Apparently this was originally aired as a one-hour special, then trimmed down to the half-hour version seen here for future reruns. One clarification though, this wasn't produced by Jay Ward, but by Fred Calvert (who's other credits include a Muhammad Ali cartoon and the butchered version of The Thief and the Cobbler). Also, look out for names like Fred (Roger Ramjet) Crippen and Walt ("Walt Disney was a shit") Peregoy in the end credits.

I'm surprised this didn't get better production values given the popularity of the source material.