| The Funky Phantom | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Comedy Mystery Adventure |
| Created by | William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Directed by | William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Voices of | Daws Butler Tommy Cook Jerry Dexter Micky Dolenz Kristina Holland Don Messick |
| Composer | John Sangster |
| Country of origin | United States Australia[1] |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 17 |
| Production | |
| Producers | William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Running time | 22 minutes |
| Production companies | Hanna-Barbera Productions Air Programs International |
| Original release | |
| Network | ABC |
| Release | September 11, 1971 (1971-09-11) – January 1, 1972 (1972-01-01) |
The Funky Phantom is a Saturday morninganimated television series, produced byHanna-Barbera Productions, in association with Australian production company Air Programs International for theAmerican Broadcasting Company (ABC).[2] The show was a clone of Hanna-Barbera's popularScooby-Doo, Where Are You!, with a trio of teenage detectives driving around the country and solving crimes. In this case, the "Scooby-Doo" role was taken by aRevolutionary War-era ghost,[3] voiced byDaws Butler in a manner almost identical to that ofSnagglepuss.
Reruns of the show ran during the 1972 season and, briefly, in 1980, as part of Hanna-Barbera'sGodzilla series.[4]
Trying to find shelter from a storm while driving their "Looney Duney"dune buggy, three teenagers — brainy redhead Skip Gilroy, beautiful blonde April Stewart, and Skip's brawny dark-haired best friend, Augie Anderson — and his dog Elmo, entered an old house where agrandfather clock displayed an incorrect time. Upon setting the clock to midnight, it released twoRevolutionary War-era ghosts: an American patriot named Jonathan Wellington Muddlemore, whom the kids call "Mudsy", and his cat Boo. The two explained that, during the Revolutionary War, they had stumbled upon twoRedcoats so they hid inside the clock. They evaded discovery, but they were unable to get out of the clock and eventually died inside. After being freed by their new friends, Mudsy and Boo have accompanied them on many mysteries, providing invisible assistance.[5]
This set-up shows a certain similarity to the 1946Abbott and Costello filmThe Time of Their Lives, in which two Revolutionary War-era ghosts are also held earth-bound due to a secret hidden in a clock.[6]
The character voice of Mudsy was provided byDaws Butler and was identical to his voice work forSnagglepuss, down to the use of Snagglepuss's catchphrase, "...even". Butler's Snagglepuss voice was originally an impersonation of comedianBert Lahr.[citation needed]
Like many animated series created by Hanna-Barbera in the 1970s, the show contained astudio-created laugh track, and indeed, it was one of the first such productions to do so. Syndicated versions, onCartoon Network andBoomerang have the track muted.[citation needed]
| No. | Title | Original release date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Don't Fool With a Phantom" | September 11, 1971 (1971-09-11) | |
Mudsy comes to the aid of Farmer Higgens when a mysterious villain called the Raven has been sabotaging the barnyard in order to claim the property. When the group plans to enter a local cross-country race for the money to pay off the mortgage, the Raven plans to sabotage their attempts. | |||
| 2 | "Heir Scare" | September 18, 1971 (1971-09-18) | |
The Looney Duney gets lost in a swamp and they end up outside of Conway Mansion. They end up aiding Michael Conway when he is stalked by aMarsh monster that is after the Conway fortune. | |||
| 3 | "I'll Haunt You Later" | September 25, 1971 (1971-09-25) | |
Skip, April, Augie, and Mudsy stumble onto an abandoned truck somewhere in the swamp. While looking for the driver, they stumble onto a castle that is haunted by the Ghost ofJean Lafitte. | |||
| 4 | "Who's Chicken" | October 2, 1971 (1971-10-02) | |
Chickenman[7] steals a shipment of chickens bound for Chicken Delicious owned by April's Uncle Henry. | |||
| 5 | "The Headless Horseman" | October 9, 1971 (1971-10-09) | |
The Looney Duney gets a flat tire outside ofSleepy Hollow. Skip, April, Augie, and Mudsy encounter theHeadless Horseman who is targeting a descendant ofIchabod Crane. | |||
| 6 | "Spirit Spooked" | October 16, 1971 (1971-10-16) | |
While competing in a race in Mexico, The Funky Phantom Gang is stopped by the ghost ofMontezuma and a Sun God. They also meet two men who both claim to be the archaeologist Professor Lundgren. | |||
| 7 | "Ghost Town Ghost" | October 23, 1971 (1971-10-23) | |
The Looney Duney arrives in the western town of Plainville where its 50 Year Frontier Celebration is crashed by twooutlaws named Ringo and Blackie, who are disguised asBob Dalton andJesse James. | |||
| 8 | "We Saw a Sea Serpent" | October 30, 1971 (1971-10-30) | |
Mudsy, Skip, Augie, and April learn about asea serpent called the Black Lake Creature which is scaring away the locals near Black Lake. They are unaware that Mr. Warnock and his minion Packy are using the Black Lake Creature for their own personal reasons. | |||
| 9 | "Haunt in Inn" | November 6, 1971 (1971-11-06) | |
Mudsy, Skip, Augie, and April end up staying at Widow Wilson's Inn, which is haunted by a ghost that has been scaring away its customers. | |||
| 10 | "Mudsy Joins the Circus" | November 13, 1971 (1971-11-13) | |
Mudsy, Skip, Augie, and April visit the Barnaby Bros. Circus where they spot a gorilla robbing the circus. They suspect that the circus's gorilla Gigantua is behind this and eventually discover that the gorilla in question is connected to a counterfeiting operation. | |||
| 11 | "Pigskin Predicament" | November 20, 1971 (1971-11-20) | |
The football playoff game between Central High and Westside is interrupted when criminals Fingers and Lefty steal the $1,000,000 necklace of Brockton Van Cleef and store it inside a football, which ends up in a mix-up upon colliding with the Central High team. Now Fingers and Lefty plan to reclaim the football containing the necklace by posing as members of the other team. | |||
| 12 | "The Liberty Bell Caper" | November 27, 1971 (1971-11-27) | |
The Parafiend has stolen the original U.S. flag made byBetsy Ross and leaves a poem riddle for his next caper. Mudsy, Skip, Augie, and April figure out that the Parafiend is after theLiberty Bell. | |||
| 13 | "April's Foolish Day" | December 4, 1971 (1971-12-04) | |
Mudsy, Skip, Augie, and April enter the Looney Duney in the Desert Race. Known racer Winfield Wheely is hired to ride the Road Hog Roadster by Cyrus Road Hog, and Winfield Wheely ends up taking April as his navigator. Yet Cyrus Road Hog has his own plans for winning the race. | |||
| 14 | "The Forest's Prime-Evil" | December 11, 1971 (1971-12-11) | |
While in theSequoia National Forest, Mudsy, Skip, Augie, and April end up camping out there. The next morning, the group find tracks left byBigfoot and end up stumbling upon anillegal logging activity. | |||
| 15 | "The Hairy Scary Houndman" | December 18, 1971 (1971-12-18) | |
Elmo is entered in a dog show. Houndman targets Mrs. Alstair's dog Cromwell, yet his henchmen mistake Elmo for Cromwell since the two dogs look alike. | |||
| 16 | "Mudsy and Muddlemore Manor" | December 25, 1971 (1971-12-25) | |
Mudsy, Skip, Augie, and April arrive at Muddlemore Manor, which was a showplace forGeorge Washington and his Continental Army. They find the place haunted by a ghost claiming to be the Spirit of '76. Meanwhile, Mayor Henry Iverson, a descendant of Mudsy's arch-nemesis, plans to have Muddlemore Manor torn down. | |||
| 17 | "Ghost Grabbers" | January 1, 1972 (1972-01-01) | |
Arriving in East Muddlemore, Skip, Augie, and April learn more of Mudsy's past where he and Boo hid inside thelongcase "grandfather" clock inside which both were eventually trapped and died upon stumbling onto the two renegadeRedcoats who were burying their loot on the grounds. The group decides to look for the lost treasure when the hotelclerk Mr. Richford and the criminal Slippery Stark plan to capture Mudsy, hoping that he will lead them to the lost treasure, by disguising themselves as the ghosts of the two renegade Redcoats. | |||
On October 26, 2010,Warner Archive releasedThe Funky Phantom: The Complete Series on DVD in region 1 as part of theirHanna-Barbera Classic Collection. This is a Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) release, available exclusively through Warner's online store and Amazon.com.[8] The series is also available in Digital media format atiTunes Store forApple.
In the 1970s, comic books ofThe Funky Phantom were released byWestern Publishing andGold Key Comics. The comics were both original stories as well as adaptations of some of the TV episodes. The stories in the comics, however, took a different turn from the TV episodes. While on the show, the "ghost" was always a villain in a mask (likeScooby-Doo), in some of the original comic stories, the villains would often turn out to be other ghosts from on or around the colonial era (the show never addressed why it seemed that there were no other ghosts besides Mudsy and Boo). The comics even did a twist on the series when the gang traveled back to colonial times via an erratic time machine, only to find out that the kids are now the ghosts (the machine could only transport spiritual matter) and Mudsy is once more inside his original flesh-and-blood body. Also, the comics introduced a new regular character who never appeared in the show. Priscilla Atwater, a ghostly matron from Mudsy's time, who lusted after Mudsy and pursued him actively, although she tended to flirt with just about any other ghost who happened to come along.
In 2018, the Phantom appeared in a backup story in theDC comicBlack Lightning/Hong Kong Phooey Special #1;[9] in this story,Jason Blood conjures Muddlemore's ghost so that some reporters and citizens can ask Mudsy what he thinks about theSecond Amendment.
