Mild-mannered
Henry Cabot Henhaus III is the world's richest
chicken and an
amateur scientist to boot. When he drinks the
Secret Sauce he
invented he turns into Superchicken. With his faithful
butler Fred he goes on around solving mysteries. The
catchphrase is "
You knew the job was dangerous when you took it, Fred".
He is clad in a sweeping purple hat and cloak, and a black mask. Fred is a lion who wears a red sweater with the letter F on it (backwards, I think).
Cartoon created by Jay Ward and Bill Scott, 17 episodes of six minutes each aired from 1967 to 1968 as part of George of the Jungle. (This also featured Tom Slick, racer.)
Jay Ward productions also created Rocky and Bullwinkle, Fractured Flickers, Fractured Fairy Tales, and Dudley Do-Right. Bill Scott did the voices of Superchicken, Bullwinkle, Dudley, and Mr Peabody. Paul Frees played Fred.
There were two pilots made long before the series eventually happened. One in 1960 had Don Knotts as the hero, then called Nelson G. Cluckefeller, and one in 1965 had him called Hunt Strongbird Jr.
I originally posted this as "Superchicken", then
CaptainSpam drew my attention to the prior existence of this Super Chicken node.
Thank you the Search box division of the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation.
The correct name is definitely Super Chicken. It varies on fan sites (you can download a .wav of "You knew the..."); however, after reexamining them, I trust the unofficial but very authoritative Frostbite Falls website http://home.istar.ca/~culrich/index.html about all things Jay Ward.