Right. Ruff and Reddy.
That’s what’s driving the story in Ruff and Reddy No. 6, a Dell comic cover dated July 1960. Unlike a Certain Great Dane We Don’t Talk About On This Blog™, the bad guy is portrayed as more misguided than evil, certainly not in the John Stephenson “And I would have gotten away with it, too...” manner from the aforementioned Great Dane cartoon series.
The lack of a narrator and Charlie Shows’ rhyming couplets gives this more of a feel of a standard comic book adventure as opposed to something distinct to Ruff and Reddy.
You can click on the pictures below to make them a little larger.
You can read a bunch of Ruff and Reddy comics at Comics Books Plus.Com. It’s too bad there are no Huckleberry Hound or Quick Draw McGraw comics posted, but you can’t argue with a site generously posting a lot of stuff for free.
Aw, does that mean we, as commenters, can’t mention Scooby-Doo either? …Oops! Perhaps I should say “Sc**by-D**”!
ReplyDeleteThis comic appears to have been written by Vic Lockman (perhaps Dell, Gold Key, and Whitman comics’) most prolific writer, and penciled by Pete Alvarado, whose Warner Bros. animation credits should be familiar to most, and who had a long and successful career drawing the characters of many different studios for the Dell, Gold Key, and Whitman comic books produced by Western Publishing from the ‘50s thru the ‘80s.
Western Publishing utilized a basic two-character mystery/adventure template (long before “Sc**by-D**” did something similar) into which were plugged such character pairings as Mickey Mouse and Goofy, Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig, Andy Panda and Charlie Chicken, etc.
While it seemed a natural to apply to the new characters of Ruff and Reddy, it might have been interesting to have had the series dialogued as Charlie Shows would have and lean heavily on the Don Messick Narrator via caption boxes.
Finally, as a nod to “Sc**by-D**”, and all of those Dell, Gold Key, and Whitman comics of years gone by, I wrote a character who wished to scare Scrooge Mc Duck off his land as saying the following, in the current issue of UNCLE SCROOGE:
“I’ll bet no one has ever thought of dressing as a ghost to scare rubes off desired land before!”
You’ve always gotta be mindful of tradition!
Joe, feel free to mention proper names of any HB characters you wish. Even that Scrappy one.
DeleteThanks for the ID on this.
Yes, reading this one, I could definitely hear Don Messick narrating. Plus I could hear him voicing the guy wanting to scare everyone off the land. Sounding similar to the sheriff in " Bare Faced Bear ". I dunno, I could hear that voice when I read it.
ReplyDeleteI also heard Don Messick narrating in my mind,too! Yes, before a certain Great Dane, Ruff and Reddy and some other animal pairs and a certain hound were crime solvers, just not usually unmasking some villian, certainly voiced by the late, great John Stephenson.:) Great post.:)Steve
DeleteAnd lest we forget ... Mr. Messick would also do the lead-in narration on many an episode of Quick Draw McGraw and Yogi Bear ... and did the opening announcement later on Cattanooga Cats, all in that quasi-stentorian Ranger Smith stylee.
DeleteThe title from this topic reminds very much the Fred Jones' speech in Scooby-Doo, when he and the gang were ready to unmask the "false phantom".
ReplyDeleteNo kidding.
Delete11/26/15
ReplyDeleteRobGems.ca Wrote:
Awwww....Too Bad we can't mention about that great dane (O'l What's His Name?), and those meddling kids on your blog. Somehow this comic book is incomplete without that sexy (what's her name?) redhead in a cowgirl suit. Oh well, this Ruff and reddy comic is pretty good in a nostalgic kind of way, even if it is derivative in it's simple dude ranch storyline (I always thought that Jane Jetson going to a dude planet from the episode "Dude Planet" was a better story, in particularly the with only scenes in the series of the Jetson's forgotten-about cat who kept getting caught in the malfunctioning vacuum cleaner was hilarious. If only the writers thought up a gag of Reddy getting caught in a vacuum cleaner.) Doing a mystery story is about as derivative as H-B can get even some nine years before "O'l What's His Name." I can still picture John Stephenson as the voice of the embarrassed ranch boss who gets caught scaring people away with a fake dragon without ever saying something like "And I would have gotten away with it if it wasn't for you meddling dog and cat!"
11/26/15
ReplyDeleteRobGems.ca Wrote:
Oops, I meant Ruff getting caught in a vacuum cleaner. If Reddy got caught in one, he'd destroy the vacuum cleaner...he's way too big to get stuck in one (but I'll bet it would be funny, though.)
This was one of my first comic books ever. I think the story was read to me before I could read it for myself. I remember thinking the dragon was quite scary--but remember I was probably under 5 years old at the time. Amazing to think that this plot, so cliche by now, would have been totally new to me when I first encountered this story. (And at that time, nobody had ever heard of "What's-His-Name"!)
ReplyDeleteThe Ruff and Reddy comic books had quite a different ambiance than the TV version of the characters. For one thing, the plots were much easier to follow because they weren't divided up into chapters which might or might not be presented in chronological order. I liked the characters, though, and Prof. Gizmo. But the comics were much more comprehensible.
A Ruff and Reddy cartoon that doesn't end on a cliffhanger.
ReplyDelete