CBBC Memories – Captain Caveman.

Captain Caveman (ABC, 1977-1980)

This is yet another Hanna-Barbera cartoon that I remember watching as a second generation viewer (there really were a lot of them), and once again, I saw this as part of The CBBC Breakfast Show strand in 1997, almost worth getting up too early for. What did this one have to offer? Captain Caveman is someone who is discovered in a block of ice, and he is then brought back to life.

He has been in that block for thousands of years, maybe even millions. Of course, he is rather hairy, and he does have some trouble adapting to the modern world. He is joined by a female trio called The Teen Angels, who it seems bear every resemblance to the cast of Charlie’s Angels, the action TV show that was popular around the time that this launched.

It turns out that he is some kind of superhero, but after putting up with talking bears, squirrel spies, and the like, nothing appears to be that far-fetched now, if viewers liked those ideas, they might like this one. He also had a club, that he banged everywhere, and seemed to be magic too! And of course, he goes and saves the day to everybody’s delight, and somehow it conveniently takes him exactly seven minutes every time.

Another notable thing is that Captain Caveman was voiced by Mel Blanc, the man behind a thousand cartoon characters (or thereabouts). And he would often shout “Captain Caveman!!” as loud as he could, and as often as he could, you don’t really forget that. I thought that this was the only thing that he was able to say, but he did manage to grasp a few other phrases.

There were 40 episodes, which were sometimes credited as Captain Caveman And The Teen Angels, and this has to be the nosiest (and maybe silliest) Hanna-Barbera cartoon from this era. This was shown in CBBC in this country for about two decades, well into the 90s. But I don’t recall there being too many revivals, although all four main cast members competed on Scooby-Doo’s team in Laff-A-Lympics.