TV
Bailey’s Comets (CBS 1973, Frank Welker, Don Messick)
Take all the excitement of roller derby, cut out the violence, throw in a million dollar treasure hunt, and you’ve got the premise for Bailey’s Comets. Barnaby Bailey led his team, the Comets, against such cheating scoundrels as the Dr. Jekyll/Hydes, whose members would involuntarily change from good to evil in a puff of smoke, and the Yo Ho Hos, a team of pirates. Naturally, the Comets insisted on fair play and honest sportsmanship, and just as naturally, they always came out ahead.
The teams would compete all over the world—from England to Australia, from Japan to Romania—in two episodes per show. Each episode ended with one of the teams being first to find rhyming clues about the next destination. The Comets would always arrive first in the last episode of each show, lest the kids at home start believing that cheaters sometimes prosper.
A reporter named Gabby covered all the action while flying above in a helicopter, which was piloted by Dooter Roo. The show was switched from Saturdays to Sundays in the middle of its first season, and remained there for its second, which consisted entirely of repeats.
production details
USA | CBS – DePatie-Freleng | 30 minutes | Broadcast from 9 August 1973 – 26 January 1974.
Executive Producers: Ken Spears, Joe Ruby, Friz Freleng, David DePatie
voice cast
Frank Welker
Don Messick
Bob Holt
Daws Butler
Sarah Kennedy