The Robonic Stooges


The Robonic Stooges is a Saturday morning animated series featuring the characters of The Three Stooges in new roles as clumsy crime-fighting cyborg superheroes. It was developed by Norman Maurer and produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions from September 10, 1977, to March 18, 1978, on CBS and contained two segments: The Robonic Stooges and Woofer & Wimper, Dog Detectives.
The Robonic Stooges originally aired as a segment on The Skatebirds from September 10, 1977, to January 21, 1978, on CBS. When CBS canceled The Skatebirds in early 1978, the trio was given their own half-hour timeslot which ran for 16 episodes. This was the second animated series starring the Stooges, following the 1965 series The New 3 Stooges.

Overview

Moe, Larry and Curly are junkyard-based superheroes who fight crime with their often malfunctioning Inspector Gadget-style bionic powers and are given assignments via film projector from their frustrated boss Agent 000 who runs the Superhero Employment Agency.
Since all of the original Three Stooges had died when production began, other voice actors were used to impersonate them, mostly veteran voice actors from other Hanna-Barbera productions. Paul Winchell voiced Moe, Joe Baker voiced Larry, and Frank Welker voiced Curly. Unlike cartoon series produced by Hanna-Barbera in the 1970s, The Robonic Stooges did not contain a laugh track.
This was the second animated adaptation of the Three Stooges, the first being Cambria Studios' The New Three Stooges in 1965, which used the actual Stooges' voices. Norman Maurer, who was married to Moe Howard's daughter and had acted as the Stooges' agent during their lifetimes, worked on both series. The Stooges had previously appeared in another Hanna Barbera-created series: The New Scooby-Doo Movies, this time as Moe, Larry and Curly Joe. With the deaths of Fine and Howard in 1975, other actors were engaged to voice the roles of Moe and Larry; neither of the surviving "third" Stooges, Joe Besser or Joe DeRita, were asked to participate.
The Robonic Stooges episodes were occasionally seen between shows as interstitial segments on Boomerang.

Voices

''The Skatebirds'' (1977)

NºTitleAir date

''The Three Robonic Stooges'' (1978)