If you wanted Hanna-Barbera records around 1962, there were two places that made them. There was Colpix, short for Columbia Pictures, the parent company of Screen Gems that distributed the Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
And then there was Golden Records based in New York.
Golden put out records starring the Hanna-Barbera characters, starting with Ruff and Reddy. The company would call together a small combo and hire local actors to play the parts made famous by Daws Butler and Don Messick. As radio actors, Gil Mack and Frank Milano were very good; Mack did a variety of voices and appeared in dramatic roles while Milano could do vocal effects as well as voices. As imitators of Daws Butler and Don Messick, they were painful. When someone has to explain “I’m Mr. Jinks” to his kid listeners, that’s not a good sign.
So it was when Hanna-Barbera enlisted Golden Records to press an LP starring the Jetsons. Not the real Jetsons, of course, but whoever might be passable in New York City.
The album credits Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera with the material, along with Fay Winter, with music by Jim Timmens. One wonders how much Hanna and/or Barbera had to do with this. When you’re the producer, you can always stick your name on something to get royalties.
The LP is basically a musical. The songs evoke the Jetsons characters and are mainly separate and apart from actual dialogue or music on the series (with the possible exception of a bit of “Eep Opp Ork”). There’s only one person out there who is an expert on the Golden discs, and that’s Greg Ehrbar. After discovering the LP on-line and starting on this post, I figured I’d check his fine book, “Hanna Barbera, The Recorded History” because I knew he’d have some information about it.
He does.
Greg identified Herb Duncan as George and Elroy. Duncan’s Elroy isn’t even close. As George, he does a good imitation of Jerry Hausner. Rose Marie Jun is Jane. She is an excellent singer (in the cartoon series, Penny Singleton was Jane, but Jane’s singing voice was B.J. Baker). Whoever is doing Astro is playing it if Mel Blanc were Astro, and the narrator, who is quite good, seems to be have been given the instruction “Play this like Paul Frees would voice it.”
The voice of Judy Jetson isn’t identified in the book, but I recognise the voice. It’s Ann Thomas, who was one of the women who played Hortense opposite Arnold Stang’s Gerard on The Henry Morgan Show on radio after Bette Garde quit in a fit of non-billing.
One can speculate whether the song lyric by Judy and Elroy that they “might as well live in a cave” is a subtle in-joke. And while there has been all kind of chatter about the Jetsons “predicting” things (which the writers grabbed out of science magazines of the day), a 21st century concept of “homework tapes” didn’t pan out.
You can listen to each side below.
“What about some REAL Jetsons?” you ask.
Okay. Here are some short cues by Hoyt Curtin from the Earl Kress collection. I don’t remember if any have been posted before, as there is Jetsons music here and there on the blog. We posted some last Christmas.
V-102
V-103
V-104
V-108
V-11
V-110
V-300
V-301
V-10 and V-110 are particularly cool. "Mad Men" a go-go.
ReplyDeleteYeah, he wrote several "twist" cues for the show.
DeleteThe Top Cat library may be my favourite, but the Jonny Quest music is terrific and I like the work he did on The Jetsons.
The introductory "Meet the Jetsons" song backed by the "Eep Opp Ork" song formed the two sides of a 78 single, both considerably shortened from their original running length. With an on-model drawing of the Jetsons on the front cover, kids like me probably expected to hear the original voices and may have been disappointed with that little record. When I first heard it, I guess I tried to pretend that the voices were the real ones, although I knew I was kidding myself.
ReplyDeleteIn the "Behave" number, Judy and Elroy argue and fight in ways they never did in any of the series or extended series episodes, not that I can recall. The other songs more or less are consistent with the characters they are supposed to represent. It does seem odd but not entirely out of place to hear George reminiscing about "The Good Old Days." I like Jane's "Push Button Blues" lament.
"Never Fear While Rosey's Here" is a quote from the series and the vocal artist does try to give Rosey a trace of a New York accent in the style of Jean Van Der Pyl. The Fun Pad sounds like a wonderful place and it does show up in the "Jet Screamer" episode. I would love to have heard the original cast performing these songs.
Yep, it's another Hanna Barbera Golden Records production alright. When it comes to Elroy, there's only one, and that's Daws Butler. His little kid voice, that he did variations on though out his career was very unique. The Only Golden Records I owned as a kid was " The Wizard Of Oz ". They did well because they didn't attempt to imitate anyone. Art Carney read the story and the songs were done by " The Mitch Miller Singers ".
ReplyDeleteThis is such a fascinating deep dive into the weird world of licensed kids' records. I grew up listening to some of these old Golden Records, and even as a kid, I remember thinking something felt "off" about the voices compared to the cartoons on TV. You could always tell when it wasn't Daws Butler or Mel Blanc.
ReplyDeleteIt’s hilarious that they hired radio actors who were clearly struggling to imitate the originals. I can just imagine some guy sweating in a recording booth trying to pull off an Astro impression.
Also, that bit about the lyric “might as well live in a cave” being a potential in-joke is a great catch. I actually pulled this up on YouTube to give it a listen after reading your post, and I have to say, the singers they hired actually have really impressive voices, even if the impersonations are a bit rough. I even tried one of those online tests to find out my vocal range to see if I could hit some of those old show tunes, and let's just say I'll stick to listening.
Thanks for sharing this piece of animation and music history!