Spun off from the classic Wacky Racers animated series that was a smash hit for Hanna-Barbara in the late sixties, Dastardly And Muttley In Their Flying Machines lasted only one season from September of 1969 until it was cancelled after seventeen episodes in January of 1970. While it didn't stick around too long, the show's theme song, Stop The Pigeon remains instantly recognizable and the show benefited from the great voice work of Don Messick (Don did Muttley, Klunk and Zilly) and Paul Winchell (Paul did Dick Dastardly and The General) who previously voiced such classic cartoon characters as Scooby Doo and Tigger respectively.

The premise of the show is extremely simple. Dick Dastardly and his sniveling dog Muttley lead the Vulture Squadron, made up of Dick, Muttley, the cowardly Zilly and the incomprehensible Klunk. Together, these five fearless flyers have to stop Yankee Doodle Pigeon from delivering something to someone for some reason – it's never made clear or they'll fall into bad graces with The General. To do this, Klunk is constantly inventing all manner of crazy devices which the Vulture Squadron can attach to their planes in order to stop the pigeon from doing whatever it is that he's doing.

Within this simple concept lay the gags that the show revolves around. In pretty much every episode Klunk devises a strange pigeon capturing technique that, when executed, inevitably leads to Dastardly falling out of his plane and crashing on the ground. Sometimes Muttley, in order to earn a medal, will try to save him, and sometimes, as Dastardly is falling to the ground, the general will call and yell at him (or even reach out through the phone to punch him in the head).

In between the two main cartoons contained in each of the episodes (except for the unaired seventeenth episode which only contains one story) there are Wing Dings (which are simple little animated gags featuring the members of the Vulture Squadron) and some funny little daydream sequences in which Muttley, while doing boring tasks such as mopping the floor, daydreams and experiences some delusions of grandeur.

While the episodes are quite funny in moderation, to sit down and watch all seventeen of them can get a little tiresome. While the airplane designs and characters are quite inventive and very amusing, the gags are repetitive and because of that, you always know how it's all going to end. The voice work is very unique though, and gives the series a distinct sound whether it be Muttley's sniveling, Klunk's whooping and whirling or Dastardly's groveling. Likewise, the actual animation itself is very nicely done with plenty of great colors and smooth line work that gives the series a very nice look.

The seventeen episodes in this set are:

Video:

Each episode is presented as it was originally broadcast in 1.33.1 fullframe. The colors on these episodes look very nice. While there is a small amount of film grain, the overall picture quality on this set is definitely above average with some very nice detail evident throughout the series. There aren't any big issues with edge enhancement, though if you're looking for it you'll see it in a couple of spots, and there are no problems with mpeg compression at all. The series has been cleaned up nicely and there's next to no print damage present either.