Saturday, July 23, 2011

Sunday Funnies: Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Home (1972)

Hanna-Barbera's reputation for using live-action series as templates for their cartoons is well known. For example, Jackie Gleason's seminal Honeymooners begat The Flintstones. Similarly, You'll Never Get Rich (aka Sgt. Bilko) begat Top Cat, and All in the Family's early success led the studio to create Wait 'Til Your Father Gets Home, a syndicated domestic sitcom that premiered in 1972. Locally, Father followed the 6:00 news on Sundays.

Tom Bosley, two years prior to Happy Days, was cast as Harry Boyle, the Father in the title, which might have prepared him for his seminal role as Howard Cunningham on Days.

Hewey1972 uploaded the open:



There have been some that have asked about a revival, after episodes have turned up on Cartoon Network & Boomerang. I don't think so, not when you consider Fox has a glut of domestic comedies now, what with Matt Groening's The Simpsons and Seth MacFarlane's trilogy (Family Guy, American Dad, & The Cleveland Show), plus MacFarlane being green-lighted to revive The Flintstones, also for Fox.

Rating: B.

2 comments:

magicdog said...

I remember catching this late nights on CN.

I had trouble liking the character designs; it was like the HB studios went in the opposite direction they'd been following since the late 60s. Alex Toth was making characters look more like regular people, and HB decided to go completely cartooney in WTYFGH.

I was impressed by some of the frank situations discussed (though somewhat tame compared to today) particularly the daughter's love life! As a fat kid, I would imagine seeing other fat kids being as lonely as they typically are portrayed on TV, but Alice apparently had no trouble getting boyfriends (in the opening credits it's implied she is attacked by an overeager suitor as she came home with torn clothing!!) and there was an episode in which she was invited to go on an overnight co-ed trip that Harry didn't want her to attend even though her brother Chet had gone on one (because boys didn't get pregnant!).

The youngest Boyle child, Jamie in retrospect seemed like the one most likely to have succeeded in life. He was always out to make a buck and had to savvy to do it! I imagined Chet going to him for money even well into adulthood.

At least, unlike some of today's domestic [animated] comedies, WTYFGH usually didn't go down to the lowest denominator.

hobbyfan said...

There were quite a few H-B toons in those days where the animation was rather sparse in the background. Hong Kong Phooey is another example of this sad, cheap trend. Emphasis on cheap.