Wait Till Your Father Gets Home
| Wait Till Your Father Gets Home | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Animated sitcom |
| Created by | |
| Directed by |
|
| Voices of | |
| Composer | Richard Bowden |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 48 (list of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producers | |
| Producers | |
| Running time | 22 minutes |
| Production company | Hanna-Barbera Productions |
| Original release | |
| Network | Syndicated |
| Release | September 12, 1972 – October 8, 1974 |
Wait Till Your Father Gets Home is an American animated sitcom[1] produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions that aired in first-run syndication in the United States from 1972 to 1974.[2] The show originated as 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. The show was the first primetime animated sitcom to run for more than a single season since fellow Hanna-Barbera show The Flintstones more than ten years earlier, and would be the only one until The Simpsons seventeen years later. The show was inspired by All in the Family.[3]
As of 2025, the series appears on the MeTV Toons channel.
Premise
The show features Harry Boyle, wife Irma, daughter Alice, and sons Chet and Jamie. Harry, a restaurant supply wholesaler, often butts heads with most of his family about the social issues of the day. Contrasting that is Harry's neighbor and friend, Ralph Kane, a paranoid militia fanatic whose extreme opinions and often dangerous actions Harry can barely tolerate as much as his kids' ideas.
Like many animated series created by Hanna-Barbera in the 1970s, the show contained a laugh track created by the studio.[4] For this show, the studio added a third belly laugh to add a little more "variety" (the only TV series made by Hanna-Barbera to have this added laugh). In addition, the laugh track was also slowed considerably.[4] Like The Flintstones and Top Cat, all the episodes feature a cold open, which is a small scene from the episode that takes place in medias res.
Episodes
| Season | Episodes | Originally released | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First released | Last released | |||
| 1 | 24 | September 12, 1972 | February 20, 1973 | |
| 2 | 20 | September 11, 1973 | January 29, 1974 | |
| 3 | 4 | September 17, 1974 | October 8, 1974 | |
Voice cast
- Tom Bosley as Harry Boyle
- Joan Gerber as Irma Boyle
- Kristina Holland as Alice Boyle
- David Hayward/Lennie Weinrib as Chet Boyle
- Jackie Earle Haley/Willie Aames as Jamie Boyle
- Jack Burns as Ralph Kane
- Veteran Hanna-Barbera voice talents such as Daws Butler, Don Messick, and John Stephenson provided minor roles.
Guest stars
- Don Adams as Don Gibson Jr. ("Don for the Defense")
- Richard Dawson as Claude ("The Hippie")
- Phyllis Diller as Phyllis Dexter ("The Lady Detective")
- Gene Eugene
- Monty Hall as himself ("Mama Loves Monty")
- Don Knotts as Charlie "Bumbles" Johnson ("The Beekeeper")
- Rich Little as himself ("Rich Little, Super Sleuth")
- Allan Melvin
- Joe E. Ross as Gunther Toody ("Car 54")
- Isabel Sanford as Betsy ("Help Wanted")
- Jonathan Winters as Maude Frickert ("Maude Loves Papa")
- Casey Kasem (uncredited) as George ("The Neighbors")
- Pat Morita (uncredited) "The New House"
- Ken Clark (Britain)
Other guest characters on the series included thinly disguised versions of celebrities who did not provide their own voices, such as guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. When a crooked car salesman appeared in another episode as an obvious parody of well-known Los Angeles car dealer Cal Worthington, Worthington sued Hanna-Barbera, the sponsors (Chevrolet) and the five NBC-owned stations that broadcast the show.[5]
Home media
In 2007, Warner Home Video released Season 1 of Wait Till Your Father Gets Home on DVD in Region 1 for the Hanna-Barbera Classics Collection. Warner Archive Collection released the complete series on Blu-ray on January 28, 2025.
| Wait Till Your Father Gets Home: The Complete First Season | ||||
| Set details | Special features | Release dates | ||
| Retrospective look at the classic show | Region 1 (DVD) June 5, 2007[6] | ||
| Wait Till Your Father Gets Home: The Complete Series | ||||
| Set details | Special features | Release dates | ||
| Retrospective Featurettes: "Animation for the Nation" & "Illustrating the Times" | Region A (Blu-ray) January 28, 2025 | ||
See also
References
- ^ "Why Family Guy is the king of comedy". independent. July 24, 2009.
- ^ Woolery, George W. (1983). Children's Television: The First Thirty-Five Years, 1946-1981, Part 1: Animated Cartoon Series. Scarecrow Press. pp. 306–307. ISBN 0-8108-1557-5. Retrieved March 22, 2020.
- ^ "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home". TVGuide.com.
- ^ a b Iverson, Paul: "The Advent of the Laugh Track". Hofstra University archives; February 1994.
- ^ Erickson, Syndicated Television, McFarland, 1988
- ^ "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home - The Complete First Season". dvdtalk.com. June 2, 2007. Retrieved October 7, 2024.