Dick Beals Archives - Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures

How many of you remember this opening? Birdman and the Galaxy Trio arrived on NBC Saturday mornings on September 9, 1967, right in the middle of Hanna-Barbera’s great superhero period. Birdman could fly, fire solar energy from his hands and create shields, but there was one major catch — he had to keep recharging himself with sunlight. Take away the sun and suddenly our superhero was in serious trouble.

Birdman was created by legendary artist Alex Toth, whose fingerprints were all over this era of Hanna-Barbera adventure cartoons. He was also closely associated with the designs of Space Ghost and The Herculoids, which helps explain why these shows all had that wonderfully dramatic comic-book look many of us remember.

Keith Andes supplied Birdman’s powerful voice and that unforgettable “Biiiirdman!” battle cry. There were some other great connections hiding in the cast too. Don Messick was Falcon 7 before becoming Scooby-Doo, while Dick Beals played Birdboy — and if his voice sounds familiar, he was also Speedy Alka-Seltzer in hundreds of commercials. Over with the Galaxy Trio, Ted Cassidy, better known as Lurch on The Addams Family, voiced Meteor Man.

The music was by Ted Nichols, one of the composers who helped give Hanna-Barbera’s adventure shows such a big, dramatic sound. Nichols also worked on Space Ghost, Jonny Quest, Scooby-Doo and many other familiar cartoons during his years at Hanna-Barbera. He died earlier this year at age 97.

And September 9, 1967 was quite a Saturday morning. Birdman, The Herculoids and Hanna-Barbera’s Fantastic Four all debuted that same day on competing networks. Birdman himself lasted only 20 half-hours, but he certainly wasn’t forgotten. More than 30 years later he was completely reinvented as an attorney in Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law, introducing the character to an entirely different generation.

Did you watch Birdman during its original run, or was this another one you discovered through Saturday morning reruns?

How many of you remember Speedy Alka-Seltzer? By the time this 1976 commercial appeared, Speedy was actually making a comeback. He had been one of television advertising’s earliest memorable mascots during the 1950s and early ’60s before disappearing from regular Alka-Seltzer advertising in 1964.

Speedy was a pretty clever character when you look closely. His body was an Alka-Seltzer tablet, another tablet became his little sailor-style hat, and he was brought to life one frame at a time with stop-motion animation. He was originally going to be called Sparky, but the name was changed to Speedy to match the company’s “Speedy Relief” campaign.

And that wonderfully youthful voice belonged to Dick Beals, who was already an adult when he began playing Speedy. A glandular condition left Beals only about four-foot-six with a voice that never changed from childhood, and he turned that into an extraordinary career. He also originated the voice of Gumby and was the first Davey on Davey and Goliath. He eventually performed voices in more than 3,000 commercials.

This 1976 revival also brought Speedy together with the line most of us probably remember best — “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz, oh what a relief it is.” The jingle was composed by Tom Dawes, who had previously been a member of the 1960s group The Cyrkle. Two years later, even Sammy Davis Jr. recorded his own versions of it.

Speedy had already shared the screen with silent-film legend Buster Keaton back in the 1950s, and he would eventually make another comeback decades later. For such a little guy, he had quite a television career

Did you remember Speedy himself, or is it the “Plop, plop, fizz, fizz” jingle that immediately takes you back?