This Hanna-Barbera production spoofed the martial arts craze which swept the Western world in the 70s (thanks to Bruce Lee’s Enter the Dragon(1973) movie and David Carradine’s Kung FuTV series).
This brilliant cartoon featured a seemingly mild-mannered NYPD police station janitor named Penrod “Penry” Pooch.
When trouble – such as the Gumdrop Kid (“he’s gonna eat every candy bar in town”) – was brewing, Penry would leap into a filing cabinet and emerge in a dressing gown as Hong Kong Phooey, Mutt of Steel.
The inept Phooey would speed off in the Phooeymobile – a miniature version of the Chinese Theatre on wheels – accompanied in the animated underworld by pet cat Spot, a snickering, striped feline who usually solved the case.
The Phooeymobile could convert, at the bang of a gong, into a wide variety of other vehicles including the Phooeycopter, the Phooey-Hovercraft, and even the Phooey Pogo-Stick.
The bumbling pooch learnt all he knows from the “Hong Kong Book of Kung Fu”, which he referred to on a regular basis.
Also seen were bumbling, grouchy Sergeant “Sarge” Flint (voiced by Joe E. Ross from The Phil Silvers Show), and sex-bomb receptionist Rosemary – “The cutie beauty who’s always on duty”.
Penrod ‘Penry’ Pooch
Scatman Crothers
Spot
Don Messick
Sgt ‘Sarge’ Flint
Joe E. Ross
Rosemary
Kathy Gori
