Hong Kong Phooey - The Complete Series (1974) Starring Janet Waldo, Don Messick, Lennie Weinrib, Jean Vander Pyl, Lee Vines, Robert Ridg, 397 minutes,
5.6/10 (33 votes)
About the Movie: Fan-rrific! Hanna-Barbera's Hong Kong Phooey was the Saturday-morning cartoon answer to the mid-'70s martial-arts craze. Mild-mannered janitor Penry (voiced by Scatman Crothers) works in the police station alongside switchboard operator Rosemary (Kathy Gori) and beleaguered Sergeant Flint (Joe E. Ross), humans who never suspect that the diligent dog is actually "America's secret weapon against crime." Never mind that Hong Kong Phooey, although armed with his trusty book of kung fu and a Bond-meets-Wacky Races Phooeymobile, wouldn't even be able to get out of his quick-change file cabinet without a well-placed blow from his loyal cat, Spot (who's striped, naturally). The public is awed by him, Rosemary has a crush on him, and villains--including the Claw, the Giggler, Goldfisher, and the Gum Drop Kid--fear him, but no one notices that Hong Kong Phooey only succeeds through his own klutziness, Spot's help, or dumb luck. The two-DVD set (one single-sided, one double-sided) include all of the series' 31 episodes, though at only 11 minutes each, two of them were shown in its half-hour time slot. There's also a retrospective documentary, a storyboard of a complete episode run side-by-side with the final version, and commentary on three episodes by some of the original team: creative producer Iwao Takamoto and layout unit manager Willie Ito, and Warner animation producer-historian Scott Jeralds. Crothers also scatted the famous theme song: "Hong Kong Phooey, Number One super guy / Hong Kong Phooey, Quicker than the human eye / Chicky-chong chicky-chong / Chicky-chocky dooky-chong / Dooky-bop chop-choppin' / Da bow-wow-wow!" Hong Kong Phooey is harmlessly entertaining, about as harmless as Hong Kong Phooey was to bad guys everywhere. --David Horiuchi
