Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels is an animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera for ABC in 1977, as part of Scooby's All-Star Laff-a-Lympics, but later spun off in its own right.
This series was one of many variants of the Scooby-Doo comedy-mystery format. After being thawed out by the beautiful Teen Angels, Captain Caveman helps them solve supernatural mysteries. Most of the show's humor stems from Cavey's attempts to cope with life among 20th-century humans.
The Teen Angels travel in an orange and green van, decorated with a stylized image of an angel blowing a valveless trumpet. Captain Caveman lives inside an artificial rock formation on the roof of the van. A wooden ladder with bones for rungs provides access to the "cave". -Hanna Barbera
Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels centers on the mystery-solving adventures of the Teen Angels—Brenda, Dee Dee and Taffy—and their friend Captain Caveman (or Cavey for short), a prehistoric caveman whom the girls discovered and thawed from a block of ice. The concept and general plot for the show was seen as a parody of Charlie's Angels (which also aired on ABC). It also borrowed heavily from other Hanna-Barbera shows such as Scooby-Doo and Josie and the Pussycats, among others. Captain Caveman's powers include super-strength, a variety of useful objects hidden inside his hair, and a club that allows him to fly and from which pop out different tools he uses to fight crime. His trademark is his battle cry of "Captain CAAAAAVEMAAAAAAANNNN!" Captain Caveman's voice was provided by Mel Blanc.
REVIEW: Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels
From Indiewire
In 1977, Charlie’s Angels was all the rage, along with disco music and Star Wars. Hanna-Barbera worked both into several cartoons of the era, including another series you may think you dreamed but really happened called Casper and the Angels (which I kind of liked anyway). Even Yogi Bear eventually flew into the galaxy and visited floating space discos. (You didn’t dream that, either.)
Captain Caveman looks like one of the Slag Brothers from Wacky Races and must have been the most fun element of the show to animate. Being composed of lines and scribbles, he was the seven dwarfs to the more naturalistic Teen Angels, who presented more of an animation challenge, as with Snow White (this may be the first time Captain Caveman has been compared to Snow White.)
Therefore, sometimes the Teen Angels look wonderful, striking the poses on the model sheets at one moment, but look awkward the next. Such is the result of breakneck production speed at limited budgets, especially when you consider that Captain Caveman was a ten-minute segment sandwiched into the two-hour Scooby’s All-Star Laff-A-Lympics.
READ MORE
Now a word from our sponsor:
Captain Caveman
Captain Caveman, or "Cavey" for short (voiced by Mel Blanc), is the protagonist of the show, billed as "the world's first superhero." He is a caveman who is millennia old (his exact age is never disclosed, although in an episode he is carded by a doorman who is unsure Cavey is old enough to let in, to which Captain Caveman responds, "I'll be 2 million next month.") He can pull various objects from his long body hair that covers his body except for his nose, arms, and legs. He can also fly, but his flying power always seems to fail him at the worst possible moment. Sometimes he would attribute this mishap to an energy shortage ("Uh oh! Bad time for energy crisis." CRASH!), which was a reference to the gasoline rationing shortages of the late 1970s. He speaks in stereotypical "caveman-talk", replacing subject pronouns with their object equivalents and dropping articles such as "the" (for example, "Me know where bad guys are hiding."), and often mumbles the nonsense phrase "unga bunga". He also has a bad habit of occasionally eating large non-food objects in one gulp (i.e. bicycles, TV sets, safes, table lamps), and the Teen Angels occasionally have to stop him from eating potential clues that will help them to solve the mystery.
Dee Dee Sykes
Dee Dee Sykes (voiced by Vernee Watson) is the brains of the Teen Angels and acts as their unofficial leader. Dee Dee and the rest of the Teen Angels found the frozen Captain Caveman and defrosted him. She wears her hair in an afro and usually wears a red turtleneck sweater with a blue skirt and red knee high boots. Both her dress style and her knack for solving mysteries make her similar to Velma Dinkley of Scooby-Doo fame, while she also bears a resemblance to Valerie from Josie and the Pussycats. She is misidentified as Brenda in the opening credits.
Brenda Chance
Brenda Chance (voiced by Marilyn Schreffler) is a nervous brunette who is always scared of the demons, monsters and phantoms that she encounters and always tries to back out of a scary mystery, but always ends up getting captured or the short end of the stick. She wears a purple striped tank top and a pair of hot pink flared trousers with a white belt. She also acts as Dee Dee's sergeant of the Teen Angels. She is misidentified as Dee Dee in the opening credits.
Taffy Dare
Taffy Dare (voiced by Laurel Page) is the blonde member of the group, renowned for her cry of "Zowie!" whenever she comes up with a plan (or "Another Daffy Taffy Plan" as Brenda and Cavey would call it) to catch the culprits, has a distinct, flirtatious, childlike persona and a New York-influenced/Southern accent. In spite of her usually zany plans and ditziness, Taffy is actually very capable and clever. She has the ability to seduce Caveman into acting as bait for her plans to capture the culprit. She wears a green dress with matching shoes. She also acts as Dee Dee's second-in-command of the Teen Angels. It is revealed that Captain Caveman has a crush on her and vice versa.
You Will Also Dig:
No comments:
Post a Comment