The Robonic Stooges
| The Robonic Stooges | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Genre | Animation |
| Directed by |
Charles A. Nichols Chris Cuddington |
| Voices of |
Paul Winchell Joe Baker Frank Welker David Jolliffe Bob Hastings Patricia Stich Jim MacGeorge |
| Narrated by | Frank Welker |
| Theme music composer | Hoyt Curtin |
| Composer(s) | Hoyt Curtin |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 32 (8 minutes per episode) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) |
William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Producer(s) | Terry Morse, Jr. |
| Running time | 3 minutes |
| Distributor | Warner Bros. Television Distribution |
| Release | |
| Original network | CBS |
| Original release | September 10, 1977 – March 18, 1978 |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | The New Three Stooges |
| Followed by | The Three Stooges |
| Related shows | The Skatebirds |
The Robonic Stooges is a Saturday morning animated series featuring the characters of The Three Stooges in new roles as clumsy crime-fighting bionic superheroes. It was developed by Norman Maurer and produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions from September 10, 1977 to March 18, 1978 on CBS and contained two segments: The Robonic Stooges and Woofer & Wimper, Dog Detectives.
The Robonic Stooges originally aired as a segment on The Skatebirds from September 10, 1977 to January 21, 1978 on CBS. When CBS canceled The Skatebirds in early 1978, the trio was given their own half-hour timeslot which ran for 16 episodes.
Moe, Larry and Curly are superheroes who fight crime with their special bionic powers and are given assignments via film projector from their frustrated boss Agent 000 (pronounced "Oh-Oh-Oh") who runs the Superhero Employment Agency.
Since all of the original Three Stooges had died when production began (Moe Howard and Larry Fine had both died in 1975, Shemp Howard died in 1955 and Curly Howard in 1952), other voice actors were used to impersonate them, mostly veteran voice actors from other Hanna-Barbera productions. Paul Winchell voiced Moe, Joe Baker voiced Larry, and Frank Welker voiced Curly (Welker had previously used his Curly impersonation for the titular character in Jabberjaw). Unlike cartoon series produced by Hanna-Barbera in the 1970s, The Robonic Stooges did not contain a laugh track.
This was the second animated adaptation of the Three Stooges, the first being Cambria Studios' The New Three Stooges in 1965, which used the actual Stooges' voices. Norman Maurer, who was married to Moe Howard's daughter and had acted as the Stooges' agent during their lifetimes, worked on both series. The Stooges had previously appeared in another Hanna Barbera-created series: The New Scooby-Doo Movies (1972), this time as Moe, Larry and Curly-Joe. With the deaths of Fine and Howard in 1975, other actors were engaged to voice the roles of Moe and Larry; neither of the surviving "third" Stooges, Joe Besser or Joe DeRita, were asked to participate (even as Besser was working for Hanna-Barbera for other series at the time).
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