Underdog (TV series)

Underdog
Underdog in the opening credits
Genre
Created byW. Watts Biggers
Chet Stover
Joe Harris
Starring
Narrated byGeorge S. Irving
Theme music composer
  • W. Watts Biggers
  • Chet Stover
  • Joe Harris
  • Treadwell Covington
Country of originUnited States
No. of episodes62 (124 segments)
Production
ProducerW. Watts Biggers
Running time20 minutes
Production companies
Original release
Network
ReleaseOctober 3, 1964 (1964-10-03) 
March 4, 1967 (1967-03-04)

Underdog, also known as The Underdog Show, is an American Saturday morning animated television series that ran from October 3, 1964, to March 4, 1967, starting on the NBC network until 1966, with the rest of the run on CBS, under the primary sponsorship of General Mills, for a run of 62 episodes. It is one of the early Saturday morning cartoons. The show continued in syndication until 1973.

Underdog, Shoeshine Boy's heroic alter ego, appears whenever love interest Sweet Polly Purebred is being victimized by such villains as Simon Bar Sinister or Riff Raff. Underdog nearly always speaks in rhyming couplets, as in "There's no need to fear, Underdog is here!" His voice was supplied by Wally Cox. When appearing as Shoeshine Boy, he described himself as "humble, and loveable"; possibly a tongue-in-cheek reference to "mild-mannered reporter" Clark Kent from the opening narration of the Adventures of Superman television series.