Wednesday, December 24, 2014

Literary Toons: The Puppy's Further/Great Adventures (1982)

In 1978, Joe Ruby & Ken Spears adapted a little known children's book, The Puppy Who Wanted a Boy, for the ABC Weekend Special. The episode proved so popular, with its annual replays, that ABC commissioned an ongoing Puppy series.

First, the adventures of Petey the Puppy were coupled with Scooby & Scrappy Doo in a hour-long block, which didn't really make much sense. The following year, Petey and pals were spun off into their own half-hour standalone series, under the title, The Puppy's Further Adventures, rechristened The Puppy's Great Adventures when the series went into all-rerun mode, first on ABC, then CBS.

Petey (voiced by Billy Jacoby here) doubles as narrator, and there was some sparks between Petey and Dolly (Nancy McKeon, The Facts of Life), too.

Following is a sample episode:



Too bad Cartoon Network is sitting on this one right now.

Rating: A.

Merry Christmas, everyone. We're off until Friday.

2 comments:

magicdog said...

I remember watching it and the original special that inspired it and it was enjoyable enough. However the Glider character was a bit much. Luckily he didn't appear in many episodes.

I'll give the writers credit for having Petey the puppy eventually finding his boy and having the adventures continue. I had figured the adventures would cease once he reunited with the family.

hobbyfan said...

Chalk that up to the ratings for the Weekend Special appearances being strong enough to warrant an ongoing series. As I said, it's too bad CN/Boomerang is sitting on this show.