The last couple of months, we’ve brought you the Yogi Bear Sunday (Saturday, in Canada) comics from 50 years ago, so we’ll do the same for the month of April. One of the papers I ran into on-line had the full comic, the others are missing the top rows.
On the Yogi Bear Show, our favourite con artist bruin sets up a wishing well (A Bear Living, animated by Art Davis), but the plot’s entirely different than the strip of April 2nd.
April 9th features more pic-a-nic baskets and more rhymes.
A Loopy De Loop cartoon called Happy Go Loopy, released in March 1961, was built around Loopy stumbling upon a masquerade party, being invited in, and becoming the life of the party; he even plays the piano. Then, Loopy’s asked to take off his disguise, informs everyone he’s not in disguise and he’s kicked out of the party. The plot’s the same in the April 16th Yogi comic but the ending’s different.
Indian rain dances seem to have found their way into cartoons on occasion; Augie Doggie did one in a gag in Pop Nature’s Pup. Yogi does it in the April 23rd comic. The layout’s pretty clever here. I like the panel with Yogi in silhouette in the background, the Ranger in the foreground and a tree that’s in between them in the distance. And the Ranger’s dance is nice and clumsy.
Short, bald, monocle-wearing Englishmen make up the incidental character world of Hanna-Barbera on occasion. Here’s one on April 30th. The “Earl of Cloves” reminds me of that great bit in Rabbit Hood when Bugs is bashing, er, knighting the Sheriff of Nottingham. The punny-peerage title bit was used again in later cartoons.
Our colour drawing quota this time comes from the people who, besides Columbia Pictures, had the cash that put our favourite half-hour Hanna-Barbera cartoon short shows on the air. Someone might have a better idea when this post card featuring that cereal company in Michigan was created, but Coco the Elephant apparently had a short life span starting either in 1959 or 1960. You’d figure Cornelius the rooster would rate an appearance but perhaps it’s because he was known more for packages than TV commercials like the others. Thanks to Billie Towzer for the photo.
Wednesday, 30 March 2011
Saturday, 26 March 2011
Huckleberry Hound — Ski Champ Chump
Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Credits: Animation – Lew Marshall; Layout – Dick Bickenbach; Backgrounds – Art Lozzi; Dialogue – Charlie Shows; Story Sketches – Dan Gordon; Titles – Lawrence Goble; Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Voice Cast: Huck, Pierre – Daws Butler; Race Announcer – Don Messick.
Music: Bill Loose/John Seely, Jack Shaindlin, Spencer Moore, Geordie Hormel.
Episode: Huckleberry Hound Show K-023, Episode E-60.
First Aired: week of March 2, 1959 (rerun, week of August 31, 1959).
Plot: Huckleberry vs. bad guy Powerful Pierre in a skiing race.
Huck dealt with two kinds of antagonists in his first season—hecklers, like Chief Crazy Coyote and Iggy and Ziggy the crows, or out-and-out villains, like Dinky Dalton or Powerful Pierre. Few of them lasted more than two cartoons. There didn’t seem to be enough gags for the heckler type or personality traits for the villain type. This cartoon was Pierre’s second of the year and he made one appearance in each of the three remaining seasons when Warren Foster took over writing (and came up with a Ten Pin Alley, similar in some ways to this one).
Huck’s character traits varied a bit from cartoon to cartoon but this one has my favourite version of his personality. He lets nothing that happens to him bother him. He’s courteous, upbeat but a little indignant when greeted with bad behaviour. He hasn’t crossed the line from naïvety into cluelessness like he did on occasion when Foster got hold of him. And he wins in this cartoon, with most of the violence happening to the bad guy.
There’s plenty that has a familiar feel in this cartoon. There are gags that recall bits from Warners or MGM cartoons. And the opening is much like what Charlie Shows came up with for Yogi Bear’s The Stout Trout earlier in the season, where two combatants are compared with Yogi coming out on the short end.
Announcer: Approaching the starting line is that incomparable athlete, top sportsman, and all-round good fellow—the champion, Powerhouse Pierre.
And, now, here’s the challenger—Huckleberry Hound. He’s small but he’s got, uh, well, actually, nothing.
You know right away that Pierre is not all that everyone thinks he is because immodestly agrees with the announcer’s assessment of him (as he tells the viewer), insults Huck (consistently calling him “Hucklesber-ree” throughout the cartoon), says he’ll win because he loves money, then caps it off by bashing Huck into the snow with his ski pole before the announcer can shout “go.” Lew Marshall does something I’ve seen in a couple of his cartoons that you’ll never notice unless you freeze-frame. It looks like Pierre’s bopped Huck on the head. But as you can see, the ski pole goes past him while Huck crumples. Marshall did this with cars, too; a car never collided with a character, it went past him for a bit then the character was down in the next frame.
Announcer: And there goes Powerful Pierre. What a sportsman! You notice he apologised when he clobbered his opponent. Huck (to camera): You gotta ad-mit Pierre’s a great sportsman.
Let’s run down the gags. They’re at a pretty leisurely pace with a lot of dialogue padding the proceedings, much of it addressed directly at the audience.
• Pierre sees Huck pass him and decides to strap himself to Huck’s skis. But the “low bridge” gag takes care of that, as Pierre twirls around a tree branch.
Pierre: Ho, ho! ‘E does not know I am hitchhike.
Huck: I do, too. But, shuckins, maybe he’s tired.
• Pierre goes into a phone booth, calls Huck in another phone booth and pretends to be Fifi, then tells him to hold the phone. Unlike the Fifi phone-booth call in the yet-to-be-released Warners’ cartoon Bonanza Bunny (1959) there’s no dynamite or violence involved here. Pierre’s intent is simply to have Huck waste time and pass him. But Pierre is thwarted (“Sacro-iliac!”) when Huck puts the phone booth on his skis and zooms past.
• Pierre emulates Wile E. Coyote or Ralph Wolf by shoving a rock from the top of a cliff onto Huck below. But the rock hits a branch, bounces back up and lands on Pierre’s head. Pierre cracks into pieces like Spike in a Tex Avery cartoon. Pierre’s facetious “Who have leaved this rock here” dialogue really isn’t necessary except to fill 15 seconds. Another eight seconds is used up as we watch the rock go up, Pierre watches the rock go up, we watch the rock come down, Pierre comments on it and gets clobbered. Avery would have had it happen quickly and unexpectedly then topped the cracking-up-into-pieces gag.
• Pierre attaches a rocket to himself and immediately zips past Huck and crashes into the middle of a tree trunk. Charlie Shows follows with a string of his patented rhyming dialogue:
Pierre: What did Pierre do wrong?
Huck: You wasn’t playin’ fair and square there, Pierre.
(Pierre grabs Huck by throat)
Pierre: And you are going to fly through the air, Hucklesberr.
• Pierre turns Huck’s skis into the rotor blades of a helicopter. Huck sails upward. Pierre skis ahead but right into a sawmill. We get another Avery gag as Pierre is emerges sawed in half and his two halves drop in opposite directions to the ground.
• Another old Warners-style gag has Pierre sawing a circle in the ice of a lake. That’s where Huck stops. But the rest of the ice falls in the water instead, and Pierre along with it.
• As Huck approaches the finish line, Pierre ties a rope to the metal pole holding up the loudspeakers. He then lassos Huck. The taut rope stops Huck, but the force brings the pole down and the huge loudspeaker lands right on top of Pierre just short of the finish line. Huck skis to an easy win.
Huck holds aloft a loving cup and tells a typical Dick Bickenbach-designed crowd “Like I said, it’s not the money, it’s winnin’ fair and square what counts. The camera cuts to Pierre, with a lump on his head, telling us “Maybe so. But Pierre, ho-ho-ho, still like the money. Yes, no. Ho-ho-ho-ho.” That’s the best Shows could come up with for a punchy ending? Sacroiliac!
Just about all the familiar Huck music pieces are here. The sound cutter adds a bit to Loose and Seely’s ‘Zany Comedy’ so it stretches to the end of a scene.
0:00 - THE HUCKLEBERRY HOUND SONG (Hanna, Barbera, Curtin, Shows) – Opening titles.
0:28 - TC-300 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Pierre and Huck introduced, Pierre loves money.
1:28 - TC-201 PIXIE COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – “It ain’t the money,” Huck swatted into snow, starting gun goes off.
1:53 - LAF-2-12 ON THE RUN (Shaindlin) – Pierre skis down hill, Huck passes, Pierre caught on tree branch.
2:55 - TC-202 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Phone booth scene.
4:16 - L-78 COMEDY UNDERSCORE (Moore) – Rock scene, rocket scene, Pierre turns Huck into helicopter.
5:15 - TC-303 ZANY COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Huck takes off into air, Pierre sliced in two in sawmill, Pierre drops into lake.
6:04 - ZR-48 FAST MOVEMENT (Shaindlin) – Rope around Huck/loudspeaker falls on Pierre scene, Huck crosses finish line.
6:46 - LAF-7-12 FUN ON ICE (Shaindlin) – “Correction. The winner is...”, Huck talks to crowd, Pierre talks to audience.
7:09 - THE HUCKLEBERRY HOUND SONG (Hanna, Barbera, Curtin, Shows) – End titles.
Credits: Animation – Lew Marshall; Layout – Dick Bickenbach; Backgrounds – Art Lozzi; Dialogue – Charlie Shows; Story Sketches – Dan Gordon; Titles – Lawrence Goble; Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Voice Cast: Huck, Pierre – Daws Butler; Race Announcer – Don Messick.
Music: Bill Loose/John Seely, Jack Shaindlin, Spencer Moore, Geordie Hormel.
Episode: Huckleberry Hound Show K-023, Episode E-60.
First Aired: week of March 2, 1959 (rerun, week of August 31, 1959).
Plot: Huckleberry vs. bad guy Powerful Pierre in a skiing race.
Huck dealt with two kinds of antagonists in his first season—hecklers, like Chief Crazy Coyote and Iggy and Ziggy the crows, or out-and-out villains, like Dinky Dalton or Powerful Pierre. Few of them lasted more than two cartoons. There didn’t seem to be enough gags for the heckler type or personality traits for the villain type. This cartoon was Pierre’s second of the year and he made one appearance in each of the three remaining seasons when Warren Foster took over writing (and came up with a Ten Pin Alley, similar in some ways to this one).
Huck’s character traits varied a bit from cartoon to cartoon but this one has my favourite version of his personality. He lets nothing that happens to him bother him. He’s courteous, upbeat but a little indignant when greeted with bad behaviour. He hasn’t crossed the line from naïvety into cluelessness like he did on occasion when Foster got hold of him. And he wins in this cartoon, with most of the violence happening to the bad guy.
There’s plenty that has a familiar feel in this cartoon. There are gags that recall bits from Warners or MGM cartoons. And the opening is much like what Charlie Shows came up with for Yogi Bear’s The Stout Trout earlier in the season, where two combatants are compared with Yogi coming out on the short end.
Announcer: Approaching the starting line is that incomparable athlete, top sportsman, and all-round good fellow—the champion, Powerhouse Pierre.
And, now, here’s the challenger—Huckleberry Hound. He’s small but he’s got, uh, well, actually, nothing.
You know right away that Pierre is not all that everyone thinks he is because immodestly agrees with the announcer’s assessment of him (as he tells the viewer), insults Huck (consistently calling him “Hucklesber-ree” throughout the cartoon), says he’ll win because he loves money, then caps it off by bashing Huck into the snow with his ski pole before the announcer can shout “go.” Lew Marshall does something I’ve seen in a couple of his cartoons that you’ll never notice unless you freeze-frame. It looks like Pierre’s bopped Huck on the head. But as you can see, the ski pole goes past him while Huck crumples. Marshall did this with cars, too; a car never collided with a character, it went past him for a bit then the character was down in the next frame.
Announcer: And there goes Powerful Pierre. What a sportsman! You notice he apologised when he clobbered his opponent. Huck (to camera): You gotta ad-mit Pierre’s a great sportsman.
Let’s run down the gags. They’re at a pretty leisurely pace with a lot of dialogue padding the proceedings, much of it addressed directly at the audience.
• Pierre sees Huck pass him and decides to strap himself to Huck’s skis. But the “low bridge” gag takes care of that, as Pierre twirls around a tree branch.
Pierre: Ho, ho! ‘E does not know I am hitchhike.
Huck: I do, too. But, shuckins, maybe he’s tired.
• Pierre goes into a phone booth, calls Huck in another phone booth and pretends to be Fifi, then tells him to hold the phone. Unlike the Fifi phone-booth call in the yet-to-be-released Warners’ cartoon Bonanza Bunny (1959) there’s no dynamite or violence involved here. Pierre’s intent is simply to have Huck waste time and pass him. But Pierre is thwarted (“Sacro-iliac!”) when Huck puts the phone booth on his skis and zooms past.
• Pierre emulates Wile E. Coyote or Ralph Wolf by shoving a rock from the top of a cliff onto Huck below. But the rock hits a branch, bounces back up and lands on Pierre’s head. Pierre cracks into pieces like Spike in a Tex Avery cartoon. Pierre’s facetious “Who have leaved this rock here” dialogue really isn’t necessary except to fill 15 seconds. Another eight seconds is used up as we watch the rock go up, Pierre watches the rock go up, we watch the rock come down, Pierre comments on it and gets clobbered. Avery would have had it happen quickly and unexpectedly then topped the cracking-up-into-pieces gag.
• Pierre attaches a rocket to himself and immediately zips past Huck and crashes into the middle of a tree trunk. Charlie Shows follows with a string of his patented rhyming dialogue:
Pierre: What did Pierre do wrong?
Huck: You wasn’t playin’ fair and square there, Pierre.
(Pierre grabs Huck by throat)
Pierre: And you are going to fly through the air, Hucklesberr.
• Pierre turns Huck’s skis into the rotor blades of a helicopter. Huck sails upward. Pierre skis ahead but right into a sawmill. We get another Avery gag as Pierre is emerges sawed in half and his two halves drop in opposite directions to the ground.
• Another old Warners-style gag has Pierre sawing a circle in the ice of a lake. That’s where Huck stops. But the rest of the ice falls in the water instead, and Pierre along with it.
• As Huck approaches the finish line, Pierre ties a rope to the metal pole holding up the loudspeakers. He then lassos Huck. The taut rope stops Huck, but the force brings the pole down and the huge loudspeaker lands right on top of Pierre just short of the finish line. Huck skis to an easy win.
Huck holds aloft a loving cup and tells a typical Dick Bickenbach-designed crowd “Like I said, it’s not the money, it’s winnin’ fair and square what counts. The camera cuts to Pierre, with a lump on his head, telling us “Maybe so. But Pierre, ho-ho-ho, still like the money. Yes, no. Ho-ho-ho-ho.” That’s the best Shows could come up with for a punchy ending? Sacroiliac!
Just about all the familiar Huck music pieces are here. The sound cutter adds a bit to Loose and Seely’s ‘Zany Comedy’ so it stretches to the end of a scene.
0:00 - THE HUCKLEBERRY HOUND SONG (Hanna, Barbera, Curtin, Shows) – Opening titles.
0:28 - TC-300 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Pierre and Huck introduced, Pierre loves money.
1:28 - TC-201 PIXIE COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – “It ain’t the money,” Huck swatted into snow, starting gun goes off.
1:53 - LAF-2-12 ON THE RUN (Shaindlin) – Pierre skis down hill, Huck passes, Pierre caught on tree branch.
2:55 - TC-202 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Phone booth scene.
4:16 - L-78 COMEDY UNDERSCORE (Moore) – Rock scene, rocket scene, Pierre turns Huck into helicopter.
5:15 - TC-303 ZANY COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Huck takes off into air, Pierre sliced in two in sawmill, Pierre drops into lake.
6:04 - ZR-48 FAST MOVEMENT (Shaindlin) – Rope around Huck/loudspeaker falls on Pierre scene, Huck crosses finish line.
6:46 - LAF-7-12 FUN ON ICE (Shaindlin) – “Correction. The winner is...”, Huck talks to crowd, Pierre talks to audience.
7:09 - THE HUCKLEBERRY HOUND SONG (Hanna, Barbera, Curtin, Shows) – End titles.
Tuesday, 22 March 2011
The Cartoon Stars on Bill Hanna
Today marks ten years since the passing of William Denby Hanna, a shell of his Tom-and-Jerry-creating former self due to the ravages of Alzheimer’s. To his animation staff, he may have been known as the guy who said “Knock off this !?%*!?! crap and get back to work!” To history, he may be known as one half of the founder of television animation as we know it today, with the good and bad that comes from it. And to people who enjoy the silly adventures of blue dogs from North Carolina, overly-confident rhyming bears and clueless cowpoke horses, he was someone who has brought—and still brings—hours of enjoyment.
Many eulogies were written about Hanna at the time of his death. Perhaps one of the cleverest was in Hank Stuever’s column in the Washington Post of March 24, 2001. Hank did something none of the newspaper obituaries did. He let the Hanna-Barbera characters speak.
Bill Hanna, Remembered
Excerpts from an Oral History
By Hank Stuever
Saturday morning cartoon king William Hanna, 90, died at his North Hollywood home Thursday. What follows are excerpts from a never-finished British television documentary, an oral-history account of the glory days of Hanna-Barbera animation studios . . .
JERRY: I wasn't quite sure of the concept. You have to remember this was the 1940s, and I'm just this mouse from the Midwest, right? What did I know? I knew one thing -- I didn't want to work with cats, I didn't care how much they paid me, which was $65 a week, by the way. I was scared. But Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera knew it would work. So I get to the set and the orchestra's ready to go, they've built this enormous kitchen . . . and I'm just petrified. Bill Hanna came over and talked to me, calmed me down. He said, "Jerry, just relax. You're not going to die. The cat is not going to eat you." I know it sounds crazy now, but this was very early in the cat-and-mouse thing. I trusted Bill. Everything was okay.
WILMA FLINTSTONE: I said to him one day, "Bill, you really oughta patent this stuff." I mean, the little woolly mammoth who vacuumed the carpet? I would have bought six of them to give as wedding presents or something! People don't know this, but Bill was king of the modern Stone Age household gadgets. The decor, the look -- that was him. Those houses were solid. He did let me keep one of the boulder sofas. I think he could have been another Rock Lloyd Wright, but he was so brilliant already at the cartoons.
HUCKLEBERRY HOUND: Sometimes we'd all go over to Bill and Violet Hanna's place, on Sunday afternoons. He'd barbecue, put on some jazz. It was nice. North Hollywood was like a small town, people didn't really gossip much then. It was no big deal to have cartoon characters over to the house. He never treated us two- dimensionally.
TOP CAT: He did have his favorites. I don't think I was one. I mean, what am I? A yellow cat with a vest on. I said, "Bill, I can do more than scrounge around and bebop." I always wanted some adventure.
One time Bill caught me hanging out on the "Jonny Quest" lot and called me into his office for a little Come-to-Jesus meeting. I understood. I was grateful to be working, don't get me wrong. I just don't think people appreciate us utility cats, the ones who aren't the stars. Maybe Bill did.
QUICK DRAW McGRAW: It's true, the cartoons we did were cheaper. Over at Warner Bros., they worked those characters until they were exhausted -- day and night. Sure, you could go work for Chuck Jones, and a lucky few got on the Disney gravy train, but sooner or later you would be strung out. Bugs, Daffy, Wile E. -- I'd bump into them at the Brown Derby or somewhere around town and they looked awful, just completely wasted, taking one pill to get out of bed and another pill so they could get an anvil in the head. Sad, is what it was.
This is what I liked about Bill: He knew the value of the nine-hour workday. His thinking was "Why do something in 500 drawings when you can do it in 150?" That's why we all lasted so long. We weren't drawn to death.
YOGI BEAR: People said the cartoons were cheap, that they wouldn't last, that nobody would cherish them. Just the other day there's a cereal bowl with my face on it for sale on eBay. It's going for $325.
So you tell me.
HADJI: Bill hired me to be Jonny Quest's best friend. The guys in marketing said, "Are you sure? The kid's wearing a turban." I mean, it's true, I had to play up the accent a little, but I think Bill was way ahead on this. It was the first time the kids at home saw someone in a turban who wasn't the bad guy. Someone scrawled some kind of slur on my locker, it said, "Go Home, India Ink" or something like that. Bill called a studio-wide meeting and made it clear that his shop was going to be integrated -- white, black, pink, hot pink, purple, humanoid, Herculoid, beast, robot, whatever. This was 1965. This was years before anyone ever heard of sensitivity training in the workplace.
SNAGGLEPUSS: He never once asked me about my private life. He didn't care. Heavens to Murgatroyd, why should anybody care? At his parties, up at the house, I'd bring Sylvester with me and nobody gave a [expletive].
BOO BOO BEAR: The wonderful thing with the cartoons that Bill and Joe did was that they were about us, the characters. It had to be, because too much action was too hard to draw. That's why the same pine trees keep going by as I walk in the forest. The focus was on the acting, not on the backgrounds. Leave that whole Wagnerian forest thing to the snobs at Warner, you know what I'm saying? (Boo Boo has brief coughing fit here.) [expletive] sorry. Got this sinus thing. Where was I? Oh yeah, the trees and stuff. Take, for example, a picnic basket: You had to see the picnic basket, feel the presence of the picnic basket. Whether or not there really was a picnic basket. The magic happens inside of you. Bill taught us that.
ASTRO: Rill ras reat. Ren I ras reeling really rad, Rill runderstood. Re rame to ree me ren I ras at the Retty Rord Rinic. Robody relse did, rot even Reorge Retson. (Begins crying.)
DICK DASTARDLY: Things changed. Little things. I showed up one day at the studio and the Banana Splits were running around. They weren't even cartoons, it was humans in fur suits. I started to worry. Around that time, I was seriously considering going to work for Jay Ward and the "Bullwinkle" crew across town. They were more my speed - tying heroes to train tracks, that kind of thing. Bill said the world needed villains like me, that everything would be okay, so I believed him.
SHAGGY: Like, man, the late '60s got pretty wild. Hanna-Barbera ruled Saturday morning, it was really the high point. The parties would get crazy. Scooby and I would get there and I'd be zoinksed out of my mind already -- and starving.
I remember one night, Josie and the Pussycats were performing out by the pool. Magilla Gorilla picks up that hot Pussycat drummer - what was her name? Melody? -- and just throws her into the pool, drum kit and all. At first we thought Bill was gonna be really P.O.'d about that. But he paused a beat, with that stern look on his face, holding a drink in his hand, and then burst out laughing. Then we all jumped in the pool. The party went on till at least 4 a.m.
I'll never forget that night, you know why? It was the same night as the Tate-LaBianca murders. It was only about a mile away from where the party was. Jinkies, that Charlie Manson [expletive] freaks me out. We spent the whole next day, hung over, driving around in the Mystery Machine, looking for clues. Bill helped.
AQUAMAN: When it came time to re-up for another season -- I think this was in '74, maybe '75 -- all of us Super Friends went into Bill's office to talk about our contracts. We each wanted a million bucks per episode, and we knew we had to stick together. We knew they couldn't keep the show going without all of us Friends.
I gotta hand it to Bill, he was tough. I mean, we're freakin' superheroes, and he never flinched, never backed down. We all got raises, but nowhere near a million per. Bill was crafty, too. When we started the new season, he'd added the Wonder Twins and that little super-chimpanzee thing. I noticed in some of the scripts that the Legion of Doom was kicking our butts a bit more. I think it was Bill's subtle way of letting us know we could easily be replaced.
SCRAPPY-DOO: People hated me. I mean, hated. The last thing Scooby-Doo needed was an obnoxious nephew. Bill was very protective of me, though, and I appreciated that. When my contract wasn't renewed, he gave me a good severance package. He knew it wasn't my fault.
YOGI BEAR: You could tell that they were cutting corners here and there. The studio couldn't keep up with the workload, and folks were getting bored. I saw the script for the all-star "Laff-a-Lympics" and thought, oh, brother. I called my agent. I said, "I'll do it, but only because Bill's asking me to." Before I know it, I'm paddling a raft in a relay race against Captain Caveman and Hong Kong Phooey. To tell you the truth, I was drunk.
PAPA SMURF: We were taking a break from a big song-and-dance number, and word came down that the whole operation had been sold to Ted Turner. I think we all knew that Bill and Joe were getting tired of the day-to-day stuff. Bill came down and told the staff what was happening. It turns out he was making sure we'd all be taken care of in our old age. They were talking about a kind of "cartoon channel" on cable TV. We'd be on 24 hours a day, and yes, there'd be royalty payments. We'd go on forever. I'm sure that's what Bill wanted: For us to go on smurfing and doing our thing.
Many eulogies were written about Hanna at the time of his death. Perhaps one of the cleverest was in Hank Stuever’s column in the Washington Post of March 24, 2001. Hank did something none of the newspaper obituaries did. He let the Hanna-Barbera characters speak.
Bill Hanna, Remembered
Excerpts from an Oral History
By Hank Stuever
Saturday morning cartoon king William Hanna, 90, died at his North Hollywood home Thursday. What follows are excerpts from a never-finished British television documentary, an oral-history account of the glory days of Hanna-Barbera animation studios . . .
JERRY: I wasn't quite sure of the concept. You have to remember this was the 1940s, and I'm just this mouse from the Midwest, right? What did I know? I knew one thing -- I didn't want to work with cats, I didn't care how much they paid me, which was $65 a week, by the way. I was scared. But Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera knew it would work. So I get to the set and the orchestra's ready to go, they've built this enormous kitchen . . . and I'm just petrified. Bill Hanna came over and talked to me, calmed me down. He said, "Jerry, just relax. You're not going to die. The cat is not going to eat you." I know it sounds crazy now, but this was very early in the cat-and-mouse thing. I trusted Bill. Everything was okay.
WILMA FLINTSTONE: I said to him one day, "Bill, you really oughta patent this stuff." I mean, the little woolly mammoth who vacuumed the carpet? I would have bought six of them to give as wedding presents or something! People don't know this, but Bill was king of the modern Stone Age household gadgets. The decor, the look -- that was him. Those houses were solid. He did let me keep one of the boulder sofas. I think he could have been another Rock Lloyd Wright, but he was so brilliant already at the cartoons.
HUCKLEBERRY HOUND: Sometimes we'd all go over to Bill and Violet Hanna's place, on Sunday afternoons. He'd barbecue, put on some jazz. It was nice. North Hollywood was like a small town, people didn't really gossip much then. It was no big deal to have cartoon characters over to the house. He never treated us two- dimensionally.
TOP CAT: He did have his favorites. I don't think I was one. I mean, what am I? A yellow cat with a vest on. I said, "Bill, I can do more than scrounge around and bebop." I always wanted some adventure.
One time Bill caught me hanging out on the "Jonny Quest" lot and called me into his office for a little Come-to-Jesus meeting. I understood. I was grateful to be working, don't get me wrong. I just don't think people appreciate us utility cats, the ones who aren't the stars. Maybe Bill did.
QUICK DRAW McGRAW: It's true, the cartoons we did were cheaper. Over at Warner Bros., they worked those characters until they were exhausted -- day and night. Sure, you could go work for Chuck Jones, and a lucky few got on the Disney gravy train, but sooner or later you would be strung out. Bugs, Daffy, Wile E. -- I'd bump into them at the Brown Derby or somewhere around town and they looked awful, just completely wasted, taking one pill to get out of bed and another pill so they could get an anvil in the head. Sad, is what it was.
This is what I liked about Bill: He knew the value of the nine-hour workday. His thinking was "Why do something in 500 drawings when you can do it in 150?" That's why we all lasted so long. We weren't drawn to death.
YOGI BEAR: People said the cartoons were cheap, that they wouldn't last, that nobody would cherish them. Just the other day there's a cereal bowl with my face on it for sale on eBay. It's going for $325.
So you tell me.
HADJI: Bill hired me to be Jonny Quest's best friend. The guys in marketing said, "Are you sure? The kid's wearing a turban." I mean, it's true, I had to play up the accent a little, but I think Bill was way ahead on this. It was the first time the kids at home saw someone in a turban who wasn't the bad guy. Someone scrawled some kind of slur on my locker, it said, "Go Home, India Ink" or something like that. Bill called a studio-wide meeting and made it clear that his shop was going to be integrated -- white, black, pink, hot pink, purple, humanoid, Herculoid, beast, robot, whatever. This was 1965. This was years before anyone ever heard of sensitivity training in the workplace.
SNAGGLEPUSS: He never once asked me about my private life. He didn't care. Heavens to Murgatroyd, why should anybody care? At his parties, up at the house, I'd bring Sylvester with me and nobody gave a [expletive].
BOO BOO BEAR: The wonderful thing with the cartoons that Bill and Joe did was that they were about us, the characters. It had to be, because too much action was too hard to draw. That's why the same pine trees keep going by as I walk in the forest. The focus was on the acting, not on the backgrounds. Leave that whole Wagnerian forest thing to the snobs at Warner, you know what I'm saying? (Boo Boo has brief coughing fit here.) [expletive] sorry. Got this sinus thing. Where was I? Oh yeah, the trees and stuff. Take, for example, a picnic basket: You had to see the picnic basket, feel the presence of the picnic basket. Whether or not there really was a picnic basket. The magic happens inside of you. Bill taught us that.
ASTRO: Rill ras reat. Ren I ras reeling really rad, Rill runderstood. Re rame to ree me ren I ras at the Retty Rord Rinic. Robody relse did, rot even Reorge Retson. (Begins crying.)
DICK DASTARDLY: Things changed. Little things. I showed up one day at the studio and the Banana Splits were running around. They weren't even cartoons, it was humans in fur suits. I started to worry. Around that time, I was seriously considering going to work for Jay Ward and the "Bullwinkle" crew across town. They were more my speed - tying heroes to train tracks, that kind of thing. Bill said the world needed villains like me, that everything would be okay, so I believed him.
SHAGGY: Like, man, the late '60s got pretty wild. Hanna-Barbera ruled Saturday morning, it was really the high point. The parties would get crazy. Scooby and I would get there and I'd be zoinksed out of my mind already -- and starving.
I remember one night, Josie and the Pussycats were performing out by the pool. Magilla Gorilla picks up that hot Pussycat drummer - what was her name? Melody? -- and just throws her into the pool, drum kit and all. At first we thought Bill was gonna be really P.O.'d about that. But he paused a beat, with that stern look on his face, holding a drink in his hand, and then burst out laughing. Then we all jumped in the pool. The party went on till at least 4 a.m.
I'll never forget that night, you know why? It was the same night as the Tate-LaBianca murders. It was only about a mile away from where the party was. Jinkies, that Charlie Manson [expletive] freaks me out. We spent the whole next day, hung over, driving around in the Mystery Machine, looking for clues. Bill helped.
AQUAMAN: When it came time to re-up for another season -- I think this was in '74, maybe '75 -- all of us Super Friends went into Bill's office to talk about our contracts. We each wanted a million bucks per episode, and we knew we had to stick together. We knew they couldn't keep the show going without all of us Friends.
I gotta hand it to Bill, he was tough. I mean, we're freakin' superheroes, and he never flinched, never backed down. We all got raises, but nowhere near a million per. Bill was crafty, too. When we started the new season, he'd added the Wonder Twins and that little super-chimpanzee thing. I noticed in some of the scripts that the Legion of Doom was kicking our butts a bit more. I think it was Bill's subtle way of letting us know we could easily be replaced.
SCRAPPY-DOO: People hated me. I mean, hated. The last thing Scooby-Doo needed was an obnoxious nephew. Bill was very protective of me, though, and I appreciated that. When my contract wasn't renewed, he gave me a good severance package. He knew it wasn't my fault.
YOGI BEAR: You could tell that they were cutting corners here and there. The studio couldn't keep up with the workload, and folks were getting bored. I saw the script for the all-star "Laff-a-Lympics" and thought, oh, brother. I called my agent. I said, "I'll do it, but only because Bill's asking me to." Before I know it, I'm paddling a raft in a relay race against Captain Caveman and Hong Kong Phooey. To tell you the truth, I was drunk.
PAPA SMURF: We were taking a break from a big song-and-dance number, and word came down that the whole operation had been sold to Ted Turner. I think we all knew that Bill and Joe were getting tired of the day-to-day stuff. Bill came down and told the staff what was happening. It turns out he was making sure we'd all be taken care of in our old age. They were talking about a kind of "cartoon channel" on cable TV. We'd be on 24 hours a day, and yes, there'd be royalty payments. We'd go on forever. I'm sure that's what Bill wanted: For us to go on smurfing and doing our thing.
Saturday, 19 March 2011
Pixie and Dixie — Heavens to Jinksy
Produced and Directed by Joe Barbera and Bill Hanna.
Credits: Animation – Ken Muse; Layout – Ed Benedict; Backgrounds – Joe Montell; Story – Warren Foster; Story Director – Alex Lovy; Titles – Lawrence Goble, Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Voice Cast: Pixie, Voice, Dog – Don Messick; Dixie, Jinks – Daws Butler.
Music: Bill Loose/John Seely, Jack Shaindlin.
First aired: week of January 18, 1960 (rerun week of July 11, 1960).
Plot: Jinks is given one chance to be nice to Pixie and Dixie or face going to Hell. The mice take advantage of it.
Several of Warren Foster’s Pixie and Dixie cartoons in the 1959-60 season owe something to a first season cartoons by Joe Barbera and Charlie Shows, or reach further back into Hanna and Barbera’s Tom and Jerry days. This cartoon does the latter, using the basic idea of Heavenly Puss (1949), to wit:
• Cat gets clobbered and knocked out.
• Cat’s ghost goes to Heaven’s waiting area.
• Cat is told to be kind to Mouse or he’ll go to Hell.
• Ghost returns to body, Cat awakens and is rebuffed by Mouse in an attempt to be nice.
Foster does take the cartoon in a bit of a different direction than the nicely expressive MGM effort. For one thing, Jinks doesn’t have to get Pixie and Dixie to sign a Certificate of Forgiveness, let alone have a deadline to do it. There’s no Satanic bulldog voiced by the great Billy Bletcher, though a semi-hellish dog is part of the action here. And the endings are not the same; Tom’s experience was a bad dream while Jinks’ is merely a bureaucratic nightmare (but, presumably, a real one).
Foster explored the chasing cat-returns-from-dead-meets-prey scenario in Satan’s Waitin’ (1954, copyright 1952) at Warners, but the plot’s a lot different and it’s funnier than the MGM cartoon.
My favourite part of this cartoon is when Jinks’ spirit is in the Great Beyond. Jinks is drawn as an outline; I’ve always remembered that from when I was a kid. Something else that’s well done is the use of sound. When it’s explained Jinks could go “up”, there’s a rising xylophone gliss, and when he’s told he could go “down,” there’s a dropping slide-whistle.
Jinks later gives an imitation of the two noises when talking to the voice in the sky. Daws Butler’s pretty funny here, with a bing-bing-bing-bing sound for “up” and a wagging tongue sound for “down.” Ken Muse shakes Jinks’ head on the last one. There are three different positions, sometimes on ones, sometimes on twos, sometimes with the tongue in, and Muse varies the order of the positions. Here they are.
Other than that, there really isn’t a lot to this cartoon, other than some nice bits of dialogue. There’s a bunch of re-used cycle animation in the running sequences and when Jinks bangs into table. I like the twirly eyes and crossed feet.
Ah, the old ‘sign on the eye’ gag is here, too (as in Satan’s Waitin’). Daws must have had fried chicken before his recording session because in this scene, for no particular reason, Dixie says “You think ol’ Jinksy has kicked the buck-buck-bucket?”
Dixie (reading): Out. (puts down eyelid and turns to Pixie) It doesn’t say when he’ll return.
The heartless meece decide to do something—get some cheese from the refrigerator. Then we get Jinks’ spirit ascending and the netherworld scene where the cat’s told to be nice to Pixie and Dixie “or else.” There’s another great use of sound here as there’s a harsh piano chord as Jinks arrives. Descending back to Earth, Jinks awakens to find the mice eating cheese. He spends much of the rest of the cartoon talking to the Voice in the Great Beyond, trying to convince him he’s being kind to the meece.
Pixie: That sock he got seemed to change him.
Dixie: Any change will be an improvement.
Jinks (to the sky): Pixie and Dixie are my pals and I will be nice to them.
Dixie: He acts if he’s sort of, kind of, uh...
Pixie: Nuts.
Dixie: Yeah, that’s it.
(later)
Pixie: He’s getting sloppy about it.
But instead of accepting peace and friendship, the vindictive and revengeful mice decide Jinks is afraid of them and get back at the cat. Of course, if they didn’t, there wouldn’t be much of a plot. First, they demand and get a roast chicken (Ah! There’s the “buck-buck” Daws had earlier). Then Pixie plays “Cowboy” on Jinks in drawings far less fun than Carlo Vinci’s the previous season when Cousin Tex rode Jinks. It looks like Jinks has been eating the fried chicken here. Look at the weight Muse put on him!
All this is watched through the window by a dog who tells Jinks “that’s the most disgraceful exposition I ever seed.” Jinks is about to buy the dog’s line to stop letting the mice push him around when a vocal reminder comes from The Great Beyond.
Much like Jinks forced the meece to play “Bumbly-Bee” in ‘Plutocrat Cat’ the following year, Pixie and Dixie force Jinks to put a fish bowl over his head to play “Monster Space Cat.” The idea is to “smash his space helmet and he’ll have to breathe Earth air. Then he’ll be at our mercy.” The dog decides to get in on the fun, grabs Dixie’s hammer and smash! “Here’s your hammer back, buddy,” the dog says. “I just saved da woild from outer space invasion.” Next, the mice play “William Tell” with Jinks, an apple on his head and little suction-cup arrows. Suddenly a toilet plunger wallops Jinks in the face. Cut to the dog with a cross-bow.
It’s time for Jinks to check in with The Great Beyond and up his spirit goes. But he’s informed “through a bookkeeping error” that whoever up there didn’t realise cats have nine lives and Jinks has eight to go. Evidently things aren’t as perfect Up There as we’re led to believe. But it’s perfect for Jinks, who dives back into his body and resumes chasing the meeces, trying to clobber them with the toilet plunger and giggling in cycle animation as the iris closes.
Daws, once again, does a fine job here. I like the “resigned-to-his-fate” tone he gives Jinks throughout much of the cartoon and the “what-the-hell-do-you-want” sound when the dog calls him over. Don Messick’s dog is good, too. It’s not a raspy growl and it’s not a ‘dumb’ voice but you’re left with the impression the dog’s from the other side of the tracks (does anyone use that reference any more?).
This is the only Pixie and Dixie cartoon after the first season of The Huckleberry Hound Show that was released on DVD. It’s in a compilation set from 2001 that included Huck’s Spud Dud. Both contain the stock music cues that have prevented the release of seasons two and three of the Huck Show because the rights holders won’t pay for their use. This cartoon starts with the quintessential meece-chasing theme as Pixie and Dixie run past the same light socket 11 times. The sound cutter didn’t use cues at all during the times Jinks is in Heaven (or whatever it is). He put together musical effects featuring a harp at the open and close, a dissonant piano chord (used in other cartoons, like The Flintstones as a “Hold it!” accent) and the “twinkling” sound reserved for dream sequence intros and extros.
0:00 - Pixie and Dixie Main Title theme (Curtin, Hanna, Barbera, Shows).
0:26 - LAF-20-5 TOBOGGAN RUN (Shaindlin) – Jinks chases meece, bangs into table.
0:49 - TC-300 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Meece inspect Jinks.
1:14 - harp sounds – Jinks rises, talks to voice in darkness, goes back into body.
2:04 - LAF-4-1 FISHY STORY (Shaindlin) – Jinks tells mice he’s their friend, clobbered on foot with hammer.
3:09 - TC-202 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Jinks threatens to tear meeces to pieces, changes mind, “Blechh!”
3:46 - LAF-21-3 RECESS (Shaindlin) – Jinks and mice at fridge.
3:58 - LAF-2-12 ON THE RUN (Shaindlin) – Pixie rides Jinks, dog stares in window, “Take five!”
4:14 - LAF-25-3 bassoon and zig-zag strings (Shaindlin) – “Oh, no, not Space Cat,” Jinks talks to dog, Space Cat scene.
5:37 - LAF-10-7 GROTESQUE No 2 (Shaindlin) – “William Tell” scene.
6:00 - harp sounds – Jinks rises, talks to voice in darkness, goes back into body.
6:30 - LAF-74-2 LICKETY SPLIT (Shaindlin) – Jinks removes toilet plunger, chases meece.
7:11 - Pixie and Dixie end-title theme (Curtin).
Credits: Animation – Ken Muse; Layout – Ed Benedict; Backgrounds – Joe Montell; Story – Warren Foster; Story Director – Alex Lovy; Titles – Lawrence Goble, Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Voice Cast: Pixie, Voice, Dog – Don Messick; Dixie, Jinks – Daws Butler.
Music: Bill Loose/John Seely, Jack Shaindlin.
First aired: week of January 18, 1960 (rerun week of July 11, 1960).
Plot: Jinks is given one chance to be nice to Pixie and Dixie or face going to Hell. The mice take advantage of it.
Several of Warren Foster’s Pixie and Dixie cartoons in the 1959-60 season owe something to a first season cartoons by Joe Barbera and Charlie Shows, or reach further back into Hanna and Barbera’s Tom and Jerry days. This cartoon does the latter, using the basic idea of Heavenly Puss (1949), to wit:
• Cat gets clobbered and knocked out.
• Cat’s ghost goes to Heaven’s waiting area.
• Cat is told to be kind to Mouse or he’ll go to Hell.
• Ghost returns to body, Cat awakens and is rebuffed by Mouse in an attempt to be nice.
Foster does take the cartoon in a bit of a different direction than the nicely expressive MGM effort. For one thing, Jinks doesn’t have to get Pixie and Dixie to sign a Certificate of Forgiveness, let alone have a deadline to do it. There’s no Satanic bulldog voiced by the great Billy Bletcher, though a semi-hellish dog is part of the action here. And the endings are not the same; Tom’s experience was a bad dream while Jinks’ is merely a bureaucratic nightmare (but, presumably, a real one).
Foster explored the chasing cat-returns-from-dead-meets-prey scenario in Satan’s Waitin’ (1954, copyright 1952) at Warners, but the plot’s a lot different and it’s funnier than the MGM cartoon.
My favourite part of this cartoon is when Jinks’ spirit is in the Great Beyond. Jinks is drawn as an outline; I’ve always remembered that from when I was a kid. Something else that’s well done is the use of sound. When it’s explained Jinks could go “up”, there’s a rising xylophone gliss, and when he’s told he could go “down,” there’s a dropping slide-whistle.
Jinks later gives an imitation of the two noises when talking to the voice in the sky. Daws Butler’s pretty funny here, with a bing-bing-bing-bing sound for “up” and a wagging tongue sound for “down.” Ken Muse shakes Jinks’ head on the last one. There are three different positions, sometimes on ones, sometimes on twos, sometimes with the tongue in, and Muse varies the order of the positions. Here they are.
Other than that, there really isn’t a lot to this cartoon, other than some nice bits of dialogue. There’s a bunch of re-used cycle animation in the running sequences and when Jinks bangs into table. I like the twirly eyes and crossed feet.
Ah, the old ‘sign on the eye’ gag is here, too (as in Satan’s Waitin’). Daws must have had fried chicken before his recording session because in this scene, for no particular reason, Dixie says “You think ol’ Jinksy has kicked the buck-buck-bucket?”
Dixie (reading): Out. (puts down eyelid and turns to Pixie) It doesn’t say when he’ll return.
The heartless meece decide to do something—get some cheese from the refrigerator. Then we get Jinks’ spirit ascending and the netherworld scene where the cat’s told to be nice to Pixie and Dixie “or else.” There’s another great use of sound here as there’s a harsh piano chord as Jinks arrives. Descending back to Earth, Jinks awakens to find the mice eating cheese. He spends much of the rest of the cartoon talking to the Voice in the Great Beyond, trying to convince him he’s being kind to the meece.
Pixie: That sock he got seemed to change him.
Dixie: Any change will be an improvement.
Jinks (to the sky): Pixie and Dixie are my pals and I will be nice to them.
Dixie: He acts if he’s sort of, kind of, uh...
Pixie: Nuts.
Dixie: Yeah, that’s it.
(later)
Pixie: He’s getting sloppy about it.
But instead of accepting peace and friendship, the vindictive and revengeful mice decide Jinks is afraid of them and get back at the cat. Of course, if they didn’t, there wouldn’t be much of a plot. First, they demand and get a roast chicken (Ah! There’s the “buck-buck” Daws had earlier). Then Pixie plays “Cowboy” on Jinks in drawings far less fun than Carlo Vinci’s the previous season when Cousin Tex rode Jinks. It looks like Jinks has been eating the fried chicken here. Look at the weight Muse put on him!
All this is watched through the window by a dog who tells Jinks “that’s the most disgraceful exposition I ever seed.” Jinks is about to buy the dog’s line to stop letting the mice push him around when a vocal reminder comes from The Great Beyond.
Much like Jinks forced the meece to play “Bumbly-Bee” in ‘Plutocrat Cat’ the following year, Pixie and Dixie force Jinks to put a fish bowl over his head to play “Monster Space Cat.” The idea is to “smash his space helmet and he’ll have to breathe Earth air. Then he’ll be at our mercy.” The dog decides to get in on the fun, grabs Dixie’s hammer and smash! “Here’s your hammer back, buddy,” the dog says. “I just saved da woild from outer space invasion.” Next, the mice play “William Tell” with Jinks, an apple on his head and little suction-cup arrows. Suddenly a toilet plunger wallops Jinks in the face. Cut to the dog with a cross-bow.
It’s time for Jinks to check in with The Great Beyond and up his spirit goes. But he’s informed “through a bookkeeping error” that whoever up there didn’t realise cats have nine lives and Jinks has eight to go. Evidently things aren’t as perfect Up There as we’re led to believe. But it’s perfect for Jinks, who dives back into his body and resumes chasing the meeces, trying to clobber them with the toilet plunger and giggling in cycle animation as the iris closes.
Daws, once again, does a fine job here. I like the “resigned-to-his-fate” tone he gives Jinks throughout much of the cartoon and the “what-the-hell-do-you-want” sound when the dog calls him over. Don Messick’s dog is good, too. It’s not a raspy growl and it’s not a ‘dumb’ voice but you’re left with the impression the dog’s from the other side of the tracks (does anyone use that reference any more?).
This is the only Pixie and Dixie cartoon after the first season of The Huckleberry Hound Show that was released on DVD. It’s in a compilation set from 2001 that included Huck’s Spud Dud. Both contain the stock music cues that have prevented the release of seasons two and three of the Huck Show because the rights holders won’t pay for their use. This cartoon starts with the quintessential meece-chasing theme as Pixie and Dixie run past the same light socket 11 times. The sound cutter didn’t use cues at all during the times Jinks is in Heaven (or whatever it is). He put together musical effects featuring a harp at the open and close, a dissonant piano chord (used in other cartoons, like The Flintstones as a “Hold it!” accent) and the “twinkling” sound reserved for dream sequence intros and extros.
0:00 - Pixie and Dixie Main Title theme (Curtin, Hanna, Barbera, Shows).
0:26 - LAF-20-5 TOBOGGAN RUN (Shaindlin) – Jinks chases meece, bangs into table.
0:49 - TC-300 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Meece inspect Jinks.
1:14 - harp sounds – Jinks rises, talks to voice in darkness, goes back into body.
2:04 - LAF-4-1 FISHY STORY (Shaindlin) – Jinks tells mice he’s their friend, clobbered on foot with hammer.
3:09 - TC-202 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Jinks threatens to tear meeces to pieces, changes mind, “Blechh!”
3:46 - LAF-21-3 RECESS (Shaindlin) – Jinks and mice at fridge.
3:58 - LAF-2-12 ON THE RUN (Shaindlin) – Pixie rides Jinks, dog stares in window, “Take five!”
4:14 - LAF-25-3 bassoon and zig-zag strings (Shaindlin) – “Oh, no, not Space Cat,” Jinks talks to dog, Space Cat scene.
5:37 - LAF-10-7 GROTESQUE No 2 (Shaindlin) – “William Tell” scene.
6:00 - harp sounds – Jinks rises, talks to voice in darkness, goes back into body.
6:30 - LAF-74-2 LICKETY SPLIT (Shaindlin) – Jinks removes toilet plunger, chases meece.
7:11 - Pixie and Dixie end-title theme (Curtin).