Doomsday Bet

Doomsday Bet
Network	The WB
Premiere date	September 16, 1995
Starring	Scott Menville Don Messick Granville Van Dusen Mary Scheer Jeff Glen Bennett Jim Cummings Frank Welker
Music composed by	Richard Stone
Writer(s)	Tom Minton
Storyboard artist(s)	Brian B. Chin Butch Lukic
Director(s)	Eric Radomski
Voice director(s)	Andrea Romano
Episode navigation
← Previous	Next →
Title card

"Toby Danger in Doomsday Bet", or simply "Doomsday Bet", is the first and only segment of Toby Danger, which came as part of the second part of the second episode of Freakazoid! season one. It aired on September 16, 1995 on The WB. It was written by Tom Minton, directed by Eric Randomski, and voice directed by Andrea Romano.

In a homage to Jonny Quest, a freak accident brings to life a robot who goes on a rampage through Las Vegas. But Doctor Danger is not too far behind.

Characters

Legend
Character debut	Speaking debut	Ep. debut	No lines	Mentioned

In order of appearance:

Character	Actor
Scientist	Jeff Glenn Bennett
Doctor Sin	Jeff Glen Bennett
Dash O'Pepper	Granville Van Dusen
Doctor Vernon Danger	Don Messick
Toby Danger	Scott Meville
Sandra Danger	Mary Scheer
Jules	N/A
Cashier	N/A
Fred	Frank Welker
Ray Charles	Jim Cummings
Firefighter	Frank Welker
Seigfried
Roy

Organizations

• Las Vegas Fire & Rescue

Locations

• Earth
  • Nevada
    • Danger Semiconductor Testing Lab
    • Hoover Dam
    • Lake Mead
    • Las Vegas
      • Ring-A-Ding Bummer Hotel
      • Las Vegas International Airport
  • California
    • Los Angeles
      • Hollywood
        • Hollywood Hills
          • Hollywood Bowl

Objects

• Semiconductor (Jim Cummings)
• Anti-gravity sidewalk slabs
• Doctor Danger's laser

Vehicles

• Flying island

Production

Development

Tom Minton, a Jonny Quest fan, wrote and storyboarded a tongue in the cheek parody of Jonny Quest for Animaniacs, although the segment didn't seem to fit at the time. When the first season of Freakazoid! was being worked on, one of the episodes came up short so Mitch Schauer, a producer and fellow Jonny Quest fan, who had remembered the segment, put it into production.

Filming

It was copyrighted in 1995.

Aftermath

Despite being a one-off, John P. McCann desired to turn it into its own full-length series. In 1997, John P. McCann wrote a pilot called "Danger on Ice," and pitched the idea to Jean MacCurdy, president of Warner Bros. Animation, but she turned it down on the basis that anything remotely related to Steven Spielberg, came with a profit sharing and legal complications that weren't worth the effort.

Music

The music was composed by Richard Stone, evoking Hoyt Curtin.

Release

Dates are in order of release:

• United States: September 16, 1995 on The WB

Behind the scenes

• Counterparts:
  • Toby Danger = Jonny Quest
  • Doctor Danger = Doctor Benton Quest
  • Sanda Danger = Hadji and Jessie Bannon
  • Dash O'Pepper = Race Bannon
  • Jules the cat = Bandit the dog
  • Doctor Sin = Doctor Zin
• The episode may have taken some inspiration from the Jonny Quest episode "The Invisible Monster."
• Dash refers to the casino players as "heathen monkeys" which is a reference to the racially infamous line Race made to some tribesman in the episode "Pursuit of the Po-Ho," but the joke may be lost to some viewers who only started watching it from when Turner Entertainment got the rights to the Hanna-Barbera library in the 1980s, where the "heathen monkeys" line was among one of the scenes cut to make the series more politically correct, and this is the version that remained until Warner Archive restored released an the original uncut version on Blu-ray in 2019.
• In the opening credits, the soldiers are caricatures of Minton, Brian P. Chin, and Butch Lukic.
• A non-speaking cop outside the casino resembles Officer Barney Fife from the sitcom The Andy Griffith Show.
• The man who calls for all non-essential power is a caricature of Frank Sinatra.

Errors

• It's unclear when Sandra was adopted, because she refers to Doctor Danger as "Dr. D.," but she's still been with them long enough for her to legally change her own surname to theirs.

Legacy

• Although aired before, Toby and Dash were previewed in non-speaking cameos in the first episode's segment "Freakazoid and Friends," a parody of the Animaniacs theme song. In what became a short-lived recurring gag, Dash threw a barrel at a giant rat, while Toby smiled at the screen.

In other languages

Language	Name	Meaning

Home availability

• In the United States:
  • July 29, 2008: Warner Home Video releases Freakazoid!: Season 1 on DVD.