Underdog, Shoeshine Boy's heroic alter ego, appears whenever love interest Sweet Polly Purebred is being victimized by such villains as Simon Bar Sinister or Riff Raff.
When appearing as Shoeshine Boy, he described himself as "humble, and loveable"; possibly a tongue-in-cheek reference to "mild-mannered reporter" Clark Kent from the opening narration of the Adventures of Superman television series.
In 1959, handling the General Mills account as an account executive with the Dancer Fitzgerald Sample advertising agency in New York, W. Watts Biggers teamed with Chet Stover, Treadwell D. Covington, and artist Joe Harris in the creation of television cartoon shows to sell breakfast cereals for General Mills.
When Underdog became a success, Biggers and his partners left Dancer Fitzgerald Sample to form their own company, Total Television, with animation produced at Gamma Studios in Mexico.
Thereafter, for most of the balance of the package, the middle segments include Go Go Gophers and Klondike Kat for three consecutive half-hours and Tennessee Tuxedo in the fourth.
Commander McBragg is featured in the majority of episodes, replaced by three segments of The Sing-A-Long Family (in shows one-three, 28–30, and 55–57).
The syndicated series, as shown in the United States, is a potpourri of segments from previously aired versions of the show.
Prior to a 1994 remaster, each episode included a "teaser" at the top of the show, asking viewers to stay tuned for a clip from "today's four-part story".
There have also been different syndication packages bundled with both elements from Jay Ward’s The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, and The Most Important Person short films.
As the Underdog, Rocky and Bullwinkle, and The Most Important Person segments are all now separately owned by different entities, the syndicated prints are no longer in distribution.
[5] However during its broadcasting on Cartoon Network and Boomerang, two notable episodes, "The Molemen" and "A New Villain", were not included on the channels’ schedule due to depicted dangerous elements subjected within the segments.
[citation needed] In 1995, Biggers, Stover, Covington, and Harris (with General Mills) negotiated a sale of their creations to Saturday Night Live producer Lorne Michaels' Broadway Video, who later sold the rights to Golden Books Family Entertainment in 1996.
(Before taking one, he would often utter the words: "The secret compartment of my ring I fill / With an Underdog Super Energy Pill.")
The show is also remembered for its title song, "Underdog", which was arranged and produced by Robert Weitz, with lyrics by Chester Stover, W. Watts Biggers, Treadwell Covington, and Joseph Harris.
He explained, "As a struggling singer in New York, I'd gotten a job singing a theme song for a newly proposed TV cartoon series named 'Underdog'.
When it came out as the music track of a Reebok commercial I filed a claim with the Screen Actors Guild, but of course I had no documentation.
Factory (under license from Classic Media) released a 9-disc Complete Series set containing new bonus material, including commentaries.
Shoeshine/Underdog, voiced by Jason Lee, was played by a golden beagle named Leo sporting a red sweater and a blue cape.
Radio stations were asked to participate in Biggers' Victory Over Violence organization by airing the adventure in which the evil Simon Bar Sinister develops a Switchpitch baseball to turn positive people negative.
His attempt to become king of Boston is foiled by Underdog (played by Biggers) and Sweet Polly Purebred (portrayed by Nancy Purbeck).
[10] As of July 2024, a CGI reboot, separate and entirely different from the Ceballos twins' pitch, is currently in production from SuperProd Animation and Red Monk Studio, under license from DreamWorks Classics.