More Than Cartoons

There’s a generation out there that gets wistful for afternoon blocks of syndicated cartoons, or an American cable channel that pumped out nothing but animation.

Your yowping reporter pre-dates that. I go further back, back to a time when you got more than cartoons on pre- and after-school shows on TV. You got live hosts, introducing cartoons and kibitzing with others in front of the camera. Their routines could be silly and funny and, if I may editorialise, more entertaining than the cartoons (A sign of a successful show was hearing cameramen break up in the background).

These shows were all over the United States, and they were the ones that Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera had in mind when they developed the Lippy the Lion, Touché Turtle and Wally Gator cartoons. The five-minute comedies could be dropped into kids shows, or even run on their own if a station was too cheap to hire live talent.

This is a bit of a long-winded way to get into this picture I snagged off the internet.


This is from The Pappy Show on WICU-TV in Erie, Pennsylvania.

There were people dressed up as Yogi Bear who toured North America in the late ’50s and early ‘60s, putting on shows at fairs and department stores. This version of Yogi isn’t one of them. He's a little emaciated. I don’t have the background behind the photo, so I don’t know if this Yogi appeared with Pappy regularly.

(Pappy was a chap named Skip Letcher. He had been a disc jockey CHVC in Niagara Falls, Ontario. On-camera cohort Bernard Abbey died in 1964 at the age of 39).

Since I mentioned Lippy, etc., I will use this as an excuse to post this newspaper supplement cover. The characters are on model, so this must have been studio artwork, though I’m not certain why Touché is floating in mid-air. The Lippy, etc. cartoons were viewed in our home, using a special antenna, from KTNT-TV in Tacoma on the Brakeman Bill Show. The best part of the show was a hand puppet named Crazy Donkey. Even my dad would stop and watch Crazy Donkey do or say something ridiculous.

It’s a shame the live host period ended. You can blame those people who watered down cartoons to “protect” children. Hosts on some stations plugged things, and there was a lot of concern about advertising aimed at kids. The hosts vanished. (So did a droll series called Linus the Lionhearted, starring Post cereal spokes-cartoons).

We didn’t need a “Cartoon Network” back then. There was, at least where I grew up, plenty of animated fun after school. I could watch a live kids show that included cartoons, then switch to a half hour of The Flintstones in reruns, then switch to another channel with Warners and Fleischer Popeyes, then switch to another channel that aired Quick Draw McGraw or Huckleberry Hound. That took up a good couple of hours and you could get your cartoon fill for the day.

I’m pretty sure there are readers here who fondly remember the live, ad-lib kid shows on their TV set. The hosts were just as popular as the cartoons they showed. Bravo to them.

Crowds in the Clouds

We’re not exactly dealing with the brightest characters at times in the Ruff and Reddy cartoons. Witness the events in 11th part of the Muni Mula adventure, Crowds in the Clouds, which first aired on NBC on January 18, 1958 as the first of two R & R segments that morning (it was repeated on July 20, 1958).

Narrator Don Messick recaps the action in the 10th part, followed by brainiac Prof. Gizmo activating a smoke screen around his spaceship to hide from the Muni Mula army.



So far, so good. The camera operator appears to have been given some instruction to put a filter over one scene to make it look like the interior of the spaceship is filled with the smoke screen.



The cloud cover works!



“Meanwhile, back the ranch, uh, planet...” says the narrator as the cartoon switches scene. By the way, was the phrase “Meanwhile, back at the ranch” ever heard in a motion picture? Reddy and the Muni Mulas are animated running past some overlays.



Reddy “ducks into the nearest building” after pointlessly passing it, running back and running in. Maybe Hanna needed extra footage to fill. Note how the legs become wheels.



Reddy discovers he’s a room with flying Muni Mula men, who ascend to try to capture Reddy and the professor. They’re “taking off like a herd of birds.” Someone tell writer Charlie Shows that birds don’t come in herds. Or maybe that’s another of his forced rhymes.



Reddy decides to escape skywards. Still, so far, so good.







Ruff now shows he’s not so bright. He looks out the spaceship window sees Reddy in the stratosphere. “Professor, look! One of the Muni-Mula airmen!” He can’t tell his own buddy from a robot that’s a different shape and colour. Gismo activates his “big gun” and aims it at Reddy. Ruff then realises who it is, tells the professor, who doesn’t pay any attention, and fires. Gizmo was still adjusting his site when Ruff shouted the warning. Some smart guy he is.



“Maybe he’ll be lucky and land on his head,” says the encouraging Mr. Messick, as we’re urged not to miss the next episode.

This is a pretty good cliff-hanger. Can you guess what happens next?

The sound cutter puts three Capitol Hi-Q “D” series cues behind the action.

0:00 – No music – Title Card
0:05 – TC-15 CHASE-MEDIUM (Bill Loose-John Seely) – Start of recap, Muni Mula air force, Ruff and Gizmo at window.
0:53 – L-1203 EERIE HEAVY ECHO (Spencer Moore) – Rocket stops.
1:25 – TC-15 CHASE-MEDIUM (Loose-Seely) – Robots fly past cloud, Reddy chased, knocking.
1:57 – L-653 EERIE DRAMATIC (Moore) – Robots outside door, Reddy flies up, rocket, end of cartoon.