Wait Till Your Father Gets Home

Wait Till Your Father Gets Home
Genre Animated sitcom
Comedy
Directed by Charles A. Nichols
Barrie Helmer
Voices of Tom Bosley
Joan Gerber
Jack Burns
David Hayward
Kristina Holland
Jackie Haley
John Stephenson
Frank Maxwell
Len Weinrib
Composer(s) Richard Bowden
Original language(s) English
No. of seasons 3
No. of episodes 48 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s) William Hanna
Joseph Barbera
Producer(s) R.S. Allen
Harvey Bullock
Running time 22 minutes
Production company(s) Hanna-Barbera Productions
Distributor Warner Bros. Television Distribution
Release
Original network Syndicated
Original release 1972 – 1974

Wait Till Your Father Gets Home is an adult animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera that aired in first-run syndication in the United States from 1972 to 1974 (airing on most NBC stations on Sunday nights at 10:30, except for the ones who had moved their late-night news to that slot). 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. The show was the first primetime animated sitcom to run for more than a single season since The Flintstones more than ten years earlier and would be the only one until The Simpsons fifteen years later. The show was inspired by All in the Family.[1]

Premise

The 48 episodes feature Tom Bosley as Harry Boyle, a long-suffering suburban everyman dad and restaurant equipment dealer. The Boyle family consists of father Harry; wife Irma (voiced by Joan Gerber); overweight teen feminist daughter Alice; lazy and perpetually unemployed long-haired post-adolescent son Chet who, like his sister, doesn't want to follow in the morals and values of his parents; and precocious, if rather mercenary, younger son Jamie (voiced by Willie Aames). Harry often bickers with the more liberal Alice and Chet over various social issues of the day, with Irma endeavoring to remain neutral while Jamie is more sympathetic to his father's beliefs. Despite it all, Harry loves his family, and usually tries to support them.

Despite Harry's conservatism, it pales against his neighbour Ralph Kane, who is a John Birch-like ultra-right-winger who is fanatically anti-Communist and obsessed with every absurd conspiracy theory. Following Ralph with his cause is senior citizen Sara Whittaker, whom he addresses as "Sergeant". They have both turned one end of the block into, basically, an armed camp. Although Harry considers Ralph a close friend, he is annoyed at Ralph's extreme attitudes and rarely hesitates to dispute his opinions or preempt his more threatening ambitions.

Many of the stories revolve around the generation gap between Harry and his children, in which the series' sympathy is typically on his side, leading the character to usually win his arguments. During the 1972-73 season, the DePatie-Freleng studio had an animated Saturday morning series called The Barkleys with a very similar family, only they were all dogs. Joan Gerber was also the voice of the "mom" on that show, Agnes. The Barkleys had married couple Arnie and Agnes, teenage kids Terry and Roger, and pre-teen Chester.

Like many animated series created by Hanna-Barbera in the 1970s, the show contained a laugh track created by the studio.[2] 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.[2]

Voice cast

Guest stars

Other "guests" 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 dealer on another episode was perceived by real-life Los Angeles car salesman Cal Worthington as being a send-up of him, he sued the studio (Hanna-Barbera), the sponsors (Chevrolet) and the five NBC-owned stations that carried the show.[3]

Production credits

Home Media releases

On June 5, 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. Seasons two and three have yet to be released by Warner Archive.

DVD Name Ep # Release Date
Season 1 24 June 5, 2007

References

Bibliography

Notes

  1. ↑ TV Guide: Wait Till Your Father Gets Home
  2. 1 2 Iverson, Paul: "The Advent of the Laugh Track" Hofstra University archives; February 1994
  3. ↑ Erickson, Syndicated Television, McFarland, 1988

External links

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