after week Vulture squadron are easily outwitted by the bird's superior speed and manoeuvrability, as well as the fact that it has more brains than the lot of them put together. This always results in their planes colliding or blowing up in midair, which leads to some nasty falls for Dick Dastardly. Luckily his old sidekick Muttley has learned how to fly by spinning his tail like a helicopter, and is always willing to use this talent to rescue - in return for a medal or two.

I don't know about you, but it all seems a bit silly to me. But of course that's the point: the show's wild combination of loopy ideas and corny gags combined with cheap and cheerful animation, not to mention those patented Hannah-Barbera sound fx, make these not-so magnificent men (and dog) in their flying machines a strangely compelling viewing experience in a sixties cartoon kind of a way. (And the voice cast always sound as if they're having a lot of fun even if their characters aren't.)

I still think it would have been cheaper to buy a hawk, though....

I find this Bad Boy Spin-Off of Wacky Races (1968) is very Hilarious, Because of Dick Dastardly, Muttley, Zilly and Klunk's plans are trying to capture the Yankee Doodle Pigeon, But their plans have been failed and backfired, It features the Delightfully Villainous Bad Boy Dick Dastardly, His Canine sidekick Muttley, The Cowardly Zilly and The Intelligent Inventor Klunk, Who speaks with Sound Effects Language, While Zilly translates in English. I'll give this Hanna-Barbara Series a 10/10.