This 1972 DePatie-Freleng offering - and I mean “offering” in the old religous sense of a charred, burnt animal rectum offered up to a dark lord of misrule - concerned the Barkleys, a canine-based family made up of a dithering wife, a socially-conscious daughter and son, and a curmudgeonly old bigoted patriarch.
Sound familiar? That’s right! It was a cartoon version of “All in the Family.” And because no moment of childhood should be immune from indoctrination, the show had “socially relevant” themes as well. Why, in one episode, the daughter wanted to be a woman’s libber. What a bitch!
The patriarch, seen on the left, is Arnie Barkley. Obviously they didn’t behave entirely like dogs - Augie never said “aw gees dere son, don’t be sniffin’ your sister dere. It ain’t decent.”
Nothing says “1972” like this picture, which hails from the Golden Age of People Who Cannot Draw Very Well Getting Jobs That Require Drawing. If nothing else, it proves that dogs should not be trusted to arrange the furniture, because if you try to watch TV you'll get a crick in your neck after ten minutes.
Below, the tautologically inclined theme song, which asserts in numerous ways that the Barkleys are the Barkleys. And they're okay.
