''Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles'' is an American animated television series produced by

Hanna-Barbera Productions Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. ( ) was an American animation studio and production company which was active from 1957 to 2001. It was founded on July 7, 1957, by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera following the decision of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to ...

. It premiered on September 10, 1966 on CBS, and ran for two seasons on Saturday mornings.

Overview

The program contained two segments, which each served as a middle ground between Hanna-Barbera's traditional early output and its superhero-based late-1960s cartoons. Each episode would feature two segments with ''The Impossibles'', and ''Frankenstein Jr.'' in between. * ''Frankenstein Jr.'': Taking place in Civic City, boy scientist Buzz Conroy (voiced by

Dick Beals Richard Beals (March 16, 1927 – May 29, 2012) was an American actor, who performed many voices in his career, which spanned the period from the early 1950s into the 21st century. Beals voiced both male and female children. Perhaps his most reco ...

) and his father Professor Conroy (voiced by John Stephenson) fight supervillains with the aid of a powerful heroic

robot A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within. Robots may be ...

named "Frankenstein Jr." (voiced by

Ted Cassidy Theodore Crawford Cassidy (July 31, 1932 – January 16, 1979) was an American actor noted for his tall stature at and deep voice. He tended to play unusual characters in offbeat or science-fiction series such as ''Star Trek'' and ''I Dream of ...

). Buzz built "Frankie" and activated him through an energy ring. Frankenstein Jr. appears to be reminscient of the anime character ''

Tetsujin 28-go , known as simply ''Tetsujin 28'' in international releases, is a 1956 manga written and illustrated by Mitsuteru Yokoyama, who also created ''Giant Robo''. The series centers on the adventures of a young boy named Shotaro Kaneda, who ...

'' (also known as

Gigantor is a 1963 anime adaptation of ''Tetsujin 28-go'', a manga by Mitsuteru Yokoyama released in 1956. It debuted on US television in January 1966. As with ''Speed Racer'', the characters' original names were altered and the original series' viol ...

). * '' The Impossibles'': The title characters are a trio of superheroes (Multi-Man, Fluid-Man, and Coil-Man) who pose undercover as a Beatlesesque

rock music Rock music is a broad genre of popular music that originated as "rock and roll" in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles in the mid-1960s and later, particularly in the United States and ...

band. The characters' names are descriptive of their powers: Multi-Man (voiced by Don Messick) can create identical copies of himself; Coil-Man (voiced by Hal Smith) can form into a super-springy coil; and Fluid-Man (voiced by

Paul Frees Solomon Hersh "Paul" Frees (June 22, 1920November 2, 1986) was an American actor, comedian, impressionist, and vaudevillian. He is known for his work on Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Walter Lantz, Rankin/Bass, and Walt Disney theatrical cartoons during ...

) can transform his body into any fluid. The heroes receive assignments from "Big D" (also voiced by Frees), who contacts them via a receiver in the base of Coil-Man's

left-handed In human biology, handedness is an individual's preferential use of one hand, known as the dominant hand, due to it being stronger, faster or more dextrous. The other hand, comparatively often the weaker, less dextrous or simply less subject ...

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected string ...

. During the development of the show, this group was called "The Incredibles," but was changed to "The Impossibles" by the time of production. The team's pre-production name was later given to the superhero family from the 2004

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

Pixar Pixar Animation Studios (commonly known as Pixar () and stylized as P I X A R) is an American computer animation studio known for its critically and commercially successful computer animated feature films. It is based in Emeryville, Californ ...

film of the same name. The show was the target of complaints about violence in children's television, and was canceled in 1968 (first-run episodes had already ceased a year earlier). The ''Frankenstein Jr.'' segments were later recycled in the 1976 series ''

Space Ghost Space Ghost (Tad Ghostal) is a fictional superhero created by Hanna-Barbera Productions in the 1960s for TV network CBS. He was designed by Alex Toth. In his original incarnation, he was a superhero who, with his teen sidekicks, Jan and J ...

and Frankenstein Jr.'', which aired on

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters ...

from November 27, 1976 to September 3, 1977, replacing the canceled ''

Big John, Little John ''Big John, Little John'' is an American Saturday-morning situation comedy, produced by Sherwood Schwartz, which starred Herbert Edelman as "Big John" and Robert "Robbie" Rist as "Little John." The show first aired on September 11, 1976, on N ...

''.

Voice cast

as Buzz Conroy *

as Frankenstein Jr. * John Stephenson as Professor Conroy *

as Fluid Man, Big D * Don Messick as Multi Man * Hal Smith as Coil Man

Episodes

''Frankenstein Jr.''

''The Impossibles''

Home media

On April 26, 2011,

Warner Home Video Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc. (formerly known as Warner Home Video and WCI Home Video and sometimes credited as Warner Home Entertainment) is the home video distribution division of Warner Bros. It was founded in 1978 as WCI Home Vide ...

(via the

Warner Archive Collection The Warner Archive Collection is a home video division for releasing classic and cult films from Warner Bros.' library. It started as a manufactured-on-demand (MOD) DVD series by Warner Bros. Home Entertainment on March 23, 2009, with the inte ...

) released ''Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles: The Complete Series'' on DVD in region 1 as part of their

Hanna–Barbera Classics Collection Hanna-Barbera Cartoons, Inc. ( ) was an American animation studio and production company which was active from 1957 to 2001. It was founded on July 7, 1957, by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera following the decision of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to c ...

. This is a Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) release, available exclusively through Warner's online store and Amazon.com.

Other appearances

* Buzz Conroy and Frankenstein Jr. appeared in the ''

Yogi's Space Race ''Yogi's Space Race'' is a 90-minute American animated television series and the third entry in the ''Yogi Bear'' franchise. Thirteen episodes were broadcast on NBC from September 9, 1978, to December 2, 1978, and featured the following four segm ...

'' episode "Race Through the Planet of the Monsters". * Frankenstein Jr. appeared in the ''

Johnny Bravo ''Johnny Bravo'' is an American animated comedy television series created by Van Partible for Cartoon Network and distributed by Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution. It is the second of the network's Cartoon Cartoons, which aired f ...

'' episode "Johnny Makeover". * Buzz Conroy and Frankenstein Jr. appear in the 2021 film '' Space Jam: A New Legacy''. They are among the Warner Bros. 3000 Server-Verse inhabitants that watch the basketball game between the Tune Squad and the Goon Squad.

Adaptations

A single issue of a ''Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles'' comic was released by

Gold Key Comics Gold Key Comics was originally an imprint of American company Western Publishing, created for comic books distributed to newsstands. Also known as Whitman Comics, Gold Key operated this way from 1962 to 1984. Currently, Gold Key Comics is owned b ...

in 1966 as a tie-in to the TV series, and the contents were reprinted in ''The Impossibles Annual'' by Atlas Publishing & Distributing Co. Ltd, UK in 1968. The two ''Frankenstein Jr.'' comic stories were titled "The Image Invasion" and "Frankenstein Jr. Meets the Flea Man". A new text-based story, specially written for the annual, was "A Spook in his Wheel". The character reappeared in the comic ''Hanna-Barbera Presents'' #8 published by

Archie Comics Archie Comic Publications, Inc., is an American comic book publisher headquartered in Pelham, New York.Fantastic Four The Fantastic Four is a superhero team appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The team debuted in '' The Fantastic Four'' #1 ( cover dated Nov. 1961), helping usher in a new level of realism in the medium. It was the first ...

'' #1 by

Marvel Comics Marvel Comics is an American comic book publisher and the flagship property of Marvel Entertainment, a divsion of The Walt Disney Company since September 1, 2009. Evolving from Timely Comics in 1939, ''Magazine Management/Atlas Comics'' in 19 ...

. A

Big Little Book The Big Little Books, first published during 1932 by the Whitman Publishing Company of Racine, Wisconsin, were small, compact books designed with a captioned illustration opposite each page of text. Other publishers, notably Saalfield, adopted th ...

titled ''Frankenstein Jr.: The Menace of the Heartless Monster'' was published in 1968. The Impossibles' heroic identities were re-used for a later Hanna-Barbera production, ''

The Super Globetrotters ''The Super Globetrotters'' is a 30-minute Saturday morning animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. It premiered on NBC on September 22, 1979 and ran for 13 episodes. It was a spin-off series from Hanna-Barbera's ''Harlem Globetro ...

'' (which also featured a similar concept—in this case, the famous

Harlem Globetrotters The Harlem Globetrotters are an American exhibition basketball team. They combine athleticism, theater, and comedy in their style of play. Created in 1926 by Tommy Brookins in Chicago, Illinois, the team adopted the name '' Harlem'' because of ...

as undercover superheroes): *

Nate Branch Nate Branch is an American basketball player. After a high school career at Ravenswood High School in East Palo Alto, California, he played for Nebraska University and later with the Harlem Globetrotters The Harlem Globetrotters are an Americ ...

's heroic identity was alternately known as "Fluid Man" or "Liquid Man", with powers (and a flippered costume) similar to the Impossibles' Fluid-Man. * "Twiggy" Sanders became "Spaghetti Man", with coiling and stretching abilities similar to Coil-Man. * "Geese" Ausbie as "Multi Man" had virtually identical powers as his Impossibles counterpart and a similar costume. In 2016, Buzz and Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles played a major role in the

DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with their f ...

series '' Future Quest'', that also featured characters from various animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera such as ''

Jonny Quest ''Jonny Quest'' is a science fiction-adventure media franchise that revolves around the titular boy named Jonny Quest, who accompanies his scientist father on extraordinary adventures. The franchise started with a 1964–1965 television serie ...

'', ''

The Herculoids ''The Herculoids'' is an American Saturday-morning animated-cartoon television series, created and designed by Alex Toth, that was produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions. The show debuted on September 9, 1967, on CBS. Hanna-Barbera produced one s ...

'', ''

Birdman and the Galaxy Trio ''Birdman and the Galaxy Trio'', or simply ''Birdman'' or ''The Galaxy Trio'', is an American animated television series by Hanna-Barbera Productions that debuted on NBC on September 9, 1967, and ran on Saturday mornings until September 6, 1969. ...

'' and ''

Moby Dick and Mighty Mightor ''Moby Dick and Mighty Mightor'' is an American Saturday morning animated television series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions that ran on CBS from September 9, 1967 to January 6, 1968, airing in reruns until September 6, 1969. Despite Moby's ...

''. In this series, the team gained a new female member named Cobalt and the character of Big D is a woman named Deva Sumadi who's also Falcon-7.

References

External links

Frankenstein Jr.
at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
Archived
from the original on July 30, 2016. * *
Frankenstein Jr.
' at the

Big Cartoon DataBase The Big Cartoon DataBase (or BCDB for short) is an online database of information about animated cartoons, animated feature films, animated television shows, and cartoon shorts. The BCDB project began in 1997 as a list of Disney animated feat ...

{{Hanna-Barbera CBS original programming 1960s American animated television series 1966 American television series debuts 1968 American television series endings American children's animated action television series American children's animated adventure television series American children's animated horror television series American children's animated science fiction television series American children's animated superhero television series Anime-influenced Western animated television series English-language television shows Hanna-Barbera superheroes DC Comics superheroes Works based on Frankenstein Television series by Hanna-Barbera Television series by Warner Bros. Television Studios Animated television series about robots