Wait Till Your Father Gets Home is an animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera that aired in first-run syndication in the United States from 1972 to 1974. The show originated in a one-time segment on Love, American Style called "Love and the Old-Fashioned Father". The show was the first primetime animated sitcom to run for more than a single season since The Flintstones more than ten years earlier and would be the only one until The Simpsons fifteen years later. The show was inspired by All in the Family.[1]
Premise
The 49 episodes feature Tom Bosley as Harry Boyle, a long-suffering suburban everyman dad and restaurant equipment dealer. The Boyle family consists of father Harry; wife Irma (voiced by Joan Gerber); amply-contoured and boy-crazy teen daughter Alice; long haired post-adolescent slacker son Chet, and precocious, if rather mercenary, younger son Jamie. Harry often bickers with the more liberal Alice and Chet over various social issues of the day, with Irma endeavoring to remain neutral while Jamie is more sympathetic to his father's beliefs.
Along with the Boyle family the cast also includes their neighbor Ralph Kane (Jack Burns) who is a military-obsessed anti-conspiracy theorist obsessed with an extremist government that makes the John Birch Society (an American political advocacy group that stands against governmental oppression) look conservative in comparison. He is the opposite of a conspiracy theorist in that he is prejudice against all minorities whether they be race, jobs or idealists (such as conspiracy theorists and more comically carnies) and is an avid follower who is obsessed with military might, the Country of America, and Christian Segregation. Following Ralph with his cause is senior citizen Sara Whittaker, whom he addresses as "Sergeant" or her last name. Although Harry considers Ralph a close friend, he is annoyed at Ralph's extreme attitudes and rarely hesitates to dispute his opinions or preempt his more threatening ambitions, or on occasion sarcastically humor him with ridiculous ideas that only serve to further Ralph's already extremism.
Many of the stories revolve around the generation gap between Harry and his children which causes both the friction and drama in their household; in which the series' sympathy is typically on Harry's side, leading him to usually win his arguments with miniscule exceptions. B-stories are usually more comedic involving Ralph's shenanigans of creating war-time experience and military-obsessed loyalism against minorities and conspiracy theorists Like most cartoon shows of the period, Wait Till Your Father Gets Home contained a laugh track.
Voice cast
- Tom Bosley as Harry
- Joan Gerber as Irma
- Kristina Holland as Alice
- David Hayward/Lennie Weinrib as Chet
- Jackie Earle Haley/Willie Aames as Jamie
- Jack Burns as Ralph
Guest stars
- Don Adams
- Phyllis Diller
- Gene Eugene
- Monty Hall
- Don Knotts
- Rich Little
- Allan Melvin
- Isabel Sanford
- Jonathan Winters
- Casey Kasem (uncredited)
- Paul Lynde (uncredited) "Sweet Sixteen"
- Pat Morita (uncredited) "The New House"
Other "guests" on the series included thinly disguised versions of celebrities who did not provide their own voices, such as guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi.
When a crooked car dealer on another episode was perceived by real-life Los Angeles-area car salesman Cal Worthington as being a send-up of him, Worthington sued the studio, Hanna-Barbera; the sponsors, Chevrolet and the five NBC-owned stations that carried the show.
Theme Song
Alice: I love my mom and my dad and my brothers too, and the groovy way we get along.
Chet: Every time the slightest little thing goes wrong, Mom starts to sing this familiar song.
Irma: Wait till your father gets, until your father gets, wait till your father gets home.
Chet: Dad's not so bad and he seldom gets mad.
Alice: And we're not about to desert him.
Irma: Kids today like to have things their way, and what Daddy doesn't know won't hurt him.
Alice: I think Mom is swell.
Chet: But she starts to yell.
Alice: Every time we have a fuss.
Irma: Just wait till your father gets, until your father gets, wait till your father gets home.
Alice: (chuckles) See what I mean?
Irma: Wait till your father gets home.
Alice and Chet: We know.
Credits
- Animation Director: Peter Luschwitz
- Production Designer: Iwao Takamoto
- Story Director: Paul Sommer
- Story: Jack Elinson, Norman Paul
- Associate Producer: Zoran Janjic
- Producers: R.S. Allen, Harvey Bullock
- Executive Producers: William Hanna, Joseph Barbera
DVD release
On June 5, 2007, Warner Home Video released Season 1 of Wait Till Your Father Gets Home on DVD in Region 1.
| DVD Name | Ep # | Release Date |
|---|---|---|
| Season 1 | 24 | June 5, 2007 |
Episodes
Season One
- The Fling: A restaurant equipment dealer named Harry Boyle helps a sexy female customer, prompting everyone around him to think that Harry is cheating on his wife, Irma.
- Alice's Dress: Harry and his family get invited to a party held by Harry's boss, but Harry and Irma run into trouble when Alice buys a see-through dress to wear to the party.
- The Hippie: Chet befriends a hippie, which drives his family crazy and prompts Ralph and his anti-Communist Army buddies to create a wall around the neighborhood.
- The Beach Vacation: The Boyles rent a beach home, and must contend with Alice prancing around in a bikini and a beach full of nude sunbathers.
- Help Wanted: Harry gets into trouble with special interest groups when he fires his driver (who is Jewish) and must choose between hiring someone who's right for the job or giving in to affirmative action.
- Love Story: Alice shocks her family once again; this time, by dating a homeless man named Norman. But when Harry and Irma find out that Norman has rich parents, they push Alice into staying with him.
- The Victim: Harry gets mugged and beaten in the park. While Harry takes the mugger to court, Alice and Chet try to rehabilitate him.
- Chet's Job: Harry gives his slacker son, Chet, an ultimatum: either find a job to pay for rent or get out of the house. Chet decides to find a job--and ends up earning more than his father as a hardware store grunt.
- Chet's Fiancee: Chet dates a young, attractive and decent young woman named Prudence and brings him home to meet Harry and Irma...and ends up shocking everyone when he tells Prudence that he doesn't want to marry her.
- The Mouse: Jamie runs away from home after Harry tells him he can't keep a mouse as a pet.
- Duty Calls: Chet angers his parents when he tries to bail out of being enlisted in the Army.
- Expectant Papa: Irma worries that she may be pregnant again, which doesn't sit well with the family.
- The New Car: The Boyles are tricked into buying a crummy car, and fight back against the man who sold it to them.
- The New House: The Boyles consider moving into a bigger house, but Harry doesn't have the money for it.
- The Prowler: Ralph starts a militia in order to fight back against a burglar who has been breaking into houses in the Boyles' neighborhood.
- Mama's Identity: In an attempt to be more than just a housewife and mother, Irma takes a job as a secretary at a law firm, but struggles with being used by her employers.
- Papa the Patient: Harry is sent to the hospital after suffering from stress-related stomach aches.
- The Swimming Pool: Harry builds a swimming pool for his family, but the neighbors end up using it.
- Sweet Sixteen: Irma wants Alice to have an extravagant 16th birthday party, but Harry is too cheap to do it.
- The Commune: Alice runs away to a hippie commune to escape the stress of school and home life.
- Music Tycoon: Chet and his friends get famous as a hot, new garage band, but Chet soon learns that fame is fickle.
- Accidents Will Happen: Harry splits his pants after slipping in a restaurant. Everyone advises Harry to sue, but Harry just wants a new pair of pants.
- Papa in New York: Harry goes to New York on business, and takes Ralph with him.
- The Neighbors: Newlyweds Mona and George experience trouble in paradise when they fight over a new couch. The Boyles must get Mona and George back together when George moves in with the Boyles.
Season Two
- Bringing Up Jamie: A child psychologist recommends that Jamie take up photography to deal with his aggressions, but Jamie only ends up photographing his family at their worst.
- The Lady Detective: Phyllis Diller guest stars as an eccentric female detective hired to help Harry find out who stole from the company's payroll.
- Permissive Papa: Harry bars Alice from going to a concert and sets her up on a date with a nice man named Jay Jay, who turns out to be a pervert.
- Boyles on TV: The Boyles are invited to be interviewed on TV, but Harry thinks having the entire family on TV will ruin his reputation.
- My Wife, The Secretary: Once again, Irma tries to find a job...and ends up working as Harry's secretary at his restaurant equipment store.
- Papa, the Housewife: Harry takes Irma's place as a housewife...with disastrous results.
- Jamie's Project: Harry helps Jamie with a project for a school-wide competition.
- Don for the Defense: Harry goes to court to contest a traffic violation--and ends up in deeper trouble when he hires an incompetent lawyer.
- Alice's Diet: After being spurned by a crush at school, Alice goes to a beauty farm, and comes back slim and beautiful.
- Mama Loves Monty: Irma signs herself and Harry to appear on a game show, but Harry misconstrues it as a sign that Irma is leaving him for game show host Monty Hall.
- Alice's Crush: Alice has fallen in love once again; this time, her object of desire is one of her teachers.
- Papa's Big Check: Harry gets a tax refund check for $940,000, but learns too late that the amount is a misprint.
- Mama's Charity: Irma begins spending all of her time working for different charities.
- Chet's Pad: Chet finally moves out of the house and into his own place, but Harry keeps visiting Chet to parent him.
- Papa the Coach: Harry is named the new coach of the high school basketball team, and must contend with the pushy parents of the players.
- Birdman Chet: Chet gets a job at a pan factory, and suggests that the company change its image to help the endangered California condors.
- Back to Nature: Harry takes his family on a camping trip to break them of their addiction to TV, but after a few days in the woods, Harry wants out.
- Alice's Freedom: Irma's mother visits and insists that Alice be allowed her freedom since she is a woman. Alice enjoys her freedom to do as she pleases, but soon realizes that there's a downside to too much freedom.
- The Beekeeper: The Boyles call an exterminator to get rid of the bees in their backyard, but the exterminator ends up being more of a pest than the actual bees.
- Maude Loves Papa: While collecting back payment, Harry helps an old woman open a service station for motorcycles.
Season Three
- Rich Little, Supersleuth: Impressionist Rich Little plays detective when the bank next to Harry's store gets robbed.
- Model Alice: Alice is asked to pose nude for a painter in search of a model, which Harry objects.
- Marriage Counselor: Harry and Irma's visit to a marriage counselor ends up destroying their relationship rather than saving it.
- Car 54: Irma's brother-in-law, who works as a police officer, opens a kindergarten, which goes well, until a child goes missing.
References
Bibliography
- Brooks, Tim and Marsh, Earl. The Complete Directory to Prime Time Network and Cable TV Shows 1946 to Present. New York, Ballantine, 2003
References
External links
- Wait Till Your Father Gets Home at the Big Cartoon Database
