The Roman Holidays

The Roman Holidays

Title card
Genre Animation
Comedy
Sitcom
Voices of Dave Willock
Shirley Mitchell
Stanley Livingston
Pamelyn Ferdin
Daws Butler
Dom DeLuise
Hal Smith
Composer(s) Hoyt Curtin
Country of origin United States
Original language(s) English
No. of episodes 13
Production
Executive producer(s) William Hanna
Joseph Barbera
Production company(s) Hanna-Barbera Productions
Release
Original network NBC
Original release September 9 – December 2, 1972

The Roman Holidays is a 30-minute Saturday morning animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and broadcast on NBC from September 9, 1972 to December 2, 1972. It ran for 13 episodes before being cancelled, and reruns were later shown on the USA Cartoon Express during the 1980s.

Plot

Very similar in theme to both The Flintstones and The Jetsons, The Roman Holidays brought a look at "modern-day" life in Ancient Rome, around 63 AD (with a 1970s touch), as seen through the eyes of Augustus "Gus" Holiday and his family. The opening showed a chariot traffic jam and a TV showing football on Channel "IV" (NBC was seen on TV Channel 4 in cities like New York City, Los Angeles, Detroit, San Antonio and Boston). An Ancient Roman setting was actually one of the ideas that Hanna-Barbera considered as they were working to create The Flintstones.

Gus, his wife Laurie, their daughter Precocia (who, despite being the youngest of the family, is very intellectual) and their teen-aged son Happius (nicknamed "Hap") reside in the Venus de Milo Arms, run by their landlord Mr. Evictus, who excites Gus's tagline "Evictus will evict us!". Gus works for a bossy supervisor named Mr. Tycoonius at the Forum Construction Company, and after a hard day's marble lifting, he was greeted by the Holidays' pet, a lion named Brutus (who sounded a bit like Snagglepuss). Rounding out the cast is Hap's girlfriend, Groovia. Like many Hanna-Barbera series produced in the 1970s, the show was given a laugh track.

Episodes

Episode number Episode name Production number Air date Synopsis
RH-1 Double Date 58-1 September 9, 1972 Evictus threatens to evict the Holiday family if they fail to fix up his daughter with a date for the big high school dance.
RH-2 The Lion's Share 58-2 September 16, 1972 After Evictus threatens to evict the family for violating the 'no pets' policy, Brutus runs away to find his long-lost father.
RH-3 Star For A Day 58-3 September 23, 1972 Hap Holiday turns out to be a lookalike for rock star Davey Cassius, so the two trade places for the day.
RH-4 Hero-Sandwiched 58-4 September 30, 1972 Gus struggles with his conscience when he's mistakenly honored as the hero who foiled a robbery.
RH-5 The Big Split-Up 58-5 October 7, 1972 When Groovia overhears Precocia setting up Brutus on a date, she thinks it's for Hap and breaks up with him.
RH-6 Hectic Holiday 58-6 October 14, 1972 The family finds an offer to trade houses with another family in Venice for a free vacation.
RH-7 Switch Is Which? 58-7 October 21, 1972 After Gus stays up all night working on architectural plans for a big client, Laurie dons a fake mustache to fool the client into believing she's Gus.
RH-8 That's Show Biz 58-8 October 28, 1972 When the circus comes to town, Gus gets tickets from his old school chum Hammus Terrificus.
RH-9 Double Dilemma 58-9 November 4, 1972 When Precocia's drum performance conflicts with his bowling team's big match, Gus must find a way to be in two places at once. This episode is a re-working of The Flintstones episode "Fred Strikes Out", which originally aired on March 2, 1962.
RH-10 A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Chariot Wash 58-10 November 11, 1972 Gus' boss orders him to get his prized racing chariot washed, but the chariot is destroyed before Gus can return it.
RH-11 Buried Treasure 58-11 November 18, 1972 Gus believes a treasure map he's found at the bottom of some junk leads to a fortune buried under the apartment building.
RH-12Cyrano De Happius 58-12 November 25, 1972 Hap tries to fix up his friend with a beautiful cheerleader, but the cheerleader falls for Hap and Groovia starts dating Hap's friend.
RH-13Father Of The Year 58-13 December 2, 1972 Gus and Evictus compete in Rome's most prestigious competition, the Father of the Year awards.

Cast

The Roman Holidays in other languages

Comics

Gold Key produced a comic book based on the series from November 1972 to August 1973. Only four issues were published. Pete Alvarado drew the first three; Jack Manning drew the final issue.[1]

Home Media releases

The first episode, "Double Date", is available on the DVD Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1970s Volume 1. On April 23, 2013, Warner Archive released The Roman Holidays: The Complete Series on DVD in region 1 as part of their Hanna–Barbera Classics Collection. This is a manufacture-on-demand (MOD) release, available exclusively through Warner's online store and Amazon.com.[2]

References

See also

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/21/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.