Masking For Trouble Storyboard

Put Quick Draw McGraw in a disguise, and you just know things are going to end badly. Take the episode “Masking For Trouble” (1959), for example. Poor Quick Draw tries to rescue a damsel from a pint-sized wimp only to have her change her mind after Baba Looey socks the little pest. Quick Draw gets punched and shot at for his trouble.

We reviewed the cartoon in this post.

Well, now, you can see the story panels for the cartoon. Mark Kausler sent them as a little present for you readers. The credits say the story was written by Mike Maltese, the story sketches were by Dan Gordon, and Dick Bickenbach drew the layouts.

Most of Maltese’s dialogue was used verbatim, and the opening pan on the storyboard looks just like it does in the actual cartoon. What’s interesting is that part of the story was omitted; you’ll see puppet gags in Scene 8 about a loan shark and a hooded hyena (whose head reminds me of Astro, who had not been invented yet) that didn’t make it into the final cartoon. And, apparently, after the original storyboard was made, scenes 35A to K were added to the cartoon. Some of the drawings in the insert are pretty sketchy and you have to wonder whether they’re from Maltese himself.

Animator Mike Kazaleh has pointed out that in the first season of the Huckleberry Hound Show (1958-59), footage was inserted in a number of cartoons and Mike Lah animated it. The following season, we have an insert in this cartoon. Lah was gone by this time, and it looks like Lew Marshall animated the insert, in addition to the rest of the cartoon.

Only Mike Maltese could call a recalcitrant weapon a “mule-headed six-gun” (panel 27 of the insert). And the word “Ballooomm!” (panel 87) seems Maltesean to me.

Baba Looey turns and waves to the audience in the final panel before an iris out. I like that better than the ending that was filmed, when Baba keeps looking to left of the frame while he runs before the cartoon fades.

Click on any of the panels to make them bigger.