The
Skatebirds (onscreen title: Skatebirds) is an American live-action/animated package program produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions and broadcast on CBS from September 10, 1977, to January 21, 1978.
The Skatebirds consisted of three large costumed birds on roller skates:Knock-Knock, a woodpecker (voiced by Lennie Weinrib);Satchel, a pelican (voiced by Bob Holt) and Scooter, a penguin (voiced by Don Messick). Their nemesis was a cat named Scat Cat (voiced by Scatman Crothers).
The live-action sequences featuring The Skatebirds mostly revolved around the nasty Scat Cat perpetually chasing the roller-skating trio and trying to get the best of them. Unlike the Banana Splits live-action segments, the Skatebirds were filmed in a variety of theme-park locations, rather than running around in a single studio.[2]
The show was divided into four short segments introduced by live action wraparounds with The Skatebirds characters which included three animated segments (The Robonic Stooges, Wonder Wheels and Woofer & Wimper, Dog Detectives) and a 10-minute live-action segment (Mystery Island). The appearance of the characters and the show's format was similar to The Banana Splits Adventures Hour. Unlike its similar predecessor and most Saturday morning children's shows produced in the 1970s, The Skatebirds did not contain a laugh track.
A total of 16 episodes of The Skatebirds were produced in its original run from September 10, 1977, to January 21, 1978. In the fall of 1979, the show returned to CBS in a shortened half-hour version with Wonder Wheels and Mystery Island segments (The Robonic Stooges and Woofer & Whimper, Dog Detectives segments had been spun off into a separate half-hour) and broadcast on Sunday mornings from September 9, 1979, until January 25, 1981. In the late 1980s, a different syndicated half-hour version of The Skatebirds with The Robonic Stooges and Wonder Wheels segments was shown on USA Cartoon Express and later resurfaced on Cartoon Network in the 1990s and Boomerang in the 2000s.