"Captaiiiinnnn... CAAAAAAAVE-MAAAAAANNNNN!!!"
Set free by the Teen Angels from his prehistoric block of glacier ice, comes the world's first superhero... Captain Caveman! Now the constant companion to the Teen Angels, Brenda, Dee-Dee and Taffy, in their hilarious and sometimes scary mystery missions. Get ready for...
— The Opening Narration
Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels was introduced as part of Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics on ABC in 1977. When not competing on Scooby-Doo's team, Cavey and his trio of beauties solved mysteries in yet another variation of the Scooby format. Cavey, a caveman Super Hero frozen in a block of ice until thawed in the 20th century by the Teen Angels, kept many gadgets and live dinosaurs inside his fur. He also possessed superhuman strength, and (thanks to his club) could even fly; those powers were prone to giving out at unwelcome occasions. The Teen Angels are (left to right): smarty pants leader Dee-Dee Skyes, flirtatious Taffy Dare, and nervous wreck Brenda Chance.
Voice talent included Mel Blanc, Laurel Page, Marilyn Schreffler and Vernée Watson-Johnson.
In later series, Captain Caveman was shown living alongside The Flintstones. The early 1980s The Flintstone Comedy Show starred Cavey in his own segment, as Bedrock's resident superhero, often accompanied on adventures by newspaper reporters Wilma Flintstone and Betty Rubble. On The Flintstone Kids, Captain Caveman and his son were the stars of a Show Within a Show.
While initially aired as part of Laff-a-Lympics, the series would spin off into its own thing for Season 3, mixing in reruns from the first two seasons, while some airings (specifically, the ones on Boomerang and Teletoon Retro) would mix in the live-action segment Mystery Island from The Skatebirds into rotation.
In the modern era, Cavey has made appearances in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, SCOOB!, and Jellystone!.
Captain Caveman and the Teen Angels provides examples of:
- Beach Episode: "The Old Caveman and the Sea" takes place entirely at a beach and in the ocean.
- Butt-Monkey: Brenda. Not only does she always get captured by the villains or ends up becoming the butt of a joke or a victim of Cavey's antics, but she's picked on by her so-called "friends".
- Captain Superhero: Captain Caveman himself is one.
- Cool Car: The motorhome with Cavey's own home on top of it. This in itself is also pretty much making them the only ones among their fellow meddling kids to actually live in their vehicle.
- Cowardly Lion: Brenda. Pretty as she may be, she's scared of everything.
- Deadpan Snarker: Captain has his moments when he snarks with modern sensibilities.
- Drives Like Crazy: The Buffalo Man nearly runs the Teen Angels' motorhome off the road with his reckless driving of a stolen jeep.
- Extreme Omnivore: Cavey often eats large quantities of food and stuff that isn't supposed to be edible. The cartoon's intro shows him eating a safe box in a single bite.
- Four-Fingered Hands: Captain Caveman has them because of his cartoony design in contrast to the realistically designed Teen Angels.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Brenda is frequently bullied and stepped on by Dee Dee and Taffy.
- Hairy Hammerspace: Captain Caveman's fur contains multitudes of random objects alongside multitudes of actually living dinosaurs.
- Ms. Fanservice: The Teen Angels. One episode, "The Old Caveman and the Sea", featured them all in bikinis. Turning the eyes of the show's male audience, Taffy wore the brightest shade of green. That is one lucky caveman. Issue #13 of the Laff-A-Lympics comic book features a page of Taffy in a skimpy green bikini. Issue #9 of the Marvel run of Scooby-Doo has all three Teen Angels (making a guest appearance with Cavey) in bikinis.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Taffy Dare's design obviously was based on Farrah Fawcett, and Brenda Chance's hairstyle resembles that of Jaclyn Smith.
- One-Steve Limit: Seemingly averted in "Cavey and the Kabuta Clue". The Teen Angels are meeting with one of their friends. His father's name is clearly Winston Downes and his uncle is Walton Downes. During the wrap-up Taffy responds to the friend with "We sure do Win." Implying their friend is probably a Winston Downes Jr. Although this is a rare example where the friend of the You Meddling Kids did not have their name dropped at the beginning of the episode.
- Opening Narration: Gary Owens' opening narration (see above) describes how Captain Caveman became an ally to the Teen Angels
- Primitive Clubs: Played with. Captain Caveman wields a big wooden club as his primary weapon, but it also enables him to fly and is a Swiss-Army Weapon that contains numerous tools that can be deployed to get him and the Teen Angels out of a jam.
- Rummage Fail: Among other instances, Captain Caveman once stuffed Brenda into his fur and couldn't get her out.
- Rapid Aging: Happens to a man during "The Creepy Claw Caper" as ransom for a chest of gold coins. It later happens to the Teen Angels. They get better at the end. Amusingly, despite Cavey also being hit with the beam, he winds up immune to the effects thanks to being from the prehistoric days.
- Say My Name: Captain's trademark is to yell his own name before his heroics.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: Used many times, but sometimes averted in favor of run-of-the-mill crooks disguised mostly in shadow.
- Shout-Out: Despite being mostly based on the Scooby-Doo format, the show also references Charlie's Angels, featuring a trio of female investigators. As mentioned above, Taffy was clearly modeled after Farrah Fawcett, who played Jill on that series.
- The Brazilian dub goes along, naming the Teen Angels as "As Panterinhas" (Charlie's Angels were named "Panteras") and they got a Dub Name Change to match the original Angels: Dee Dee became Sabina (after Sabrina), Taffy became Gilda (after Jill) and Brenda became Nelly (after Kelly). Sabina's voice actress is the same of Sabrina, Sumara Louise.
- Spoofy-Doo: Basically Scooby-Doo, but with three teen girls instead of Fred, Shaggy, Velma, and Daphne, and with Captain Caveman in place of Scooby.
- Time Travel: "Prehistoric Panic" has the gang go back in time to visit Cavey's parents.
- Twin Switch: An odd location example, in which there are Twin Lodges the crook attempts to lead them to a staged scene in the second lodge to make them think a scepter was stolen.
- Vehicular Sabotage: The titular villain in "Cavey and Baffling Buffalo Man" has a tendency to do this to his victims, the Teen Angels fall victim to this when he steals the wheels of their van. While Cavey is able to rig up some wooden replacements, they soon find out that the brakes have also been cut. Cavey saves the day again by stopping the van from the back, but not without some Agony of the Feet in the process.
- Would You Do It For A Scooby Snack?: Taffy can sweet talk Captain Caveman into just about any daffy Taffy plan.
- Zany Scheme: If Taffy is given a close up with sparkles around her, it usually means she's coming up with one of these."Not another daffy Taffy plan!"
The Captain Caveman segments on The Flintstone Comedy Show provide examples of:
- Clark Kenting: Captain Caveman himself did this to disguise himself as Chester, wearing glasses and a bowtie and raising his voice an octave.
- Damsel in Distress: Wilma and Betty were often reduced to this, usually by trying to stop the villain themselves and getting in over their heads.
- Da Editor: Lou Granite, editor-in-chief of "The Daily Granite".
- Monster Clown: Clownfoot is a bank-robbing circus clown who, at his circus hideout, rigs a high-wire's bicycle that Betty and Wilma are riding to fall apart over a pit of man-eating saber-toothed tigers.
- Monster of the Week: Each segment had a different villain, whose name was the name of that segment's episode.
- Natural Disaster Cascade: Considering that the weather-controlling villains want to conquer the world by gaining control of the global weather...
- Secret Identity: Cavey has one as Chester, which is in itself kind of a parody of this trope.
- Shout-Out: Mostly to the Superman mythos:
- Captain Caveman's secret identity of glasses-wearing Chester.
- Wilma's and Betty's positions as reporters akin to Lois Lane.
- The Daily Granite, a spoof of The Daily Planet.
- "Lou Granite" is likely a reference to Lou Grant of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, as well as the Lou Grant spinoff series (Lou Grant and The Flintstone Comedy Show both aired in the early 1980s, on CBS and NBC, respectively). In that spinoff, Grant was also the editor of a newspaper.
- Time Travel for Fun and Profit: The 20th-century villain Futuro's goal was robbing Bedrock of random stuff to sell in his own era as valuable "antiques."
- Transformation Sequence: Spoofed.
It was so loud that literally everyone in the city could hear it, and visually it featured explosions, rockets and an array of rainbow stars, but all that actually happened was that Chester took off his glasses and unfolded his bowtie into a cape.- Sometimes (especially in the second season) there were variations on this sequence, including Chester using a different coat rack, wearing a different outfit, and even halting the sequence in the middle because Wilma and Betty were walking past.
- Walk the Plank: Pinkbeard forces Wilma and Betty to walk the plank over a sea with many dangerous animals. When they take too long to jump, Pinkbeard's crocodile cuts off the plank. Fortunately, Captain Caveman arrives just in time.
- Weather-Control Machine: The villains Stormfront and Weathergirl steal a weather satellite to launch into orbit to amplify the range of their weather-controlling powers to cover (and conquer) the entire planet. A different villain constructs such a device in an episode of The Flintstone Kids.
The Captain Caveman segments on The Flintstone Kids provide examples of:
- Forgot About His Powers: Usually not on Captain Caveman's side but on the villains', who at times forgot about his abilities. In one episode, a villain makes both Cavey and Junior to fall in trap doors, and a second later they fly out, with Captain Caveman even saying 'You forgot we fly'; Averted Trope in a later episode when the heroes fly to escape a villainous army and they get ambushed by two clever criminals in Bamboo Technology helicopters.
- Genius Ditz: Something he showed on earlier incarnations but became more noticeable in this show. Despite his usual dumbness, Captain Caveman was actually a competent superhero and many times found simple yet smart ways to defeat his enemies; other times, of course, he is more like an Accidental Hero.
- Legion of Doom: A team-up of the segments' various villains (spearheaded by Mr. Bad) is seen in one episode.
- Missing Mom: Captain Caveman must have married someone in order to produce Junior, but his wife is never seen.
- Narrator: Kenneth Mars.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: The duo once disguised themselves as villains by donning domino masks. Since this was in an Amnesia Episode, the amnesiac Captain Caveman decides that since he's wearing such a mask, he must be a villain, and then proceeds to steal so much stuff that there's nothing left for all the other criminals to steal.
- Super Hero Origin: For both Captain Caveman (in a flashback episode) and his son, Cavey Jr. (the pilot showing that he was allowed to join his father in crimefighting once he became old enough).
- The Television Talks Back: Captain Caveman frequently talked to the Flintstone kids.
