The Roman Holidays

The Roman Holidays is a Hanna-Barbera animated television series that was broadcast in 1972 on NBC. It ran for 13 episodes before being cancelled, and reruns were later shown on the USA Cartoon Express during the 1980s.

Plot
Very similar in theme to both The Flintstones and The Jetsons, The Roman Holidays brought a look at "modern-day" life in Ancient Rome, around 63 AD (with a 1970s touch), as seen through the eyes of Augustus "Gus" Holiday and his family. The opening showed a chariot traffic jam and a TV showing football on Channel "IV" (NBC was seen on TV Channel 4 in cities like New York, Los Angeles, San Antonio and Boston). An Ancient Roman setting was actually one of the ideas that Hanna-Barbera considered as they were working to create The Flintstones.

Gus, his wife Laurie, their daughter Precocia (who, besides being the youngest of the family, is very intellectual) and their teen-aged son Happius,(nicknamed "Hap") reside in the Venus de Milo Arms run by their landlord Mr. Evictus, who excites Gus's tagline "Evictus will evict us!". Gus works for a bossy supervisor named Mr. Tycoonius at the Forum Construction Company, and after a hard day's marble lifting, he was greeted by the Holidays' pet, a lion named Brutus (who sounded a bit like Snagglepuss). Rounding out the cast is Hap's girlfriend, Groovia.

Like many Hanna-Barbera series produced in the 1970s, the show was fitted with an inferior laugh track.

Cast

 * Daws Butler - Brutus the Lion
 * Dom DeLuise - Mr. Evictus
 * Pamelyn Ferdin - Precocia Holiday
 * Stanley Livingston - Happius Holiday
 * Shirley Mitchell - Laurie Holiday
 * Harold Peary - Herman (Groovia's father)
 * Hal Smith - Mr. Tycoonius
 * John Stephenson -
 * Judy Strangis - Groovia (Happius' girlfriend)
 * Janet Waldo - Henrietta (Groovia's mother)
 * Dave Willock - Gus Holiday

The Roman Holidays in other languages

 * Brazilian Portuguese: Os Mussarelas ("The Mozzarellas")
 * Galician: Festas de Roma ("Roma´s Parties")
 * German: Die verrückten Holidays ("The Crazy Holidays")
 * Spanish: Roma me da risa ("Rome makes me laugh")
 * Italian: S.P.Q.R. - Sembrano Proprio Quasi Romani ("They really seem almost Roman")

Comics
Gold Key produced a comic book based on the series from November 1972 to August 1973. Only four issues were published. Pete Alvarado drew the first three; Jack Manning drew the final issue.

Home video release
The first episode, "Double Date", is available on the DVD Saturday Morning Cartoons: 1970s Volume 1.

On April 23, 2013, Warner Archive released The Roman Holidays: The Complete Series on DVD in region 1 as part of their Hanna–Barbera Classics Collection. This is a manufacture-on-demand (MOD) release, available exclusively through Warner's online store and Amazon.com.