The Dudley Do-Right Show

Overview

Dudley Do-Right is a cheerful but not particularly bright Canadian Mountie working under Inspector Fenwick. His main goals are capturing his arch-enemy Snidely Whiplash and saving Nell Fenwick, the inspector’s daughter, whom he adores. Do-Right typically succeeds only by accident or thanks to his horse, simply named Horse. A running joke is that Nell is not interested in Dudley; she seems to prefer Horse, often kissing the animal instead of the Mountie. The show’s opening shows Dudley leaping onto Horse and riding him backwards while a trumpet piece resembling the William Tell Overture plays. During the ride, he spots Whiplash tying Nell to train tracks, accompanied by low trombones. Do-Right tips his hat before realizing the danger and saving the day. Dudley also appeared in a Rocky and Bullwinkle Fan Club segment as the hero of a play called She Can't Pay the Rent.

The Dudley Do-Right Show

The Dudley Do-Right Show was a half-hour animated program that aired on ABC Sunday mornings from April 27, 1969, to September 6, 1970. P.A.T. Film Services assembled the series from cartoons made by Jay Ward Productions and Total Television. Each episode contained two segments of Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties and two of The World of Commander McBragg, plus one each of Tooter Turtle and The Hunter. Jay Ward produced the Dudley Do-Right segments, while Total Television handled the others.

Both companies relied on Gamma Productions, a Mexican animation studio. The syndicated version, Dudley Do Right and Friends, kept the same structure but swapped in different episodes. It included The King and Odie and The Hunter, both originally part of King Leonardo and His Short Subjects. In 1963, twenty-six new segments of those two series were made for CBS’s Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales, and those later episodes appear in the syndicated package.

Voice actors included Bill Scott as Dudley, June Foray as Nell Fenwick, Hans Conried as Snidely Whiplash, Paul Frees as Inspector Fenwick and the narrator, with William Conrad handling some narrations and Evan Cox making a cameo.

Segments

The series featured many segments, including The Disloyal Canadians, Stokey the Bear, Mortgagin' the Mountie Post, Trap Bait, The Masked Ginny Lynn, The Centaur, Railroad Tracks, Foreclosing Mortgages, Snidely Mounted Police, Mother Love, Mountie Bear, Inspector Dudley Do-Right, Recruiting Campaign, Out of Uniform, Lure of the Footlights, Bullet-Proof Suit, Miracle Drug, Elevenworth Prison, Saw Mill, Finding Gold, Mountie Without a Horse, Mother Whiplash's Log Jam, Stolen Art Masterpiece, Mechanical Dudley, Flicker Rock, Faithful Dog, Coming-Out Party, Robbing Banks, Skagway Dogsled-Pulling Contest, Canadian Railway's Bridge, Niagara Falls, Snidely's Vic Whiplash Gym, Marigolds, Trading Places, Top Secret, The Locket, The Inspector's Nephew, Matinee Idol, and Snidely Arrested.

The segment Stokey the Bear, which first aired on The Bullwinkle Show, was kept out of all reissues for many years. The U.S. Forest Service did not like the idea of a bear starting forest fires, even though Snidely had hypnotized the bear into doing so. Sony Wonder and Classic Media finally released it on home video in 2005.

Legacy

The log flume ride Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls opened at Universal Islands of Adventure on May 28, 1999, based on the cartoon segments. Its queue is designed like a theater, presenting Dudley, Nell, Snidely, and Horse as actors. Riders sit in cartoon logs and travel into the story, where Snidely has taken Nell Fenwick. The ride has three drops, with the final one reaching seventy-five feet.

It is a hybrid flume and coaster using steel track to send logs down the last drop, under water, and over a bunny hill. Mack GmbH designed and built the system. On August 27, 1999, Universal Studios released a live-action comedy film, Dudley Do-Right, starring Brendan Fraser, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Alfred Molina. It earned negative reviews and failed at the box office, making under $10 million domestically against a $22 million budget.

In 2000, music historian Irwin Chusid said scat singer Shooby Taylor's voice reminded him of Dudley Do-Right's virile baritone. The Canadian adult animated series Fugget About It, which premiered in 2013, includes Strait McCool, a dimwitted but well-meaning Mountie with similar appearance, voice, behavior, and personality to Do-Right, plus sexual and drug references, making him a likely parody.