Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids (a.k.a. simply Butch Cassidy) was a Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1973 for NBC. The series title is a play on the name of the unrelated 1969 film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
Plot
Similar to both Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! and Josie and the Pussycats, the show depicted the adventures of a teen pop group of the series title. The band consisted of heartthrob Butch Cassidy (lead vocals and lead guitar), blond beauty Merilee (tambourine), sensible brunette Stephanie (bass guitar) and curly-topped Wally (drums). With Wally's dog, Elvis, the kids led double lives as popular rock stars and a secret agent crime fighting team.
The teens were advised by a supercomputer named Mr. Socrates, who was inexplicably extremely allergic to dogs, and when the group met with Mr. Socrates in his lair for their latest assignment, Elvis was always told to stay outside. In each episode, however, Elvis would somehow end up inside the lair, either by his own ingenuity or by Wally's forgetfulness; either way, Elvis' presence would cause the supercomputer to violently sneeze, blowing the group out of the lair and off to their assignment. Cassidy, designated as "Sundance 1," wore a special ring with a hidden communicator to keep in contact with Mr. Socrates from afar.
Micky Dolenz, the drummer and most frequent lead singer for the group The Monkees, provided the voice of Wally.
Episodes
| № | Title | First aired: |
|---|---|---|
| BC-1 | "The Scientist" | 1973·Sep·08 |
| BC-2 | "The Counterfeiters" | 1973·Sep·15 |
| BC-3 | "One of Our Ships Is Missing" | 1973·Sep·22 |
| BC-4 | "Double Trouble" | 1973·Sep·29 |
| BC-5 | "The Pearl Caper" | 1973·Oct·06 |
| BC-6 | "The Gold Caper" | 1973·Oct·13 |
| BC-7 | "Road Racers" | 1973·Oct·20 |
| BC-8 | "Hong Kong Story" | 1973·Oct·27 |
| BC-9 | "Operation G-Minus" | 1973·Nov·03 |
| BC-10 | "Orient Express" | 1973·Nov·10 |
| BC-11 | "The Parrot Caper" | 1973·Nov·17 |
| BC-12 | "The Super Sub" | 1973·Nov·24 |
| BC-13 | "The Haunted Castle" | 1973·Dec·01 |
Cast
- Cameron Arthur Clarke -
- Henry Corden -
- Hans Conreid -
- Micky Dolenz - Wally
- Paul Robert Engemann -
- Shawn Oro Engemann -
- Michael Evans -
- Virginia Gregg -
- Lloyd "Chip" Hand II - Butch Cassidy
- Tina Holland - Stephanie, the youngest of the group and Wally's little sister, who plays the guitar
- Loyal Lucas -
- Susannah Olivia Lloyd -
- Ross Martin -
- Frank Maxwell -
- Alan Oppenheimer -
- Pam Peters -
- Ronnie Schell -
- John Stephenson - Mr. Socrates
- Judy Strangis - Merilee
- Franklin Welker - Elvis
Other appearances
- Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kids were also the subject of Issue #11 of Gold Key Comics' Hanna-Barbera Fun-In in 1974; the story, "The Pearl Caper", was adapted from the October 6, 1973, Butch Cassidy TV episode of the same name.
- Characters from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids appeared several times on the Adult Swim animated television series Sealab 2021. The whole band appeared in the episode "All That Jazz" in a long shot at a concert, standing in for MC Chris and performing the song "Fett's Vette". In a later episode, "Let 'Em Eat Corn!", the band appears again as inhabitants of SeaLab Pod Six, with Butch and Wally both sporting mustaches. Then again, in the episode "Butchslapped", the characters appeared alongside Marco, who was revealed to be one of the Sundance Kids. The character models for Butch and Wally were also used for the animated likenesses of John Miller (the series' director) and Adam Reed (one of the series' writers) in the episodes "Swimming in Oblivion" and "Return to Oblivion".
DVD Release
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kids was released on manufacture-on-demand DVD (Region 1) and for digital download by Warner Home Video as part of the Hanna-Barbera Classics Collection on January 15, 2013. The release is for the United States only and was not remastered or restored for the DVD/digital download release.