Monday 13 December 2010

Check Your Local Listings, Part Two

There have been several sources of continual frustration to me in trying to do this blog. Almost all of the cartoons on The Quick Draw Show and after the first season of The Huckleberry Hound Show are not on DVD and likely will never be released. The versions that people have recorded off TV are defaced with an ad for the channel on which they were broadcast. Many are completely lacking in credits. And on-line “episode guides” giving credits, air dates, and so on are untrustworthy due to errors. I can’t do a whole lot about most of this, but I can do something about part of the last item.

Elsewhere on the blog, I posted a Huckleberry Hound episode guide to season two. I’m now able to do the same thing for the first season of the Quick Draw show, thanks to a couple of sources and some educated guesswork.

The on-line database at the U.S. Copyright Office has a list of all 45 Quick Draw shows with the titles of the cartoons in each show. Hanna-Barbera Productions copyrighted them in the order they were broadcast. At least, that’s my conclusion comparing them to what I’ve found in about ten different newspapers, which give plots of names of cartoons. They’re a perfect match. So, for the shows where the newspapers don’t list any cartoons, I’m substituting the ones from the copyright lists for the appropriate week. It’s elementary school, my dear Blabbson.

The Copyright Office also gives the production number for the individual cartoons, except for five of the first season shows. I’ve compared them to a couple of storyboards I’ve seen on-line and they match, too.

What’s interesting about the production numbers is that it appears that the Augie cartoons were started much later than the Quick Draw and Snooper cartoons. They’re not among the first eleven (J-6 is missing but I suspect it’s ‘Real Gone Ghosts’ as Elliot Field is in it and he provided voices only for the first few cartoons on the show). That’s presuming there was a gap between the start of J-1 and J-16, which seems to have been the first Augie. I can’t explain the reason there would be a time lag; Bob Givens laid out the first Augies and he said he arrived with Mike Maltese, who worked on the first Quick Draws and Snoopers.

Unlike the Huck show, which interspersed reruns with new episodes, even in the first season, the first 26 Quick Draw half-hours were run consecutively, then repeated consecutively for a total of 52 weeks.

I’ve mentioned before that Quick Draw, being syndicated, ran on different days of the week in different cities. But he was broadcast on Mondays in some, so the episode guide you see below gives a Monday as the date.

Reader Mark Yurkiw has e-mailed to say his recollection is the cartoons rotated from week to week, so Quick Draw would start one week, Snooper the next and Augie the next. The copyright catalogue lists the episodes this way, too. So, below, is the Quick Draw McGraw episode guide for season one, with the ‘J’ being the production number assigned to the cartoon.


DateNo.Cartoon 1Cartoon 2Cartoon 3
Sep. 28/59
Mar. 28/60
M-001Baby Rattled (J-14)Million Dollar Robbery (J-31)Lamb Chopped (J-11)
Oct. 5/59
Apr. 4/60
M-002Bad Guy’s Disguise (J-4)Puss and Booty (J-2)High and Flighty (J-22)
Oct. 12/59
Apr. 11/60
M-003Nag Nag Nag (J-23)Masking For Trouble (J-10)Switch Witch (J-3)
Oct. 19/59
Apr. 18/60
M-004Fee Fi Fo Fumble (J-24)Watch Dog Augie (J-17)Bow-Wow Bandit (J-30)
Oct. 26/59
Apr. 25/60
M-005Scat, Scout, Scat (J-5)Disappearing, Inc. (J-13)Big Top Pop (J-29)
Nov. 2/59
May 2/60
M-006In the Picnic of Time (J-19)Scary Prairie (J-1)Desperate Diamond Dimwits (J-7)
Nov. 9/59
May 9/60
M-007Slippery Glass Slipper (J-27)Talk it Up Pup (J-39)El Kabong (J-43)
Nov. 16/59
May 16/60
M-008Choo-Choo Chumps (J-9)Big Diaper Caper (J-8)Good Mouse Keeping (J-40)
Nov. 23/59
May 23/60
M-009Foxhound Hounded Fox (J-16)Riverboat Shuffled (J-20)Masquerader Raider (J-33)
Nov. 30/59
May 30/60
M-010Real Gone GhostsSkunk You Very MuchCattle Battle Rattled
Dec. 7/60
June 6/60
M-011Double Barrel DoubleFlea and MeTee Vee or Not Tee Vee
Dec. 14/59 June 13/60M-012Pop’s Nature PupCity SlickerNot So Dummy
Dec. 21/59
June 20/60
M-013Motor Knows BestWhatever Goes PupEl Kabong Strikes Again (J-50)
Dec. 28/59
June 27/60
M-014Six Gun SpookCloudy RowdyPup Plays Pop
Jan. 4/60
July 4/60
M-015Cat Happy Pappy (J-47)Sagebrush Brush (J-25)Adventure is My Hobby (J-51)
Jan. 11/60
July 4/60
M-016Gopher Goofers (J-45)Pipsqueak Pop (J-53)Gun Gone Goons (J-49)
Jan. 18/60
July 18/60
M-017Dizzy Desperado (J-21)Monkey Wrenched (J-44)Fan Clubbed (J-54)
Jan. 25/60
July 25/60
M-018Gone to the Ducks (J-59)Doggone Prairie Dog (J-42)Impossible Imposters (J-46)
Feb. 1/60
Aug. 1/60
M-019Snap Happy Saps (J-57)Ro-Butler (J-48)Treasure of El Kabong (J-55)
Feb. 8/60
Aug. 8/60
M-020Bronco Bustin’ Boobs (J-60)The Case of the Purloined Parrot (J-69)Mars Little Precious (J-63)
Feb. 15/60
Aug. 15/60
M-021Crow Cronies (J-58)Locomotive Loco (J-56)The Lion is Busy (J-62)
Feb. 22/60
Aug. 22/60
M-022Doggone Dog Gone (J-73)Swat’s the Matter (J-64)Elephant Boy Oh Boy (J-66)
Feb. 29/60
Aug. 29/60
M-023The Lyin’ Lion (J-61)Laughing Guess (J-67)Fuss an’ Feathers (J-77)
Mar. 7/60
Sep. 5/60
M-024Peck o’ Trouble (J-76)Bull Leave Me (J-71)Poodle-Toodle-oo! (J-78)
Mar. 14/60
Sep. 12/60
M-025Hula Hula Hulabaloo (J-74)Hum Sweet Hum (J-70)Kabong Kabong’s Kabong (J-72)
Mar. 21/60
Sep. 19/60
M-026Chopping Spree (J-65)Wild Man Wild! (J-75)Snagglepuss (J-68)


Now, if only a corporation would spend the money for the rights to use the stock music in these cartoons, people could actually watch and enjoy them once again.

9 comments:

  1. I remember you posted a season 2 episode guides from the Huckleberry Hound Show. And this is a real inspiring source of informations who seems lost by years of online misinformations. The Quick Draw McGraw episodes from the original series is in the same order than in the Canadian episode order who ran only the Quick Draw cartoons. I'm glad that this mystery is solved. Hope for the season 2 and 3!

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  2. Great post. A BIG Amen to your final sentence. Not releasing anymore seasons on dvd, or worse ...re-scoring these classics because certain film studios won't put up the money for the original music rights is a travesty.

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  3. VERY cool! Can you send me to your post about Huck's show? I can't seem to find it. :-)

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  4. I can't send anything to someone who's anonymous. However I've now fixed a broken link to it in the post.

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  5. Strange that the segments would be juggled this way week by week in the show's original airing. You'd expect the first cartoon in the half-hour to be the one with the character the show is named for followed by the two supporting segments. Most H-B shows made during the 60s that had separate segments- and those from other studios as well- adhered to this practice.

    When CBS reran THE QUICK DRAW McGRAW SHOW on its Saturday AM schedule in the mid-60s, the order was always Quick Draw, then the Doggies, then Snooper & Blabber. Of course, after that all of the 1958-61 TV shorts were generally mixed together in various syndicated packages named for Yogi or Huck- or, hosted by a live local personality.

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  6. It's interesting to see the disparity between the production order of a cartoon series and the actual release order. More often than not, the first episode made is not the first one aired. It's fairly easy to identify a premiere, or 'pilot' episode of a cartoon based on expository dialogue or the voices not quite being 'right' yet.

    It's ironic that the first Snooper & Blabber aired, "Baby Rattled", while not officially their 'pilot' (that seems to be "Puss 'n Booty"), does seem very different than most of their subsequent episodes. The trademark Phil Green cues are largely absent; instead, we hear mostly beds from the HUCKLEBERRY HOUND SHOW. This was also the case for "Switch Witch", which was a bit heavier on the normal S&B cues.

    Likewise, it's odd that the first Quick Draw episode aired, "Lamb Chopped", was more of a spinoff showcase for a certain garrulous mountain lion.

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  7. Thanks, Yowp. That's what I meant -- a link to your story. Great info! Thanks again. :-)

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  8. Replies
    1. I am unable to confirm which episodes ran when for anything after the first season.

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