Saturday Morning Cartoons - Hong Kong Phooey

Who is this super hero?

Sarge? No.

Rosemary the telephone operator? No.

Henry the mild mannered janitor? Could be.

Hong Kong Phooey, number one super guy.

Hong Kong Phooey, quicker than the human eye.

He's got style, a groovy smile, and a car that just won't stop.

When the going gets tough, he's super tough, with a Hong Kong Phooey chop (Hi-Ya!)

Hong Kong Phooey, number one super guy.

Hong Kong Phooey, quicker than the human eye.

chicky chong chicky chom chicky dongdiddly dong diddly dong dong bow wow wow

Hong Kong Phooey, fan-riffic (gong!)

Enough with the singing. And apologies to anyone who actually knows the lyrics to the opening of Hong Kong Phooey. These may or may not represent the actual lyrics, but it is what I used to sing when it came on Channel 21 (ABC) at 8 a.m. on Saturday mornings (Spring 1976).









When the show first debut in 1974, ABC had it on at 9 a.m. hour. You had to know it was getting the kiss of death when they moved it to 8 a.m.

I liked this show because of its jingle-jammin' opening, its quirky slapstick comedy, and the plain arrogance of the dog - who just thought he was all that! And also, I always wondered about the sidekick cat - I forget his name. He always looked like the Alice in Wonderland cat.

From my favority community source - Wikipedia:

Hong Kong Phooey is a 16-episode Hanna Barbera animated series that first aired on ABC Saturday morning from September 7, 1974 to September 4, 1976. The star, Hong Kong Phooey, is the secret alter ego of Penrod Pooch, or Penry (sometimes mispronounced "Henry"), a "mild-mannered" police station janitor. Although Penry/Phooey appears to be the only anthropomorphic dog in the entire city where the series is set, no one ever connects his two identities.

Hong Kong Phooey is supposedly a master of kung fu and other martial arts. The stories begin at the police headquarters, where Hong Kong Phooey's alter ego, Penry, works as a mild-mannered janitor. He works with Sergeant Flint (Sarge) and Rosemary, the telephone operator, who has a major crush on Hong Kong Phooey. After Rosemary gets a call and explains the criminals' crime Penry would run into a filing cabinet to transform himself into Hong Kong Phooey. In each episode, he ends up needing help from his loyal (somewhat less anthropomorphic) striped cat and sidekick, Spot, to get him out. Hong Kong never quite notices Spot's help, but instead is always proud of himself because he thinks he is the one who does everything.

Saturday Morning Cartoons - Speed Buggy (1973)

It's Saturday Morning. The one morning of the week which defied all kid logic. You wanted to get up as early as possible.

How come?

There were cartoons to watch! And as we all know - with only three real television stations (ABC=21, CBS=15, NBC=33) - we only had about four hours of real cartoon-watchin' time!

In honor of Saturday mornings, I pledge to feature here weekly - on Child of the Fort - one of those cartoons that we all used to watch back in the day.



First up - Speed Buggy. Note: Information from wikipedia

Speed Buggy was a Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions from September 8, 1973 to August 30, 1975 on CBS.

Similar in style to Hanna-Barbera's successful Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Speed Buggy followed the adventures of an anthropomorphic, fiberglass Dune Buggy, Speed Buggy (voiced by Mel Blanc), his driver Tinker (voiced by Phil Luther, Jr.), and Tinker's friends, Mark (voiced by Michael Bell) and Debbie (voiced by Arlene Golonka). The three young adults and their car traveled from race to race, often encountering spy capers and mysteries along the way. Speed Buggy's trademark quotes were always "Roger-Dodger!" and "Vroom-a-zoom-zoom!"

Though Speed Buggy (nicknamed Speedy by his friends) had a mind of his own (which was based on Disney's Herbie the Love Bug), he was vulnerable to commands given through a communicator/remote control device made by Tinker when he first built Speed Buggy. Speedy's friends rarely used the device to control his actions, using it mainly for its communication function, but criminals and other ne'er-do-wells would sometimes steal or duplicate the device and manipulate Speedy for their own purposes.

Sixteen 30-minute installments of Speed Buggy were produced in 1973. The show was a such a huge success that it aired on all three major networks (CBS, NBC and ABC) until 1979, then was picked up for syndication until 1983.

Most likely due to the shows inspiration, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, the character Tinker shares many visual likenesses to Scooby's beatnik best friend, Norville "Shaggy" Rogers. Also, there are some similar character traits between Mark and Fred Jones, and Debbie appears to be very similar to Daphne in multiple ways.

Kristina's thoughts: Well duh!