Season Four For Huckleberry Hound

Before anything else, I’d like to thank Denise Kress for sending me a bunch of documents that were in the files of her late husband Earl. That’s where the production numbers and so on have come from for this series of posts about the Huckleberry Hound Show.

Huck’s fourth season in 1961-62 was the final season. Things were petering out for ol’ Huck. Hanna-Barbera was winding up the Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear and Quick Draw McGraw shows and concentrating on the prime-time Flintstones and Top Cat series, the drab theatrical Loopy De Loop cartoons and the new syndicated shorts starring Wally Gator, Touché Turtle and Lippy the Lion. (For the record, there was no such thing as “The New Hanna-Barbera Cartoon Series.” The internet won’t seem to let that one die ¹). The Jetsons would soon be going into production.

Only five Hucks, five Pixie and Dixies and four Hokey Wolfs were made for the final season, though there are some gaps in the production numbers. Other cartoons were begun, maybe even completed. For example, we posted this Pixie and Dixie storyboard for an unaired cartoon; unfortunately, the seller has plastered a graphic over top of puny image files so the production number is blocked out.

The numbers come from papers in a file at Leo Burnett, Kellogg’s agency, dated January 22, 1962. In total, 57 Pixie and Dixie and 57 Huckleberry Hound cartoons were made, along with 28 Hokey Wolfs.

Unfortunately, the credits for the Hokey cartoons are hiding somewhere; I don’t have them and don’t want to guess at them. Only one of the original Hanna-Barbera animators worked on Huck from the first to the last seasons—Carlo Vinci. He was spending more time on the half-hour shows. Ken O’Brien, Ed Parks and Ken Southworth were assigned to animate the shorts. The final cartoon was animated by Don Towsley, a former Disney artist who later worked for Chuck Jones and then at Filmation. As a boy, Towsley lived in Atlanta and there was taught dancing personally by Arthur Murray. Howard Beckerman recalled Towsley directed some animated openings used on I Love Lucy at Lee Blair’s Film Graphics in New York.

E-160 Loot to Boot (W-25) Hokey
‡E-161 Hokey cartoon for 1960-61 season.
‡E-162 Hokey cartoon for 1960-61 season.
‡E-163 Hokey cartoon for 1960-61 season.
‡E-164 Hokey cartoon for 1960-61 season.

‡E-165 Hokey cartoon for 1960-61 season.
‡E-166 Hokey cartoon for 1960-61 season.
E-167 Guesting Games (W-26) Hokey
‡E-168 Hokey cartoon for 1960-61 season.
‡E-169 Pixie and Dixie cartoon for 1960-61 season.
‡E-170 Huck cartoon for 1960-61 season.
‡E-171 Pixie and Dixie cartoon for 1960-61 season.
‡E-172 Huck cartoon for 1960-61 season.
‡E-173 Pixie and Dixie cartoon for 1960-61 season.
‡E-174 Huck cartoon for 1960-61 season.
E-175 Strong Mouse aka Hercules (P-53) P&D/Lokey
E-176 Bullfighter Huck (H-54) Huck/Southworth
‡E-177 Hokey cartoon for 1960-61 season.
‡E-178 Hokey cartoon for 1960-61 season.
‡E-179 Pixie and Dixie cartoon for 1960-61 season.
E-180 Mouse Trapped (P-54) P&D/O’Brien
‡E-181 Huck cartoon for 1960-61 season.
E-182 Huck dé Paree (H-53) Huck/Southworth
E-183 Aladdin’s Lamp Chops (W-28) Hokey
E-184 Magician Jinks (P-55) P&D/Parks

E-185 Bars and Stripes (H-56) Huck/Boersma
E-186 No production
E-187 Meece Missiles (P-56) P&D/Vinci
E-188 Scrubby Brush Man (H-57) Huck/Parks
E-189 Sick Sense (W-27) Hokey
E-190 Homeless Jinks (P-57) P&D/O’Brien
E-191 No production
E-192 No production
E-193 No production
E-194 No production
E-195 Two For Tee Vee (P-55) Huck/Towsley

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1 Note: Jerry Beck has a better collection of, and access to, reference materials than I. He points out the Broadcast Information Bureau annuals for TV stations used that title. I've never seen it in any Screen Gems trade ads or preview stories at the time the three series were first aired and the title was never used on screen.^↩