Wednesday 10 August 2011

More Fun With Layouts and Model Sheets

A little while ago, you were promised more Hanna-Barbera drawings that were gleaned off auction and art sites on-line. Unfortunately, I didn’t make a notation of the sources. Sorry.

First we have (I think) layout drawings, one from the closing of the original Huckleberry Hound Show and the other from the original Quick Draw McGraw Show. For you newcomers reading, Kellogg’s sponsored both half hour shows and the company was worked into the opening and closing credits. The Huck show was the most Kellogg-friendly. Besides Cornelius the Rooster (who hawk-a-doodle-dood Corn Flakes), the end sequence featured all the spokes-characters popular at the time in 1958—Snap, Crackle and Pop, Tony Tiger and Tony Jr., Super Pops Pete and Smacksie the Seal. My guess is the layout is by Bick Bickenbach. Compare it to how it appeared on TV which, unfortunately, isn’t in colour. I gather only the black-and-white version (which looks like it was recorded on a VHS machine) exists.




Here’s one from the end of Quick Draw McGraw. You can compare it to what it looked like when combined with the background.




Speaking of sponsors, this looks like a colour chart for some kind of promotional art, as H-B kisses up to the sponsors of its various half-hour cartoon shows. Magilla Gorilla began airing in syndication in 1963 when, as a six-year-old, even I rolled my eyes at the obviousness of including his sponsor in the theme song lyrics (the Peter Potamus theme was equally ham-handed about it). Evidently, this drawing was done after The Jetsons was cancelled. Too bad Fred isn’t taking a big drag on a Winston.



Next a couple of storyboard drawings from El Kabong Strikes Again. You’re looking at the handiwork of one Michael Maltese.



Finally, some model sheets from Jonny Quest, which debuted in 1964. Cynthia Lowry of the Associated Press described it as “an adventure series that looked like a realistically drawn animated cartoon strip. It is designed to identify with young viewers...The kids will adore it.” Well, I loved the show and I was sad when it wasn’t renewed for the following season. That’s more than I can say for Magilla and Peter Potamus. Apparently Jonny Quest was reworked a couple of decades later and included a bunch of back stories for people who don’t want to use their own imagination.

If you’ve seen the JQ documentary on some on-line video sites, you’ll know the show went through a pile of changes while in development. That’s certainly reflected in the model sheets. You have to wonder how long it took to make each half hour before it got on TV. The Dr. Quest-Jonny-Race size chart is dated July 9, 1964, less than three months before the pilot aired on ABC. The Bandit sheet is signed by Bick, the rest are by Doug Wildey.







There were only two questions about Jonny Quest I had as a child. The former I can answer now, but the latter still puzzles me. I could never figure out why Dr Quest sounded like John Stephenson one week and Don Messick the next. And I wondered why Dr. Zin couldn’t make us all happy and get rid of stupid Bandit once and for all.

18 comments:

  1. I remember when our ABC affiliate in Hampton Virginia( WVEC ) ran the H-B Cartoons in their original form, the cut with Baba Looey riding the back of the stage coach and bouncing on the Kellogg's logo was seen everyday. I remember that very well. I believe Jonny Quest would have still appealed to the it's intended audience without Bandit. I think I remember reading somewhere that the original idea and working script had no pet for Jonny. Either Bill or Joe added Bandit. I could be wrong. Great layouts and sheets.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Since we've got YouTube video of Cornelius knocking on Huck's dressing room door, odds are the opening and end titles were also shot in color, but may not have been retained in the HB vaults as Kellogg's put characters like Smaksie the Seal out to pasture (IIRC, he was gone as a mascot for the cereal by 1961).

    The first 8-10 or so episodes of Magilla weren't that bad. But as Chuck Jones said of H-B product in general, "They ran out of the material pretty fast", and the Peter Potamus Show was pretty much a just-doing-it-for-the-Ideal-Toys-money effort from the start, to the point they had to re-tool the title character's set-up and add the time machine gimmick midway through the series because the episodes were so lame. At least Bill and Joe got a lot of mileage out of Magilla's name (and Little Eva got a hit song out of the deal).

    ReplyDelete
  3. Doug Wildey once told me "Joe made me put that dumb dog in the show!" I loved Johnny Quest but Doug was always bemused that I did.

    Great blog! I'm a regular reader.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The Snap, Crackle & Pop drawing is cleaned up animation drawing as it has timing chart in the upper right corner. I have a drawing and a cell of these guys form the same scene. The occasional cells that I've seen from the opening and end titles are painted in color which would support the assumption that the titles were shot in color. I tend to think from the character style of Huck and a brief appearance of Yogi in the titles that they were probably animated by Ken Muse. The later re-done titles are probably also by Ken Muse.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks, Don. I do not work in animation and I only have an inkling of the process (no pun intended) so it's nice to have people who know what they're talking about fill me in.
    I gather Muse did the openings for most of the half-hour shows; it looks like Muse to me on Top Cat.

    ReplyDelete
  6. As always, thanks for the blog. The group sketch welcoming Magilla Gorilla is new to me; I have never seen it before.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I was told, while at HB, that John Stephenson was replaced because they thought he sounded too much like Mike Road's Race Bannon. They didn't want to confuse viewers by 2 voices that sounded too close to each other.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Yes, Ken Muse animated the opening sequence to TOP CAT, the original "Rise and Shine" opening and closing to THE FLINSTONES and the redrawn Huck opening title. The redrawn Huck opening is said to have been done in 1964, but judging from the fine lines drawn around the characters it looks more like 1965 or '66.

    Dick Lundy animated the opening and closing to THE YOGI BEAR SHOW, and the closing credit sequences to THE QUICK DRAW McGRAW SHOW (not sure if he also did the opening) and TOP CAT. It looks to me that either Lundy or Ed Aardal did the openings and closings of THE JETSONS and 1962-66 FLINTSTONES.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The great Ed Love did the closing titles to the ori. Huck Hound show.I can recognise his work in the Snap Crackle Pop drawing and also tell by the timming chart on the drawing.George Nicholas or George Kriesl did the main titles to the Jetsons

    ReplyDelete
  10. Yowp, my boy....that last sentence of your about "that stupid Bandit" was hilarious..!

    Steve

    ReplyDelete
  11. Howard, Fred Wolf animated the third season main title opening on "The Flintstones".

    ReplyDelete
  12. A little late to the ball, here, but I agree that Zin should have smoked that dog. Most annoying little purp I've ever seen in 'toons.
    Jack

    ReplyDelete
  13. Howie Fein,

    It seems that Carlo Vinci animated the overture from The Quick Draw McGraw Show (Hanna-Barbera/Columbia Pictures, 1959-62). I have my doubts.
    I could recognize the Dick Lundy's animation on the 1962-66 "Meet the Flintstones" overture and closing from The Flintstones (Hanna-Barbera/Columbia Pictures, 1960-66).
    There are some overtures from the Hanna-Barbera cartoon series which I can recognize their animation styles and who animated them. Here are some of them:

    - Sinbad Jr. and His Magic Belt (Hanna-Barbera/American International [afterwards Orion Pictures], 1965): Hugh Fraser
    - The Atom Ant Show (Hanna-Barbera, 1965-67): Hugh Fraser
    - The Secret Squirrel Show (Hanna-Barbera, 1965-67): Hugh Fraser
    - The Space Kidettes (Hanna-Barbera, 1966): Ed Love
    - Frankenstein Jr. & The Impossibles (Hanna-Barbera, 1966): Carlo Vinci
    - The Abbott & Costello Cartoon Show (Hanna-Barbera/RKO General/Jomar Productions, 1967): Irven Spence
    - Wacky Races (Hanna-Barbera, 1968): Carlo Vinci animated a part from this overture.
    - Yogi's Gang (Hanna-Barbera/Columbia Pictures, 1973): Ed Love
    - Speed Buggy (Hanna-Barbera, 1973): Hugh Fraser
    - Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kids (Hanna-Barbera, 1973): Ed Love
    - Goober and The Ghost Chasers (Hanna-Barbera, 1973): Carlo Vinci animated a part from this overture.
    - the first animated version from The Addams Family (Hanna-Barbera/Charles Addams' estate, 1973): Hugh Fraser
    - Hong Kong Phooey (Hanna-Barbera, 1974): George Nicholas
    - The Scooby-Doo Show (Hanna-Barbera, 1976-79): Kenneth Muse animated a part from this overture.
    - Jabberjaw (Hanna-Barbera, 1976): Carlo Vinci animated a part from this overture.
    - Capitain Caveman & The Teen Angels (Hanna-Barbera, 1977-80): Kenneth Muse animated the beginning from this overture.
    - The Super Globetrotters (Hanna-Barbera, 1979): Ed Love

    ...and so on.

    ReplyDelete
  14. I'll have to agree with the above comments by "mrmagoo". Ed Love probably did animate the closing titles to the original "Huckleberry Hound" show. The scene that leads into them is Yogi and Huck holding a "Best To You" Kellogg's sign which I still tend to think that Ken Muse animated.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I was always a fan of H-B product since I was nine, with Ruff and Reddy,but when Dell issued the comic books of Huckleberry Hound from 1959, did Harvet Eisenberg use animation cels to draw the stories from the TV series as a reference guide

    ReplyDelete
  16. Good question, anon. I'm not familiar with the layouts in the comics to compare them to any cartoons Dell may have adapted.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Where did you find the color version of the "Kellogg's" sponsor for Quick Draw McGraw? I've only seen a B&W version.

    ReplyDelete
  18. It's on Vol. 2 of the 1960s Saturday Morning Cartoons DVD.

    ReplyDelete