Wait Till Your Father Gets Home

Wait Till Your Father Gets Home is an American adult animated sitcom[1] produced by Hanna-Barbera that aired in first-run syndication in the United States from 1972 to 1974.[2] The show originated as a one-time segment on Love, American Style called "Love and the Old-Fashioned Father". The same pilot was later produced with a live cast (starring Van Johnson), but with no success. The show was the first primetime animated sitcom to run for more than a single season since The Flintstones more than ten years earlier and would be the only one until The Simpsons seventeen years later. The show was inspired by All in the Family.[3]

"Jamie Boyle" redirects here. For the intellectual property scholar, see James Boyle (academic).
Wait Till Your Father Gets Home
GenreAnimated sitcom
Directed by
Voices of
ComposerRichard Bowden
Original languageEnglish
No. of seasons3
No. of episodes48 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producers
Producers
Running time22 minutes
Production companyHanna-Barbera Productions
DistributorRhodes Productions
Release
Original networkSyndicated
Original releaseSeptember 12, 1972 (1972-09-12) –
October 8, 1974 (1974-10-08)

Premise

The 48 episodes feature Tom Bosley as Harry Boyle, a long-suffering suburban everyman dad and restaurant equipment dealer.[4] The Boyle family consists of father Harry; wife Irma (voiced by Joan Gerber); overweight teen feminist yet boy-crazy daughter Alice; lazy and perpetually unemployed long-haired post-adolescent son Chet who, like his sister, does not want to follow in the morals and values of his parents; and precocious, if rather mercenary, younger son Jamie (voiced by Willie Aames). Harry often bickers with the more liberal Alice and Chet over various social issues of the day, with Irma endeavoring to remain neutral while Jamie is more sympathetic to his father's beliefs. Despite it all, Harry loves his family, and usually tries to support them. Many of the stories revolve around the generation gap between Harry and his children, in which the series' sympathy is typically on his side, leading the character to usually win his arguments.

Despite Harry's conservatism, it pales against that of his neighbor Ralph Kane, who is a John Birch-like ultra-right-wing, fanatically anti-communist who is obsessed with every absurd conspiracy theory and ridiculous urban legend. Following Ralph with his cause is senior citizen Sara Whittaker, whom he addresses as "Sergeant". They have both turned one end of the block into, basically, an armed camp. Although Harry considers Ralph a close friend, he is annoyed at Ralph's extreme attitudes and rarely hesitates to dispute his more ignorant opinions or preempt his more threatening ambitions.

Like many animated series created by Hanna-Barbera in the 1970s, the show contained a laugh track created by the studio.[5] For this show, the studio added a third belly laugh to add a little more "variety" (the only TV series made by Hanna-Barbera to have this added laugh). In addition, the laugh track was also slowed considerably.[5]

During the 1972–73 season, the DePatie–Freleng studio had an animated Saturday morning series called The Barkleys with a very similar family, only they were all dogs. Joan Gerber was also the voice of the "mom" on that show, Agnes. The Barkleys had married couple Arnie and Agnes, teenage kids Terry and Roger, and pre-teen Chester.

Episodes
Main article: List of Wait Till Your Father Gets Home episodes
SeasonEpisodesOriginally aired
First airedLast aired
124September 12, 1972February 20, 1973
220September 11, 1973January 29, 1974
34September 17, 1974October 8, 1974

Voice cast

Guest stars

Other "guests" on the series included thinly disguised versions of celebrities who did not provide their own voices, such as guru Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. When a crooked car dealer on another episode was perceived by real-life Los Angeles car salesman Cal Worthington as being a send-up of him, he sued the studio (Hanna-Barbera), the sponsors (Chevrolet) and the five NBC-owned stations that carried the show.[6]

Home media

On June 5, 2007, Warner Home Video released Season 1 of Wait Till Your Father Gets Home on DVD in Region 1 for the Hanna-Barbera Classics Collection. The final two seasons can soon be released by Warner Archive.

Wait Till Your Father Gets Home: The Complete First Season
Set details Special features Release dates
  • 24 episodes
  • 528 minutes
  • 4-disc set
  • 4:3 standard
   Retrospective look at the classic show Region 1
June 5, 2007

References
  1. https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/tv-radio/why-family-guy-is-the-king-of-comedy-26553463.html
  2. Woolery, George W. (1983). Children's Television: The First Thirty-Five Years, 1946-1981, Part 1: Animated Cartoon Series. Scarecrow Press. pp. 306–307. ISBN 0-8108-1557-5. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
  3. TV Guide: Wait Till Your Father Gets Home
  4. Erickson, Hal (2005). Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949 Through 2003 (2nd ed.). McFarland & Co. pp. 893–894. ISBN 978-1476665993.
  5. Iverson, Paul: "The Advent of the Laugh Track". Hofstra University archives; February 1994.
  6. Erickson, Syndicated Television, McFarland, 1988
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