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The Funky Phantom

by: Hanna-Barbera Productions, Inc.

Publication date: 1971

Topics: Warner Bros., Hanna-Barbera

Language: English

Trying to find shelter from a storm while driviing their "Looney Duney" dune buggy, three teenagers - the brainy redhead Skip Gilroy, the blonde beauty April Stewart, and Skip's brawny dark-headed best friend, Augie Anderson - and his dog Elmo, entered an old house where a grandfather clock displayed the incorrect tim. Upon setting the clock to midnight, it released two Revolutionary War-era ghosts: an American patriot named Jonathan Wellington Muddlemore, whom the kids call "Mudsy", and his cat, whom he had trained to respond to the name of Boo. The two explained that, during the Revolutionary War, they had stumbled upon two Redcoats and ended up hiding inside the clock, but also that they then were unable to get out of the clock and eventually died inside. Ever since being freed by their new friends, Mudsy and Boo have accompanied them on many mysteries, always giving an invisible helping hand.

This set-up shows a certain similarity to the 1946 Abbott and Costello film The Time of Their Lives, in which two Revolutionary War-era ghosts are also held earth-bound due to to a secret hidden in a clock.

The Funky Phantom is an animated television series, produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, in association with Austrailian production company Air Programs International for the American Broadcasting Comany (ABC). The show was a clone of Hanna-Barbera's popular Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, with a trio of teenage detectives driving around the country and solving crimes. In this case, the "Scooby-Doo" role was taken by a Revolutionary War-era ghost. The show returned briefly in reruns in 1980, as part of Hanna-Barbera's Godzilla series.