Hong Kong Phooey: 47 Years of being Number One

 For 47 years today, the Number One Super Guy has been entertaining us and protecting the city from evil-doers, Happy Birthday to, Hong Kong Phooey! 🍰

It was on this day in 1974 that Hanna-Barbera introduced to kids on Saturday mornings.  Even though it seems like we grew up with him for years, there were only 16 episodes of the original show.

The show centers around a mild-mannered janitor at the local police station, with Sergeant Flint in charge, Rosemary the telephone operator and the stations trusty cat, Spot, also Hong Kong Phooey's sidekick (pun intended).  When trouble starts brewing, Henry jumps into a filing cabinet drawers, down the chute to his trusty Phooey-mobile, and the chaos just gets better.

The shows theme song is one of the most memorable and legendary of Saturday Morning Cartoons, even being rereleased by the, Butthole Surfers (guess they couldn't find a real band). 😆

The cast is a whos-who of the day in television and cartoon voice acting...

Scatman Crothers starred as Phooey and his alter-ego, Henry.  Crothers also voiced Meadowlark Lemon in almost all the Harlem Globetrotters cartoon incarnations, as well as Jazz on the original, Transformers and most other cartoons of the age.

Crothers also appeared on many television shows, Love Boat, Fantasy Island, Mannix, The Incredible Hulk, Hart To Hart and, Kolchak the Night Stalker.  He also appeared in, Twilight Zone : The Movie, Zapped and, The Shining.

Kathy Gors voiced, Rosemary, the telephone operator, and also voices for, Inch High Private Eye, Valley of the Dinosaurs and many others.

Joe E Ross was Sergeant Flint, but is better remembered for, It's The Hair Bear Bunch, but did voices for dozens of cartoons and classic radio comedies & drama.

Then there is, Don Mesick, in the cartoon world, the biggest name on the list, for decades he was the voice of, Scooby Doo himself.  Mesick also provided the famous snickering laugh for Muttley and the wise, Papa Smurf on, the Smurfs.

Other cartoon voice legends like Frank Welker and Casey Kasum would also be heard on the show.

With that kind of "star power" it's amazing the show didn't last longer but the writing just wasn't there, cheesy and corny were the standard and the show really went overboard with it, glad to see the character stayed around for The Great Race and the Laff-A-Lympics. 

Comedy legend, Eddie Murphy attempted a short for making a full length motion picture of the character, and if you've seen it, you know why we're glad it never took off, it was beyond terrible.