Sunday 22 August 2010

Learn to Speak the Huckleberry Way

“Them’s mighty purty words. Mighty purty.” – Huckleberry Hound.

Huckleberry Hound’s command of the vernacular would seem suspect, at first sight, er, sound. You won’t hear it taught in English classes at Oxford, Yale or Pumpkin Center Intermediate in Lincolnton, North Carolina. Huck graduated from the Charlie Shows-Warren Foster Academy, magna cum lousy. But .... hey, Foster would appreciate that really bad old pun .... but someone appreciates the way the happy hound dips his dipthongs.

As odd as it may seem, Huckleberry Hound has been used to teach English in Malaysia. I couldn’t make this up. Check out THIS story from the Malaysian Star.

It’s nice to know Huck’s not forgotten. And he certainly isn’t by the good denizens of friendly little community of Wallace, Idaho. Unfortunately, you’ve just missed this year’s Huckleberry Festival there, as reported HERE by the Shoshone News Press. One of the highlights of the event was the Huck Hound contest. The paper doesn’t reveal what it was about, but we don’t believe dogs were entered in an event to bite the enticing rumps of mailmen. Appropriately, the Huck fest raised money for the food bank in Kellogg, Idaho.

So that’s our Hanna-Barbera news roundup.

But, as a bonus for you putting up with a pun even the Jay Ward studios wouldn’t touch (on second thought, I paraphrased Boris Badenov’s ‘magna cum louse’), I’m going to post something that was in the music widget when the blog first got underway. It’s a 1959 Colpix LP featuring audio tracks from three cartoons from the Huck show of the 1958-59 season—Yogi’s Hide and Go Peek, Pixie and Dixie’s Jinks Junior and Sheriff Huckleberry. Yes, this is the real thing starring Daws Butler and Don Messick, with Huckleberry Hound as our host introducing each little adventure. And you can read the liner notes by clicking on the album back cover.



A minor disappointment is a game-show Wurtlizer has replaced the usual background music, but I suspect the Hi-Q and other assorted libraries couldn’t have been licensed for recordings. Anyway, it’s always a treat to hear Daws and Don in action. Just click on the name of each cut and your computer’s mp3 player should do the rest.


The Missing Eleyphint Pt. 1
The Missing Eleyphint Pt. 2
Ain’t So Easy to Catch a Meecy Pt. 1
Ain’t So Easy to Catch a Meecy Pt. 2
Dinky Dalton and the Showdown at Hoedown Corral

This should be especially useful for our readers in Malaysia. I done reckon. For an old LP, the sound is mighty purty.

2 comments:

  1. Nice post here..and interesting to see another Colpix record...these had some odd music backgrounds, didn't they....those links posted were posted at the start of the blog a year and a half ago.



    Steve

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  2. It isn't a "game-show Wurlitzer." It's a Conn organ - probably a Super Classic, which was Conn's top-of-the-line instrument at the time. Quite a few noted organists recorded on it, including Georgw Wright, Charles Paul, Frank Camarata and a 13-year-old Glenn Derringer. Whoever is playing on this album is a first-class organist. I would love to know who it was - no credit is given anywhere on the record.

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