Welcome to I Would Revisit/Abandon, a regular SciFi Squad feature where we take a science fiction or fantasy universe, franchise, or series and examine whether or not we would like to see more of it or if the door should be permanently shut. Expect new entries every Wednesday and Friday, and watch out for potential spoilers beyond the jump!

This week, we'll be re-thinking those plane tickets to...



In this week's I Would Revisit/Abandon, I'm talking about a TV series that I've never seen an episode of: The Houndcats. To be honest, I hadn't even heard of the show until a few weeks ago when I was digging through Aldo Ray's IMDB page (I'm wildly obsessed with Ray at the moment, and am prepping for an upcoming multi-week Ray-A-Thon) and noticed that he'd done voicework for a character called Mussel Mutt in a 1972 cartoon series. Sounded pretty interesting to me.

I did some digging and found out that The Houndcats was a short-lived DePatie-Freleng Mission: Impossible parody in which a team of talking cats and dogs solved crimes in the old west. (I'm assuming, for purposes of inclusion on this site, that the series takes place in an alternate universe where dogs and cats can talk and solve crimes).


That's Ray's character on the left. The rest of the team included voice-actor all-stars like Michael Bell (GI Joe's Duke and Zan the Wonder Twin from Superfriends) and Daws Butler (Yogi Bear, Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss, & Elroy Jetson, among others), as well as latter-day Stooge Joe Besser.

The series was cancelled after less than a month, but all 13 episodes were later shown in syndication. Each episode featured a different "mission," with titles like The Misbehavin' Raven Mission, The Double Dealing Diamond Mission, The Who's Who That's Who Mission, and The Perilous, Possibly, Pilfered Plans Mission.

Despite the series' lack of success, it managed to launch a boardgame.


The series featured a really catchy theme song that uses the great hook:

Yeah any time there's a rumble out West.
Who do you call, you call the best.
Cuz everyone knows its as simple as that.
The best in the West is a... Houndcat!


I'm not necessarily advocating a re-launch of the series as much as I am wishing that it would get a new life on home video. As it stands, a few of the episodes are available on VHS, and there's a low-budget DVD on Amazon that includes four episodes. I'd love to see all 13 episodes on a Blu-Ray, packed with plenty of behind-the-scenes footage of Ray, Besser, Butler, and the rest doing voice work. Who's with me?