Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales - Plot

Plot

The cartoon series revolved around Tennessee Tuxedo the penguin (voiced by Don Adams), and his best friend Chumley the Walrus (voiced by Bradley Bolke). The pair lived (not always willingly) at the Megapolis Zoo, under the control of the ill-tempered zoo director Stanley Livingstone (voiced by Mort Marshall), and his zookeeper assistant Flunky (voiced by Kenny Delmar). It was on one of Stanley’s journeys that Tennessee met Stanley. Actually, it was Chumley that Stanley wanted, as Chumley was at the South Pole. Thus Chumley was a one of a kind: a South Pole walrus. Tennessee agreed to accompany Chumley and Stanley back to the zoo.

At the zoo, Tennessee and Chumley had many friends to help them out, such as Yakkety Yak (also voiced by Kenny Delmar) and Baldy the eagle (also voiced by Kenny Delmar) amongst other inhabitants of the zoo. Three episodes also featured Howler, a dog that Tennessee got from his Uncle Admiration. At first, Stanley was against Tennessee having Howler on zoo grounds until Howler saved Stanley when he fell into a lake upon spying on Tennessee and Chumley's housing project for Howler.

Tennessee and Chumley also had a big rival, in the form of Jerboa Jump the kangaroo rat (also voiced by Bradley Bolke). Jerboa later gains a henchman in a boxing tiger named Tiger Tornado (voiced by Kenny Delmar impersonating Muhammad Ali). Some of the episodes would center around Tennessee trying to outsmart Jerboa at his own game, and succeeding in the end of course.

Tennessee and Chumley were also constantly bedeviled by Rocky Maninoff (voiced by Jackson Beck impersonating Humphrey Bogart), a gangster who often called them “bo-bos” and ordered them to do his will at the point of his machine gun (which he sometimes refers to as "his violin"). Rocky Maninoff's name is an obvious pun on the composer and musician Sergei Rachmaninoff.

Tennessee and Chumley regularly escaped from the zoo, only to find trouble in the outside world. Whenever Tennessee would propose a hare-brained scheme, Chumley was usually skeptical at first. Typically Tennessee would assure the dim-witted Chumley that his superior intelligence would carry the day, often with his catchphrase "Tennessee Tuxedo will not fail!" Chumley typically would respond with his own catchphrase, "Duh, OK Tennessee." When faced with more trouble than they could bear, the pair would turn to their friend Phineas J. Whoopee (voiced by Larry Storch), the “Man with All the Answers” (as described on a newspaper ad about him). Mr. Whoopee, as he was known, was extremely knowledgeable on all subjects, and would frequently lecture the pair on such diverse topics as the physics behind the hot air balloon to how musicians become popular. His lectures were illustrated and animated on the Three Dimensional Blackboard (3DBB for short), that he would retrieve out of an avalanche of junk from his overstuffed hallway closet. Other times the pair would have to overcome a personal problem, such as Chumley requiring treatment for a toothache but expressing his fear of the dentist (a common fear in many children). At the end of each lecture with Mr. Whoopee, Tennessee praised his mentor with the line, “Phineas J. Whoopee, you’re the greatest!”

The pair would then attempt to use their newly gained knowledge to get out of the trouble they had created, but would invariably end up in more trouble with Stanley Livingston who typically punished them in different ways ranging from having the police arrest them to making them scrub pots and pans in the Zoo Cafeteria for six months. Stanley even threatened to skin them alive many times and some episodes just end with Stanley chasing Tennessee and Chumley around the Zoo. There were however a few times when they managed to succeed such as a time where the pair (along with Baldy) formed a musical group and gained so much popularity that they managed to star in Stanley's music show while he was reduced to eating his hat (having said that he would if Tennessee's group got into his show) and the time when they decorated Stanley's Christmas Tree.

On a Boing podcast, Underdog creator Joe Harris explained that after F.C.C. commissioner Newton Minow declared television a "vast wasteland" in terms of educational material, efforts were made to include education in programming. He added that with Tennessee Tuxedo, Tennessee and Chumley were portrayed as the ones who were being educated, so children would feel that they were not being lectured to; even though in the end, they were.

Occasional back segments included The World of Commander McBragg, Klondike Kat, Tooter Turtle, The Hunter, and The King and Odie (the last three were rerun from the earlier King Leonardo show).

For the voice of the “small penguin, who tries but can’t succeed-o,” Don Adams used his already-well-known “clippy” voice characterization, which he said was an exaggeration of actor William Powell’s voice.