Dr. Mark Hill, the Doctor of Pop Culture, sent a note after we posted pictures of H-B rugs with pictures of another rug. I guess it’s both sides as one is the reverse image of the other. The main cast of The Huckleberry Hound Show is featured.
Now some things from roving correspondent Billie Towzer. The Impossibles are from a date past the focus of this blog and I never got into them anyway. But here’s one of those maddening slide puzzles. Did anyone else ever try to take the pieces out to reinsert them and solve the puzzle?
What? Kellogg’s giving away a ’63 Ford Falcon? Not exactly a kid’s prize, is it? This, of course, comes from the back of a Corn Flakes cereal package. The example of the jingle is kind of screwy. The rhyme should be with “folk”, not “fair,” shouldn’t it? How about “articholk?” Oh, well. I’m not a Ford person anyway.
Good thing this isn’t one of those unauthorised editions. This comic book was one of a number copyrighted in March 1963 by Watkins-Strathmore Co., Racine, Wisconsin. Huck seems to have been replaced by Augie Doggie. I wonder if you got to colour Bill and Joe, too.
Ah, poor Yogi. Left alone to rust on an unmowed lawn.
At least he’s in better shape than this Yogi that a youngster rode.
Finally, Tim Hollis sent this note: In one of the early Jellystone franchise booklets was this stunning shot of the merchandise they offered in their souvenir shops. As you can see, some was produced especially for them (like the green plastic ranger hats), while others were items that had first been available a decade earlier (the Kellogg's mugs, the Yogi/Magilla coloring books, etc). If I'm not mistaken, that Day-Glo pink Yogi poster is the same one that was a major plot element in the Brady Bunch episode that was filmed at King's Island.
Thanks again to everyone who sent notes. We have a few more banked for a later post.
As always..Great stuff. Love the H-B merchandise, and an offer of a car??!! My parents bought tons of Kellogg's Cornflakes..but, I think I missed that one. I'll have to re-visit that " Brady Bunch " episode and and take a good look.
ReplyDeleteThe Yogi merch display is wonderful to see, and some of the most "on-model" vintage character art I've ever seen in one place. I know for sure we owned the board game and the mug when I was a kid.
ReplyDeleteEqually on-model is the coloring book cover (with tacked-on photos of Bill & Joe, no less)! That cover and the board game box are would make a nice framed lithograph.
P.S. Errol: the "Brady" episode has some fun H-B nooks & crannies, as the characters were a big push in the park it was shot: Taft Broadcasting-owned King's Island. You'll even witness a "Hair Bear Bunch" walk-around posed by one of the Brady lads.
The Peanuts characters were hawking Ford Falcons when this contest came out, so a Huck/Yogi tie-in isn't terribly far-fetched.
ReplyDeleteI had that Impossibles puzzle, and the point was not to “take the pieces out to reinsert them and solve the puzzle”, but to either rearrange the pieces in some bizarre way that would be funny to a kid (like putting the wrong heads and body sections together) or (as I did) randomly slide the pieces around within the tray and, when they were sufficiently randomized, manipulate the pieces until each character was once again properly formed.
ReplyDeleteBeing the type of kid I was, I opted to “put the characters back together again”, rather than “mess them up”. In fact, I doubt you COULD have “taken the pieces out” of the tray without breaking the puzzle.
Entertainment was so scarce in those days that I actually had SEVERAL such puzzles! They all featured three “tall” characters (made up of 4 squares) and one “short” character (made up of 3 squares), allowing for one empty space so the squares could be moved around at will.
Hanna-Barbera characters were featured in several of these puzzles:
Huckleberry Hound: Huck, Mr. Jinks, Yogi, and Boo-Boo as the short character.
The Flintstones: Fred, Wilma, Betty, and Barney as the short character.
The Jetsons: George, Jane, Judy, and Elroy as the short character.
But The Impossibles puzzle did them all one better, as you can see. Because there were only THREE Impossibles, the designers opted for Fluid Man as the short character, Coil Man, (even though, when not uncoiled, “Coiley” was shorter than “Fluie”) …and Multi Man TWICE, as the tall ones!
That’s knowing your characters, in ways toy manufacturers of the era didn’t do often enough!