Acting for Two: Paul Winchell is Dick Dastardly and the General. Don Messick is Muttley, Klunk and Zilly. Both also do a fair helping of one-shot characters the five interact with.
Beam Me Up, Scotty!: "Stop the pigeon" is often misquoted/misremembered as "catch the pigeon."
The first program (Sept. 13, 1969) and the last telecast on CBS (Sept. 4, 1971) featured the episode "Sappy Birthday."
For that matter, the debut show and the last new show contained episodes focusing on a birthday ("Happy Bird Day," Jan. 4, 1970 being on the last new show).
Edited for Syndication: When this show played in syndication as part of the Fun World Of Hanna-Barbera package in 1977, the station in Atlanta, Ga. airing it (at the time independent WANX note now CBS affiliate WANF) was owned by Pat Robertson's CBN outfit. To conform with their own broadcast standards, the hypnotism scenes from "Zilly's A Dilly" were cut out. Similarly, other episodes (of this show and others the station had) were trimmed to accommodate a local live-action host segment as well as due to elements that violated their broadcast standards.
What Could Have Been: It was originally conceived as Stop That Pigeon (the show's theme song), and the two principals, along with Klunk and Zilly, were a jelly-bellied Red Baron-esque character and an orange dachshund with flying goggles. Dick Dastardly and Muttley were originally meant to be on The Perils of Penelope Pitstop as the protectors of Penelope's brother. The two were instead drafted into Stop That Pigeon, replacing the Baron figure and dachshund, and that show was renamed.
Meta
During the entire series, the Vulture Squadron destroys 182 planes, 2 balloons, 1 ship, 1 Zeppelin, 1 gas station and 1 train.
For a list of all the aircrafts used outside of the Squadron's regular planes and deviations with no discernable features, see this site.
