The Roman Holidays
| The Roman Holidays | |
|---|---|
|
The Roman Holidays title card | |
| Genre | animation |
| Created by | Hanna Barbera |
| Voices of |
Dave Willock Shirley Mitchell Stanley Livingston Pamelyn Ferdin Daws Butler Dom DeLuise Hal Smith |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 13 |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) |
William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Producer(s) |
William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Distributor | Warner Bros. Television Distribution |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | NBC |
| Original run | September 9, 1972 – December 2, 1972 |
The Roman Holidays is a Hanna-Barbera animated television series that was broadcast in 1972 on NBC. 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, Los Angeles, 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, besides 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 fitted with an inferior 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. |
| 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-12 | Cyrano 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-13 | Father 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
- Daws Butler - Brutus the Lion
- Dom DeLuise - Mr. Evictus
- Pamelyn Ferdin - Precocia Holiday
- Stanley Livingston - Happius Holiday
- Shirley Mitchell - Laurie Holiday
- Harold Peary - Herman (Groovia's father)
- Hal Smith - Mr. Tycoonius
- John Stephenson -
- Judy Strangis - Groovia (Happius' girlfriend)
- Janet Waldo - Henrietta (Groovia's mother)
- Dave Willock - Gus Holiday
The Roman Holidays in other languages
- Brazilian Portuguese: Os Mussarelas ("The Mozzarellas")
- Galician: Festas de Roma ("Roma´s Parties")
- German: Die verrückten Holidays ("The Crazy Holidays")
- Spanish: Roma me da risa ("Rome makes me laugh")
- Italian: S.P.Q.R. - Sembrano Proprio Quasi Romani ("They really seem almost Roman")
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 video release
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
External links
- The Roman Holidays at the Internet Movie Database
- The Roman Holidays at TV.com
- Episode Guide