Originally a supporting character on Rocky and Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right was an endearingly (to the audience, at least) incompetent officer of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, spoofing silent-movie melodramas. Apparently the only officer in his regiment, Dudley took orders from Inspector Ray Fenwick while protecting the inspector's daughter, Nell, as well as the rest of Canada, from the schemes of the wicked Snidely Whiplash. Or so he thinks. Truth is Dudley mostly saves the day by sheer luck or the competence of his horse, but he nevertheless takes credit just the same.In the late 1960s, Dudley headlined his own half-hour Animated Anthology series, which also included cartoons from Total Television, the creators of King Leonardo and His Short Subjects (TTV and Jay Ward both used the services of Gamma Productions). In 1999, Universal released an abysmal live-action Dudley Do-Right movie starring Brendan Fraser, Sarah Jessica Parker and Alfred Molina.
Bride and Switch: One episode had Dudley pull this trick on Snidely Whiplash, who was trying to marry Nell, by replacing Nell with his horse. (It worked!)
Cool and Unusual Punishment: In an episode where Whiplash steals Do-Right's clothes (making him too ashamed to show his face, not because he's naked, but because he's out of uniform, which to him, if far worse), Do-Right comes up with a clever way of getting even later: He swipes Whiplash's clothes.
Darker and Edgier: While the film was a box office failure, it somewhat retains the style of comedy we all know and love in Dudley Do-Right. However a chunk of the film focuses on Dudley being the bad guy in order to ruin Whiplash's reputation as the Bad guy doing good. What does Dudley do in his first act of evil? He takes Snidely's best henchmen and tortures him with a sawmill. It's really paper mache, but he didn't know that.
Idiot Hero: Yeah. One memorable incident involved Dudley discovering his commanding officer Bound and Gagged, but simply thinks he's bundled up against the cold, and decides to throw another log on the fire. However...
Narrator: In the dim light that dim-wit threw in the fireplace not firewood but firearms!
And somehow, this ends up saving the day?
The fire cooked off the ammunition, which scared off the criminals that had taken over the post.
Insignia Rip Off Ritual: Spoofed in the episode: The Disloyal Canadians. In order to infiltrate Snidely Whiplash's crew and expose him as a fur smuggler, Inspector Fenwick ordered Dudley to dirty his own record and get kicked out of the Mounties. After two failures at getting thrown out, Dudley stopped trying and ate peas with a knife, something no Mountie would ever do, and got drummed out, allowing phase 2 of his mission to go through.
Lawful Stupid: Dudley. In one notable episode, Snidely kidnaps Nell at her wedding. A couple days later, Dudley receives a letter from his abducted bride delivered from Snidely's sawmill. He refuses to open it because it isn't stamped. So he rides to the sawmill, gets Nell (Who is tied to a log being fed into the sawblades) to stamp the letter, then rides back to the Mountie post before opening it. An hour and a half later, after finally receiving coherent orders to rescue Nell, he rides back to the sawmill (Thankfully, the sawmill was seriously in need of maintenance or else Nell would have been in pieces by this point). After saving Nell, he then proceeds to arrest her for mail fraud since what she put on the envelope wasn't a legal stamp.
Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Not only did Snidely Whiplash fit this Trope when the show aired, but as the Dastardly Whiplash Trope proves, his name has become synonymous with villains like him in modern culture.
No Celebrities Were Harmed: Dudley is (to some extent, at least) a caricature of Nelson Eddy's Mountie character in Rudolf Friml's Rose-Marie, and has a tendency to break into Eddy's signature melody, "Shortnin' Bread."
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