cooby-Doo
dug up new Saturday morning ground once again with this
series, the cartoon extravaganza Scooby’s All Star
Laff-A-Lympics. This was the very first two-hour Saturday
morning animated show, co-headlining Laff-A-Lympics with
episodes of Scooby-Doo. Each show also played one episode of
Dynomutt, Dog Wonder and an episode of Captain Caveman and the
Teen Angels. In season two the Dynomutt segment was dropped
from the line-up, reducing the show to 90-minutes, and the
show was retitled Scooby's All-Stars. 1980 brought about the
third and final incarnation of the show, in the form of the
half-hour Scooby's Laff-A-Lympics, which played Laff-A-Lympics
re-runs from the first two seasons.
Laff-A-Lympics was a spoof of
the Olympic games and ABC's Battle of the Network Stars. It
featured 45 of the most popular Hanna-Barbera characters from
the 1950s through the 1970s; separated into three teams that
competed against one another in sporting competitions for
gold, silver and bronze medals. The half-hour episodes were
divided into two segments, each segment taking place in a
different part of the world and covering a number of events.
Points were awarded according to how well each team placed in
each sporting event, and at the end of the show the team with
the most points won.
The comical and offbeat events
were presented in a format similar to an Olympic television
broadcast, with hosting/announcing duties and color commentary
provided by Snagglepuss, from The Yogi Bear Show, and Mildew
Wolf, formerly of Motor Mouse & Auto Cat and The Cattanooga
Cats. Non-competing Hanna-Barbera characters such as Fred
Flintstone and Jabberjaw made appearances as guest announcers.
The first team - and winner of
the majority of the competitions - were the Scooby Doobies,
led by the dog-king of Saturday morning television,
Scooby-Doo. Scooby's team featured then-current HB Saturday
morning characters like Captain Caveman, Babu,
Hong Kong
Phooey, Blue Falcon and Dynomutt, and
Speed Buggy.
Led by
Yogi Bear, the Yogi
Yahooeys featured mostly 1950’s and 1960’s characters such as
Boo Boo, Wally Gator,
Quick Draw McGraw and Yogi’s girlfriend,
Cindy Bear.
Rounding out the three team
line-up were the Really Rottens, led by snickering dog Mumbly.
A gaggle of sinister no-gooders and cheats were at his side,
including Daisy Mayhem and Sooey Pig, the Daltons (Dirty,
Dastardly, Dinky) and Mr. and Mrs. Creepley.
Voiceman extraordinaire Daws
Butler provided over one-third of the voices for this show,
including two-thirds of the Yogi Yahooeys. Don Messick filled
in a good number of vocal roles himself, with additional
voices from Mel Blanc, former Stooge Joe Besser and several
others.