tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403931334822730200.post8272965939243176337..comments2024-03-28T21:16:57.556-07:00Comments on Yowp: The Underrated Don MessickYowphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09264605351878574044noreply@blogger.comBlogger16125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403931334822730200.post-68124472157138700132021-11-10T16:54:17.178-08:002021-11-10T16:54:17.178-08:00I met Don in the early 1980s when I lived in Santa...I met Don in the early 1980s when I lived in Santa Barbara. Super nice guy. He invited me to hang out and see his home studio. May God rest his soul. JKJKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10495351941464774880noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403931334822730200.post-82371009936316875342009-09-30T21:43:35.938-07:002009-09-30T21:43:35.938-07:00I love Don Messick! I was lucky enough to met him ...I love Don Messick! I was lucky enough to met him back in the mid 90s at the Cartoon Network.<br /><br />His Boo Boo and Ranger were full of great nuances and irony. A real top-tier cartoon actor.JohnKhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14033480276168015590noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403931334822730200.post-60853508394247864092009-09-18T18:51:04.044-07:002009-09-18T18:51:04.044-07:00Howard, I was watching Be My Guest, Pest again thi...Howard, I was watching Be My Guest, Pest again this morning. Don uses a generic voice for the cop/ranger, his Wimple voice for Newton, but spends most of the cartoon doing Lulubelle in falsetto. He's doing a scream in a couple of spots. If anyone thinks that's easy, they should try to duplicate it, especially at the pace he's going.Yowphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09264605351878574044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403931334822730200.post-71052718091706135152009-09-18T11:27:37.577-07:002009-09-18T11:27:37.577-07:00Messick's 'wavering alien' voice Errol...Messick's 'wavering alien' voice Errol refers to was also used for the leader of the ten Fred Flintstone clones ("Yobba-Dobba-Doo!") in that well-remembered episode. <br /><br />One need only view a typical episode of 1969's DASTARDLY & MUTTLEY to recognize Messick's tremendous versatility. As one of only two voice actors in the show- Paul Winchell being the other- he created distinctively different voices for Muttley (venerable snicker along with mangled "Sanna-frassa-rassin'" cussing), Zilly, and Klunk. <br /><br />The latter's random gutteral sounds- could it have been Tourette's?- was a real tour de force. Messick would often insert the appropriate sound effect into Klunk's dialogue: if the pigeon was mentioned, it was punctuated by cooing; "Here comes the tar" was punctuated by a 'glub-glub'. Occasionally Messick would slip a Ricochet Rabbit "Ping-ping-pinnng" or Hopperoo "Hawmp!" into the mix. But his creativity shone through.<br /><br />And don't forget that during the 1969-70 production season Messick also did voices for several members of the Anthill Mob; Hoppy and Smirky in the "Around The World in 79 Days" segments of CATTANOOGA CATS and incidentals in the other CATS segments. Oh yes, and some Great Dane who shared Astro's gift for 'Doglish'.Howard Feinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403931334822730200.post-11811109626044565122009-09-17T07:55:50.769-07:002009-09-17T07:55:50.769-07:00Yowp. You are right. " Sublime Ghost " w...Yowp. You are right. " Sublime Ghost " was the main cue, and Carlin has re-named Phillip Green's flute flutter cue, " Excited Tension ". That particular cue was played over and over again in " Lassie's Great Adventure ".Errolnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403931334822730200.post-1471121400213855752009-09-17T02:52:35.828-07:002009-09-17T02:52:35.828-07:00Tony, I was actually going to do that cartoon this...Tony, I was actually going to do that cartoon this weekend because I love the ersatz late-50s car designs. But of the two spot-gag/narration Yogis that come to mind, <i>The Stout Trout</i> has better gags.<br />Personally, I think it's a great format, but it was abandoned quickly for a more standard narrative. And Foster tightened things further when he tossed Ranger Smith in every cartoon as opposed to the generic rangers Charlie Shows used. That almost dictated the general nature of the series for eternity.Yowphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09264605351878574044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403931334822730200.post-55362890833107295922009-09-17T02:48:10.295-07:002009-09-17T02:48:10.295-07:00Errol, it was Space Bear. There are a couple of di...Errol, it was <i>Space Bear</i>. There are a couple of different cues in there. The portion where he's showing Yogi on the screen sounds more like Phil Green (flutes), but when the alien Yogi (holding the head) wanders in, that's TC-22 Sublime Ghost by Loose and Seely.Yowphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09264605351878574044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403931334822730200.post-17486497358533206902009-09-16T10:43:51.911-07:002009-09-16T10:43:51.911-07:00There may be no better example (at least from 1958...There may be no better example (at least from 1958) of Don carrying a film than "Baffled Bear." This cheap but otherwise atypical Yogi episode is worth talking about in several ways as an early H-B answer to America's highway-happy(?) culture ... presented as a child's storybook on film, it relies heavily on its narrator and wins thanks in large part to Don's voice.Tonyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17446855706531749726noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403931334822730200.post-36280539096863112762009-09-16T10:11:24.082-07:002009-09-16T10:11:24.082-07:00Yowp, Was it " Ace Of Space " where the ...Yowp, Was it " Ace Of Space " where the aliens go to Jellystone, take pictures of Yogi and think all " Earthlings " act and look like that? I love the voice he did as the head alien talked to his troops on infiltrating the earth while the great William Loose cue plays in the background, " Get lost in the crowwddd, get all the informatiiioonnnn..youuu cannnn ". That was the tongue in the back of his mouth, doing the " jaw flap ". I think he recycled that voice as " Rudy " in " The Jetsons " later on. And the drunk Uniblab?...Priceless.Errolnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403931334822730200.post-31568729454912083652009-09-16T05:05:19.150-07:002009-09-16T05:05:19.150-07:00Major, didn't you shoot me in the Mato Grosso?...Major, didn't you shoot me in the Mato Grosso? Or was it in the left clavicle? Oh, wait, that was Snagglepuss.<br /><br />I love Don as the drunk Uniblab. They'd never let you make a cartoon like that today because some do-gooder would screech about making fun of alcoholism. Or <br />"teaching" kids about gambling because of the game of Planet Poker. Sheesh. <br /><br />I've never seen <i>The Smurfs</i>; once I got into high school I pretty well stopped watching Saturday cartoons, so I left it to the newspaper story to make the reference.Yowphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09264605351878574044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403931334822730200.post-91924679212889023332009-09-15T20:39:08.795-07:002009-09-15T20:39:08.795-07:00Messick was great but you didn't mention what ...Messick was great but you didn't mention what was probably his best known role after Scooby. He was Papa Smurf. I also loved him as Uniblab on Jetsons.Major Minornoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403931334822730200.post-7316287769236924362009-09-15T06:51:25.593-07:002009-09-15T06:51:25.593-07:00Erroll, here's my comment, while Don Messick w...Erroll, here's my comment, while Don Messick was unqiue and was use din many cartoons I don't think the performances would have been worth it to hear thse [On Where Huddles, at least one very prominent cartoon producer with own very popular blog used Where's Huddles as an example of how bad the cartoons had gone], and the shows got worse, but Messick was still pretty good, een as [hestistaiton sets here], as Scooby, but Astro wored better with it. <br /><br />Anyway, he was great at both dramatic and comedy roles.<br /><br />MoMiz & Yowp, Capitol was more like four or five different produciton libraries, and apparently still partly controls tyhe pre-1960 music, and apparerently as ASCAP and BMI showed some of their music was used by Art Clokey in his clay-animated producitons, but Ywop you'e dead and spot [Dog-spot?] on, there isn't any of the Ole Georg music to be heard in cartoons generally. I've heard Ole Georg sitll is a watchdog, as an anonymous fellow told me, for those cues.<br /><br />By the way True story. Ole Georg's firm is these days since the 1970s called Media Music. Well, in 2005, when I got that 1990s Pic-a-nic Basket set in the mail, guess what company's LISTED? On the parcel, that is. Oh, Media Music, even though around the time [mid 1990s] they'd stoped releasing that music, due to the lega issues [and it is why Ren and Stimpy, the last major series to regularly use it, was pulled, as well as Nickelodeon's other problems with that show]. So I wonder how Ole's company's name is listed as having sent something that they didn't own since it was releassed..<br /><br />Now, as for the libraries, Capitol started out as the record company's library distributor or something with a HUGE association with MuTel [that's Music For Television to the long-form inclined here.Animation historian and producer Ray Pointer's referred to a Music for Films Inc. which seems to be the same thing and there may have been a Music for Radio as well]. Structural Music, controlled by "My Little Margie" theme composer [the theme itself being an old cue] Alexander Laszlo, and who wrote all its material, was another early library, and ASCAP [or BMI, I forget which's].com's got Mr.Laszlo listed for contributing his material to the HB cartoons as well.Also Sam Fox and Valentino, two of the OLDEST going back to the early film industry era!! <br /><br />It's difficult to exactly determine the number of libaries used in television in gneeral.<br /><br /><a rel="nofollow">Your Pony Pal, Pokey, Too</a>Pokeyhttp://sjcarrasblog.blogspot.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403931334822730200.post-1793591767602854982009-09-15T02:53:21.892-07:002009-09-15T02:53:21.892-07:00MoMiz, the closest you're going to get is the ...MoMiz, the closest you're going to get is the Rhino Records 'Pic-a-nic' basket set. It has nine of the Phil Green underscores from Capitol; the rest are themes and underscores written by Hoyt Curtin, whose incidental music replaced Capitol's stuff starting in 1961. Not all his work is there, nor are all HB shows represented (like a number of the dramatic shows of the mid-60s) but it's a good and lovingly-prepared sampling.<br /><br />Hi-Q is almost like two different production libraries. There's the stuff Bill Loose and his boss John Seely licensed or wrote. Loose left Capitol in 1964 and was replaced by Ole Georg who, mainly with Ib Glindemann, wrote a bunch of additional material. Their cues are still available through Ole Georg Music but were never used in cartoons. The pre-Georg stuff is no longer Capitol's; the rights have gone back to the heirs or estates of the original composers, making a compilation disc almost impossible to assemble. The cost of using this music is part of the reason a Quick Draw McGraw DVD has never been released.<br /><br />On top of that, the HB cartoons used at least one other library, Langlois Filmusic, which is where all the Jack Shaindlin music came from (Capitol distributed the library). The rights to most, if not all, of those songs are now vested in Cinemusic, which started releasing production music in 1965. I'd like to hear privately from anyone who has access to the original set of LPs Cinemusic put out that year.Yowphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09264605351878574044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403931334822730200.post-8970209855505749962009-09-15T02:51:34.500-07:002009-09-15T02:51:34.500-07:00Errol, probably the best comment on Don's tale...Errol, probably the best comment on Don's talent is he wasn't put out to pasture when the mid-60s dramatic cartoons (<i>Herculoids, Space Ghost</i>, et al) replaced comedy, like Daws Butler was. You know too well doing characters and straight reads are almost two different talents (ask Bill Conrad!) but Don was more than capable of both. <br /><br />I read something years ago where Don described how he made that wavy tongue-in-the-throat noise on <i>The Herculoids</i> and even before that in late 50s when he did aliens. He explained where in the throat the voice came from and he had been doing it since he was young.Yowphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09264605351878574044noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403931334822730200.post-67266269283574035822009-09-14T13:14:58.425-07:002009-09-14T13:14:58.425-07:00thanks for these great posts yowp keep up the good...thanks for these great posts yowp keep up the good werk, i,m interested in knowing where i can find the hi q production albums filled with all these amazing cartoon jazz tracks any information would be a huge help. i also would like to kno if there are any compilations out there that have the so rare and hard to find background music to the 1967 fantastic four cartoon or the 66 space ghost , herculoids , galaxy trio etc... any leads would be highly appreciated , oh and thnx again for putting together such a kick ass cartoon blog these masterpieces will live on foreverAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5403931334822730200.post-29293919154671687922009-09-14T09:51:16.497-07:002009-09-14T09:51:16.497-07:00Thanks Yowp. Don was the greatest. No matter the q...Thanks Yowp. Don was the greatest. No matter the quality of the Hanna-Barbera production, he added his own great characterizations, and the man was IN EVERYTHING. From " Ruff N Reddy " to practically the very end of his life, you can pick out his voice in tons of animated productions. You're right..it wasn't just Boo Boo or Scooby. It was the forgotten things like " The Three Musketeers " feature in the " Banana Splits ". In 1984, he played voice-man Wally Wooster in the very short lived " Duck Factory " with the then unknown Jim Carey, was a P.A. announcer in " I'm gonna get you, sucka ", remember the 1970 summer primetime cartoon " Where's Huddles ?". He was " Fumble " opposite Mel Blanc and Alan Reed. One of the " Rice Krispies ".I'll date myself by saying I remember them all. To me, he is right up there with Mel, Daws, Paul Frees, June Foray, and a list I don't have time to mention.Errolnoreply@blogger.com