There’s something fascinating about seeing cartoon characters in development before they hit the screen—model sheets, storyboards, conceptual drawings and that sort of thing. Thanks to the web and the old-fashioned printing press, we can get a peek at something more than the finished product in the first Hanna-Barbara cartoons.
A while ago, a site called Comicrazies re-posted a bunch of stuff the Cartoon Network had on its site at one time. Included is this early drawing of Quick Draw McGraw and Baba Looey.
You have now reached the part of the blog where you will shake your head in disgust and mutter “Is he stupid? Can’t he tell?” I am presuming this is an Ed Benedict drawing, though it’s not initialled. The site also has this 1958 model sheet by Dick Bickenbach.
The actual design process at H-B is still a little unclear to me. I don’t know if Bick and Ed worked independently, or if one worked on the other’s designs, or if it varied from series to series.
Even more interesting is some of Ed Benedict’s work featured at Mike Van Eaton’s on-line gallery.
We all know that Snagglepuss appeared as a naked orange mountain lion on several different cartoons before he got his own series and his starched theatrical collar. It isn’t clear whether this drawing was of the original Snag or the series Snag (note the lack of a collar).
Mike’s site also has these great design drawings for Yogi Bear. The final one is the most puzzling.
The last one is supposed to be of Yogi, Boo Boo and Cindy. But by the time Cindy showed up, Yogi had been on the air for two seasons. Why H-B would consider changing the design at that point is a puzzler.
There’s lots of great stuff, some of which found its way into Jerry Beck’s The Hanna-Barbera Treasury, which never surfaced in my local book store (grrrr). Included are storyboard pages, like this:
The story board is the work of Warren Foster for the 1961 cartoon Ice Box Raider. The credits on the H-B cartoons are a little confusing to an outsider like me. Paul Sommer is listed as the story director on that cartoon (Alex Lovy got a “story director” credit on others) but I don’t know what the story director actually did.
The Comicrazy site has some great story panels as well.
This one is for Slick City Slicker. Mike Maltese wrote the story but Dan Gordon was credited with “story sketches” on some of the other series on the Quick Draw show. However, someone over on John Kricfalusi’s website says this board was done by Gene Hazelton who, of course, worked on cartoons with Joe and Bill (and Tex) at MGM. Writer Jeff Lenberg claims Hazelton was at Hanna-Barbera when the studio started in 1957 but I don’t recall seeing him credited anywhere and am at a loss to explain exactly what he was doing there.
Of course, we have far more knowledgeable people reading this blog and I’m sure they can comment and fill us in.
Yowp Note: As an added bonus for you Hazelton fans, here is a newspaper ad from April 1962 featuring the Gas Genie. Hazelton developed the cute character in 1957 for the natural gas industry to be used in newspapers and on billboards. Click to enlarge and see the “©GH”.
Hazelton, according to Billboard of May 20, 1957, was creative supervisor of Grantray-Lawrence, known in the 1960s for the cheesy TV Spiderman cartoons. The same edition notes Lew Marshall had been added to the staff of Animation, Inc., run by Earl Klein. Marshall couldn’t have been there long as he, presumably, was at the newly-formed H-B Enterprises that year.
Wednesday, 30 June 2010
Saturday, 26 June 2010
Yogi Bear — Hoodwinked Bear
Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Credits: Animation – George Nicholas; Layout – Dick Bickenbach; Backgrounds – Art Lozzi; Story – Warren Foster; Story Director - Alex Lovy; Titles – Art Goble; Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Voice cast: Yogi, Wolf – Daws Butler; Narrator, Boo Boo – Don Messick; Red, Granny – Jean Vander Pyl.
Episode: Huckleberry Hound Show K-037, Production E-97.
First Aired: week of November 21, 1959.
Plot: Yogi and Boo Boo get mixed up in the story of Little Red Riding Hood.
Here’s another cartoon where all the elements work really well together. George Nicholas provides us with his usual big-mouthed, floppy-tongue and stunned-eye expressions on Yogi. Art Lozzi plants some bizarre trees in the background. Daws Butler brings back his Bilko voice for another shyster wolf, since Warren Foster’s dialogue fits it perfectly. And we get fairy-tale characters somehow living in Jellystone Park.
From Joe and Bill’s standpoint, the best thing is a pile of money is saved at the beginning of the cartoon as the first 18 seconds is taken up with a pan over a background of five signs in the woods, with the camera resting on each sign so Yogi can read it aloud.
You can see Nicholas’ work off the bat. He loved to draw bent fingers and wrists on Yogi (see lower left) but he would also curve the wrists like in this cartoon (see below right) and with Boo Boo in the unfortunately inferior Snow White Bear.
In the opening scene, Yogi is objecting to the ranger’s signs denying him food. “But the ranger will feed us,” says Boo Boo in a novel theory. Yogi is mock-insulted. “As self-sustaining creatures of the wild wood, we shall endeavour to feed ourselves. With a little help from the tourists, of course.”
Just then, the first tourist arrives. Except it’s not a tourist. It’s Little Red Riding Hood, engaging in the little leap-walk cycle that Nicholas loved to use. Lozzi’s greenery in the background is great. I’d love to know how he made that spreading bush.
Here’s Warren Foster at work:
Yogi: And that’s a pretty heavy basket for a little girl to carry.
Boo Boo: Yogi, you’re not going to take the little girl’s basket?
Yogi: Well, uh, no, Boo Boo. I’m just checking a possible violation of the child labour law.
Nicholas decides to have a little fun when Red lists what’s in the basket. See what he does with Yogi what she gets to “pizza pie.” The little-pupilled stare, the wide-open mouth, and the snaky mouth-line are dead giveaways Nick is at work. I wish Yogi—and the other Hanna-Barbera characters—had been as visually expressive in later cartoons.
Yogi gets an idea. He calls Granny from a convenient pay phone, pretending to be a radio contest host, asking her guess the correct answer for six free dance lessons which he tells her must be taken right away.
Nicholas gives the bear several different expressions, including this little evil look as he reveals to the camera he’s going to high-tail it to Granny’s place to get the goodies.
The scene cuts to Granny in her sports car. She ain’t no ordinary Granny. “Six free dance lessons. Crazy, man, crazy!” exclaims the old girl. And dig those weird trees Lozzi has behind her. The trunks and branches are all sawed off. Too bad they never appeared in other cartoons (the fir trees in the background with flipped-up branches are pretty common in cartoons Bick laid out).
For those of you not up on your young-actin’ grannies, this one predates the one from Pasadena immortalised in song by about 3½ years and the other immortalised by Precious Pupp by six. The first hep cartoon granny was probably the pint-of-gin-lovin’ one in Tex Avery’s Little Red Walking Hood (1937).
Granny grabs Red off the road to take her to the dance hall.
Red: But, Granny. The basket!
Granny: Oh, scratch that sandwich routine.
In the process, her riding hood comes off and falls onto the road. Boo Boo, who walked away from Yogi to avoid his basket-filching scheme, stumbles across the basket and hood and decides to put on the outfit and surprise Granny with the basket.
More fun now as the wolf enters into the cartoon. Here are some of Nicholas’ expressions.
Here’s Warren Foster at work again. If you know Daws’ Bilko voice, I’ll bet you can hear the dialogue in your head.
Wolf: Here she comes. Red hood, basket, knobby knees, the whole bit! Hey, little girl.
Boo Boo: You called me?
Wolf (stares at Boo Boo): Huh? I’m not sure. (to camera) Shee! What a homely kid. (to Boo Boo) Please, no offence, but are you Red Riding Hood?
Boo Boo: You were expecting maybe Miss America?
Wolf: Oh, boy. Who are these kids nowadays? Full of guff, vinegar and like that. Where are you headed for little, ugh, girl?
Boo Boo: I’m going to Granny’s house with this basket of goodies.
Wolf: Well, I guess you’re legit. You memorised your lines right, anyhow. Very badly read, but well memorised.
After telling the audience the girl looks like a bear, the wolf decides to “play it out” and zips off to Granny’s house. The scene dissolves to Granny’s bed where we get patented Yogi couplets:
Yogi: It’s uncanny, but I’m a granny! Touch not a hair on yon grey head. Just feed me goodies while I’m in bed.
The wolf barges into the house, gets into some granny clothes and gets into bed. But then he hears snoring and pulls back the blanket to reveal Yogi. “Strong family resemblance,” says the wolf. He grabs Yogi and shoves him in a closet (passing by the same lamp and window three times). “Stop! I’m an old lady,” protests Yogi.
Wolf: Oh, boy. Real clock-stoppers, both of ‘em. I don’t know who’s homelier, granny or the kid.
Suddenly the doorbell rings. The wolf zips back into bed. Boo Boo comes in and we start to get the standard dialogue, though the wolf remarks that he isn’t sure he wants to go through with it. And he doesn’t. He decides he’d rather eat the stuff in the picnic basket instead of “Red”. Yogi busts down the closet door. “Oh, no, you don’t!” he cries, as he reveals he’s not a “homely old granny” but a “homely old bear.”
Wolf: Bear? (chuckles) That explains it. You’re in the wrong story, pal. This isn’t the Goldilocks-Bears thing. One was too hot, another too cold, the third was just right, remember? (Yogi nods) There were three of you. Where’s mama bear?
Suddenly, the wolf shakes his head. Granny and Red are at the door.
Wolf: Where were you two? And what’s the idea of goofing off when we’ve got a show to get on the road? Someone should be putting up the 24 sheets. There should be a blaring of trumpets. Let them know we’re coming. Oh, boy. Well, let’s get on with it. Into the closet, granny (door slams). That’s it. Okay, Red, outside. Ring the doorbell. Places, everybody! Action! Roll ‘em!
The last scene has Yogi and Boo Boo eating from the basket as Red and the Wolf play out their standard dialogue.
Yogi: This Little Red Riding Hood is good, good, good!
Boo Boo: I wonder how it comes out.
Yogi: How could it miss with goodies like this? Hey-hey-hey-ee!
The rhyming dialogue strikes me as a weak ending only because Yogi used it so often (and even more so on his own show) that it’s not really a topper. Despite that, this may be my favourite fairy-tale of the early H-B cartoons.
Ranger Smith is referred to in the cartoon, but doesn’t appear in it.
There are a couple of really ineffective music choices here, which is the kind of thing that happens when you’re using stock music. For some reason, a sea-going melody is heard when Yogi is in bed and the wolf walks into the closet. And the fast strings of Geordie Hormel don’t have much relationship to the tale of the Three Bears that the wolf outlines, especially since there’s a mood change from the angry bear to the wolf’s explanation. A better choice would have been a reprise of doodley-do-dee-doo music when Red first appears.
0:00 - Yogi sub-main title theme (Hanna-Barbera-Shows-Curtin).
0:14 - LAF-27-6 UNTITLED TUNE (Shaindlin) – Yogi complains about “Do Not Feed the Bears” signs.
0:56 - LAF-74-6 happy muted trumpets (Shaindlin) – Red talks with Yogi.
1:47 - TC-202 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Yogi on phone to Granny.
2:16 - LAF-20-5 TOBOGGAN RUN (Shaindlin) – Granny in car, grabs Red.
2:38 - L-1139 ANIMATION COMEDY (Moore) – Boo Boo sees basket, Wolf spots calls to Boo Boo.
3:07 - LAF-7-12 FUN ON ICE (Shaindlin) – Wolf-Boo Boo dialogue.
3:56 - TC-300 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – shot of Granny’s House.
4:01 - WOODWIND CAPERS (Clarence Wheeler) – “I’m a Granny!”
4:05 - L-1121 ANIMATION NAUTICAL (Moore) – “Touch not a hair...”, wolf goes into closet.
4:23 - LAF-4-1 FISHY STORY (Shaindlin) – Wolf in bed with Yogi.
4:46 - ZR-52 LIGHT QUIET (Hormel) –Wolf puts Yogi in closet, doorbell rings.
5:13 - LAF-25-3 bassoon and zig-zag trumpets (Shaindlin) – “What big eyes” dialogue.
5:54 - ZR-48 FAST MOVEMENT (Hormel) – Yogi breaks down closet door, Wolf yells “Roll ‘em!”
6:37 - LAF-27-6 UNTITLED TUNE (Shaindlin) – Doorbell, Yogi and Boo Boo watch Red scene.
6:57 - Yogi sub end title theme (Curtin).
Credits: Animation – George Nicholas; Layout – Dick Bickenbach; Backgrounds – Art Lozzi; Story – Warren Foster; Story Director - Alex Lovy; Titles – Art Goble; Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Voice cast: Yogi, Wolf – Daws Butler; Narrator, Boo Boo – Don Messick; Red, Granny – Jean Vander Pyl.
Episode: Huckleberry Hound Show K-037, Production E-97.
First Aired: week of November 21, 1959.
Plot: Yogi and Boo Boo get mixed up in the story of Little Red Riding Hood.
Here’s another cartoon where all the elements work really well together. George Nicholas provides us with his usual big-mouthed, floppy-tongue and stunned-eye expressions on Yogi. Art Lozzi plants some bizarre trees in the background. Daws Butler brings back his Bilko voice for another shyster wolf, since Warren Foster’s dialogue fits it perfectly. And we get fairy-tale characters somehow living in Jellystone Park.
From Joe and Bill’s standpoint, the best thing is a pile of money is saved at the beginning of the cartoon as the first 18 seconds is taken up with a pan over a background of five signs in the woods, with the camera resting on each sign so Yogi can read it aloud.
You can see Nicholas’ work off the bat. He loved to draw bent fingers and wrists on Yogi (see lower left) but he would also curve the wrists like in this cartoon (see below right) and with Boo Boo in the unfortunately inferior Snow White Bear.
In the opening scene, Yogi is objecting to the ranger’s signs denying him food. “But the ranger will feed us,” says Boo Boo in a novel theory. Yogi is mock-insulted. “As self-sustaining creatures of the wild wood, we shall endeavour to feed ourselves. With a little help from the tourists, of course.”
Just then, the first tourist arrives. Except it’s not a tourist. It’s Little Red Riding Hood, engaging in the little leap-walk cycle that Nicholas loved to use. Lozzi’s greenery in the background is great. I’d love to know how he made that spreading bush.
Here’s Warren Foster at work:
Yogi: And that’s a pretty heavy basket for a little girl to carry.
Boo Boo: Yogi, you’re not going to take the little girl’s basket?
Yogi: Well, uh, no, Boo Boo. I’m just checking a possible violation of the child labour law.
Nicholas decides to have a little fun when Red lists what’s in the basket. See what he does with Yogi what she gets to “pizza pie.” The little-pupilled stare, the wide-open mouth, and the snaky mouth-line are dead giveaways Nick is at work. I wish Yogi—and the other Hanna-Barbera characters—had been as visually expressive in later cartoons.
Yogi gets an idea. He calls Granny from a convenient pay phone, pretending to be a radio contest host, asking her guess the correct answer for six free dance lessons which he tells her must be taken right away.
Nicholas gives the bear several different expressions, including this little evil look as he reveals to the camera he’s going to high-tail it to Granny’s place to get the goodies.
The scene cuts to Granny in her sports car. She ain’t no ordinary Granny. “Six free dance lessons. Crazy, man, crazy!” exclaims the old girl. And dig those weird trees Lozzi has behind her. The trunks and branches are all sawed off. Too bad they never appeared in other cartoons (the fir trees in the background with flipped-up branches are pretty common in cartoons Bick laid out).
For those of you not up on your young-actin’ grannies, this one predates the one from Pasadena immortalised in song by about 3½ years and the other immortalised by Precious Pupp by six. The first hep cartoon granny was probably the pint-of-gin-lovin’ one in Tex Avery’s Little Red Walking Hood (1937).
Granny grabs Red off the road to take her to the dance hall.
Red: But, Granny. The basket!
Granny: Oh, scratch that sandwich routine.
In the process, her riding hood comes off and falls onto the road. Boo Boo, who walked away from Yogi to avoid his basket-filching scheme, stumbles across the basket and hood and decides to put on the outfit and surprise Granny with the basket.
More fun now as the wolf enters into the cartoon. Here are some of Nicholas’ expressions.
Here’s Warren Foster at work again. If you know Daws’ Bilko voice, I’ll bet you can hear the dialogue in your head.
Wolf: Here she comes. Red hood, basket, knobby knees, the whole bit! Hey, little girl.
Boo Boo: You called me?
Wolf (stares at Boo Boo): Huh? I’m not sure. (to camera) Shee! What a homely kid. (to Boo Boo) Please, no offence, but are you Red Riding Hood?
Boo Boo: You were expecting maybe Miss America?
Wolf: Oh, boy. Who are these kids nowadays? Full of guff, vinegar and like that. Where are you headed for little, ugh, girl?
Boo Boo: I’m going to Granny’s house with this basket of goodies.
Wolf: Well, I guess you’re legit. You memorised your lines right, anyhow. Very badly read, but well memorised.
After telling the audience the girl looks like a bear, the wolf decides to “play it out” and zips off to Granny’s house. The scene dissolves to Granny’s bed where we get patented Yogi couplets:
Yogi: It’s uncanny, but I’m a granny! Touch not a hair on yon grey head. Just feed me goodies while I’m in bed.
The wolf barges into the house, gets into some granny clothes and gets into bed. But then he hears snoring and pulls back the blanket to reveal Yogi. “Strong family resemblance,” says the wolf. He grabs Yogi and shoves him in a closet (passing by the same lamp and window three times). “Stop! I’m an old lady,” protests Yogi.
Wolf: Oh, boy. Real clock-stoppers, both of ‘em. I don’t know who’s homelier, granny or the kid.
Suddenly the doorbell rings. The wolf zips back into bed. Boo Boo comes in and we start to get the standard dialogue, though the wolf remarks that he isn’t sure he wants to go through with it. And he doesn’t. He decides he’d rather eat the stuff in the picnic basket instead of “Red”. Yogi busts down the closet door. “Oh, no, you don’t!” he cries, as he reveals he’s not a “homely old granny” but a “homely old bear.”
Wolf: Bear? (chuckles) That explains it. You’re in the wrong story, pal. This isn’t the Goldilocks-Bears thing. One was too hot, another too cold, the third was just right, remember? (Yogi nods) There were three of you. Where’s mama bear?
Suddenly, the wolf shakes his head. Granny and Red are at the door.
Wolf: Where were you two? And what’s the idea of goofing off when we’ve got a show to get on the road? Someone should be putting up the 24 sheets. There should be a blaring of trumpets. Let them know we’re coming. Oh, boy. Well, let’s get on with it. Into the closet, granny (door slams). That’s it. Okay, Red, outside. Ring the doorbell. Places, everybody! Action! Roll ‘em!
The last scene has Yogi and Boo Boo eating from the basket as Red and the Wolf play out their standard dialogue.
Yogi: This Little Red Riding Hood is good, good, good!
Boo Boo: I wonder how it comes out.
Yogi: How could it miss with goodies like this? Hey-hey-hey-ee!
The rhyming dialogue strikes me as a weak ending only because Yogi used it so often (and even more so on his own show) that it’s not really a topper. Despite that, this may be my favourite fairy-tale of the early H-B cartoons.
Ranger Smith is referred to in the cartoon, but doesn’t appear in it.
There are a couple of really ineffective music choices here, which is the kind of thing that happens when you’re using stock music. For some reason, a sea-going melody is heard when Yogi is in bed and the wolf walks into the closet. And the fast strings of Geordie Hormel don’t have much relationship to the tale of the Three Bears that the wolf outlines, especially since there’s a mood change from the angry bear to the wolf’s explanation. A better choice would have been a reprise of doodley-do-dee-doo music when Red first appears.
0:00 - Yogi sub-main title theme (Hanna-Barbera-Shows-Curtin).
0:14 - LAF-27-6 UNTITLED TUNE (Shaindlin) – Yogi complains about “Do Not Feed the Bears” signs.
0:56 - LAF-74-6 happy muted trumpets (Shaindlin) – Red talks with Yogi.
1:47 - TC-202 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Yogi on phone to Granny.
2:16 - LAF-20-5 TOBOGGAN RUN (Shaindlin) – Granny in car, grabs Red.
2:38 - L-1139 ANIMATION COMEDY (Moore) – Boo Boo sees basket, Wolf spots calls to Boo Boo.
3:07 - LAF-7-12 FUN ON ICE (Shaindlin) – Wolf-Boo Boo dialogue.
3:56 - TC-300 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – shot of Granny’s House.
4:01 - WOODWIND CAPERS (Clarence Wheeler) – “I’m a Granny!”
4:05 - L-1121 ANIMATION NAUTICAL (Moore) – “Touch not a hair...”, wolf goes into closet.
4:23 - LAF-4-1 FISHY STORY (Shaindlin) – Wolf in bed with Yogi.
4:46 - ZR-52 LIGHT QUIET (Hormel) –Wolf puts Yogi in closet, doorbell rings.
5:13 - LAF-25-3 bassoon and zig-zag trumpets (Shaindlin) – “What big eyes” dialogue.
5:54 - ZR-48 FAST MOVEMENT (Hormel) – Yogi breaks down closet door, Wolf yells “Roll ‘em!”
6:37 - LAF-27-6 UNTITLED TUNE (Shaindlin) – Doorbell, Yogi and Boo Boo watch Red scene.
6:57 - Yogi sub end title theme (Curtin).
Wednesday, 23 June 2010
A Huck Ghost Story
One of the fun things about The Huckleberry Hound Show was the little vignettes that led into each cartoon. Huck would set up something and all the series characters would come out and do a little gag. They were cute and charming. Of course, what was a good idea was completely run into the ground in the 1970s when the characters were all lumped together in one lame series after another.
The characters got together in children’s records as well. The best ones were released by Colpix. In a stroke of originality, it was named for Columbia Pictures, which released the Hanna-Barbera cartoons through its Screen Gems Division. The reason these were the best of the bunch is they featured the real voices of the characters, unlike the Golden Records recorded in New York City with fair to awful approximations of the characters by NYC actors.
Here, for your listening pleasure, is Colpix release 210, ‘Huckleberry Hound and the Ghost Ship.’ This isn’t a really a comedy like the cartoons, it’s more of a 20-minute adventure with comedy. The script is pretty clever in places. It’s cool to hear Daws Butler, Don Messick and Doug Young do their thing, especially when they sing a funny song a capella. Oh, and one of the ghosts sounds like a certain cereal Cap’n. And the bad guy has got one of Daws’ familiar incidental English voices from the H-B and Jay Ward studios. More interesting for me are the notes on the back of the album.
It appears from the liner notes that Daws and Don co-wrote this. The musical bridges are a mystery. They’re not from the Capitol Hi-Q library; I don’t know if it could be licensed for re-recording. It’s not Hoyt Curtin’s music, either. My wild guess is it’s from the Major library out of New York. And while there are sound effects, they aren’t the ones Hanna-Barbera is famous for.
Besides Yogi, Boo Boo, Jinks and the Meece, Snooper (without Blabber), Hokey and Ding-a-ling, we get a bad guy pirate. If you look at the album cover, you can see his design is based on Crossbones Jones from the second Ruff and Reddy adventure, and was re-used in Pixie and Dixie’s Pistol Packin’ Pirate (1958).
Anyway, at your leisure, take a listen to it, if nothing for the voice work. It’s nice hearing some old friends in a different format.
SIDE 1A
SIDE 1B
SIDE 1C
SIDE 1D
SIDE 2A
SIDE 2B
SIDE 2C
The characters got together in children’s records as well. The best ones were released by Colpix. In a stroke of originality, it was named for Columbia Pictures, which released the Hanna-Barbera cartoons through its Screen Gems Division. The reason these were the best of the bunch is they featured the real voices of the characters, unlike the Golden Records recorded in New York City with fair to awful approximations of the characters by NYC actors.
Here, for your listening pleasure, is Colpix release 210, ‘Huckleberry Hound and the Ghost Ship.’ This isn’t a really a comedy like the cartoons, it’s more of a 20-minute adventure with comedy. The script is pretty clever in places. It’s cool to hear Daws Butler, Don Messick and Doug Young do their thing, especially when they sing a funny song a capella. Oh, and one of the ghosts sounds like a certain cereal Cap’n. And the bad guy has got one of Daws’ familiar incidental English voices from the H-B and Jay Ward studios. More interesting for me are the notes on the back of the album.
It appears from the liner notes that Daws and Don co-wrote this. The musical bridges are a mystery. They’re not from the Capitol Hi-Q library; I don’t know if it could be licensed for re-recording. It’s not Hoyt Curtin’s music, either. My wild guess is it’s from the Major library out of New York. And while there are sound effects, they aren’t the ones Hanna-Barbera is famous for.
Besides Yogi, Boo Boo, Jinks and the Meece, Snooper (without Blabber), Hokey and Ding-a-ling, we get a bad guy pirate. If you look at the album cover, you can see his design is based on Crossbones Jones from the second Ruff and Reddy adventure, and was re-used in Pixie and Dixie’s Pistol Packin’ Pirate (1958).
Anyway, at your leisure, take a listen to it, if nothing for the voice work. It’s nice hearing some old friends in a different format.
SIDE 1A
SIDE 1B
SIDE 1C
SIDE 1D
SIDE 2A
SIDE 2B
SIDE 2C
Saturday, 19 June 2010
A Yowp Programming Note and a Sod or Two
It’s Father’s Day this weekend, and what better guest for an internet radio show than Doug Young, who portrayed Doggie Daddy in the Augie Doggie cartoons. If you haven’t heard it yet, check out Doug’s interview by Joe Bevilacqua on his Cartoon Carnival show on Shokus Internet Radio. It’ll be on today and tomorrow (Sunday the 20th) at 3 p.m. Pacific Time and 6 p.m. Eastern. He has Doug on pretty close to the beginning.
Doug is 90 this year and still living in Seattle.
I just know this is going to come out the wrong way, but Joe’s wife Lori co-hosts the show with him and they sound great together. No, I’m not saying Joe sounds lousy on his own, but, um... anyway. Joe also compares the soundtrack to two Popeye-finds-Poopdeck-Pappy cartoons, one from 1938 and one from 1960. Joe also talks briefly about each of the cartoons. I’d like to hear him do more of that because it really enhances the show. Oh, and we hear the soundtracks to two of the one-shots Daws Butler did for Tex Avery at MGM.
Now, a couple of odds and sods (I’m not sure which is the odd and which is the sod):
There are some really amazing places on the web. People are into the arcane-est things (yeah, I know that’s not a word, but you know what I mean). Someone has a web site devoted to the backs of old cereal boxes. Naturally, H-B characters abounded on Kellogg’s products, thanks to the sponsorship deal that got the Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw and Yogi Bear shows on the air. Check them out HERE. Yes, I tried the maze game on the Krumbles package. I had to cheat. Never could do them.
Someone else has taken the time and trouble to put high quality scans of Golden Books on-line. Of course, the Hanna-Barbera characters were featured in these kids stories, too. Check out THIS ONE about Huckleberry Hound. The name Hawley Pratt should be familiar to you as Friz Freleng’s long-time layout man at Warner Bros. and later one of his directors at DePatie-Freleng Enterprises.
Finally, a note that has nothing directly to do with early Hanna-Barbera cartoons, but I pass it on with some hope. I got an e-mail from Jim Cirronella at Zero Day Releasing, which is putting out a legitimate, licensed release of Capitol Hi-Q ‘D’ series music used in the cult favourite Night of the Living Dead. Read about it HERE.
Jim is talking about future releases of Hi-Q music. I would hope he would be able to compile a CD of some of the never-before-released Capitol music used in the Huck and Quick Draw series. I’m sure there are fans aplenty clamouring for this, judging by similar releases of library music used in cartoons. Personally, I’d like some of the Langlois library tunes of Jack Shaindlin I have not been able to acquire, but a single disc set of Hi-Q melodies of Bill Loose, Geordie Hormel and the like would be a welcome addition, I’m sure, to anyone’s music collection.
Doug is 90 this year and still living in Seattle.
I just know this is going to come out the wrong way, but Joe’s wife Lori co-hosts the show with him and they sound great together. No, I’m not saying Joe sounds lousy on his own, but, um... anyway. Joe also compares the soundtrack to two Popeye-finds-Poopdeck-Pappy cartoons, one from 1938 and one from 1960. Joe also talks briefly about each of the cartoons. I’d like to hear him do more of that because it really enhances the show. Oh, and we hear the soundtracks to two of the one-shots Daws Butler did for Tex Avery at MGM.
Now, a couple of odds and sods (I’m not sure which is the odd and which is the sod):
There are some really amazing places on the web. People are into the arcane-est things (yeah, I know that’s not a word, but you know what I mean). Someone has a web site devoted to the backs of old cereal boxes. Naturally, H-B characters abounded on Kellogg’s products, thanks to the sponsorship deal that got the Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw and Yogi Bear shows on the air. Check them out HERE. Yes, I tried the maze game on the Krumbles package. I had to cheat. Never could do them.
Someone else has taken the time and trouble to put high quality scans of Golden Books on-line. Of course, the Hanna-Barbera characters were featured in these kids stories, too. Check out THIS ONE about Huckleberry Hound. The name Hawley Pratt should be familiar to you as Friz Freleng’s long-time layout man at Warner Bros. and later one of his directors at DePatie-Freleng Enterprises.
Finally, a note that has nothing directly to do with early Hanna-Barbera cartoons, but I pass it on with some hope. I got an e-mail from Jim Cirronella at Zero Day Releasing, which is putting out a legitimate, licensed release of Capitol Hi-Q ‘D’ series music used in the cult favourite Night of the Living Dead. Read about it HERE.
Jim is talking about future releases of Hi-Q music. I would hope he would be able to compile a CD of some of the never-before-released Capitol music used in the Huck and Quick Draw series. I’m sure there are fans aplenty clamouring for this, judging by similar releases of library music used in cartoons. Personally, I’d like some of the Langlois library tunes of Jack Shaindlin I have not been able to acquire, but a single disc set of Hi-Q melodies of Bill Loose, Geordie Hormel and the like would be a welcome addition, I’m sure, to anyone’s music collection.
Quick Draw McGraw — Scary Prairie
Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Animation – Carlo Vinci; Story – Mike Maltese; Story Sketches - Dan Gordon; Titles – Art Goble; Production Supervision – Howard Hanson. (no credits).
Voice cast: Narrator, 1st Man, 3rd Man, Grumble-Weed, Bank Teller – Elliot Field; 2nd Man, Quick Draw, Baba Looey – Daws Butler.
Production J-1, Episode M-006.
First Aired: week of November 2, 1959.
Plot: Quick Draw McGraw goes after bank robber Grumble-Weed.
“I’m going to clean up this one-horse town!” Whoever first uttered this immortal phrase is perhaps lost to the ages, but animation history steadfastly reveals it was the declaration of one Daffy Duck in the Warners cartoon ‘Drip-Along Daffy’ (1951), written by Mike Maltese. And, in the end, the non-victorious Daffy uses a broom to do so.
And so it is the declaration of Quick Draw McGraw in this cartoon, written by Mike Maltese. And, in the end, the non-victorious Quick Draw... well, you can figure it out.
It seems inevitable Maltese would be assigned to write the Quick Draw McGraw series when he arrived at Hanna-Barbera from Warners. While he was there, he came up Yosemite Sam for Friz Freleng and showed his ear for parodying old movie western dialogue in one of Bugs Bunny’s best outings, ‘Bugs Bunny Rides Again’ (1948). With 26 Quick Draw cartoons to create in a relatively short period of time, a little borrowing from his earlier outings was inevitable, too.
This is the first cartoon made in the Quick Draw series and Maltese has all the major elements in place—western clichés, klutzy hero, punny side commentary by the sidekick (borrowed from Porky’s role in the Jones-Maltese Daffy opuses), narrator and characters talking to each other. But the cartoon doesn’t rely on solely on chatter. It opens with a sight gag. “In the wild and woolly west of old,” intones the only-around-for-the-opening narrator, “new towns sprang up overnight.” The words are accompanied by a bunch of false-fronted buildings jumping up out of the dirt in long shot.
“And, in most western towns, the biggest challenge of all was: who’s the fastest gun alive.” The next scene has two guys insisting they’re the fastest gun alive and shooting each other dead. “Looks like a tie,” observes a bystander.
The narrator, bystander and the villain are all played by KFWB disc jockey Elliot Field, who appeared as Blabber in the first four Snooper cartoons. This is the only Quick Draw cartoon he appeared in. Hanna-Barbera hired jocks for other series in the ‘60s, including Gary Owens, Jerry Dexter and Casey Kasem (Mitzi McCall, on the “Pebbles and Bamm Bamm Show” was a morning radio co-host).
A pan across some wanted posters (including Horse-Face Harry, a name Maltese would borrow for future cartoons) ends with a shot of Quick Draw chatting away with the narrator.
Narrator: Uh, Mr. Quick Draw.
Quick Draw: Yuuuup? It’s not much of a line, but it’s the way I read it.
Narrator: Show us your famous quick draw, Quick Draw.
And he does. He tosses a tin can in the air with results we quickly come to expect.
Quick Draw: Shucks. I had the bullet in backwards. Huh. (tin can falls and sproings off his nose).
Baba Looey thins they should go back to “herding sheeps.” Quick Draw hasn’t quite developed “I’ll do the thinnin’ around here” yet; we get “I don’t thin’ so” and the one-horse town clean-up pledge.
Maltese uses a gag like we saw in ‘Drip-Along Daffy’ with a gag wanted poster involving square dancing, which the camera focuses on for six animation-saving seconds. But Quick Draw’s eye caught another poster, which we see motionless for 11 seconds as it’s read to us. Hmm. Doesn’t Grumble-Weed look the same as Dog-Face Dawson (above)?
The villain now pops into the scene, with appropriate menacing music. “Who’s a tenderfoot?” Quick Draw demands. Grumble-Weed skips the old Western cliché “Dance!” in giving the answer with his gun. We get typical silly Maltese dialogue.
Quick Draw (hopping on one foot off camera): Oh, ouch, ow, ooo, ow, ow!
Baba: What did you say?
Quick Draw (hopping on one foot across the scene): I said “Ooo, ouch, ow, ow, oh...”
The scene is interrupted by Grumble-Weed robbing the bank (though we never actually see it). “Isn’t that against the law?” Quick Draw asks. Now we get another old Western bit that Maltese used in ‘Bugs Bunny Rides Again.’ Grumble-Weed dares Quick Draw “to step across this line.” Of course, the bad guy keeps drawing lines until Quick Draw steps off a cliff. Despite the set-back, Quick Draw vows again to clean up the one-horse town.
Now Maltese pulls a Wile E. Coyote-esque gag by having Quick Draw drop a boulder from a cliff onto the bad guy. The difference is the Roadrunner never punched the coyote in the face, but that’s what Grumble-Weed does, thanks to a convenient teeter board which the boulder lands on, sending him into the air up the side of the cliff. “Pardon my glove,” he adds. He drops back on the teeter-board, which sends the rock up and crashing on Quick Draw.
Baba: What happened, Quicks Draw?
Quick Draw: How do I know? I just got here.
In the next scene, Grumble-Weed is sleeping next to the stolen bank money. Apparently, the Acme Corporation wasn’t around in the Old West, so Quick Draw resorts to a generic ‘William Tell Do It Yourself Kit’. He places an apple on the bad guy’s head with the idea he’ll shoot an arrow, but miss and hit Grumble-Weed. Instead, we get the predictable cartoon gag that Quick Draw shoots himself and not the arrow and lands inside a tree What’s a tree doing on the western plains anyway?
Next, Quick Draw rests some rifles in the limb (?) of a cactus to fire at Grumble-Weed. Naturally, the bad guy turns them around and Quick Draw shoots himself, ending up in the cactus for good measure.
It’s pretty well necessary that this cartoon parody the climax of a live-action western, so we get the inevitable ‘High Noon’-style showdown at ten paces (“I seen ‘em do this in a western movie once-st. The hero always wins,” Quick Draw confides). And this, being a cartoon, we also get the old gag of the two shooters taking the ten paces in same direction, unknown to the guy in front, who turns and gets the worst of it.
However, Quick Draw gives Grumble-Weed one more chance. The bad guy does the counting this time (“I seen that same movie) and follows Quick Draw with a cannon which he fires after our hero turns to face him.
Baba Looey now reminds us Quick Draw is a man of his word, and the final shot is of Quick Draw, sweeping with a broom, and therefore emulating Drip-Along Daffy as he cleans up the one-horse town.
For the most part, Quick Draw cartoons, and Maltese’s Snooper and Blabber cartoons, followed the same generally rule—the comic hero loses in the end. Actually, I find it more satisfying when something happens at the last minute after Quick Draw has beaten the villain so he doesn’t altogether win.
Someone at Hanna-Barbera seems to have decided that the nature of the Quick Draw cartoons called for different music than was being used on The Huckleberry Hound Show. While the Capitol Hi-Q library had several reels in the ‘D’ and ‘M’ series devoted to western themes (atmospheric and dramatic, as opposed to cowboy songs), the studio instead more suspenseful sounds found in Jack Shaindlin’s Langlois Filmusic library. Certainly those may have been used in ‘B’ or TV Westerns. These cartoons also featured melodies of Phil Green from the Hi-Q ‘L’ series. Still, there are a two Spencer Moore pieces used as effect music, like they were on Huck’s show, and Shaindlin’s familiar ‘Toboggan Run’ is also briefly heard, though it was soon weeded out of the list of Quick Draw cues.
0:00 - Quick Draw sub main title theme (Curtin).
0:14 - ZR-94 CHASE (Geordie Hormel) – towns spring up, two guys shoot and kill each other.
0:37 - L-1158 ANIMATION COMEDY (Moore) – bassoon effect under “Looks like a tie.”
0:42 - L-81 COMEDY UNDERSCORE (Moore) – pan over ‘Wanted’ posters.
0:50 - GR-74 POPCORN (Green) – Quick Draw shoots himself, looks at looks at ‘Wanted’ posters.
1:59 - PG-161G LIGHT COMEDY MOVEMENT (Green) – “Green stamps” line.
2:14 - EXCITEMENT UNDER DIALOGUE (Shaindlin) – Grumble-Weed shows up, Quick Draw “ooch-ouches”; falls off cliff; drops boulder off cliff.
3:44 - TC-9 CHASE-HEAVY (Loose-Seely) – Grumble-Weed propelled in air, boulder lands on Quick Draw.
4:05 - GR-453 THE ARTFUL DODGER (Green) – Quick Draw shoots arrow.
4:42 - LAF-2-12 ON THE RUN (Shaindlin) – Grumble-Weed rides away.
4:52 - suspenseful string music (Shaindlin) – Rifles on cactus.
5:31 - GR-255 PUPPETRY COMEDY (Green) – Showdown gags, shot of Quick Draw sweeping.
6:49 - GR-77 CUSTARD PIE CAPERS (Green) – “I said I was going to clean up this one-horse town.”
6:59 - Quick Draw sub end title theme (Curtin).
Animation – Carlo Vinci; Story – Mike Maltese; Story Sketches - Dan Gordon; Titles – Art Goble; Production Supervision – Howard Hanson. (no credits).
Voice cast: Narrator, 1st Man, 3rd Man, Grumble-Weed, Bank Teller – Elliot Field; 2nd Man, Quick Draw, Baba Looey – Daws Butler.
Production J-1, Episode M-006.
First Aired: week of November 2, 1959.
Plot: Quick Draw McGraw goes after bank robber Grumble-Weed.
“I’m going to clean up this one-horse town!” Whoever first uttered this immortal phrase is perhaps lost to the ages, but animation history steadfastly reveals it was the declaration of one Daffy Duck in the Warners cartoon ‘Drip-Along Daffy’ (1951), written by Mike Maltese. And, in the end, the non-victorious Daffy uses a broom to do so.
And so it is the declaration of Quick Draw McGraw in this cartoon, written by Mike Maltese. And, in the end, the non-victorious Quick Draw... well, you can figure it out.
It seems inevitable Maltese would be assigned to write the Quick Draw McGraw series when he arrived at Hanna-Barbera from Warners. While he was there, he came up Yosemite Sam for Friz Freleng and showed his ear for parodying old movie western dialogue in one of Bugs Bunny’s best outings, ‘Bugs Bunny Rides Again’ (1948). With 26 Quick Draw cartoons to create in a relatively short period of time, a little borrowing from his earlier outings was inevitable, too.
This is the first cartoon made in the Quick Draw series and Maltese has all the major elements in place—western clichés, klutzy hero, punny side commentary by the sidekick (borrowed from Porky’s role in the Jones-Maltese Daffy opuses), narrator and characters talking to each other. But the cartoon doesn’t rely on solely on chatter. It opens with a sight gag. “In the wild and woolly west of old,” intones the only-around-for-the-opening narrator, “new towns sprang up overnight.” The words are accompanied by a bunch of false-fronted buildings jumping up out of the dirt in long shot.
“And, in most western towns, the biggest challenge of all was: who’s the fastest gun alive.” The next scene has two guys insisting they’re the fastest gun alive and shooting each other dead. “Looks like a tie,” observes a bystander.
The narrator, bystander and the villain are all played by KFWB disc jockey Elliot Field, who appeared as Blabber in the first four Snooper cartoons. This is the only Quick Draw cartoon he appeared in. Hanna-Barbera hired jocks for other series in the ‘60s, including Gary Owens, Jerry Dexter and Casey Kasem (Mitzi McCall, on the “Pebbles and Bamm Bamm Show” was a morning radio co-host).
A pan across some wanted posters (including Horse-Face Harry, a name Maltese would borrow for future cartoons) ends with a shot of Quick Draw chatting away with the narrator.
Narrator: Uh, Mr. Quick Draw.
Quick Draw: Yuuuup? It’s not much of a line, but it’s the way I read it.
Narrator: Show us your famous quick draw, Quick Draw.
And he does. He tosses a tin can in the air with results we quickly come to expect.
Quick Draw: Shucks. I had the bullet in backwards. Huh. (tin can falls and sproings off his nose).
Baba Looey thins they should go back to “herding sheeps.” Quick Draw hasn’t quite developed “I’ll do the thinnin’ around here” yet; we get “I don’t thin’ so” and the one-horse town clean-up pledge.
Maltese uses a gag like we saw in ‘Drip-Along Daffy’ with a gag wanted poster involving square dancing, which the camera focuses on for six animation-saving seconds. But Quick Draw’s eye caught another poster, which we see motionless for 11 seconds as it’s read to us. Hmm. Doesn’t Grumble-Weed look the same as Dog-Face Dawson (above)?
The villain now pops into the scene, with appropriate menacing music. “Who’s a tenderfoot?” Quick Draw demands. Grumble-Weed skips the old Western cliché “Dance!” in giving the answer with his gun. We get typical silly Maltese dialogue.
Quick Draw (hopping on one foot off camera): Oh, ouch, ow, ooo, ow, ow!
Baba: What did you say?
Quick Draw (hopping on one foot across the scene): I said “Ooo, ouch, ow, ow, oh...”
The scene is interrupted by Grumble-Weed robbing the bank (though we never actually see it). “Isn’t that against the law?” Quick Draw asks. Now we get another old Western bit that Maltese used in ‘Bugs Bunny Rides Again.’ Grumble-Weed dares Quick Draw “to step across this line.” Of course, the bad guy keeps drawing lines until Quick Draw steps off a cliff. Despite the set-back, Quick Draw vows again to clean up the one-horse town.
Now Maltese pulls a Wile E. Coyote-esque gag by having Quick Draw drop a boulder from a cliff onto the bad guy. The difference is the Roadrunner never punched the coyote in the face, but that’s what Grumble-Weed does, thanks to a convenient teeter board which the boulder lands on, sending him into the air up the side of the cliff. “Pardon my glove,” he adds. He drops back on the teeter-board, which sends the rock up and crashing on Quick Draw.
Baba: What happened, Quicks Draw?
Quick Draw: How do I know? I just got here.
In the next scene, Grumble-Weed is sleeping next to the stolen bank money. Apparently, the Acme Corporation wasn’t around in the Old West, so Quick Draw resorts to a generic ‘William Tell Do It Yourself Kit’. He places an apple on the bad guy’s head with the idea he’ll shoot an arrow, but miss and hit Grumble-Weed. Instead, we get the predictable cartoon gag that Quick Draw shoots himself and not the arrow and lands inside a tree What’s a tree doing on the western plains anyway?
Next, Quick Draw rests some rifles in the limb (?) of a cactus to fire at Grumble-Weed. Naturally, the bad guy turns them around and Quick Draw shoots himself, ending up in the cactus for good measure.
It’s pretty well necessary that this cartoon parody the climax of a live-action western, so we get the inevitable ‘High Noon’-style showdown at ten paces (“I seen ‘em do this in a western movie once-st. The hero always wins,” Quick Draw confides). And this, being a cartoon, we also get the old gag of the two shooters taking the ten paces in same direction, unknown to the guy in front, who turns and gets the worst of it.
However, Quick Draw gives Grumble-Weed one more chance. The bad guy does the counting this time (“I seen that same movie) and follows Quick Draw with a cannon which he fires after our hero turns to face him.
Baba Looey now reminds us Quick Draw is a man of his word, and the final shot is of Quick Draw, sweeping with a broom, and therefore emulating Drip-Along Daffy as he cleans up the one-horse town.
For the most part, Quick Draw cartoons, and Maltese’s Snooper and Blabber cartoons, followed the same generally rule—the comic hero loses in the end. Actually, I find it more satisfying when something happens at the last minute after Quick Draw has beaten the villain so he doesn’t altogether win.
Someone at Hanna-Barbera seems to have decided that the nature of the Quick Draw cartoons called for different music than was being used on The Huckleberry Hound Show. While the Capitol Hi-Q library had several reels in the ‘D’ and ‘M’ series devoted to western themes (atmospheric and dramatic, as opposed to cowboy songs), the studio instead more suspenseful sounds found in Jack Shaindlin’s Langlois Filmusic library. Certainly those may have been used in ‘B’ or TV Westerns. These cartoons also featured melodies of Phil Green from the Hi-Q ‘L’ series. Still, there are a two Spencer Moore pieces used as effect music, like they were on Huck’s show, and Shaindlin’s familiar ‘Toboggan Run’ is also briefly heard, though it was soon weeded out of the list of Quick Draw cues.
0:00 - Quick Draw sub main title theme (Curtin).
0:14 - ZR-94 CHASE (Geordie Hormel) – towns spring up, two guys shoot and kill each other.
0:37 - L-1158 ANIMATION COMEDY (Moore) – bassoon effect under “Looks like a tie.”
0:42 - L-81 COMEDY UNDERSCORE (Moore) – pan over ‘Wanted’ posters.
0:50 - GR-74 POPCORN (Green) – Quick Draw shoots himself, looks at looks at ‘Wanted’ posters.
1:59 - PG-161G LIGHT COMEDY MOVEMENT (Green) – “Green stamps” line.
2:14 - EXCITEMENT UNDER DIALOGUE (Shaindlin) – Grumble-Weed shows up, Quick Draw “ooch-ouches”; falls off cliff; drops boulder off cliff.
3:44 - TC-9 CHASE-HEAVY (Loose-Seely) – Grumble-Weed propelled in air, boulder lands on Quick Draw.
4:05 - GR-453 THE ARTFUL DODGER (Green) – Quick Draw shoots arrow.
4:42 - LAF-2-12 ON THE RUN (Shaindlin) – Grumble-Weed rides away.
4:52 - suspenseful string music (Shaindlin) – Rifles on cactus.
5:31 - GR-255 PUPPETRY COMEDY (Green) – Showdown gags, shot of Quick Draw sweeping.
6:49 - GR-77 CUSTARD PIE CAPERS (Green) – “I said I was going to clean up this one-horse town.”
6:59 - Quick Draw sub end title theme (Curtin).