Wait Till Your Father Gets Home

1 9 7 2 – 1 9 7 4 (USA)
48 x 30 minute episodes

This animated sitcom from Hanna-Barbera featured the generation-gap laughs of long-suffering old-fashioned father, Harry Boyle (president of the Boyle Restaurant Supply Company in Los Angeles) and his “with-it” 1970s kids –  teenage feminist Alice; lazy and perpetually unemployed long-haired young adult son Chet; and precocious, if rather mercenary, younger son, Jamie.

Harry was married to Irma, a woman who has bridged the generation gap.

Ralph was the Boyle’s ultra-right-wing fan neighbour (who was fanatically intolerant and obsessed with every absurd conspiracy theory) and Julius was their family dog.

The show was wildly funny and clearly indebted to All In The Family and became the first primetime animated sitcom to run for more than a single season since The Flintstones more than 10 years earlier and would be the only one until The Simpsons 15 years later.

Many celebrities appeared on the show, sometimes voicing cartoon representations of themselves. Among them were Don Knotts, Phyllis Diller, Don Adams, Rich Little, Jonathan Winters, and Monty Hall.

Tom Bosley continued playing the suburban pop in Happy Days.

Wait Till Your Father Gets Home initially aired on most NBC stations on Sunday nights at 10:30 pm. The show originated in a one-time segment on Love, American Style called “Love and the Old-Fashioned Father”. The same pilot was later produced with a live cast (starring Van Johnson), but with no success.

Harry Boyle
Tom Bosley
Irma Boyle
Joan Gerber
Alice Boyle
Kristina Holland
Chet Boyle
David Hayward
Jamie Boyle
Jackie Haley
Ralph
Jack Burns

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