Muttley
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Muttley2.jpg
Muttley is a Hanna-Barbera cartoon character that was voiced by Don Messick (who also voiced Scooby-Doo). Muttley, a dog, first appeared in Wacky Races in 1968, as the sidekick of a nasty but incompetent and horribly accident-prone villain named Dick Dastardly. While Dick was created as the equivalent of Professor Fate from the 1960s movie The Great Race, Muttley mirrored the film's character of Max Meen. Dick and Muttley were paired together in various later Hanna-Barbera series as bumbling villains.
Muttley does not really talk; his main examples of speech are his trademark snicker---a wheezing, asthmatic laugh (usually made at Dick's expense)---and a mushy, low-in-the mouth grumble against an unsympathetic or harsh Dick (usually along the lines of "Rassum brassum msblsssl Rick Rastardly!"). Don Messick had used Muttley's distinctive laugh for another Hanna-Barbera canine, Precious Pup, several years earlier.
Muttley wore only a collar in Wacky Races, but in Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines he donned a World War I style aviator's uniform, and served as a flying ace along with Dastardly and two other pilots as members of the "Vulture Squadron." In this spinoff, he also sported many medals, of which he was particularly fond, and constantly demanded new ones from Dastardly for following his commands. Similarly, Dastardly frequently ripped medals off Muttley's chest as punishment for his incompetence. When he received a new medal, Muttley would himself happily, jump into the air and float back down like a feather. This gag is almost identical to the behavior of Snuggles, a dog who appeared on the series Quick Draw McGraw in the late 1950s, when he received a dog biscuit.
Also in Dastardly and Muttley in their Flying Machines, Muttley gained the ability to fly for a brief period by means of spinning his tail like a propeller. This trait often proved useful when he was about to crash. Muttley also enjoyed his own short segment in this series, The Magnificent Muttley, where he would engage in Walter Mitty-style fantasies.
Muttley is sometimes confused with Mumbly, a crime-fighting dog who tracked down criminals using his dog senses and drove around in an old, beat-up car. Mumbly looked exactly like Muttley and had a similar laugh, except Mumbly wore a trenchcoat.
An early version of the Muttley/Mumbly character appears in the 1964 Hanna-Barbera feature film Hey There, It's Yogi Bear!. This prototype Muttley is a mean-spirited dog with a travelling circus who has a penchant for biting his owners on the leg.
External links
- Information on The Magnificent Muttley (http://www.dfcom.freeserve.co.uk/hbw/wacky/dm_mutt.htm)