With a live action Scooby Doo movie about to debut to a potentially mega-audience, Spyglass Entertainment, the Disney-based producer of The Sixth Sense, announced this week that it had acquired the feature film rights to the retro cartoon series Underdog with the plan to create a live action film with computer-generated elements. 

Underdog, which first aired on U.S. TV in 1964, was heavily influenced by The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle, using a combination of extremely limited animation, broad satire, and a brilliantly named cast of characters that appeared to come straight out of a Victorian melodrama, including Underdog's girlfriend, Sweet Polly Purebred and the villains led by consummately evil Simon Bar Sinister and the gangster kingpin, Riff-Raff. 

The show was parody of all types of superheroes -- Underdog had an alter ego, a mild-mannered Shoeshine Boy (voiced by uber-wimp Wally Cox), and used a telephone booth to change into his Underdog costume, which included a giant letter 'U' on his chest as well as a flowing cape.  Underdog had to take a vitamin pill to unleash his super powers, and like Popeye with his spinach, Underdog was constantly forgetting or misplacing his pills.

If the Scooby Doo film is a big hit look for an Underdog film to follow in the Great Dane's footsteps.  There were some 120 episodes of the Underdog TV series produced in the nine years after the show debuted in 1964, but unfortunately because of a rights dispute only about 20 of the shows are available for rebroadcast.  Although the available Underdog shows have been broadcast occasionally on cable stations over the years, the rights disputes have hurt the property since 120 episodes are much more effective in syndication than a mere 20.  Another factor that hurt the series was the poor quality of the other cartoons that were included (Rocky & Bullwinkle style) along with the opening and closing Underdog portions of the show. 

Back in the 1960s Underdog was often seen as a pale imitation of Rocky & Bullwinkle, which was after all a prime time show and a darling of the critics. Ironically, given the abysmal quality of the live action Rocky & Bullwinkle film, as well as the advances in CGI techniques, the Underdog live action film, if it does get made, has a very good chance of outshining its old rival.