Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines

Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines (or simply Dastardly and Muttley in the UK and Ireland) is an American animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, and a spin-off from Wacky Races. The show was originally broadcast as a Saturday morning cartoon, airing from September 13, 1969, to January 3, 1970, on CBS. The show focuses on the efforts of Dick Dastardly and his canine sidekick Muttley to catch Yankee Doodle Pigeon, a carrier pigeon who carries secret messages (hence the name of the show's theme song "Catch the Pigeon"). The title is a reference to the film and song Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines. The original working title of the show was Stop That Pigeon. The peppy and memorable theme song by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera (based on the jazz standard "Tiger Rag") has a chorus that repeats the phrase "Stop the pigeon" seven times in a row. The show had only two voice actors: Paul Winchell as Dick Dastardly, the indistinctly heard General and other characters and Don Messick as Muttley, Klunk, Zilly and other characters. Each 22-minute episode was broadcast over half an hour on the network, including network breaks, and contained: two Dastardly & Muttley stories, one Magnificent Muttley story (Muttley's Walter Mitty-style daydreams), and two or three short Wing Dings (brief gags to break up the longer stories). Plot In Germany, Dick Dastardly and Muttley, the villains from Wacky Races, are now flying aces in World War I-styled aeroplanes and members of the Vulture Squadron, on a mission to stop a messenger pigeon named Yankee Doodle Pigeon from delivering top-secret messages to an opposing army. The other members of the Squadron are Klunk, an inventor who speaks an unintelligible language (punctuated by howls, clicks, whistles, and growls, accompanied by bizarre facial contortions), and Zilly, a panicky pilot whose main role is to translate for Klunk, and who tries to desert the mission at any given opportunity.