There were occasional boo-boos at the Hanna-Barbera studio, and we don’t mean the little bear kind. Mouths on separate cels would be out of register, colours wouldn’t match. This also happened at the major theatrical studios where they had more time to lavish care on cartoons than the TV operations had. I'm surprised mistakes didn't happen more often at Hanna-Barbera, but the studio was filled with veterans who knew what they were doing.
Here’s an example from Nowhere Bear, a 1959 Yogi cartoon. Here’s Yogi turning his head. Two cels don’t have the correct muzzle colour on them for two frames each.
The same thing happened earlier in the cartoon. Two cels, two frames each. This is the version broadcast on the Boomerang cable channel in the U.S.
But here's something odd. The current version of the cartoon you can find on-line has the colour error repaired.
The layout artist on this cartoon was the Father of Design at Hanna-Barbera, Ed Benedict, with the animation by the newly-arrived Ed Love, perhaps best known for his work with Tex Avery at MGM (Benedict was Avery's layout artist/designer in the '50s). Ranger Smith has a unique appearance in this one. I suspect it was a little too stylised for Bill Hanna's liking.
For the first few years at H-B, Love had little mouth movements, some not much more than squiggles. He liked two or three teeth taking up the whole mouth. Below, it looks like Yogi is auditioning for The Alvin Show.
The backgrounds in this one are by yet another MGM vet, Bob Gentle. What I like about the background art in these early H-B cartoons is they were full of interesting colour choices, though the artists knew full well they aired in black and white. The one below is panned left to right to end on the animation overlaid on top. The different blue-green shades are very attractive. Gentle didn't churn this out; this could easily fit in a mid-'50s MGM short. I also like the composition of the entrance to the cave. You can click on the image file to make it bigger.
Gentle, Monte, Lozzi, they all did fine background work on these 1950s cartoons.
Ranger Smith was going through an evolution in Foster’s stories, from a rather world-weary character to the stern-voiced, exasperated version. In the second half of this cartoon, Mr. Ranger works together with Yogi to rescue Boo Boo, which I find a refreshing change, with short gag sequences like you’d find in a Roadrunner cartoon.
This is an enjoyable cartoon, and I think we can forgive the slight colouring errors.
It's actually happening.
After years, and years, and years of waiting, the Warner Archive Collection is finally able to get The Quick Draw McGraw Show on a home video format.
The company's Facebook page notes:
Each episode delivers the original triple-segment broadcast experience: the satirical Western antics of Quick Draw McGraw and his faithful sidekick Baby Looey [sic], the heart-warming domestic comedy of Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy, and the sharp-witted noir parodies of Snooper and Blabber.
Setting aside the typos and some of the rhetoric (I've never thought of Snooper as a "noir" parody; the artwork doesn't have that kind of atmosphere), this is amazing news.
You've read about the almost 20-year-long difficulties of getting these cartoons available. Elements were not in the best of shape. Clearing the Jack Shaindlin music and some of the other cues. And initial skittishness because the Huckleberry Hound DVDs didn't sell as well as expected.
At least this is what I was told by Earl Kress (and I believe he explained this on the GAC Forums back then) when he was doing some work to try to get the series out then. It's sad that he's not alive to see this happen.
The release says "all 45 episodes." Whether it's safe to assume the little cartoons between the cartoons will be included (or the Kellogg's commercials), I can't tell you. I would hope Greg Ehrbar would have George Feltenstein of the Warner Archive on his podcast to talk about this. And I do hope the original credits are there so we can learn who did what on each of the cartoons.
It doesn't appear there are any commentaries. However, there is a special featurette called "The Good, the Bad and the El-Kabong." It was on the Saturday Morning Cartoons 1960s Vol. 1 set.
Quick Draw is my favourite of all the Hanna-Barbera shows, and I hope Warners has done justice to these cartoons for the many fans who have been waiting for this.
Specs:
1080p HD MASTERS FROM 4K SCANS OF THE ORIGINAL CAMERA NEGATIVES!
MSRP $39.98
6 BD-50
Running Time: Approx. 1050 minutes
COLOR
Subtitles: ENGLISH SDH
Aspect Ratio: 16x9 1.33:1 with side mattes
Audio: DTS-HD MA 2.0 MONO
Oh, the release date. Silly me. It is September 29th.
The Huckleberry Hound Show was incredibly popular upon its debut, not only in the U.S. where Kellogg’s placed it on nearly 200 stations, but in other countries as well.
The Huck show got write-ups in England. This one is from the Dec. 14, 1962 issue of the Leicester Illustrated Chronicle
Boo-Boo And All That
HAVE you re-christened your cat Jinks? Do you feel your home is haunted by two "meeces" called Pixie and Dixie?
Does your wife call you "Boo-boo?"
And have your children adopted speech horribly like that of rural America?
If any of these things have happened, I'd diagnose a familiar T.V. ailment, and I'm not sure about treatment. You might try taking up Yoga, or rubbing with bear's grease!
As you hardly need telling, the Huckleberry Hound cartoons have a powerfully hypnotic effect. And you'll just have to hope that your children will grow out of talking Yogi bear talk.
Although I deplore their influence on youngsters, I must sneakingly admit that these cartoons can be very funny indeed. In spite of the bear-cat-hound-and mouse talk, the humour is often adult, and I would have thought, a bit beyond many children.
Violent
Some mothers may be appalled by infelicities like slamming of a door which Huck's face—which he then peels off and replaces! [From Little Red Riding Huck]. But this kind of “sick” is familiar in the “Tom and Jerry” (cat and mouse) cartoons with which the creators of Huck were formerly associated.
We see Tom the cat fur-less as the result of explosions, he takes the shape of objects against which he is violently hurled, he goes green after drinking some noxious liquid, and since he is a grey cat is it possible to draw for him beautiful black eyes which develop to the accompaniment of comets, lightning flashes and the twittering of birds!
THE simpler drawing of the Huckleberry Hound cartoons and the fact that we see them in black and white removes some of the horror when the characters suffer assault and battery.
The character voices are high in comic potential, but how to muzzle the little darlings who enjoy demonstrating their gift of mimicry is a bear-size problem.
Perhaps the only way to exorcise the "clinks" that is afflicting your household is to insist that A.T.V. screens these cartoons at half past eleven at night. A letter to your M.P. might do the trick.
Even then, your children might creep, "meece"-like, out of bed for a keyhole view of the programme!
Some Canadians could view Huck from American channels, but on January 7, 1959, he began appearing Wednesday afternoons at 5:30 on the CBC stations in Toronto and Ottawa, as well as Sudbury, Timmins, Wingham, London, Kingston and Peterborough, and at 7 p.m. Thursday on CKLW Windsor.
A Vancouver Sun story of Dec. 1, 1958 revealed the show was being re-voiced for the CBC French network.
There were other countries, too. The Lancaster Sunday News of Jan. 11, 1959 noted the show was being produced for Spanish-speaking countries with dubbed-in dialects. Perhaps along the internet, you've caught Jinksie or Iggy and Ziggy speaking in Italian or some other tongue.
We haven't checked, but one character shouldn't need anyone else's voice than Don Messick's original. After all, what's German for "yowp?"
Meanwhile, Huck continued to be a fad in the U.S.A. during his first season. The Lakeland Ledger’s College column of April 5, 1959 noted:
Thursday, the men of Phi Sigma Kappa and their dates will watch television for an hour at their weekly “Huckleberry Hound Party.”
The frat house was only able to view the show from 6 to 6:30 p.m. on WFLA-TV Tampa. We can only guess what they did in the second half hour.
