Underdog

History

In 1959, handling the General Mills account as an account executive with the Dancer Fitzgerald Sample advertising agency in New York, W. Watts Biggers teamed with Chet Stover, Treadwell D. Covington, and artist Joe Harris in the creation of television cartoon shows to sell breakfast cereals for General Mills. The shows introduced such characters as King Leonardo, Tennessee Tuxedo, and Underdog. Biggers and Stover contributed both scripts and songs to the series. When Underdog became a success, Biggers and his partners left Dancer Fitzgerald Sample to form their own company, Total Television, with animation produced at Gamma Studios in Mexico. In 1969, Total Television folded when General Mills dropped out as the primary sponsor, but continued to retain the rights to the series until 1995 and TV distribution rights, through NBCUniversal Television Distribution, to the present day.

Abroad and in syndication

The syndicated version of The Underdog Show consists of 62 half-hour episodes. The supporting segments differ from the show's original network run. The first 26 syndicated episodes feature Tennessee Tuxedo as a supporting segment (Tennessee Tuxedo originally aired as a separate show and also has its own syndicated adaptation). Thereafter, for most of the balance of the package, the middle segments include Go Go Gophers and Klondike Kat for three consecutive half-hours and Tennessee Tuxedo in the fourth. Commander McBragg is featured in the majority of episodes, replaced by three segments of The Sing-A-Long Family (in shows one-three, 28–30, and 55–57). The final two syndicated Underdog half-hours feature two one-shot cartoons that were originally part of an unsold pilot for a projected 1966 series, The Champion (Cauliflower Cabbie and Gene Hattree), with Commander McBragg appearing in show 61 and Go Go Gophers in show 62.

The syndicated series, as shown in the United States, is a potpourri of segments from previously aired versions of the show. Prior to a 1994 remaster, each episode included a "teaser" at the top of the show, asking viewers to stay tuned for a clip from "today's four-part story" (This originated from a 1969-1973 NBC Saturday morning rerun version of the show, though this bumper was also seen during CBS reruns in the preceding years.); however, outside of CBS-TV airings of the show, no more than two parts of the Underdog stories were ever shown in any half-hour program. There have also been different syndication packages bundled with both elements from Jay Ward's The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, and The Most Important Person short films. Prints of such would either be followed by a closing and credits or no credits at all. The closing (which showed the first portion of a variation of the Underdog theme showing a giant terrorizing the city with George S. Irving, the series narrator, saying, "Looks like this is the end! But don't miss our next Underdog Show!" in place of the theme music) followed by the end credits (re-edited from the cast credits for Underdog and Tennessee Tuxedo), originated from a 1969 repackaged syndicated series, Cartoon Cut-Ups, which originally featured Underdog, Tennessee Tuxedo, and Commander McBragg. As the Underdog, Rocky and Bullwinkle, and The Most Important Person segments are all now separately owned by different entities, the syndicated prints are no longer in distribution.

Most stories were split into 4 parts, but the first three were stand-alone stories:

Episodes

All episodes featured are broadcast copies syndicated by The Program Exchange, and do not represent what was originally broadcast on both NBC and CBS. Initially, episodes of Underdog featured episodes of Go Go Gophers, The Hunter (a segment of King Leonardo and His Short Subjects), and Aesop & Son (a segment of Jay Ward's The Bullwinkle Show); Klondike Kat was not included until the show moved to CBS in 1966, and Commander McBragg segments were not featured until it aired in syndication starting in 1969.

Episode #01

Underdog #1 (Episode 1: Safe Waif) (pilot cartoon; no on-screen title shown)

Tennessee Tuxedo #2 (The Rain Makers) (902, 972)

The Sing-A-Long Family #1 (Picnic) (Sing-A-Long Family cartoon titles are unofficial and do not appear on screen) (also appears in syndicated shows #328, 355)

Underdog #2 (Episode 2: The March Of The Monsters)

Episode #02

Underdog #3 (Episode 3: Simon Says)

Tennessee Tuxedo #4 (Telephone Terrors or Dial M For Mayhem) (904, 974)

The Sing-A-Long Family #2 (Skating) (also appears in syndicated shows #329, 356)

Underdog #32 (Episode 4: Tricky Trap By Tap Tap) (Note: Tricky Trap By Tap Tap is the epilogue of the four-episode serial From Hopeless To Helpless, which is featured later in the series in shows #315 and #316.)

Episode #03

Underdog #4 (Go Snow: Part 1)

Tennessee Tuxedo #5 (Giant Clam) (not The Giant Clam Caper) (905, 975)

Superpowers

When he is not Underdog, he is incognito as Shoeshine Boy. Like Superman, when trouble calls, he hurriedly runs into a telephone booth (which would inexplicably explode upon his transmutation). On occasion, to replenish his powers, he would take an "Underdog Super Energy Pill". This pill was first introduced in episode 9. He keeps one of these pills inside a special ring he wears at all times. (Before taking one, he would often utter the words: "The secret compartment of my ring I fill / With an Underdog Super Energy Pill.") Several episodes, starting with RiffRaffville, show Underdog without his ring and being powerless, since he must take another pill as his super powers begin to fail ("Without my Energy Vitamin Pill / I grow weaker and weaker and weaker still.") and, as a result, he can die; but of course, this being a children's cartoon show, no one actually kills him, even when he is at their mercy. He tells everyone who will listen this secret of his super powers. When the series was syndicated in the 1980s and 1990s, the scenes of him taking his energy pill were edited out. In the recent release Underdog: The Ultimate Collection, the word "Energy" was replaced with "Vitamin".

Underdog is shown to have incredible superhuman powers. However, the number and scope of his superpowers are inconsistent from episode to episode, being subject not only to the conventions of superhero comics, but also to the conventions of humorous cartoons. In one episode, he easily moved planets, safely butting against them with his rear end. In another episode, his Super Energy Pill, diluted billions of times when added to a city's water system, was capable of giving normal humans who drank the water enough strength to easily bend thick steel bars. Among his many powers shown on the show are: super strength, super speed, supersonic flight, physical invulnerability, X-ray vision, super breath, cosmic vision, atomic breath, atomizing eyes, heat vision, ultrasonic hearing, a supersonic high-pitch hi-fi voice and a great calculating brain.

Other media

Books and comics

Underdog has also appeared in one Little Golden Book, Underdog and the Disappearing Ice Cream in 1975.

Charlton Comics produced a comic book that ran 10 issues from July 1970 to January 1972, mainly adapting stories from the cartoon.

Gold Key Comics produced a comic book that ran 23 issues from March 1975 to February 1979. Unlike the Charlton run, these featured original stories.

Spotlight Comics did three issues in 1987.

Harvey Comics did a one-shot in 1993, and a five-issue series from November 1993 to July 1994. These issues reprinted comics from the Charlton Comics run.

American Mythology Comics produced a comic book that ran four issues from September 2017 to September 2018. It was followed by a Halloween ComicFest one-shot in 2019 and Underdog in Space which ran for one issue in 2020. Underdog: 1975 reprinted comics from the Gold Key Comics run.

Theme song

The show is also remembered for its title song, "Underdog", which was arranged and produced by Robert Weitz, with lyrics by Chester Stover, W. Watts Biggers, Treadwell Covington, and Joseph Harris. Several notable covers of the theme song have been made. The original

song was sung by Robert Ragaini. He explained, "As a struggling singer in New York, I'd gotten a job singing a theme song for a newly proposed TV cartoon series named 'Underdog'. I went to the studio, I think 'O.D.O.' on West 54th Street, sang as part of the backup group (ah-ooo, ah-ooo), then quickly sang the theme song over the track and left. I remember how pleased I was that I'd taken that mouthful of words and made them understandable. Oh yes, they paid me 50 dollars. No contract – I wasn't yet a member of SAG – and I was thrilled to get it. Until I heard it again, year after year. By then I'd become a successful jingle singer and I knew what I should have been making. When it came out as the music track of a Reebok commercial I filed a claim with the Screen Actors Guild, but of course I had no documentation. A friend did give me an Underdog T-shirt. I wore it once, but when a man I passed on West 14th Street started singing the song, I retired it."

The Butthole Surfers released a version included on the 1995 tribute album Saturday Morning: Cartoons' Greatest Hits, produced by Ralph Sall for MCA Records.

Ted Kooshian's Standard Orbit Quartet included the song on their 2009 CD Underdog, And Other Stories...

An extended a cappella version was done by The Blanks on the TV program Scrubs during the episode titled "My Hero". They later recorded it on their 2004 album Riding the Wave.

The hip hop producer and Wu-Tang Clan member RZA sampled the show's theme song in the group's song "Wu-Tang Clan Ain't Nuttin To F' Wit" (1993), released on their debut album Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (1993). It was later sampled as a guitar riff in Santana's "Maria Maria" (1999), also later sampled in DJ Khaled's "Wild Thoughts" (2017) featuring Rihanna and Bryson Tiller.

The Underdog theme also was used in a commercial for the Reebok ZQuick shoes in 2014.

VHS releases

In the early 1990s, UAV Corp. released various VHS tapes of Underdog, which went out-of-print in 1995.

From 2000 to 2001, Sony Wonder released various VHS tapes and DVDs of Underdog. Each release, especially the DVD versions, included a coupon for the Underdog lithograph by the series' creator, Joe Harris.

DVD releases

Sony Wonder released Underdog Collector's Edition DVD on September 12, 2000, and again on August 6, 2002. These releases were discontinued in the mid-2000s. On July 24, 2007, Classic Media released Underdog on DVD in region 1 in a three-volume collection, following a previous three-volume set released in the late 1990s. Each volume features six digitally remastered and uncut, original broadcast episodes, each featuring two Underdog segments alongside additional cartoons from the Total TV library.

On February 21, 2012, Shout! Factory (under license from Classic Media) released a 9-disc Complete Series set containing new bonus material, including commentaries. According to Shout! Factory, "they're rebuilding the shows to their original television airing as best as they can".

Film adaptation

In 2005, Variety reported that a live-action Underdog motion picture was in development. As announced, the story introduces "a diminutive hound named Shoeshine [who] gets superpowers after a lab accident. When he's adopted by a 15-year-old boy, the two form a bond around the shared knowledge that Shoeshine is really Underdog." Actor Peter Dinklage was cast to play Simon Bar Sinister, while Alex Neuberger was cast to play Underdog's human companion, Jack Unger. The movie started filming in Providence, Rhode Island, in March 2006 and was released on August 3, 2007. The film was distributed by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution. Shoeshine/Underdog, voiced by Jason Lee, was played by a golden beagle named Leo sporting a red sweater and a blue cape. The film got mostly negative reviews, but grossed $65.3 million worldwide.

Radio

In 1999, Biggers created a new episode of Underdog as a half-hour radio show narrated by veteran Boston newsman Tom Ellis with new original music composed by Biggers. Radio stations were asked to participate in Biggers' Victory Over Violence organization by airing the adventure in which the evil Simon Bar Sinister develops a Switchpitch baseball to turn positive people negative. His attempt to become king of Boston is foiled by Underdog (played by Biggers) and Sweet Polly Purebred (portrayed by Nancy Purbeck).

Revival

Instagram artists Elena and Olivia Ceballos revealed they pitched for an Underdog revival titled Underdog Unleashed back in 2015 to DreamWorks Animation Television, since the parent company owns the Classic Media library, and eventually became part of NBCUniversal since 2016. The show would have most likely premiered as a Netflix Original series due to DreamWorks' deal with them at the time. The pitch included characters who were in the original show, along with some new ones. According to the artists, nothing went forward after the pitch.

In July 2024, the Superprod Group announced a CGI-animated revival (separate and entirely different from the Ceballos twins' pitch) of Underdog to be co-produced by Superprod Animation and Red Monk Studio, under license from Classic Media (who Superprod previously co-produced Lassie for them). M6, Gulli and RAI were announced as broadcast partners, and that the series would air in a 2025 delivery window. In June 2025, it was announced that the series would be called Underdog and the Canine Defenders and premiere in the fall of 2025, with Spanish entertainment company DeAPlaneta Entertainment joining as co-producer. Distribution rights are shared between the companies, with DeAPlaneta holding distribution for Spain, Portugal, and Central and Eastern Europe while Superights, the in-house distribution arm of Superprod Group, would handle the rest of the world. DeAPlaneta would also handle worldwide merchandising and brand rights for the revival, excluding the US and French/Italian-speaking territories. The series premiered on Gulli on November 29, 2025. This revival creates changes over the 1960s series due to modern sensibilities, including the omission of Underdog's infamous energy pill and Riff Raff being replaced by a similar villianess, Tiffy Raff.

International broadcast

The series was broadcast in a handful of foreign markets. In Italy, the series aired on Italia 1 in 2001. A separate theme song by Cristina D'Avena was used in the dub. In the last few years of Pahlavi-era Iran, it was broadcast by National Iranian Radio and Television. In Japan, the first Japanese dub aired on Fuji TV from January 1968 to 1969 as Ultra Wan-chan, a second dub aired on Cartoon Network from 2000 to December 2002. The series first aired in Brazil on TVS Rio in 1979; then it was picked up for a national airing on the nascent SBT network a few years later. Redubs aired on Fox Kids and later Cartoon Network. In Ukraine, the series aired on commercial channel TET in 2010, as Песик-захисник. The series aired on the Yorkiddin' block in the early 2000s in the Netherlands.