I was born in 1976 so I grew up with all these crazy beloved Hanna-Barbera characters. The Laff-A-Lympics are a great show idea of mixing lots of your favorite HB characters, esp the older characters like Huckleberry Hound. The format I'd the show is a great idea AND when you factor in the "who's competing this week? You get a lot more fun. All the locations are awesome. Also it's always fun to see how the Rottens are cheating and (gasp!) are they going to get caught?!? Add to that the silliness of cartoon logic-Speed Buggy and Tinker LOSE the dune buggy race?!? Yakky Doodle is supposed to pull Grape Ape?!? And there's a 3 dog sled race, do the Scoobies strap in Scooby Doo, Scooby Dumb and Dynomutt? Nope they make the Teen Angel girls pull Captain Caveman! So for all that, this is an amazing show concept and delivers all that 5-10 year old me could want.
Now I've rewatched this as an adult and let me just say this-THESE OLYMPICS ARE RIGGED! When you're a kid-it's the Rottens, you're constantly having to keep an eye on them. But they're not the real issue-it's clear that the REAL cheaters are the Scoobies! The name of the show tells you all you need to know, the Scoobies dominate this thing, and it's not even close. Having WAY too much time on my hands, I recorded the wins. And here is the breakdown: in 24 episodes, 1st place wins, Scoobies 14, Yogis 7, the Rottens manage a measly 2 and the final episode is a 3 way tie. Where do I begin? The Yogis are CLEARLY the better team, have more team members, a lot more diversity of talent and a 40 foot gorilla! But time and time again they suffer losses from the no good Scoobies. Tell me how Quick Draw McGraw (the FASTEST draw in the West) loses ANYTHING?!? What about Yogi? He is LITERALLY smarter than the average bear!! But he's taking a loss to Shaggy?!? Get out of here with that nonsense. If the Great Fondue does bad magic, the Rottens get minus 50 points-but if Babu "yapple dapples" it's gold, baby, it's gold for the Scoobies all day. Disgusting.
The opening is your first tip off- every show intro focuses on Scooby, Dynomutt and Captain Caveman who are ALL on Team Scooby. Bias much?!? Sure, there's plenty to like in Team Scooby and they've got 4 solid super heroes (Caveman, B Falcon, Dynomutt AND Hong Kong Phooey!) but the lopsided refereeing is shameless. When the Scoobies win 8 of the first 10 episodes, it's pretty clear the fix is in and the Rottens are just a red herring.
Watching this as adult, my real beef isn't with the Rottens-Daisy Mayhem is going to Daisy Mayhem. I EXPECT that. But I tell you what hurts the most, what really cuts: Snagglepuss. That cat got his start on Yogis show in 1961! That's 60 years of friendship. Does Snagglepuss do the right thing? Does he keep the games on the up and up? Oh heck no! He's clearly been bought and paid for by the Scoobies. Seeing this betrayal is hard. It's embarrassing seeing Snaggiepuss just sitting there, with all his authority, watching this miscarriage of justice and just punking over his old friend. Snag needs to "exit: stage fraudulent."
