Picture Scooby-Doo and the gang, but replace Shaggy with Mike Tyson, and Scooby with an alcoholic pigeon. That's basically the premise of Adult Swim's new animated series, Hanna-Barbera-style cartoon,Mike Tyson Mysteries (Monday, 10:30 p.m. ET/PT), a nod to the Hanna-Barbera cartoon.
"We took over the whole Scooby-Doo façade, but Scooby-Doo's crew's not it in," Tyson explains. Mike Tyson at San Diego Comic-Con in July. The former heavyweight champion of the world, ex-convict, stage star and now, TV actor, lends his voice to his the animated character of his likeness.
Joining Tyson in the fact-finding Mike Tyson Mysteries Mystery Mobile (a riff on Scooby's as opposed to the Mystery Machine), are Tyson's adopted Korean daughter Yung Hee, voiced by Rachel Ramras; the foul-mouthed Pigeon, who's inspired by Tyson's love of the bird ("I have around 2,500 pigeons. They're pedigree birds," he says) and voiced by comedian Norm MacDonald; and Marquess of Queensbury, an 18th-century ghost with the voice of Community's Jim Rash. The crew follows Tyson's lead in solving cases sent via carrier pigeon, such as like the mystery of how a Pulitzer Prize-winning author should end his new book. (Spoiler: The author turns out to be a centaur without writer's block, as predicted by Tyson.)
"That type of style of mystery-solving cartoons is something that I grew up on. (Mysteries) sort of takes that and runs with it," says Rash, who agreed to take part in the "funny and smart and awkward and weird" show after learning his former Groundlings cast-mates, Ramras and producer Hugh Davidson, and actor Ramras, were involved.
"Why would I not want to work with friends, and Mike Tyson? I was pretty on board from the beginning," he says.
As for Tyson, he signed on , because "I didn't have nothing better to do," he admits. Now, he's excited to be the star, if only albeit animated, of the show. He smiles wide while showing off his Mike Tyson Mysteries action figure.
"Just to think that I'm selling kid products right now, I'm truly grateful to God … This is almost like a dream come true."
(Adult Swim Oct. 27; 10:30 p.m. ET/PT)
