White House Huck, Part 1

This is a painful time for Huckleberry Hound. In case you’ve forgotten, it was 52 years ago that he lost the election for president of the United States.

We here at the Yowp blog avoid the arena of American politics. Except, of course, when it involves one of our friends in the Hanna-Barbera world. So let’s look back at when Huck reluctantly ran for president. It wasn’t on TV. It was in the pages of Dell Comics.

Whoever came up with the main story for this comic book borrowed ideas from some of the Huckleberry Hound cartoons. You should recognise “Freeway Patrol” and “Hookie Daze.” Not all the gags in those two cartoons from the Joe Barbera-Charlie Shows-Dan Gordon team are in the comics but if you’re familiar with the TV show, you’ll recognise the ones that are. The artwork is by Harvey Eisenberg.

We won’t print the whole comic book here. Just the first half. We’ll try to fit in the second half in a separate post.













Read Part Two of the comic book HERE.

In hunting around for Huck election-related news on-line, we spotted this cute little letter to the editor of the Twin Falls Times-News, November 18, 1962.

Now that the election is past and the speech-making is over, we should take time out to analyse the campaign. Television appears to be the battleground for many candidates.
It is my conclusion they are a bunch of cowards. In the entire campaign, not once was “Huckleberry Hound,” “Yogi Bear” or “Popeye” pre-empted for a political speech.

We note the same thing has happened again during this year’s campaign in the U.S. Huck still has the candidates in fear, 52 years later.

Yogi Bear — Bare Face Bear

Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Credits: Animation – Gerard Baldwin; Layout – Walt Clinton; Backgrounds – Bob Gentle; Story – Warren Foster; Story Sketches – Dan Gordon; Titles – Art Goble; Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Voice Cast: Yogi, Crook– Daws Butler; Yowp, Sheriff – Don Messick.
Music: Jack Shaindlin, Bill Loose/John Seely, Geordie Hormel, Spence Moore.
First Aired: week of Sept. 28, 1959 (rerun, week of May 23, 1960).
Episode: Huckleberry Hound Show K-029.
Plot: A jewel thief disguises himself as a bear and gets Yogi to protect him from sniffer dog Yowp.

Bare Face Bear marks the final on-screen appearance of Yowp, and the fact that this enjoyable character was never used in a cartoon again shows the significant change that took place in the Yogi Bear series.

During Yogi’s first year on the air in the 1958-59 TV season, the happy-go-lucky bear was placed in a variety of situations by the writing team of Joe Barbera, Dan Gordon and Charlie Shows. He was in spot gag cartoons (involving a freeway and a fish). He was the helpmate of weaker creatures (including an eaglet, several young boys and a little fox). And he was a pain to rangers around a park (occasionally named Jellystone), rarely involving food and never involving Ranger Smith. Boo Boo appeared only on occasion.

That started changing in the second year when Shows left the studio and the bulk of the writing seems to have been entrusted to Warren Foster, formerly of Warner Bros. The generic rangers were merged into one character, Smith. Yogi displayed a desire for pic-a-nic baskets. But he still got mixed up in non-Jellystone adventures, including a couple of funny ones involving fairy tale characters. And he was also placed in one cartoon where, for a third time, he matched wits with a dog that only said “yowp!” with no Boo Boo or ranger in sight.

Evidently, a conscious decision was made for the third season that Yogi should be shoved into a strict format, perhaps anticipating he would be getting his own show (The Yogi cartoons still aired on the Huckleberry Hound Show from September 1960 to January 1961, when the Yogi Bear Show, announced the previous October, finally debuted). Yogi became married to Jellystone Park, Ranger Smith was to be his permanent nemesis and Boo Boo was to be the voice of caution. And that’s what viewers got after the season’s first cartoon, a very funny, Ranger Smith-less fairy tale send-up. Having a format meant that each story didn’t need a set-up; regular viewers knew what the score was and the cartoon could get right into the action. And they also knew what they could expect every week when they tuned in. The decision turned out to be a huge success. It even spawned a feature film as the characters had a ready-made situation to jump into. But it also meant there was no more place in the Hanna-Barbera world for helping eaglets or rescuing little boys. Or a dog named Yowp. Yogi had a human nemesis and adding a tracker dog into the mix just wouldn’t work. To me, the Yogi Bear series lost something good when it became more restrictive but fans, even today, love the Yogi-Ranger-Boo Boo combination, so who am I to argue?

This final Yowp cartoon was animated by Gerard Baldwin during his first brief, and apparently unhappy, stop at Hanna-Barbera (in the biographical addendum in Keith Scott’s book The Moose That Roared, Baldwin doesn’t even mention the studio). He was soon snapped up by former UPA colleague Bill Hurtz to direct cartoons for Jay Ward. Baldwin had an unusual drawing style at times. In this cartoon, he balloons Yowp’s stomach in running cycle animation, and Yogi has a cleavaged snout and a little mouth tucked up in his face when in three-quarters view. Occasionally, the neck gets stretched.




For some reason, there are some extremely tight shots in this cartoon (see above). The layout man was Walt Clinton. Whether writer Warren Foster would have had the close-ups indicated on his storyboard or Clinton did it in his layout drawings, I don’t know, but it’s certainly unusual. I doubt Baldwin, as an animator, would have drawn the scenes that way on his own. You can tell Clinton’s at work here because of the collar-height ear and the bags under the eyes. Clinton went through a baggy period, especially on the Quick Draw McGraw Show.



The best-known bits in this cartoon are both variations of something found in old theatrical cartoons. The clueless western sheriff character drags the highly-intelligent Yowp by the tail reminding him “We’re after crooks. C-R-U-K-S.” The misspelling gag worked best in Jack-Wabbit and the Beanstalk (1943) where the giant tells Bugs Bunny “You think you’re pretty C-A-T-Smart, don’t you?” Then there’s the routine borrowed from the end of Tex Avery’s Ventriloquist Cat (1950), where the title character meows over and over at an annoyed dog, with the tone of his meows changing as the situation he’s in dawns on him. Yowp angrily yowps at the bad guy disguised as a bear. The bad guy disappears and is substituted with the sheriff, ticked off that Yowp has snared a bear and not a crook. Yowp’s expression goes from angry to hopeful to forlorn to sheepish over the span of 35 seconds as his yowps get quieter and farther apart, with Spencer Moore’s “Comedy Underscore” playing in the background, before the sheriff explodes. It could have been a static scene that played too long but it’s timed just right, and helped by Don Messick’s acting as the inimitable Yowp.



The plot’s set up pretty quickly. The cartoon opens with a long shot of a big, black, tail-finned car zooming along a mountain road. Cut to a closer shot of the gate to Jellystone. The car zips through it and stops at the edge of a cliff. A news announcer on the car radio tells us a thief has made off with a million dollars in jewels. Bill Hanna was no doubt happy to save money by having no animation for five seconds during a close-up on the drawing of the radio.

Naturally, the jewel thief is in the car. He picks up the story and tells the audience what he’s going to do. After kicking his car over the cliff as easy as kicking a bucket (and there’s no sound of the car dropping or crashing) he puts on a bear costume to “mingle with the bears until the heat’s off.”



The rest of the cartoon is similar in nature to the first Yowp cartoon, Foxy Hound-Dog. Yowp can easily see through the disguise while the sheriff (as opposed to the English hunter in the first cartoon) does not. The difference is even smarter-than-the-average-bear Yogi doesn’t clue in as he protects his new friend, abusing him in the process. And unlike the mute fox, the bad guy-as-bear speaks. So, there’s dialogue.

Crook: Listen, brother bear. I’m in a jam. You gotta help me.
Yogi: “Lend a Paw.” That’s the Code of the Bears. What kind of a jam? Blueberry, I hope. Nyea, hey, hey, hey!
Crook: Uh, eh, I only swiped one teeny peanut butter sand-a-wich. Without jelly.
Yogi: A peanut butter sand-a-wich? Why liberatin’ goodies from a pic-a-nic table is a bear’s per-rogative.
Crook: Yeah, that’s what I thought. Whatever you said.

Yogi shoves him in a cookie jar, under a stream, in a hollow tree, under a heavy boulder and then into a hollow log, as the bear outfit becomes rattier from the abuse. Baldwin’s Yogi looks fine in profile but odd when he faces in other positions.





It turns out the end of a the hollow log is over a cliff. The crook drops, with the bear suit snagging on a tree limb and ripping off. Yogi races to the bottom and catches the falling crook. Remarkably, he shows no surprise whatsoever that the bear really isn’t a bear. Did he know all along? If so, he sure doesn’t let the audience in on it (unlike when Warren Foster wrote for Tweety, who let the audience knew his innocence was a façade).



The cartoon ends like Foxy Hound-Dog, with Yowp crying in frustration. The sheriff still doesn’t realise Yowp was tracking the thief and gives Yogi all the credit. Frankly, Yowp should have bit him on the butt and chased him into the distance. A far more satisfying way to end an on-screen career.

Appropriately, when Yogi is running with the crook/bear, the soundtrack plays Jack Shaindlin’s “On the Run.” There’s a lot of Shaindlin’s music in this cartoon; it finishes with the button end from his “Recess.” There’s very little by Bill Loose; a couple of his “children’s” cues were popular the following season.

0:00 - Yogi Bear Sub Main Title Theme (Curtin-Shows-Hanna-Barbera).
0:24 - ZR-48 FAST MOVEMENT (Hormel) – Car speeds into Jellystone.
0:37 - bassoon and zig-zag strings (Shaindlin) – Crook listens to radio, ditches car, puts on bear suit, Yowp finds suitcase, Yogi welcomes “bear.”
2:00 - TC-301 ZANY WALTZ (Loose-Seely) – Yogi continues welcome, hides “bear” in cookie jar, Yogi talks to sheriff.
2:56 - LAF 10-7 GROTESQUE No 2 (Shaindlin) – Yowp yowps at Yogi, “bear” and Yogi look out cave entrance.
3:31 - LAF 2-12 ON THE RUN (Shaindlin) – Yogi runs away with “bear,” Yowp chases Yogi to stream.
4:08 - L-78 COMEDY UNDERSCORE (Moore) – Yowp yowps at Yogi, drags away, Yogi and “bear” zip from scene.
4:31 - LAF 2-12 ON THE RUN (Shaindlin) – Yogi runs with “bear,” skids to stop.
4:42 - LAF 7-12 FUN ON ICE (Shaindlin) – Yogi hides “bear” in tree, Yowp finds “bear.”
4:56 - L-78 COMEDY UNDERSCORE (Moore) – Bear head is substituted for sheriff’s head, Yowp keeps yowping, “C-R-U-K-S! Crooks!”
5:42 - LAF 5-20 TOBOGGAN RUN (Shaindlin) – Yogi runs with “bear,” hides him under rock, throws him through log, drops from air.
6:16 - ZR-48 FAST MOVEMENT (Hormel) – “I will save you!”, bear costume rips off, Yogi catches crook.
6:41 - LAF 10-7 GROTESQUE No 2 (Shaindlin) – “Caught you!” Sheriff criticises Yowp, Yowp cries.
7:06 - LAF 21-3 RECESS (Shaindlin) – Yowp cries. (two notes)
7:09 - Yogi Bear Sub End Title Theme (Curtin).

Happy Birthday To Me

Who would have believed that it was 54 years ago today that I, the famous cartoon dog Yowp, made his TV debut? How fleeting are the days! And, ah, what memories!

Well, there aren’t too many memories. As my loyal fans throughout Yowpdom know, I only appeared in three cartoons. The first was Foxy Hound-Dog, drawn by Lew Marshall and Mike Lah, the second was Duck in Luck, animated by Carlo Vinci (the less said about the duck which appeared therein and went on to stardom, the better) and the third was Bear Face Bear, drawn by Gerard Baldwin. Hey, Elmer-Bugs-Daffy had a trilogy, so why can’t I?

To mark the festive occasion, feel free to do one of two things. Celebrate by going up to your friends and barking “yowp, yowp!” Or, if you think that’ll destroy valuable friendships for life, watch the debut cartoon below (if it hasn’t been yanked from the internet by the time you read this).

Leo is a Cat

Time for a quiz. Which Hanna-Barbera voice actor:

● Was allowed by New York State to live rent-free in his home in Yonkers until it was torn down for a throughway?
● Had to take three shots a day, and gave up $11,000 in summer resort bookings, because of hay fever?
● Was the musical director for lounge-act singers Sandler and Young?

If you guessed Leo De Lyon, it’s because the post header gave it away. Or you’re related to him.

I always felt embarrassed for Leo when I was a kid. “Who’d name their son ‘Leo De Lyon?’” I asked myself. Little did I know he named himself “Leo De Lyon.” It’s a stage name.

Leo performed double-duty on Top Cat. He was both the voice of The Brain and Spook. But he’s remained an enigma over the years because he’s not known for anything but Top Cat, unlike the other voice actors on the show. So, as a public service, I’ve delved into old newspapers to see what I could find. It seems Leo was the Comedy Sensation of 1949. Walter Winchell’s column of April 8th reads:

Horatio Alger-stuff: Comedian Leo de Lyon, 23, opens at the Roxy on the 15th—after clicking big at the Strand only a fortnight ago. He was a clerk in a cloak-and-suitery a year ago.

He was being touted as “the next Danny Kaye” and landed a screen test at Paramount that year. Over the next few years, New York show biz columnists included quips from him and snippets about him, such as the newsie little items you read above. However, the Oakland Tribune’s theatre/movie reporter conducted an interview with him published January 3, 1950 that gives a bit of his background.

Off Guard Moment Reveals True Character, Critic Finds
By WOOD SOANES
Interviews with actors are always interesting because if the interviewer throws his questions with sufficient curves he is quite likely to catch the subject off guard and thus discover just what manner of man he is dealing with.
Take Leo de Lyon who is the head man of the Orpheum bill this week for instance. On the stage, de Lyon displays a great vocal gift, a sure sense of timing and the potentials of greatness in the entertainment field. He gives no indication of being ether a sentimentalist or a philanthropist.
In the interview the other day he gave responses with frankness and honesty and yet it wasn't going too well. I learned, through quick replies, something of how he had made his start in the theater, where he proposed to go, something of his family background and upbringing, a little of his ambitions.
It wasn't until he was about ready to leave for an appointment with the photographer that a chance question revealed something of the man himself. He had said that he came to Oakland a few days ahead of his opening, principally because he had no engagements to fill and because he wanted to get away from Hollywood and do some work on his musical compositions.
Well, he got away from Hollywood all right but he didn’t do any composing. Instead he spent the afternoon and evening before Christmas at Oak Knoll Hospital. He put in seven hours entertaining patients in the various wards without any monetary compensation, and without bothering to do what most actors would do immediately —notify the theater press agent of his mission.
“I really had a wonderful time,” he admitted after trying to brush off further inquiries. "I called the Red Cross and asked them if any of the veterans’ hospitals nearby could use an act. They told me they were short of funds, and I replied that I wasn’t looking for a job of work, I was simply thinking of the time I spent in the Halloran Hospital on Staten Island.
“Well, we had a lot of fun. I know that at Christmas time most of the ambulatory patients are either taken to private homes or their own homes. The fellows who are unable to get around are really stuck. And there were a lot of guys stuck at Oak Knoll. We really had a time for ourselves.”
Leo de Lyon was born Irving Levin in Patterson, New Jersey, on April 27, 1925 and spent his boyhood in Brooklyn, where the family moved when he was 10. It was a musical family, although none but his older brother Max had ever gone in for professional entertainment. Max Levin started life as an actor in community affairs but later thought better of it and became a textile manufacturer.
“Today Max is still a frustrated actor,” de Lyon said, “and in my book he would have been m great actor if he stayed with it My only claim to fame was that I was a boy soprano. When I was 12 my voice changed with one exception from the normal—I became a baritone who could still hold soprano notes without being falsetto. It simply annoyed me. I had no idea that it would one day prove the means of a livelihood.”
Since the Levin family inclined toward music, young Irving was given instruction in various instruments, mostly those played with the hands, but also in trumpet playing. It was as a trumpet tootler that he got his first job as the leader of his own six-piece band on what is known as the "Borscht Circuit" in New York. His first professional engagement was at a bistro called the Sawdust Trail in New York.
“I might have remained a band leader,” he mused, “had it not been for the hecklers in the audience. The Sawdust Trail did not cater to the elite. I found that I could silence them by screaming. Fortunately for me, the owner was a very successful New York attorney, and he came to my aid.
“It was through him that I acquired the name of Leo de Lyon and when I got a spot on the ‘Believe it or Not’ program because I could hum and whistle a fugue, simultaneously, it was not long before I was picked for an introductory engagement on Arthur Godfrey’s show. The audience liked my act and I’ve been busy ever since.”
But while a career awaits him in entertaining, de Lyon would like nothing better than to be represented in a concert recital at Carnegie Hall, and he is pretty sure he can do it. He has been at work for some time on the composition of what he calls satirical-classics—fugues, tone poems and the like, nothing so pretentious as concertos.
“Four of my compositions are to be recorded by London Records,” he said, “and should be ready for general distribution next spring. If they meet with favor, I’ll be one step closer to Carnegie Hall.”
Meantime, de Lyon continues his tour of vaudeville and night clubs and he is very proud of the fact that between a pair of night club engagements he was asked by Paul Whiteman’s daughter, Margo, to do an appearance at the Marymount School which she attended. Not only did he do his night club routine without charge, but he was complimented by the Mother Superior.
“Dirt really isn’t necessary for comedy,” de Lyon said sagely, an observation he could have passed on to many of his colleagues—but he had already passed out of No. 204 on his way to the cameraman, and, eventually, the theater. I hope he never changes his mind.



A few years ago, on the Top Cat DVD, De Lyon related to animation writer/historian Earl Kress how he got hired by Hanna-Barbera:

Alan Dinehart, Jr., he’d directed a lot. He did some casting. He directed a lot on it. And he was a big fan of mine from my performance days. And, years later, when they were puttin’ Top Cat together, he said he’d like me to go down there and try to read for some of these characters. And one he had in mind, specifically, was The Brain line, you know, “dehhhh,” that thing. ‘Cause I used to do bits of that. And I went out and did a couple of audition tapes and that’s how I got in. John Stephenson and myself, we were also what they would call “utility infielders.” In other words, the garbage man, or the psychiatrist, and I was used sometimes as the enforcer—(does voice) “Uh, alright, T.C., you’d better come around four o’clock, or we’re gonna belt ya, ya know what I mean?”—that kind of stuff. Like a punchy fighter. We did all their weird voices.

Kliph Nesteroff had a chance to interview Leo about his early career. You can read it HERE and HERE.



Top Cat lasted one year in prime-time in the 1961-62 season before the 30 episodes went into Saturday mornings the following year and then syndication. The ad above is from Broadcasting magazine of April 22, 1963, as Screen Gems tries to sign up new stations. If the barber had a moustache, he’d look a bit like Alan Dinehart.

Flintstones Weekend Comics, October 1962

Lots of dinosaurs and the stand-in for Pebbles make an appearance in the Flintstones weekend colour comics for October 50 years ago.

The quality isn’t that great; the top rows come from the only paper I could find them in and the bottom two come from another. Someone’s trained eye can determine which ones Harvey Eisenberg drew; some of these may be the work of Dick Bickenbach.



Fred gives the Batman treatment to dinosaurs, a sabre-tooth tiger and some kind serpent in the October 7th comic. The puzzled on-looker dinosaur makes an appearance again this month in the final panel.



A shame I can’t find an October 14th comic in colour as the rainbow in the final panel would be seen in its proper effect. Wilma’s wearing black pearls. The on-looking dinosaurs are back and Dino makes a cameo appearance in the opening panel. Betty and Wilma are in silhouette in one panel. Very nice.



Who says the snorkel was invented in 1932? Here it is in the Stone Age. The Flintstones’ house has no garage. Fred’s a jerk for no reason in this one, from October 19th.



Here’s Gene Hazelton’s cutsie-pooh Amber character in the October 26th comic. Another silhouette drawing and more dinosaurs. And pull-back to a long final panel. If you’re wondering, Pebbles’ birth on the TV show is still a few months away. Wilma has black pearls again.

As usual, click on any other the comics to make them larger. A Late P.S.: Mark Kausler has again been kind enough to take the time to post the colour versions of these. Go to his site HERE. You can see the rainbow colours I mentioned above.

Quick Draw McGraw — El Kabong, Jr.

Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Animation – Art Davis, Backgrounds – Dick Thomas, Story – Mike Maltese, Story Direction – Alex Lovy, Titles – Art Goble, Production Supervision – Howard Hanson (no credits).
Voice Cast: Narrator, Toothy Acres – Don Messick; Quick Draw, Baba Looey, Quick Draw, Jr., Mexican – Daws Butler, Typical Western Rancher’s Daughter – Jean Vander Pyl.
Music: Phil Green, Jack Shaindlin, J. Louis Merkur.
Episode: Quick Draw McGraw Show M-039, Production J-115.
First Aired: week of March 20, 1961.
Plot: Quick Draw’s dandy son comes home and takes the place of the retired El Kabong to vanquish the land-grabbing Toothy Acres.

Daws Butler had a great version of a Jerry Lewis voice. He’d take Jerry’s whine and give it a deliberate read, accenting the wrong words. It’s really funny in various Fractured Fairy Tales for Jay Ward (in “Son of King Midas,” there’s a great joke where he cries “Dean!” for the Dean of a university, just like the real Jerry cried for Dean Martin in movies). The voice got watered down by the time he used it for Yahooey on the Peter Potamus Show in 1964 but, before then, he found a use for it in other Hanna-Barbera cartoons. His “Jerry” is heard twice in Quick Draw McGraw cartoons during the 1960-61 season—as a sheep-stealing coyote (“Yippee Coyote”) and as Quick Draw McGraw’s son in “El Kabong, Jr.”

The copies of the cartoon I have don’t have credits but Mike Kazaleh has confirmed Art Davis is the animator. In June 1960, Davis bitterly demanded his release from Warner Bros. (for a second time) because he had not been made a director when it appeared the studio needed additional theatrical and TV cartoons. He did direct a not-so-hot short (“Quackodile Tears”) which was finally released in March 1962. Davis packed up and went over to Hanna-Barbera where he briefly animated before moving into story direction on The Flintstones and other series. A couple of years later, he was ar the Walter Lantz studio animating under old Columbia buddy Sid Marcus.

Davis drew some of the H-B characters with eyes slanted in, the mouth in dialogue up into the snout. This cartoon features some real angular work, such as in the two drawings below.



There are a few great dashes off scene. One has Quick Draw Jr.’s body disappear and a couple leave behind multiple eyes, including one of the Typical Rancher’s Daughter Who is Alone and Helpless.



And one of the highlights is a little dancing sequence (repeated as the end gag). Quick Draw hands his dude son his kabonger. “Does this mean anything to you, Junior?” “It sure does, Daddy-O,” replies Son of Jerry Lewis. And he strums a rock-and-roll song, twisting his feet back and forth, bending his knees, twirling the guitar on the floor and stopping in a pose. The expressions are lots of fun. Here are some of the drawings.







The incidental characters have skinny legs like Tony Rivera used to draw so he may have been the layout artist, if not Paul Sommer. The villain, Toothy Acres, is the standard Quick Draw nemesis—top hat, slicked hair, thin moustache, turned up collar, string tie, swallowtail coat. I won’t hazard a guess at the background artist. Other than the orange sky, the colours are fairly natural (purple mountains, greens and browns), and without the stylised clouds you’d find in Art Lozzi’s work. It could be someone like Vera Hanson. Here are a couple of the drawings from the opening.



Mike Maltese wrote three El Kabong cartoons in Quick Draw’s second season and they’re all pretty funny. He managed to find new ways to keep the concept of a bumbling Zorro-style hero appealing. In “El Kabong, Jr.”, he simply used the “son of” sequel idea that quickly became a movie cliché; in fact, there was a “Son of Zorro” released in 1925 and 1947. And he tossed in a rock-and-roll parody.

The dialogue is typical Maltese. As usual for an El Kabong adventure, he opens with poetic narration.

In the town of El Pueblo
Peace reigned ever-so-long
Because of their hero,
El Kabong.
He lived on a hill,
Retired and old,
With his pal Baba Looey
Remembering days of old.

Yes, the cartoon is set in the future. El Kabong has retired because he’s no longer needed. “Ees so quiet outside,” Baba observes, “You can hear the caterpillars stompin’ across the front lawn.” Suddenly, there’s an explosion, and a cut to a charred, ruined hacienda then a pan to Toothy Acres at a dynamite plunger. Maltese engages in more of his standard overblown dialogue.

Mexican: What for you kaboom my house to li’l pieces?
Toothy: Because you wouldn’t sell it to me for $8, that’s why.
Mexican: All right, I’ll sell. Give to me the $8.
Toothy: What? For that pile of junk? I’ll give you a buck-35.
(iris out and in)
Toothy: I’ll give you $12 and 62 cents for your thousand-acre ranch, Typical Rancher’s Daughter Who’s Alone and Helpless.
(later)
Daughter: Oh, no! There goes my bea-u-ti-ful, thousand-acre ranch.
Toothy: Marry up with me, and I’ll save myself a neat $12 and 62 cents.
Daughter: No! Never!
Toothy: Aw, come on. Be reasonable.
Daughter: Hey-lp! Hey-lp! Hey-lp!

Quick Draw is too old to clobber the bad guy (he launches himself from his roof top while still in his rocking chair) and laments his fate when his son, whose been “away at a classy school in the classy east,” knocks on the door. Wait a minute! Where’s Mrs. Quick Draw in all this? Anyway, Junior uses his dad’s kabonger like a rock music guitar. Songwriter Maltese’s lyrics aren’t exactly Bill Haley and the Comets material.

Rock, rock, rock me in the rockin’ chair.
I don’t care if I don’t get nowhere.

Ah, but it’s all a ruse. “This seeming laxitude and lack of civic interest was merely intended to mask my true motives,” says Quick Draw, Jr., who now dons his father’s outfit with the intention of becoming El Kabong and rescuing the Typical Western Rancher’s Daughter Who is Alone and Helpless, as she is referred to throughout the cartoon. Now begins a series of kabongs and counters. And typical overdescriptive dialogue.

Daughter: Thanks again for savin’ me when I yelled “Help! Help! Help!” again.
Junior: Your welcome, again.

The climax takes place inside a hacienda where, much like in the Zorro movies and earlier El Kabong cartoons, the villain and good guy trade friendly dialogue as they battle with sabres. In this case, Toothy shows Junior how to let the sabres fight in mid-air on their own “with the twist of a wrist.” Where did Toothy learn that trick? At “good old Eastern Tech.” It turns out that’s also where Junior and Typical Rancher’s Daughter went to school.

Baba drags Quick Draw to the hacienda so he can show how the “lazy, no-good son” has followed in his father’s footsteps and is “whippin’ the tar out of Toothy Acres.” Instead, they see the three Eastern Tech grads singing the rock-and-roll song. Cut to Quick Draw, who has fainted and is mumbling “Holé.” Tag-line from Baba: “I think he means ‘Holé mackerel.”

The music selections in the cartoon work pretty well. There’s an accordion version of “Red River Valley,” the overly-sad trombone/violin music as Toothy blows up sundry properties, and Jack Shaindlin’s “Six Day Bicycle Race” during the chase scenes. There’s also a western dance cue used near the end from the Sam Fox library.

0:00 - Quick Draw McGraw Sub-Main Title theme (Curtin).
0:14 - Red River Valley (Trad.) – Opening narration, Quick Draw kabongs Baba, shot of charred house.
1:09 - sad trombone music (Shaindlin) – “with the coming of the land shark…”, scene with Mexican, scene with rancher’s daughter.
2:07 - MAD RUSH No. 2 (Shaindlin) – Quick Draw looks out window, takes off in wheel chair, “El Kabong rides again!”
2:35 - MAD RUSH No. 1 (Shaindlin) – Toothy Acres looks up, Quick Draw on ground.
2:50 - GR-58 GOING SHOPPING (Green) – Quick Draw and Baba talk, Quick Draw Jr. at door, handed guitar, “Oh, sure.”
3:36 - Quick Draw Jr. plays guitar.
3:39 - GR-255 PUPPETRY COMEDY (Green) – “This town is doomed,” Quick Draw, Jr. hands card, Baba doesn’t get it.
4:00 - PG-181F MECHANICAL BRIDGE (Green) – Quick Draw, Jr. explains, comes back as El Kabong, jumps off house.
4:21 - SIX DAY BICYCLE RACE (Shaindlin) – Chasing scene with Toothy Acres and rancher’s daughter.
5:10 - MAD RUSH No. 2 (Shaindlin) – Sword scene.
5:49 - SF-11 LIGHT MOVEMENT/MOUNTAINEERS' HOEDOWN (Merkur) – “Why, I graduated…”, Baba and Quick Draw talk, run into house.
6:22 - Quick Draw Jr. and others play guitars.
6:28 - ‘FIREMAN’ (Shaindlin) – Quick Draw passes out, iris out.
6:42 - Quick Draw McGraw Sub-End Title theme (Curtin).