Dread Baron is a character in Laff-a-Lympics. He was voiced by John Stephenson. Dread Baron was created because Hanna-Barbera staff weren't sure they could actually use Dick Dastardly and Muttley again. It later turned out they could have, but by that point the show was in full production.
About Dread Baron[]
He is Dick Dastardly's brother. He and Mumbly led the Really Rottens team.
Like his brother, the Baron's schemes to cheat and win much more often than not blew up in his face. A true villain, he once was disgusted to learn that his team had won an episode's events fair and square.
With the rights to Dick Dastardly's character resolved, the Baron's appearances since Laff-a-Lympics have been few and far between. In fact, very few of the Rottens were actual pre-existing HB villains, most being pastiches of the kinds of villains seen in classic cartoons. For example, the Great Fondoo was allegedly based on Abner K. Dabra, an evil magician in Yogi Bear and the Cranky Magician, a 1963 Yogi Bear storybook. In an authorized comic book published by Marvel Comics, it was explained that the Baron and Dastardly were in fact brothers, although to date this has never been depicted in fiction.
Later Appearances[]
The Dread Baron and Mumbly reappeared in Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose in 1987, with Paul Winchell voicing him using the same voice as for Dick Dastardly. For all intents and purposes, the Dread Baron was standing in for Dastardly in everything but name.
He appears in season 2 of Jellystone!
Trivia[]
- In a dark parody on Robot Chicken of the feature film Munich, which depicted the killing of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games and the vengeance that followed by Israeli commandos, the Dread Baron led the other Rottens on a slaughter of members of the Yogi Yahooeys, which led the Scooby Doobies to plot brutal revenge through traps and ambushes. In this appearance, the Dread Baron questions his own existence, wondering why he exists and why they didn't simply get Dick Dastardly.