Moby Dick and the Mighty Mightor

There was no "Call Me Ishmael" nonsense for this Hanna-Barbera concoction that originally ran on CBS-TV from September 9, 1967 until September 6,1969. Only 15 episodes were produced for the first season while repeated episodes appeared in its second season. This was one of the best that was one of the action-adventure Hanna-Barbera produced shows that emerged during this period. This was in fact two shows packed into a half-hour. First up is "The Mighty Mightor". In this segment,prehistoric teenager Tor(voiced by Bobby Diamond)had the ability to raise a club given to him by an old hermit,thereby transforming himself into the Mighty Mightor(Don Stewart)to fight crime in the stone age along with his faithful companion and pet dinosaur Tog(voiced by Hanna-Barbera stock player Don Messick)turns into a superhero as well by transforming into a fire-breathing dragon. The animation here was very good since this was the action packed version of "The Flintstones",but it wasn't(Imagine if you will Fred Flintstone with superpowers saving Bedrock from certain doom). It was set in the stone age where we have a superhero that takes on formidable villains that set out to destroy Tor's village. Mightor was The Flintstones by way of Space Ghost in prehistoric times. But here the action was good with some of the best animation around by the head master of the Hanna-Barbera action adventure shows-Alex Toth(the same who brought Space Ghost and Jonny Quest). In some of the episodes,Mightor and Tog usually saved Tor's teenage sister Sherra(Patsy Garrett)from a sinister fate or from some disaster that is about to happen to the village. Pondo was the head leader of the tribe(John Stephenson,another Hanna-Barbera stock player)while in some episodes Mightor ends up having to save one or the other by one of the most infertile of characters(Little Rock!!!-voiced by Norma McMillan)who every time our hero has to keep this annoying brat from getting into more trouble. Some of the episodes are worth seeing that are very good with Mightor and Tog taking out the baddies one by one with their amazing superpowers.

The other segment is "The New Adventures of Moby Dick." In this segment,the lead character of Herman Melville's classic 1851 novel is not a monster but a creature of superstrength who protects his domain under the sea. In this second part of the show,Moby becomes the protector of two orphaned children,Tom and Tubb(Bobby Resnick and Barry Balkin)protecting them from such dangers as white sharks in the sea and other dangerous stuff that lies beneath them not to mention taking on some formidable villains and astounding creatures with incredible powers-all under the sea!!! Assisting them is Scooby(Don Messick)their seal pal. This was a very good show until CBS-TV dropped them altogether in the fall of 1969 to wussie cartoons ending Hanna-Barbera's array of superhero cartoon shows. The reasons why Mightor and Moby Dick were dropped from the Saturday Morning schedule,along with several other cartoons as well including Filmation's "Batman & Superman Show",and Hanna-Barbera's "Space Ghost" and "The Herculoids" was due to the excessive violence that it contain towards children and from there disappeared from oblivion never to be heard from again. However,in the fall of 1977,Mightor and Moby Dick did returned in repeated episodes for the syndicated "The Fantastic Worlds of Hanna-Barbera" aka "Hanna-Barbera's World of Super Adventures",which not only featured Mightor and Moby Dick but also other lost Hanna-Barbera superhero characters as well including joining forces with Space Ghost, Frankenstein Junior and The Herculoids.

for many years, I had this image of a flying caveman superhero, stuck in my head. Other folk only ever came up with "Captain Caveman", when asked about it, but I knew it wasn't that. The first time I ever got to see Cartoon Network, there Mightor was, amongst similar Hanna-Barbera heroes of the time, and it all made sense again. Honestly, my vague memories were more fun, because this was mostly leftover sound effects from "Jonny Quest", and the typical vocal processing of the day, for the hero

Still, it's a painless 12 minutes or so. Don't remember "Moby Dick" at all, though my fond memories of "Mightor" could be clouding my memories. My favorites at the time, would have been "Shazzan", and an obscure "Lone Ranger and Tonto" cartoon, featuring Tonto's trained hawk, "Taka". Cartoon network would earn an even more special place in my heart, if they ever excavated this Lone Ranger, since I had an inflatable hawk for years, also named Taka. But I haven't seen a hint of that show, since I was 8, and am prepared to survive on my memories. Still, in this modern age, I can't believe Cartoon Network/Boomerang, hasn't brought these back yet. I think this "Lone Ranger" was a Filmation product, but can't be sure. Maybe one day....

The Mighty Mightor was a prehistoric human who could change into a masked superhero by raising a stick in the air and shouting "Mightor!" He was magically transformed into a being with great strength who could fly with the aid of his club. His dinosaur pet would also morph into a dragon. He'd take on a T-Rex or anything else that threatened his tribe. The program had many of the same sound effects and feel of Jonny Quest. While it may not have been higher quality animation, the mixture of a superhero, dinosaurs, cavemen, and fierce battles looked pretty cool to a 9 year old back in the 1960s and an old baseball bat was the perfect "club" to imitate The Mighty Mightor. I never could get mine to fly though.

First of all, everything that neutrino68 said in his review is completely untrue. I find it hard to believe that he has ever seen the show at all. If he had seen more than one episode he would know Little Rok is not related to Mightor. One thing he did get right is that the story is always the same. That story is that someone wants to take over the village. One good thing about both of these shows is that they have a 10 second origin story at the beginning. That was rare for Hanna Barbera. Though the origin for Moby Dick fails to mention a seal that is always there. The Moby Dick cartoon isn't as bad as you would think. In every episode the kids just get into random undersea danger for absolutely no reason but it's not boring.

"Mightor" is god-awful in every respect: animation, story, voice acting, sound, music, etc. Each episode is nearly identical: some bad thing kidnaps the chick, then Ken-doll caveman turns into Mightor, while his kid brother (son? whatever?) puts on a Mightor mask and pretends to be the hero. The kid attacks the bad guy and his Mightor mask covers his eyes. Whilst he can't see, the real Mightor defeats the bad guy. The kid lifts his mask and thinks he did it himself. Rinse, repeat, show after show.

HOWEVER. There is an entity that makes "Mightor" look good: "Moby Dick." This show is too awful to even discuss. Its very existence will depress you like a rainy Sunday after the funeral of a close friend. Cheap, eye-straining (from the constant blurry underwater effects seemingly achieved by wiggling the lens around while printing the film), and soul-draining. If you must watch this, keep some Prozac or St. John's Wort around so you don't kill yourself.