Music For Cat and Dog in Space

This blog was begun for the purpose of identifying the background music in the original Hanna-Barbera cartoons. The first music employed by the studio came from the Capitol Hi-Q library, started in 1956 by John Seely, who had been co-writing with label composer Bill Loose.

When we began Yowping in 2009, you could not find any of the cues on-line. Though the late Earl Kress arranged for a handful (by EMI’s Phil Green) to be released on Rhino Records about 30 years ago, reels and discs with the cues were in the possession of collectors.

The internet has evolved and, over the years, library music fans who were into Hi-Q have shared their bounty with others. We’ll gloss over an involved and thorny story to remark that, very recently, a generous individual has digitised a number of the library’s D (“Dramatic”) series discs that were not in circulation.

Ruff and Reddy was H-B’s first series for television. A decision was made to pay for library music rather than go to the expense of scoring each cartoon individually. Someone, and I’m not certain who, picked cues from the D series and either Greg Watson or Warner Leighton cut them onto the sound track.

Thanks to the anonymous person mentioned above, some of those cues are now available. We pass them along. Unlike other music on this site, these are in flac format. The first cue is by Spencer Moore (and is from reel S-4), the other three are by Geordie Hormel in D-32. I believe all of them were heard in the Muni-Mula storyline.


L-628 DRAMATIC BRIDGE


ZR-91A WEIRD-EERIE


ZR-92B WEIRD-EERIE


ZR-93C WEIRD EERIE

We’ve written about the two cartoons seen on the first show, so here’s a little bit about the third cartoon in the Muni-Mula adventure, The “Whama Bama Gamma” Gun, which opened the second show on December 21, 1957.

Narrator Don Messick begins the cartoon with an animation-saving recap from the last episode. Ruff and Reddy seal themselves in a space ship control room to get away from two metallic robots, but the flying saucer begins to drop.

The new adventure begins with the space ship seemingly under control, with braggart Reddy at the helm. Though there are no credits, the mouth shape on Ruff below shows the episode was animated by Ken Muse.



Speaking of mouths, there are times the lower lip goes past Reddy's jowl lines, though it likely wasn't noticeable on TV.



As in the earlier episodes, there are silhoutte drawings. I presume Dick Bickenbach was the layout artist; he claimed to have been working on Ruff and Reddy while still at MGM with Hanna and Barbera.



One of the robots burns a hole in the door, but Reddy manages to swat its gun away and holds the two of them.



Outer space weightlessness kicks in and everybody starts slowly rising. Ruff pulls on a lever that opens a hatch at the top of the space ship and the robots float up into space.



Gravity returns. Note the dry brush.



The space ship is pulled into a hole that opens up on the planet Muni-Mula.



Messick urges us not to miss the next episode (which will follow after the live-action host and an exciting Columbia/Screen Gems cartoon).

The music (the final cue is from reel L-4):
0:00 – Title card.
0:06 – ZR-91C WEIRD-EERIE (Hormel) – Recap.
0:22 – ZR-91B WEIRD-EERIE (Hormel) – Saucer starts tipping, “I feel kinda empty.”
2:07 – No music – Ruff floats up.
2:12 – ZR-91C WEIRD-EERIE (Hormel) – Ruff grabs lever.
2:44 – No music. Ruff on top of Reddy.
2:50 – ZR-53 COMEDY MYSTERIOSO (Hormel) – Saucer flies to Muni-Mula, end of cartoon.