Left: Touché Turtle. Right: Dum Dum
Touché Turtle and Dum Dum are a pair of Funny Animal swashbuckling Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters, respectively a turtle wearing a feathered musketeer-style hat and a sheepdog dressed in a scarf and smaller plumed hat. Together, they fight evildoers and save the day, though normally after weathering a fair number of daunting complications featuring many Amusing Injuries. The intrepid turtle's catchphrase of "Touché away!" is routinely heard whenever he charges into battle.
Touché's vocal actor was Bill Thompson, using the same voice he employed for Droopy. His not-too-bright sidekick Dum Dum was voiced by Alan Reed, best known for playing Fred Flintstone. They appeared as the second segment on The Wally Gator Show (billed in trade publications as The New Hanna-Barbera Cartoon Series).
Touché away! This series provides examples of:
- Accent Adaptation: Touché has a French accent in the Spanish dub.
- Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Dum Dum wears a scarf and plumed hat, but no other clothing. Touché wears even less — a feathered musketeer-style hat and nothing else.
- Affectionate Parody:
- The show takes the swaggering romanticized swordsman genre, typified by works such as The Three Musketeers and Zorro, and plays it for laughs.
- "Loser Take All" spoofs the Aesop fable The Tortoise and the Hare, with Touché taking the former role.
- "Romeo, Touché, and Juliet" parodies the famous William Shakespeare play, in part by updating it to a 20th century setting and adding 60s slang.
- "Aladdin's Lampoon" is a take-off on the Arabian Night's tale Aladdin.
- "Like Wild, Man" plays the classic novel Robinson Crusoe for laughs, featuring a wild Man Friday and lots of updated 60s lingo.
- Alliterative Name: Touché Turtle and Dum Dum.
- Amusing Injuries: Touché and Dum Dum often suffer plenty of Slapstick abuse before eventually saving the day.
- Ancient Rome: "Et Tu, Touché" sees the two critter superheroes brought back in time to the days of the Roman Empire to help a badly besieged emperor.
- Berserk Button: One of the few things that spurs Dum-Dum into action is if anybody beats up on Touché. “Catch As Cat Can” features him punching the trouble-making feline of the episode for injuring the turtle, and “Haunting License” features him beating up the villain (albeit off-screen) for chasing Touché around with a remote control sword.
- Big Guy, Little Guy: Dum Dum is at least a full head taller than Touché.
- Bumbling Sidekick: Dum Dum has his heart in the right place, but he's not the sharpest tool in the shed.
- Cats Are Mean: "Dog Daze," "Catch as Cat Can," and "Kat-Napped" feature trouble-making felines who respectively cause problems for a dog, a mouse, and a canary, necessitating the turtle and sheepdog's intervention.
- Character Catchphrase: When the heroic turtle charges into battle, he shouts "Touché away!"
- Chaste Toons: The episode "Hero on the Half Shell" sees Touché's nephew Teeny Turtle come for a visit. Naturally, he wants to be a swashbuckling hero like his uncle and tries to help him capture an escaped convict.
- Costume Copycat: Bank robber Shorty Shozzola impersonates Touché in "Takes Two to Tangle," forcing the intrepid turtle to clear his name.
- Digital Destruction: When the series reran on Boomerang, the episodes had severe film damages as a result due to being maintained poorly. As a result, Touché Turtle and Dum Dum does not have a complete series DVD, unlike Wally Gator and Lippy the Lion and Hardy Har Har.
- Dragons Are Demonic:
- Or in this case more mischievous than outright evil. "Dragon Along" sees the two swashbucklers hired to get rid of the title character, who is bothering the resident king with his fire-breathing behavior.
- "Dragon Feat" sees Touché and his sidekick struggling to bring a reluctant dragon to a young prince's birthday party.
- Dub Name Change: In the Spanish dub, Touché is renamed to D'Artagnan after the companion of the Three Musketeers.
- Fractured Fairy Tale:
- "Red Riding Hoodlum" finds Touché and Dum Dum pressed into service to help out Little Red Riding Hood.
- The poem "The Old Lady Who Lived in a Shoe" and the story Jack and the Beanstalk get mashed up together in the episode "The Shoe Must Go On."
- Funny Animal: The two characters possess few characteristics of animals and behave a lot like humans. They walk bipedally, talk to humans in English, are accessory-wearing cartoon animals, and use human tools such as swords.
- Gentleman Adventurer: Neither Touché nor his sidekick appear to be gainfully employed, seemingly having all the time in the world to engage in swashbuckling derring-do.
- Haunted House:
- A madcap ghost is on the loose at Murkey Manor in the episode "Roll-A-Ghoster," and the two plume-hatted heroes are tasked to get rid of him.
- Subverted in "Haunting License," where a ghost that is supposedly haunting a castle turns out to be a realtor setting up a ruse to get the inheriting party to sell the property. Touché and Dum Dum help expose the miscreant.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: Touché and Dum Dum form a consistent buddy pair and appear not to have any romantic connection.
- Hypno Fool: Evil hypnotist Hypno-Harry puts Touché and Dum Dum in a trance and forces them to be his partners in crime in "Save the Last Trance for Me." They target the Brooklyn Bridge and Empire State Building for theft!
- Incompetence, Inc.: In "Ant and Rave," The Ajax Exterminator Company is seemingly unable to keep their company picnic from being overrun by ants, so they're forced to bring in Touché and Dum Dum to save their outing.
- Kinda Busy Here: A Running Gag in these episodes showed Touché being interrupted mid-battle by a ringing telephone located inside his shell. He invariably stops what he's doing, pulls his head and arms inside his shell, and takes the call.
- Man-Eating Plant: Touché and his pal are summoned to vanquish a giant carnivorous plant that escapes from a science laboratory in "Dilly of a Lilly."
- Moby Schtick: In "Whale of a Tale," Captain Ahab calls on the heroic turtle and sheepdog to try and help him capture Moby Dick.
- Mosquito Miscreants: A giant mutant mosquito created by a Mad Scientist escapes and causes no end of trouble in "The Big Bite," necessitating intervention by Touché and Dum Dum.
- Multiple Head Case: The plucky turtle and his assistant battle a two-headed giant in the episode "Giant Double-Header."
- Name and Name: The segment title consists of the two characters’ names with “and” in the middle.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: In “Haunting License”, the main villain of the episode is gleefully chasing Touché around with a remote sword while gleefully explaining his master plan. Dum Dum, who’d gotten lost while looking for Touché, hears this, gets mad and beats up the criminal off screen. We do get to see him turn off the machine that controlled the sword…and we get to see Touché take the credit.
- Ring Around the Collar: Like most Hanna-Barbera characters from this time, Dum Dum wears an accessory around his neck (a scarf in this case) to facilitate animation shortcuts. Touché is a rare example lacking this — but his shell serves the same purpose.
- Savage Wolves: A sheep-stealing wolf threatens a Western rancher's flock in "Sheepy-Time Pal," forcing him to call in the intrepid turtle and sheepdog for help.
- Sea Serpents: Or in this case the fresh-water variety. The episode "Lake Serpent" shows our swashbuckling duo tangling with a huge lake-dwelling reptile that shares traits with the Loch Ness Monster.
- Swashbuckler: This show is an Affectionate Parody of the swaggering romanticized swordsman genre typified by works such as The Three Musketeers and Zorro, Played for Laughs.
- Signature Headgear: Touché wears a large and elaborate plumed musketeer-style hat, while Dum Dum sports a smaller, if only slightly less distinctive piece of feathered headgear.
- Temporary Substitute: Touché and Dum Dum get called in to cover for Robin Hood in "Robin Hoodlum" and the Masked Avenger in "Duel Control."
- Three Shorts: As part of The Wally Gator Show triumvirate, Touché and Dum Dum’s shorts were traditionally aired second.
- Universal-Adaptor Cast: Touché and Dum Dum's adventures could — and did — occur in any time or setting. They sometimes were set in The Cavalier Years, but not always. Some took place in The Wild West, the Middle Ages, or the then-current-day 1960s.
- The Wild West:
- In "Billy the Cad," Touché and Dum Dum are summoned to capture the title Old West gunslinger.
- Western baddie Loco Weed Willie vows to get revenge on the swashbuckling turtle and sheepdog once he gets out of jail in "High Goon."
- In "Touché's Last Stand," General George Custard enlists help from the two heroes when he finds himself surrounded by hostile savages.
