Bailey’s Comets

1 9 7 3 (USA)
32 x 15 minute episodes

This animated Wacky Races-style series from DePatie-Freleng Enterprises premiered on CBS on 8 September 1973.

Barnaby Bailey and his crew of roller derby skaters – The Comets – were competing in a global search for a $1 million treasure.

Other Comets were pretty blonde Candy; sweet-natured but ditzy Bunny; Wheelie, the bespectacled team mechanic and inventor; Pudge, hefty and accident-prone with a fondness for bananas; and red-haired Sarge, the team motivator.

Clues to the prizes were located all around the world and episodes depicted the efforts of Bailey’s Comets to overcome the diabolical schemes of the other 14 teams trying to eliminate them from the competition.

The other teams were:

• The Texas Black Hats – outlaw cowboys that rode on roller skate-wearing horses.
• The Jekyll-Hydes – top hat-wearing English doctors that turned into hideous green-skinned creatures at the most inopportune times.
• The Ramblin’ Rivets – a professor (voiced by Daws Butler) and his robots; Scrappy, Boltsbucket, and Fenderbender.
• The Duster Busters – a gang who skated in half-sitting positions as if they were mounted on motorcycles.
• The Roller Coasters – a circus-based team, consisting of a ringmaster, Hercules the Strongman, Big Bertha the Fat Lady, an Indian Rubber Man, and a clown riding on a roller-skating lion (pictured).

• The Stone Rollers – three roller-skating cavemen (all voiced by Bob Holt) and their roller-skating dinosaur.
• The Cosmic Rays – four aliens inside a skating flying saucer.
• The Gargantuan Giants – a football team so huge that only their skates could be seen onscreen. They were led by a regular-sized coach who rode on the skates of one of the other members of the team.
• The Rockin’ Rollers – a rock band.
• The Broomer Girls – a team of witches on roller skate-equipped brooms led by Auntie Hag.
• The Roller Bears – five roller-skating bears (the most hapless of the teams, constantly blundering and laughing like idiots).
• The Mystery Mob – a team of unseen skaters, constantly immersed in a massive cloud of dust with flailing arms and legs.
• The Yo Ho-Ho’s – a team of pirates (led by a captain voiced by Daws Butler) on a roller skate-equipped raft, with one pirate rowing, another holding the sail, and the other riding in a barrel towed behind the raft.
• The Hairy Mountain Red Eyes – a family of hillbillies with Pa (voiced by Don Messick) riding in a roller skate-equipped washtub, Ma carrying a hoe, and their two boys – one carrying a pig (pictured).

The competition was narrated by race commentator Gabby (who sounded a lot like Howard Cosell), who rode in a helicopter with the Southern pilot, Dooter Roo.

Barnaby Bailey
Carl Esser
Candy
Karen Smith
Bunny
Sarah Kennedy
Wheelie
Jim Begg
Pudge
Frank Welker
Sarge
Kathy Gori
Gabby
Don Messick
Dooter Roo
Daws Butler

Episodes

Skateroo to the Carlsbad Clue | To Win or Toulouse | Raja and Out | Ghost of a Clue | Heading Home | Roman Race | Transylvania Mad Transit | Philippine Flip-Flop | Space Race | Slow ‘n’ Go to Tokyo | Loch Ness Mess | Deep Blue Clue | South American Slip-Up | Gold Fever Goof-Up | A Kooky Clue and a Mummy, Too | Kenya Catch That Clue | An Abominable Clue | Madagascar Mix-Up | Bear Blunder Down Under | Trans-Turkey Foul-Up | Amazon Jungle Bungle | Swiss Swap Switch | Hawaii Five Uh-Oh | Heidelberg Robot Hang-Up | Netherlands Bubble Trouble | Too Strong for Hong Kong | A Doggone Danish Clue | Hungarian Cluelosh | Gobi Desert Goof-Up | Sargasso Sea You Later | Fast Lap in Lapland | What’s Buzzin’, Canadian Cousin?