Western Animation / Laff-A-Lympics

"Heavens to hilarity, this is it, sports fans! Participants even! Television's greatest array of stars, "Laff-A-Lympics" presents around the world, triple-team competition between, the Yogi Yahooeys, the Scooby Doobies, and the Really Rottens. The players are on the field, in the stadium even. So let's get on with it, Laff-A-Lympics!"

— Snagglepuss in the opening sequence

Laff-A-Lympics is an animated television series created by Hanna-Barbera in 1977. Originally airing as a part of ABC's Saturday morning package series, Scooby's All Star Laff-A-Lympics, which was renamed Scooby's All-Stars the following year, this was basically a Saturday-Morning Cartoon version of ABC's Battle of the Network Stars, which itself had debuted the previous year and parodied the Olympics held throughout that same year. In hindsight, it can be considered a celebration of the legacy of Hanna-Barbera, which had reached its 20th anniversary since its establishment way back in 1957. As such, the three teams that were featured consisted of characters spread out throughout the company's history, including:

• the Yogi Yahooeys, a team of funny animals from Hanna-Barbera's golden age that were designed by Ed Benedict (with the exception of Grape Ape, who was the only post-1962, let alone '70s character in the lineup), led by the smarter-than-average bear Yogi Bear and his sidekick Boo Boo;
• the Scooby Doobies, a team of Meddling Kids and a few superheroes from Hanna-Barbera's more recent shows of the time, a few of which were the lead characters of the other shows in the original package series. Many of these characters were designed by Iwao Takamoto, Joe Ruby, or Ken Spears, with the latter two leaving to establish their own studio that same year. This team was led by resident cowards Scooby-Doo and his closest companion, Shaggy;
• and lastly, the Really Rottens, a team of cheaters who bear similarities to many villains and creepy characters, among others from the company's past shows. This team was led by a now villainous Mumbly (himself a blatant copy of Wacky Races' Muttley who debuted the previous year in an updated version of The Tom and Jerry/Grape Ape Show) and Dread Baron (created for this series as Mumbly's equivalent of Dick Dastardly). At the time, Dick Dastardly and Muttley were unable to appear because they were co-owned by Merrill Heatter and Bob Quigley, and Hanna-Barbera created the Dread Baron character and made Mumbly his sidekick.

Snagglepuss and Mildew Wolf provided commentary as the teams engaged in various contests of skill and endurance. Fred Flintstone, Barney Rubble, Jabberjaw, and Peter Potamus all made occasional appearances as guest commentators, judges, and coaches.

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This series provides examples of:

• Adaptational Villainy: Mumbly is a crime fighter in The Mumbly Cartoon Show but in this series, he acts more like Muttley from Wacky Races since Hanna-Barbera couldn't get the rights for the latter and had to make the former into a Captain Ersatz of him.
• Adapted Out: For unknown reasons, Scooby-Dum and Sooey Pig were left out of the Laff-a-Lympics comic book.
• And I'm the Queen of Sheba: Used in the second half of "The Grand Canyon and Ireland", where Mildew Wolf encounters a leprechaun and claims that if the leprechaun is real, then he's a butterfly. The leprechaun responds by using his magic to turn Mildew into a butterfly.
• Artistic Licence – Geography:
  • An elephant-back race in Calcutta passes the Taj Mahal - which is actually in Agra.
  • The Cossack Dance race through Moscow ends at the Czar's Palace- which is actually in ST. Petersburg
• Artistic License – Sports: Notably in the Hole-In-One contest where it doesn't specify the par for the hole unless it was a par 1 since the object was to get the ball in the hole in one stroke. Dinky Dalton gets it in two strokes (a cheating tactic backfired gruesomely) which technically scores as a bogey, but the announcer called it a birdie (one stroke under par).
• Ascended Extra: While the teams mostly consisted of lead stars, a few supporting characters such as Cindy Bear and Scooby-Dum were regulars. Scooby-Dum deserves a special mention as he only appeared in four episodes of his home series, but appeared more frequently here.
• The Bad Guy Wins: The Really Rottens actually win the competition for "New York and Turkey" and "Morocco and Washington. D.C."
• The Cameo: Fred Flintstone, Barney Rubble and Jabberjaw are recurring guest stars while Peter Potamus and Ranger Smith showed up once each.
• Captain Colorbeard: In the episode "Russia and the Caribbean", one of the challenges was to find the treasure of a ghost pirate named Bluebeard.
• Captain Ersatz:
  • The creation of Dread Baron and Mumbly's Adaptational Villainy was because Hanna-Barbera wanted to use Dick Dastardly and Muttley as captains of the Really Rottens but couldn't since Merrill Heatter allegedly still had part ownership of the Wacky Races characters. To hammer in the point, one issue of the Comic-Book Adaptation revealed Dread Baron was Dick Dastardly's brother and Mumbly was mistakenly called Muttley in season 2.
  • Similarly, Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels were replacements for Josie and the Pussycats due to clearance issues with the rights holders "Radio Comics" as well as Babu appearing alone because Columbia Pictures Television still owned I Dream of Jeannie^note Never mind that the two appeared together on The New Scooby-Doo Movies). This is evident in ABC's print ad for the September 1977 TV Guide issue where Jeannie and Josie and the Pussycats are featured and the fact the former was included in the main model sheets and counted for in the opening narration.
• Card-Carrying Villain: Every member of the Really Rottens revels in being underhanded crooks. Case in point, Daisy Mayhem is personally offended in "France and Australia" when Mildew Wolf congratulates her team for winning without cheating.
• Cartoon Physics: At one point the Rottens were in a skiing event and when they pass Huckleberry lazing in an armchair on skis, they pick him up and pass him back to one another before putting him back. Somehow Huckleberry's skiing armchair stays at the same speed and the Rottens pass it.
• Color-Coded Characters: The competitors wear their team shirts over their normal attire (where applicable) with The Yogi Yahooeys wearing red, the Scooby Doobies are blue and the Really Rottens are green.
• Comic-Book Adaptation: Marvel published a 13-issue comic of the series in 1987 with each story having a central plot to the usual event participation. In the comics, Scooby-Dum and Sooey Pig were Adapted Out for some reason, Dread Baron and Dick Dastardly were revealed to be brothers and a fourteenth issue about a vengeful college professor was left unpublished.
• Composite Character: Orful Octopus combines traits of Squiddly Diddly and Occy the Octopus, the Gruesomes' pet octopus from The Flintstones.
• Character Catchphrase: Mildew Wolf usually says the phrase "They're all savages! Savages!" or some variation in reference to the contestants even though he never had this quirk in the original It's the Wolf! shorts he debuted in. This might be due to a Mythology Gag in which Paul Lynde, Mildew's original voice actor, had voiced Claude Pertwee in Where's Huddles? where he regularly referred to football players Ed Huddles and Bubba McCoy as "savages".
• Darkhorse Victory: Played for Laughs in the Fox Hunt event where the Fox gets 25 events thanks to a string of bad luck on the parts of the competitors.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: The Rottens want to win by cheating to the point that the one time they win a competition legitimately, it leaves them pissed off. However, they don't object to winning individual events legitimately.
• Distracted by the Sexy: One episode has the Dread Baron distracted by Taffy posing on a tree branch while he is climbing across vines, causing him to miss the vines completely and climb through mid-air. He falls by the time he realizes it.
• Driven to Madness: In season two, Mildew has stated that enduring the competition is enough to drive him—and anyone—cuckoo. Sure enough, the end of one episode has him in a strait-jacket and committed to a mental ward.
• Exposed to the Elements: Downplayed with Daisy Mayhem, who goes barefoot even in cold and snowy climates.
• Expy: Most of the Really Rottens were made up of this.
  • The Dread Baron is a ridiculously blatant one of Dick Dastardly with Issue #13 of the comic book even portraying them as "brothers".
  • The Creepleys are the just redesigns of the Gruesome family from The Flintstones who in turn were expies of Mr. and Mrs. J. Evil Scientist.
  • Daisy Mayhem is an evil version of the Li'l Abner character Moonbeam McSwine. She is the only instance on the show where the original character is not from Hanna-Barbera, although arguments can be made that she's a Palette Swap of Taffy Dare of the Teen Angels with some traces of Alexandra Cabot and/or Shelly Seastruck .
  • In a Robot Chicken skit that parodies Munich, the Great Fondoo lampshades this fact.
• Face–Heel Turn: Mumbly was originally a police detective in his original series before turning to a dishonest life of crime for whatever unexplained reason.
• Fanservice: In issue #13 of the comic book, Taffy of the Teen Angels is seen in a skimpy bikini.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: During the Canada sled race, pause when Mildew and Snag are shown talking. Jeannie can be spotted standing between Babu and Hong Kong Phooey. She also pops up in the wide shots during the Dyke Building event and during most of the Viking Longboat race.
• The Ghost: The Narrator and Announcers make multiple references to unseen "judges" that often hand out rulings and penalties. In the trivia What Could Have Been entry, it would appear at one point Hong Kong Phooey and Spot were to have filled this role before Spot was dropped and Phooey joined the Scooby Doobies.
• Golden Snitch:
  • Usually, the points awarded for each event are 25 for the winner, 15 for the second place, 10 for third and zero for disqualification but some episodes have one event that offers a 50-point bonus or all points are given to the same team. However, It doesn't always guarantee overall victory for the team that wins it.
  • At least two events were contested to a scoreless draw.
• Got Volunteered: In one episode, Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy had to play the last event because the other Yogi Yahooeys took steps back when Yogi called for volunteers. As Doggie Daddy said, he and his son were volunteered by a bunch of backstabbers.
• Heel–Face Turn: Mildew Wolf was originally an antagonist in the "It's the Wolf!" segments of The Cattanooga Cats but a lot friendlier if exasperated commentator here.
• Human Ladder: The Rottens used one of these to win a "Freestyle Pole Vault" competition. In this case, "freestyle" meant "anything goes" so it wasn't cheating but they sure abused that loophole for all it was worth.
• Inept Mage: The Great Fondoo and Babu most of the time.
• Kangaroo Pouch Ride: One episode features a kangaroo race as the last event. Subverted because the only entrant to ride his kangaroo's pouch is Mumbly, who uses a mechanical kangaroo instead of a real one, which isn't against any rules.
• Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: The Teen Angels don't have a change of outfit while engaging in Olympic competition. Taffy Dare in particular is an egregious example by still wearing her short skirt and pumps in competition, while Dee Dee still has her high-heeled boots.
• Living Prop: Hong Kong Phooey took part in two solo events (Baseball, Marine Corps Obstacle Course Race), two pair events (Rubber Raft Race with Scooby-Dum and Siamese Sanpan Race alongside Dynomutt) and two team events (Three-way tug of war and the start and end of the Viking Longboat Race). Other than that, he just stood and cheered (read: bounced up and down in place).
• Massive Multiplayer Crossover: The show's premise revolves around characters from various Hanna-Barbera cartoons interacting with one another.
• Near-Villain Victory: "France and Australia" had the Really Rottens almost end up the episode's champions in spite of Snagglepuss's protests that they cheated in the kangaroo race with a robot kangaroo even though the rules didn't say robot kangaroos weren't allowed. However, they were disqualified at the last minute when it was revealed the robot kangaroo was controlled by Dirty and Dastardly Dalton which is a direct violation of the rules where it does say only one team member can only ride their kangaroo.
• Pepper Sneeze: In the "Acapulco and England" episode, Wally Gator uses black pepper to make the whale sneeze out the Yogi Yahooeys team so they can win the speedboat race in Acapulco.
• Pseudolympics: The whole point of the series.
• Retcon: Mumbly's Face–Heel Turn has never been fully explained.
• Road-Sign Reversal: The Rottens mistakenly switched the signs back, resulting in disgust from their teammates (although they did get a 50-point bonus for "chivalry" because the judges thought they did it to help their opponents).
• Shout-Out:
  • Because the series aired on ABC, commentators Snagglepuss and Mildew Wolf were depicted wearing the then-standard yellow sportscoats worn by ABC Sports broadcasters.
  • Mildew Wolf referring to everyone as "savages" is a double reference to both his original voice actor Paul Lynde and the Hanna-Barbera series Where's Huddles? (CBS, 1970) where Lynde played Claude Pertwee, a character who often referred to show's football-playing Fred and Barney expies as "savages".
• The Smurfette Principle: Cindy Bear is the only female member of the Yogi Yahooeys.
• Spoofy-Doo: One of the competitors is a group called the Scooby-Doobies, a team that gathers Scooby and Shaggy, their expies Speed Buggy and Tinker, and Captain Caveman and the Josie and the Pussycats/Charlie's Angels expies, the Teen Angels.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Hong Kong Phooey's reactions when partnered with Scooby-Dum for the Rubber Raft Race and Dynomutt for the Siamese Sanpan Race.
• Team Rocket Wins: In the second season, the Really Rottens won twice legitimately in episodes 18 and 22 much to their surprise as everyone else's. They also had a three-way tie in episode 24 of that year — all teams received a trophy.
  • In at least two shows, the Rottens finished second while the Yogis finished last in one show and the Scoobys finished last in another.
  • An issue of the Laff-a-Lympics comic book had the Rottens—under the presumption that they have now decided to play fair—winning the gold, but they were disqualified for having the Great Fondoo and Magic Rabbit kidnap and impersonate Blue Falcon and Boo Boo Bear, then have them deliberately lose for the Yogis and Scoobys.
• Those Two Guys: Scooby-Dum and Babu were partnered in a lot of events.
• Two Girls to a Team: Daisy Mayhem and Mrs. Creeply are the only female members of the Really Rottens. The Teen Angels are the only girls on the Scooby Doobies, and count as three (Taffy, Dee-Dee, and Brenda).
• Unkempt Beauty: Daisy Mayhem, with her torn jeans, barefoot and split hairs.
• Wacky Racing
• Wolverine Publicity: Laff-a-Lympics was a subseries in a package series known as Scooby's All-Star Laff-a-Lympics. In its original two-hour format on ABC, the full show featured two half-hours of Scooby-Doo content with reruns of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! and episodes of what would eventually become The Scooby-Doo Show, including reruns from The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour of the previous year, along with brand new episodes. That gave the remaining hour to Dynomutt, Dog Wonder, Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels, and Laff-A-Lympics. Even with the full title, Laff-A-Lympics barely focused on Scooby outside the intro. When the show aired as simply "Laff-a-Lympics" in 1980 and 1986, only the LAL segment intro was used, but reruns on Cartoon Network, Boomerang, and even DVD releases oddly enough would frequently reuse the original title, a testament to Scooby's lasting popularity.
• Wrong Parachute Gag: Mumbly switches the tags on Grape Ape's and Yakky Doodle's parachutes during a skydiving competition. The small parachute causes Grape Ape to fall like a stone, while the large parachute leaves Yakky Doodle stranded aloft in a thunderstorm.
  Yakky: Get me down! Get me down!
• Writers Cannot Do Math: A slight variation as the opening credits state there are 45 stars but a headcount of all three teams and the announcers show there are only 44 as Jeannie was cut before production given Babu was present and the writers never bother to correct it. That is unless the narrator (Don Messick) is counting himself as the 45th since he did technically star in tons of Hanna-Barbera cartoon intros.

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