The Heathcliff and Dingbat Show came from the brilliant cartoon minds of Hanna-Barbera in 1980. This complete collection released by Warner Archive is 13 episodes long and broken into two discs. Each episode of the show is broken down into the four shorts that make up the full half-hour. Within each episode there are two Heathcliff and two Dingbat and the Creeps cartoons.
Heathcliff is a fast-talking alley cat, who is always getting into mischief and running from the authorities or battling his nemesis, a bulldog named Spike. Heathcliff also has a lovely girlfriend named Sonja who keeps him occupied as well. Dingbat is a vampire dog. He, along with his buddies Sparerib, a fat skeleton, and Nobody, a talking jack-o-lantern, work together in their company Odd Jobs, Inc. Needless to say the way they get their work done doesn’t always fit the needs of their clients.
This cartoon series was a fun return to childhood. I remember this show from when I was very young. I didn’t realize how much I had missed the days of non politically correct cartoons. Asian characters still confuse their L’s and their R’s and fat ladies could be called “fat.” These episodes are also full of one after another of the silly cartoon gimmicks that we have all seen a thousand times but love all the same. Many cartoons these days don’t hold up as people get older because they are only geared towards young children. This cartoon still makes me laugh all these years later because of the mix of adult and childlike humor. Mel Blanc, the man of 1,000 voices, is Heathcliff and Spike, and there are other familiar voice actors throughout the series.
This is a great collection to own if you want a nostalgic romp through childhood. Also, I would gladly put on these discs for a child these days. These cartoons are no worse than the Warner Brothers cartoons I was also raised on. And those by no means caused me to be racist or sizist. This cartoon made the things of Halloween like skeletons and vampires less scary and actually made me want to own a cat. As long as that cat that could walk on its hind legs and talk.
