Wednesday 27 May 2015

Huckleberry Hound and Others in Pictures

Let us now climb the creaking old steps to the virtual storage trunk in the Yowp cyber-attic to leisurely sift through fond memories of Hanna-Barbera past. In other words, I stole these images from internet sites and am re-posting them. Somehow, I like the wording of the first sentence better than the second.



We have regular readers who joined the Huck Hound Club way-back-when. Some of you even kept your membership card and managed to prevent your mom from throwing out other stuff that Huck’s headquarters sent to you. This application form for the Huck Club from 1961 came from the back of a Gold Key comic. Look what you got for 15 cents! Decorate your clubhouse! (Can an offer be any more suburban than that?). Offer not available in Canada.



Here’s a full-page ad from Weekly Variety, April 27, 1960. I suspect this is celebrating The Huckleberry Hound Show’s Emmy nomination (it won that June for Outstanding Children’s Program). What’s somewhat amazing is Huck never got a bad review; at least I haven’t been able to find one. The critics loved the show. You can read some of their comments in the ad. Too bad the blue on Huck is faded.



Did Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera conceive of Baywatch long before it aired? Could this be darling Clementine? Whatever the case, the photo is from the collection of cartoonist and Chicago historian Jim Engle. Any origins before that are unclear.



Someone decided to go out on Hallowe’en as Huck or is modelling the latest in bank robber fashion. Is that a ‘54 Pontiac in the car port? I’m guessing this photo is from the later ‘60s, being in colour and all. Someone posted it on Twitter.



Decisions, decision. Should I go with the Oven ready Cornish style roasting chicken for dinner, or the Polish smoked Kielbassi? And what’s the difference between “Cornish” and “Cornish-style?” The fact Huck is holding a box of his sponsor’s product and he’s very much on-model tells me the artwork didn’t come from someone on the staff of the Lorain Journal. This is from 1962. You may pause a moment and sob about the difference in price compared to today.



Another trade ad, this one from Television Age, March 7, 1960. It’s pushing ABC’s fall line-up. We post it because buried in the list of shows is The Flagstones. There aren’t many contemporary references to The Flintstones under its original name, and few ads. This is one of them. I thought I had saved a newspaper story I found with artwork that included a drawing of Fred Junior (no, this was not for a comic book, it was for the series) but I can’t find it amongst my megabytes of files. Grrr.
Boy, ABC sure had some failures in ‘60, didn’t it?



This needs no introduction.



We’ve been posting some of the Flintstones dailies from the Chicago Tribune. Evidently, Fred and Barney were part of the 1960s round of the Great Chicago Newspaper Wars as they appeared in a different paper at one time. This is courtesy of Scott Awley, who was a character designer late in the life of H-B and has a terrific collection of artwork used to pitch some of the studio’s series. The year is unknown. Nice prehistoric mushroom next to Fred.



Here’s an ABC publicity photo for Top Cat, specifically for the episode “Top Cat Falls in Love.” Oh, to have a full collection of stills for the four Hanna-Barbera prime-time shows on the network.



Finally, we save the best to last. It’s a Huckleberry Hound lamp from 1960. Yes, the 10-inch plastic red Huck is a little disconcerting but the best part is, naturally, the lamp shade. Look at the second picture and see who’s on it. Hey, there’s no name next to me like everyone else!

You can click on any of the pictures to enlarge them. We now close the virtual storage trunk and allow it to gather dust until the next visit to the cyber attic.

11 comments:

  1. A "Lifeguard Huck" cartoon probably could have come up with some pretty good material for Warren Foster to work with. Aside from the girl in the bikini, of course....

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  2. JL, there wasn't a bumper featuring Huck at the beach, was there? It sure seems familiar.

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    1. I think there was, though doing a quick Google search, I can't find any online link that shows anyone's posted the video.

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  3. DON MESSICK: (v.o.) "....an integral part of ANY beach......"/*camera pans across sexy girl in bikini*/".......besides the attractive scenery, of course.....is the ever-faithful, ever-vigilant LIFEGUARD!"/*camera pans towards Huck's lifeguard bench......where his vigilance is currently practiced in his dreams, while sleeping.....*/HUCK: (between snores, in a dull monotone) "I'll save you......don't worry......no octopussie is gonna have YOU for lunch......"/DON: (impatient) "Yes, the EVER-VIGILANT lifeguard is constantly on the job!!!"/HUCK: (suddenly aroused from his slumber) "Huh? Aw, SHUCKS! And I was gonna get a big kiss for saving her, too....."/DON MESSICK: "Uh, Mr. Lifeguard?"/HUCK: "Yeah?"/DON: "About HOW well would say this beach is safe?"/HUCK: "Wa-al, I'd say about 97% of it is in peachy-keen shape!"/DON: "What about the other 3%?"/HUCK: (slightly embarrassed) "That was during my lunch break....."

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  4. I "re-cog-ni-size" the lamp shade (though not the lamp itself) from this old Boomerang bumper: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_JtfJI1oS2s. Too bad they had the Yowp side turned away from the camera, ha ha. I usually couldn't care less about station idents, but using old H-B toys for the original Boomerang bumpers was a stroke of pure genius.

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  5. Greg Chenoweth27 May 2015 at 21:56

    Oh yeah, now that you point it out, I do see Huck in that beach picture. Missed him the first thirty or forty times I took a look at it.

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  6. I've seen this Huckleberry Hound lamp in one of the vignettes from the Boomerang channel.

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  7. The following link takes you to a Kellogg’s coloring contest I entered back in 1960. They were giving away 300 complete Bell & Howell movie outfits including an 8mm movie projector, an 8mm movie camera, and all the accessories, but the prize I wanted most were the three complete Huckleberry Hound cartoons. Unfortunately I never heard back from Kellogg’s, so I’m guessing I didn’t win.

    http://www.theimaginaryworld.com/box1085.jpg

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  8. Mike Tiefenbacher31 May 2015 at 00:31

    The Huck lamp figure is a repurposed recast of the mold from the Huck Knickerbocker plastic banks that were available circa '59-'61. They came in two sizes, one a manageable 10" or so, the other about 15", which meant you'd need to have about $30 worth of pennies to fill it up, which would mean most kids couldn't lift it (they'd make great door stops, though). Most of them are red (as are all the ones currently on eBay), since kids couldn't tell what color he was supposed to be on black and white TVs anyway. Yogi, Quick Draw and Baba were also issued in the same format and sizes, and while all the Yogis are in an appropriate brown and the Babas are in orange, the Quick Draws come in both red and blue, for some reason. Some of the smaller ones have painted vests or ties, though most have no paint on the bodies; all the big ones have body paint. (They're often mistaken for Soaky toys, but the plastic on the smaller ones is soft rather than the hard and brittle material used for the soap-filled bottles.) The Boomerang bumpers undoubtedly used the banks, which are very common.

    July 14th was a Sunday in 1963, so is likely when the Trib picked up THE FLINTSTONES strip.

    Finally, the Huck Fan Club ad is from 1961 so it was only on the backs of Dell Comics. Gold Key Comics began in the summer of '62 (cover dated September), and didn't carry back cover ads at all for the first year or so.

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    1. Indeed, there was a Boomerang bumper with Huck banks, though the Hucks they used were all "correct" blue. Here it is: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AwSE6luwLgE. Why were the banks mostly not in the "correct" colors, though? I get that kids would not have known what the propers colors of the characters were anyway, but, regardless, why make them in the wrong colors? After all, color TV technology existed in the late 50's and H-B expected it to eventually become dominant (which is why they produced all of their shows, starting with Ruff and Reddy, in color.)

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