"Wait Till Your Father Gets Home" (1972) TV series 1972-1974

Seasons:

1 | 2

Genre:

Animation | Comedy

Plot:

A conservative father butts heads with his family on various social attitudes of the day.

Plot Keywords:

Cult Cartoon | Family Relationships | Small Business Owner | Adult Animation | Surrealism

Cast

Tom Bosley	...	Harry Boyle (48 episodes, 1972-1974)
Joan Gerber	...	Irma Boyle / ... (48 episodes, 1972-1974)
Jack Burns	...	Ralph Kane (46 episodes, 1972-1974)
Kristina Holland	...	Alice Boyle (45 episodes, 1972-1974)
Lennie Weinrib	...	Chet Boyle (38 episodes, 1972-1974)
Willie Aames	...	Jamie Boyle (35 episodes, 1972-1974)

Runtime:

30 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Company:

Hanna-Barbera Productions

Trivia:

Jaimie was included after test audiences of the series complained that Harry was too embattled by his family's haranguing and the producers decided that he needed someone who agreed with his opinions.

Movie Connections:

Featured in The 100 Greatest Cartoons (2005) (TV)

A few observations

One of the commentators mentioned that this was a Saturday morning cartoon. Wrong......it was aired during prime time, just like the original 1960 Flintstones series. The show was clearly aimed at an adult audience; not just because of the time slot; I remember that one of the show's sponsors was Haynes panty hose. I cannot agree that this show was a parody of All in the Family, as this same commentator mentioned; at least not in the sense that the father figure was a parody of Archie Bunker. The father in this show was not at all bigoted, as was Archie Bunker (and he was also a much more educated man).

I do remember seeing a very humorous old lady, in at least one episode, who was paranoid, thinking that there was "a communist under every bed". My mother commented to me, at the time, that she thought that this character was a take-off from the old lady in the 1971 movie "Cold Turkey" (about the town that gave up smoking for a whole month), and I believe that she was correct. "Cold Turkey" came out a year before "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home" debuted.

It's really a shame that this series did not make more than one season's worth of episodes (I believe it ran for two years, but the second year the shows were just repeats). I thought that it was a great show. When it debuted in '72, it had been 6 years since "The Flintstones" prime time show had ended. I missed seeing adult cartoons on TV. After "Wait Till Your Father Gets Home" ended, adult TV animation hit a dry spell for the next 15+ years, until The Simpsons began.

Brian