“Who is this superhero? Sarge? No. Rosemary, the telephone operator? No. Penry, the mild-mannered janitor? Could be!”
So began the opening narration for each episode of Hanna-Barbera’s Hong Kong Phooey, celebrating its 50th anniversary this fall.
The series took the model of an unassuming main character with a superhero alter ego and turned it on its ear, adding dashes of what Hanna-Barbera was so good at. To solve crimes, Penry, a janitor at the police station (and an anthropomorphic dog living in a human world) can jump into his version of the “Superman phone booth” – a filing cabinet – and transform into Hong Kong Phooey, “number one super guy,” as his oh-so-catchy iconic theme song stated.
“At the time, a lot of Saturday morning cartoons were either based on or inspired by hit primetime series,” said Greg Ehrbar, host of The Funtastic World of Hanna and Barbera Podcast and author of Hanna-Barbera: The Recorded History. “ABC had success with the Kung Fu series. The animated spoof was originally called “Kung Phooey,” but it was too close to the primetime version.
“Somehow the creative pitches to ABC, sponsors, and others with a ‘say,’ evolved into the approved premise starring a dog—with a feline sidekick. Thus, the series was convoluted in the grand Hanna-Barbera Saturday morning tradition and worked. The watercolor look, the wacky humor, and connecting dual-adventure format was a lot of fun and certainly well-remembered.”
Hanna-Barbera’s legendary team of artists, including Charles Nichols, Willie Ito, Kenneth Muse, Ed Benedict, Jerry Eisenberg, and Alex Lovy, just to name a few, brought Hong Kong Phooey to the screen.
The title character was voiced by another legend, actor Scatman Crothers, who brought his inimitable style to the show.
“Joe Barbera and the team auditioned everyone possible for the perfect Penry/Hong Kong Phooey voice,” Greg explained. “Scatman Crothers really impressed them with his talent in 1966 with his performance in place of Sammy Davis, Jr. as the Cheshire Cat in the album version of the classic Alice in Wonderland special. He voiced Meadowlark in the CBS Harlem Globetrotters series in 1971 and became the definitive Hong Kong Phooey in 1974, making him the first African American to play the lead in an animated TV series.”
Assisting Hong Kong Phooey in his crime-fighting skills was the laid-back cat, Spot, who would sometimes prove to be the brains of the duo, helping Hong Kong Phooey out of certain jams. The hero would head out in his “Phooeymobile,” which could transform into other modes of transportation. He would also refer to his guidebook, The Hong Kong Book of Kung Fu, to ensure he adequately foiled a villain’s crime.
The other characters in the series, as indicated by the opening of each show was, Sarge (voiced by Joe E. “Ooh! Ooh!” Ross, of Car 54 Where Are You? fame), and Rosemary, the police station’s telephone operator, who, at the opening of each episode, would get a call about a crime that had been committed, which would then lead Penry to transform into Hong Kong Phooey.
Actress Kathy Gori, who voiced Rosemary, recalled how the character’s distinct voice came about, “My inspiration was “Rhoda”, played by Valerie Harper, on The Mary Tyler Moore Show. It was a combination of Rhoda and Rhoda’s mom, played by Nancy Walker. I used to watch Rhoda all the time and thought that’ll be funny. So that became [she breaks into Rosemary’s voice], ‘Hello! Hello!’”
Kathy also has many fond memories of working on Hong Kong Phooey. “It was very much a family. We would record, and then during breaks, Scatman would bring his ukulele, and we would all go out into the parking lot,” she remembers, adding, “Scatman was a really sweet and generous guy.”
Kathy, who would also provide character voices for several other Hanna-Barbera shows, such as Inch High Private Eye and Valley of the Dinosaurs, was already an enthusiast of the studio when she came to work there. “I made my parents sit through Huckleberry Hound and Yogi Bear,” she said, adding, “I was a massive Hanna-Barbera fan, so I couldn’t believe I got to work there and meet the people who created these shows.”
Hong Kong Phooey debuted as part of ABC’s Saturday morning line-up on September 7, 1974, and five decades later, the character and series remain a favorite, not just of the generation who grew up watching it but others who have discovered it through the years.
“The show has had such staying power, and we were only on one season,” says Kathy, who notes, “I get letters! I still get letters every single week! I still hear from people who like Rosemary and loved the show.”
As a testament to the show’s legacy, there was a big-screen version of Hong Kong Phooey in the works that would have been a live-action/animated film starring Eddie Murphy as the famed title character. Test footage has been leaked, and, unfortunately, it is thought to be canceled at this point.
As for Hong Kong Phooey’s long-lasting appeal, Kathy reasoned, “There was not another character like Hong Kong Phooey. He was a disruptor. The show also had a certain ‘underground’ feel to it. Not exactly like underground comics, but it had that feel. There wasn’t anything else like it on TV at the time.”
Michael Lyons is a freelance writer, specializing in film, television, and pop culture. He is the author of the book, Drawn to Greatness: Disney’s Animation Renaissance, which chronicles the amazing growth at the Disney animation studio in the 1990s. In addition to Animation Scoop and Cartoon Research, he has contributed to Remind Magazine, Cinefantastique, Animation World Network and Disney Magazine. He also writes a blog, Screen Saver: A Retro Review of TV Shows and Movies of Yesteryear and his interviews with a number of animation legends have been featured in several volumes of the books, Walt’s People. You can visit Michael’s web site Words From Lyons at: 
I was hoping you’d get around to this one! Let’s talk Phooey!
I had just started high school when “Hong Kong Phooey” debuted. It was one of the few new Saturday morning cartoons that my friends would admit to watching. I didn’t get to see it very often because I had youth orchestra most Saturdays, but when I did it was good for a few laughs. Hanna-Barbera milked every pop cultural fad that came along, and 1974 was a year when, as the hit song famously put it, “Everybody was kung fu fighting!”
But Saturday morning television was not the same place it had been ten years earlier, when Underdog could punch Riff Raff in the snout, Fred and Barney could subdue Dr. Sinister’s minions with “a judo chop-chop,” and Race Bannon — well, he shot people dead. Parents’ groups like Action for Children’s Television held powerful sway over the networks, and they didn’t approve of any fighting at all, let along kung fu fighting. A cartoon about a martial arts hero could only make it to air as long as he never actually landed a blow. Thus Hong Kong Phooey was forced into the role of what I call the “accidental hero”: he could save the day, not by taking any genuine action, but only by accident.
Here’s an example of how this would play out. At the climax of the cartoon, Hong Kong Phooey confronts the bad guys and lunges at them with an outstretched foot. The bad guys avoid the kick simply by ducking, and Phooey soars right over them. Spot the cat pulls a lever that lowers a storefront awning. Phooey bounces off the awning, ricochets backwards and knocks over a vat of hot tar or wet cement that a road crew has been using. The bad guys get stuck in the tar or cement and are trapped. Officer Toody — I mean, Sgt. Flint — shows up and says “Ooh! Ooh! Nice work, Phooey!” “All right, you caught us fair and square,” says the leader of the bad guys. “Now get us out of here!”
All right, I can see why parents might not want their children to learn that violence is the way to solve problems. But is it any better for them to see someone succeed, week after week, by trusting to dumb luck 100% of the time?
The accidental hero genre would reach its apotheosis a decade later with Inspector Gadget, but Hong Kong Phooey was one of its pioneers and one of its better examples. He was no Inspector Gadget, of course, but he stood head and shoulders above Inch High, Private Eye.
Some fans of the show took their devotion to extreme levels. About twenty years ago, a plumber in England changed his name legally to Hong Kong Phooey out of admiration for the character. He did this, moreover, without telling his wife, who only found out when utility bills addressed to Hong Kong Phooey started arriving at their house. She was not pleased. I have no idea if the plumber is still using his new name, or if he and Mrs. Phooey are still together.
Finally, I can’t resist sharing a personal memory. Back in 1974, my father had a red-and-white terrycloth bathrobe just like the one Hong Kong Phooey wore in the show. Our family dog, who bore a passing resemblance to the canine crimefighter, liked to push it into a pile on the floor and hump it. Quicker than the human eye!
Scatman Crothers also notably voiced a character for Disney–Scat Cat in The Aristocats. He had a very distinctive vocal quality and used it to good advantage in speaking and singing. This becomes very evident in listening to his rendition of the Cheshire Cat in the “Alice in Wonderland” album–a performance that really pulls out the stops. He was a great choice for the character of the janitor-slash-hero in Hong Kong Phooey.
Still remember the “Cracked” magazine parody which had Penry leaping into a toilet to change outfits. Thought that was pretty funny at age eight. Oh, who am I kidding–It’s still hilarious.
The Don Messick voiceover at the beginning should be inquiring: Who uses that built-in ironing board at the station? Sarge? No.
Would Hong Kong Phooey be considered racist by contemporary standards? Probably.
Jerry
This person has struck again for the 2nd time in 2 weeks (last time Quick Draw McGraw) with the same comment
Do you really want to continually encourage this – and the inevitable backlash – by letting it through?
No, I don’t. I’ve had enough.
I’m all for free speech. One has many internet outlets to spread their opinions. However, Cartoon Research is a private webpage.
Clearly this “Hans Christian Brando” is a brainwashed idiot. And he is hereby banned from this website.
Fifty years? As a boomer kid I still think of Hong Kong Phooey as a comparatively new show, looking and feeling different than the HBs I grew up on (and by ’73 I was only an occasional tourist to Saturday morning).
Heck, I still think of Filmation as the new kid on the block.
Once my dad was asking a friend what he had watched on Saturday mornings, and the friend said Hong Kong Phooey. My dad thought he either made it up or was an idiot!
I’ve never watched the show but as a big Scatman Crothers fan I’d give it a try. I loved his voices in The AristoCats and Banjo the Woodpile Cat.