Wait Till Your Father Gets Home

I am an avid fan of the series. I am looking for others to share my interest in the DVD set. Let me know what you think. I believe I can help with any questions you may have as I have ran some fan clubs in the past for this great television comedy. I can remember seeing the show when I was a smaller one and really didn't get it, yet as I grew older I started to think about the material and what was said and was blown away. Some of the racial comments were treated lightly due to the cartoon style and I thought this was a crazy concept and I think that is why it has stayed with us in one way or another.

Thanks, Larry

After the phenomenal success of "The Flintstones",and "The Jetsons", producers William Hanna and Joesph Barbera made their return to prime time in this animated comedy titled "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home". First seen as a special for the ABC-TV situation adult comedy series "Love American Style",was basically shown as a pilot and on the strength of that pilot,the show was launched into an weekly animated cartoon series for prime-time. It was shown in first-run syndication from the premiered episode on September 12,1972 and ended in March of 1974,in repeated episodes from the first season. This was an attempt to cash in on the enormous success of Norman Lear's All In The Family, and from the first episode was a instant hit,but it was aimed at adult audiences. It was the first for Hanna-Barbera Productions to do something that was beyond the usual calling---this was something totally different from the norm. This wildly funny series illustrated the generation gap and social issues reflecting the times,and this was set in the period of the early 1970's. But it was nothing like "All In The Family" at all,with one exception: Harry Boyle was not a racist at all,but he was however,highly educated and very successful as a businessman. A far cry from the radical aspects of Archie Bunker.

Father figure Harry Boyle(voiced by Tom Bosley of "Happy Days" fame) was a conservative businessman-father who was the president of the Boyle Restaurant Supply Company,who was continually exasperated by the excesses of his hippie/slacker of a son,Chet(David Hayward),and his sexually liberated daughter Alice(Kristina Holland),not to mention his obedient youngest son,Jamie(Jackie Haley). His wife Irma(Joan Gerber) was neutral but supportive with her husband in some of the topics mentioned. Their next door neighbor is the neanderthal communist hating Ralph(Jack Burns)who had a thing against people who were on the opposite side of American values. Harry's own modern-day children had their own side to certain issues but going through the difficulties of accepting their father's old-fashioned methods and the philosophies of life itself.

This was show that may have been quite controversial when it premiered,but it was extremely funny in parts along with some of the topics that were the brink of discussion but with mixed results. Since this was an adult-oriented show and a cartoon that was seen only in prime-time. The scripts that were written by some of the best in the business,especially for an animated cartoon with a social message in between the segment were done by the team of R.S. Allen and Harvey Bullock(writers for several Hanna-Barbera shows including "The Flintstones",and "The Jetsons")and also from Jack Elinson and Norman Paul. Elinson was one of the writers for the shows "Good Times", "One Day At A Time",not to mention several episodes of "The Andy Griffith Show". Paul on the other hand was a writer and as well as one of the producers for "The Doris Day Show".

Broadcast between 1972 and 1974,the 48-episode series appeared in prime-time only,and the first show since 1970's "Where's Huddles?" and the first in six years since "The Flintstones". The executive producers for this series were William Hanna and Joesph Barbera,with the animation produced in Canada to cut production costs. The show was seen in several major markets,including five-owned and operated NBC and ABC affiliates stations across the United States. The series was rebroadcast again on cable's Cartoon Network and again in 2002 for Cartoon Network's sister station Boomerang on a limited basis.

FYI: A good many celebrities appeared on the show,sometimes voicing cartoon representations of themselves. Among the special guest lists were Don Knotts(of The Andy Griffith Show),Phyllis Diller(of Laugh-In),Don Adams(of Get Smart),game show host Monty Hall(of Let's Make A Deal),along with Rich Little and Jonathan Winters.

This is one of my favorite show's from Hanna-Barbera. After years of placing families in the stone age, the space age and even in ancient Rome, Hanna-Barbera finally had a piece that took place in this century. The best thing about this show was the fact that the Boyles were played more or less like real people and it was a very humorous look at how conservative Harry dealt with not only his liberal kids, Alice and Chet, but with a changing world around him. However, the real star was Ralph, Harry's reactionary neighbor. He made Dale from "King of the Hill" look normal. Ralph was always looking for communists in every nook and cranny and he would always give Harry all sorts of crazy advice based on his wild theories. The only thing I found wrong with the show, however, was the poor job of animation (allegedly Hanna-Barbera "farmed out" the animation work to a Canadian company as a way to save money). All in all, though, despite the poor animating, this still is one of the funniest cartoons to come out of the 1970's.

Much of what I have to say about it, I've already said on "Jump The Shark," but, this was a show that tried to be a cartoon answer to ones like All In The Family, without being a COPY of them, and it actually succeeded in a very big way. Without getting credit for it, or much of any publicity that I know of. (It was a syndicated show, and in my area at least, came on before prime time, so it probably "flew beneath the radar.") In some ways, it actually OUTDID the Norman Lear kinds of shows. Especially with the "Ralph" character, played by Jack Burns, who's always been so great at playing comical loudmouths, and sometimes bigoted ones (as in the famous Burns and Schreiber "Taxi" routine). The Ralph character was almost closer to "Joe" (in the Peter Boyle movie) than to Archie Bunker, because he was an actual vigilante (although one who never actually DID anything violent), who was on the lookout for minorities as much as Communists. And some of his lines were genuinely "strong," lines that AITF probably would've though twice about putting into Archie Bunker's mouth.(But again, who expected something like that from a Hanna-Barbera cartoon show? So no one seemed to know about it.) Then there was "Chet" the older son, who (even though it was a cartoon) was one of the least exaggerated comical hippies on TV! One of the best episodes was about Chet getting drafted, and planning to leave the country, which is STILL a touchy subject. Even though it had a sort of "tidy" ending - he gets a deferment - it was still a pretty bold thing to do with a REGULAR character on a show (as opposed to a ONE-TIME character, that no one's going to see again). And Alice (played by Kristina Holland, who played the "ditzy" secretary on "Courtship of Eddie's Father") was far from a stereotyped "fat girl" - instead of being worried about her having no social life, Harry always seemed to be worried about her fooling around with too many boys. And of course, Tom Bosley as Harry - some time before Happy Days, he was already playing the put-upon father very well.

Before Tom Bosley became a prime time superstar on Happy Days, he voiced the father in Wait Till Your Father Gets Home. I have fond memories of this series, which debuted almost half-a-century ago!! In some ways it was the more sedate prelude of The Simpsons.