Snagglepuss – Fraidy Cat Lion

Produced and Directed by Joe Barbera and Bill Hanna.
Credits: Animation – Art Davis, Layout – Paul Sommer, Backgrounds – Dick Thomas, Written by Mike Maltese, Story Director – Alex Lovy, Titles – Art Goble, Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Voice Cast: Snagglepuss, J. Evil Scientist, Cat – Daws Butler; Mrs. J. Evil Scientist – Jean Vander Pyl; Junior, Mouse – Don Messick.
Music: Hoyt Curtin.
Episode: Production R-4 (third Snagglepuss cartoon).
Copyright 1960 by Hanna-Barbera Productions.
Plot: J. Evil Scientist hires Snagglepuss to catch a mouse, which has been unknowingly enlarged in an experiment.

Hanna-Barbera seemed to use the Snagglepuss cartoons to showcase recurring secondary characters it may have wanted to turn into series leads. Thus Snagglepuss met up with Yakky Doodle, Bigelow the Mouse, Snuffles and, in this cartoon, Mr. and Mrs. J. Evil Scientist.

As much as the Scientist clan is reminiscent of TV’s Addams Family, it should be noted that the John Astin-Carolyn Jones series debuted a few years after this cartoon, though books of the single-panel Addams cartoons in The New Yorker were published as early as 1954.

As well, the scary-is-delightful, ugly-is-beautiful turnabout humour of J. Evil and family draws a bit on the “sick” humour that came into vogue in the late ‘50s. The “sick” school of punchlines came in for a lot of criticism by bluenoses for being “tasteless.” No one could accuse Mike Maltese of that with the J. Evil Scientists; the dialogue was too silly to be offensive, just as how Bob and Ray’s newscaster Peter Gorey growled out stories like “A poor shopkeeper was killed accidentally while attempting suicide.” This cartoon includes a loud screech of fear from Mrs. Scientist, to which J. Evil responds “How thoughtful! She’s singing our song.” And when Mrs. Scientist informs her husband that “guillotine stew” is for dinner, he remarks: “It sounds delicious! Why don’t you put in a head—(pause)—of cabbage?” After a while, Hanna-Barbera beat the idea to death but it’s funny in small doses in this cartoon.

Poor Snagglepuss doesn’t even appear in the first 2½ minutes. He finally shows up at the door of the Scientists’ standard-issue creepy house (excellently painted by Dick Thomas in the opening shot). Before that can happen, Maltese sets up the plot. Junior Scientist is playing with daddy’s experiment equipment in the basement and uses a ray to enlarge a mouse. The great Art Davis is the animator here. As Greg Watson (or whoever) fills the soundtrack with Hoyt Curtin’s minor key organ music, thunder sound effects and electronic buzzing, Davis comes up with some neat flashing animation effects.



Just as H-B cartoons can have a dog that can only say “Yowp,” they can have an enlarged mouse with a vocabulary restricted to “Snarf!” The big rodent scares Mrs. Scientist, who actually exhibits no fear (other than standing on a chair) and continues to calmly flick cigarette ashes on the mouse as she requests help, maintaining the same relaxed, throaty voice as she does in the rest of the cartoon (Jean Vander Pyl as Tallulah Bankhead). The family cat bolts when asked to get the mouse; J. Evil develops multiple eyes to watch the cat’s streaking exit.



The set-up complete, Snagglepuss arrives. The ensuing dialogue:

J. Evil (opening door) – It’s a mouldy-looking mountain lion, my dear.
Snagglepuss – Mouldy-lookin’! If it were not, I were to the manor born, I’d reciprocate in kind. Whaddya think of that? Whaddya think of that?
J. Evil – I still think you’re mouldy. What do you think of THAT?

The dialogue continues...

Snagglepuss – I seek not but food, ere I continue me weary travels. Whaddya say to that? Whaddya say to that?
J. Evil – I’d say “scram or I’ll sic a dragon on you.”

Snagglepuss begs for food, promising work in return. “Anything you need, name it, name it. Chop wood, beat a rug, jelly eels, fix a fig maybe.” Only Maltese would throw in “jelly eels.”

Naturally, Snagglepuss fails at his task, overcome by Junior and technology. There’s a nice bit of running dialogue when Snagglepuss employs a tea strainer to catch the mouse. “It’s tea time, little rodent,” he exclaims. Then when he realises the mouse is huge, he looks at the camera and says “Heavens to Murgatroyd. A verita-b-b-b-ble Frankenmouse monster, even. Which isn’t my cup of tea. So, exit, stage left!” This is the only time in the cartoon where we hear Snagglepuss’ catchphrases.

Another neat bit of dialogue (or, rather, monologue) ensues, featuring Maltese’s use of mounting ridiculous phrases:

Snagglepuss (to Junior) – Say! Why aren’t you in school? Better yet, why aren’t you in jail?
Mouse – Snarf! Snarf, snarf, snarf!
Snagglepuss (to mouse) – Say! Are you followin’ me? Don’t yazz realise that you’re breakin’ a city ordinance? Malpractice. Pedestrum follow-ita. With an ipso factory. And an accessory after the carbohydrate. So watch it. Watch it.

The mouse grabs Snagglepuss. A couple of nice drawings.



The cartoon ends with Junior and the mouse shrinking Snagglepuss, who runs to the comfort of the mouse’s hole and finds a piece of cheese. So Snagglepuss succeeds in getting something to eat after all. Note the brush strokes and multiples in the exit drawings.



Daws Butler gives J. Evil a Peter Lorre-esque voice, though it’s less nasally than you think Lorre sounds like. If you’re familiar with how Lorre emphasized certain words, you’ll notice when Davis stretches J. Evil’s mouth when emphasizing.



The sound cutter makes good use of Hoyt Curtin’s music tracking library. I like the bass fiddle music during one scene where the large mouse is walking. And a variation on “Meet the Flintstones” is heard when Snagglepuss is at the door.

Snooper and Blabber — Chilly Chiller

Produced and Directed by Joe Barbera and Bill Hanna.
Credits: Animation – John Boersma, Layout – Jerry Eisenberg, Backgrounds – Bob Gentle, Written by Mike Maltese, Story Director – Paul Sommer, Titles – Art Goble, Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Voice Cast: Snooper, Blabber, J. Evil Scientist – Daws Butler; Mrs. J. Evil Scientist – Jean Vander Pyl; Ghost, Junior, Wolf Monster – Don Messick.
Music: Hoyt Curtin.
Episode: Quick Draw McGraw show M-044, Production J-128.
First Aired: 1962.
Plot: Snooper and Blabber are hired to evict the J. Evil Scientist family from a haunted house.

Boris Karloff hosted a horror anthology series from 1960 to 1962 called “Thriller,” which featured a series of lines appearing on the screen and the word “Thriller” fading in as his face faded out.



Something like couldn’t be passed up by Mike Maltese, who parodied it in “Chilly Chiller.” In the cartoon, the lines instead form a tic-tac-toe game before the word “Chiller” flashes on the screen.



Your host for the show isn’t the ghostly-sounding Karloff, although there is a ghost in it. Snooper welcomes viewers with the words “Greetin’s, lovers of spine-chilling stories. If you are the scary type, do not watch this show. You had best go prune a daffodil, or something.” “Snoop is right, folks,” adds Blabber. “This is a real scaaaary story. Honest.” The appropriate mock-scaaaary mood is enhanced by a solo Wurlitzer in the background playing a Hoyt Curtin cue called “Wild Organ For Prowler (Take One).”

We’ll get to our story in just a moment. First, let’s check out some of Bob Gentle’s backgrounds. The haunted house exteriors are top notch and the overhead angle on Snooper’s office door is unique; perhaps it comes from Jerry Eisenberg’s layout. (Note Scott Shaw!’s note about layouts in the comments).



The story starts with Snooper admiring his “fabulous butterfly collection.” The phone rings. The detectives are called to Creepy Mountain House by someone who finally has to shout “Help!” into the phone to prove he needs them. “Now are you convinced?” says the phone. “Yeah. Especially me left ear.” The cartoon cuts back to the present and Snooper outlining the story. “So, after a visit to me left ear doctor...” he begins, then allows Blab to pick up the story. John Boersma animated the cartoon. See what he does with Snooper’s pinkie in one frame. You’ll see the same pinkie-crooked-up hand on Blab “Bronco Bluster,” Augie Doggie in “Vacation Tripped” and Huck Hound in “Bars and Stripes,” all Boersma cartoons. He liked gestures. See one of Blab’s below.

Our heroes arrive at the spooky mansion to find its occupant, a ghost with the Professor Gizmo voice from “Ruff and Reddy,” can’t haunt it because the J. Evil Scientist family (though unnamed in this cartoon) has moved in and refuses to move out. J. Evil ignores Snooper’s “writ of habeas vacancy” so the detectives decide to remove the furniture from the home, starting with Junior’s crib. That brings on the gags. First, Junior pushes a button to zap Snooper with electricity. Then Junior pushes another button so Snoop falls through a trap door into the basement, where he fights a huge octopus with a chair (“What a dastardly tribulation experience,” says Snooper after closing the door on the creature).



Next, Junior mixes a formula (with a cue used during the Pebbles birth episode of “The Flintstones” in the background) which he feeds to a mosquito. The insect grows to a huge size and smugly battles a sword-wielding Snoop (“That giant mosquita is going to shiska-blab us, Bob, I mean shiska-bob us, Blab”). After escaping, our heroes run from a wolf monster that Junior lets out of his TV set.

“I’m not takin’ in every Tom, Dick and Scary Ghost,” says Snoop as their client wails that he’s now homeless. But the final scene has Snooper on the phone trying to sell his life story to a TV station. “It’s bein’ written now. By a ghost writer.” Cut to a shot of the ghost at a typewriter. Oh, but Mike Maltese’s groaners aren’t over. Blab observes: “When it comes to ghosts, Snoop has the right spirit.” With that truly cringe-worthy pun (and cringing is, no doubt, what Maltese had in mind), the cartoon ends.

And, with that, we end our reviews of all 45 Snooper and Blabber cartoons.

Scary Junior

Snooper and Blabber ran into ghosts and a witch but the scariest characters they encountered were the J. Evil Scientist family.



They appeared in four Snooper cartoons (and, later, in one Snagglepuss). The first was “Big Diaper Caper” (1959). Carlo Vinci’s the animator on it, and here’s one of his two-drawing fear takes (pardon the digital pixilation).



Snooper then dashes out of the scene. He does one of those stretch-dive exits that Carlo drew all the time back then. Carlo occasionally made drawings that would have been at home in a Mighty Mouse cartoon; Vinci spent almost 20 years at Terrytoons. The first one below is a good example.



J. Evil Scientist wasn’t really an evil scientist at all. He never concocted or experimented at all, though he had test tubes and creepy ingredients in his home. He and his wife liked the macabre (they were inspired by Charles Addams’ family, after all) but Junior was the one who did the scary stuff. So it’s appropriate that we salute him on this Hallowe’en.

Snooper and Blabber — Snap Happy Saps

Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Credits: Animation – Ken Muse, Layout – Walt Clinton, Backgrounds – Joe Montell, Story – Mike Maltese, Story Sketches – Dan Gordon, Titles – Art Goble, Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Voice Cast: Snooper, Blabber, Evil J. Scientist, Junior, Crocodile – Daws Butler; Mrs. Scientist – Jean Vander Pyl.
Music: Phil Green, Jack Shaindlin.
Episode: Quick Draw McGraw Show M-019, Production J-57.
First Aired: week of Feb. 1, 1960 (rerun, week of August 1, 1960).
Plot: Snooper and Blabber are hired to take pictures of the creepy Evil Scientist family.

Note: My supreme thanks to Andrew Morrice, who had a copy of this cartoon on video tape. He has digitised it to enable it to be reviewed.

The situation is pretty much the gag in this cartoon, combined with Snooper’s mangling of the English language. The Scientist family (which is never “evil,” despite the name) finds delight in creepy and macabre things just like the Addams Family. Oh, you never noticed the resemblance? This is the second of two cartoons featuring the Scientists in the 1959-60 season of Snooper and Blabber. It ends in a similar way as “Prince of a Fella” the following season, with the detectives being turned into something else.

There are a couple of oddities here, and I don’t mean the Scientists keeping a pet crocodile. The husband isn’t “Boris” as in the first cartoon, “The Big Diaper Caper.” But he’s not “J. Evil Scientist,” either.



And Mrs. Scientist (who has no first name here) has a different design, one with a pony tail. I suspect Walt Clinton redesigned her for this cartoon.



There are some neat expressions here; whether they’re from Mike Maltese’s thumbnails, Dan Gordon’s finished storyboard or Clinton’s layouts, I don’t know. But I like how Junior does an impression of Blab by pulling out his ears.



And the expressions of the alligator are simple but effective.



Kenny Muse churns out the footage on this cartoon. There always seems to be at least one scene in a Muse cartoon where there’s no animation. This one is no exception. Snoop walks off stage (upper half of body only; saves animating the legs) and we see a background drawing for about ten seconds while dialogue and sound effects fill the screen. Here’s Muse having the crocodile eat Blab. Animated on twos. It takes less than a second of screen time. See the difference in the crocodile’s position in the third and fourth drawing. It makes the chomp seem quicker than by having evenly-spaced in-betweens. Bill Hanna’s timing at work, I would guess.



Joe Montell worked on five Snooper and Blabbers and this is one of them. Here are a few backgrounds, including the atypical opening shot of the private eye ball on the office door. Montell is usually pretty stylish. He soon moved to Gamma Productions in Mexico to work on the Jay Ward cartoons.



Maltese’s dialogue...
● Snooper, answering phone: “Snooper Detective Agency. We calm your fright if the fee is right.”
● Snooper, after accepting the “five-grand thousand” offer: “Lady, you’re talkin’ to Snapshot Snoop, the Pride of Tintype-Pan Alley.”
● Snooper, after pulling up in front of the Victorian mansion: “What’s to be scared? Where there’s a cuddly baby, there’s bound to be peace and tranquilizers.”
● Snooper, as Junior pretends to be a dog: “Pretty cute, Blab. Reminds me of a pooch I used to know on Third Avenue.”
● Snooper, after Blab thinks Junior is making a malt: “I think I’ll join you in a little tea-de-tout myself.”
● Evil, after Junior transforms into a wolf boy: “Junior, you’ve been at the Wolf Man Extract again. (Junior croaks) And you promised your daddy. (Junior croaks twice) Now go change yourself back, or I’ll take away all your gargoyles. (Junior croaks three times) I’m sure he’ll behave himself. He loves those gargoyles.
● Snooper to crocodile, who swallowed Blab: “All right, you fugitive from a hand-bag.”
Snooper doesn’t say “Halt in the name of the Private Eye (fill in the blank)” in this cartoon.

Maltese sets up the end gag in mid-cartoon by having Junior mix himself a potion with Wolf Man Extract. Here’s Muse’s transformation art. I believe there are six frames of the toothy drawing before Junior starts to sprout into the wolfboy.

For a change, Snoop presumably collects his fat fee from the Scientists. Before he and Blab depart, they’re offered a “malt” by Junior. Cut to a final scene in the detective agency office. Yes, there was Wolf Man Extract in it and the private eyes are now wolves. It’ll wear off in 30 days. Snooper isn’t too concerned. He answers the phone “Snooper Detective Agency. We specialise in wolf disguises.” Unfortunately, just like the Quick Draw cartoons where Baba Looey almost always got the last word, Blabber has it in the Snooper cartoons whether or not there’s anything funny to say. This one’s lame. It ends “Let’s face it. Snoop’s the greatest. Right folks?” At least Baba usually came up with a pun, even if it was weak.

Familiar Phil Green and Jack Shaindlin cues are on the soundtrack.

0:00 - Snooper and Blabber Main Title theme (Curtin, Hanna, Barbera).
0:25 - GR-74 POPCORN (Green) – Office scene.
0:56 - LFU-117-1 MAD RUSH No. 1 (Shaindlin) - Car scene, street sign scene.
1:27 - EXCITEMENT UNDER DIALOGUE (Shaindlin) – Scientist sign, doorbell, Junior talks.
2:18 - GR-456 DR QUACK (Green) – “Hey, Snoop,” Junior bites Snoop, Junior turns into wolf creature.
3:53 - CAPERS (Shaindlin) – Junior snarls, “I’m sure he’ll behave himself.”
4:28 – skippy strings and jaunty bassoon (Shaindlin) – “He just loves those gargoyles,” crocodile eats Blab, newspaper snap sound off camera.
5:32 - fast circus chase music (Shaindlin) – Crocodile roars, chases Snoop, skid to a stop.
5:44 - GR-90 THE CHEEKIE CHAPPIE (Green) – Junior takes picture, group picture, scene at door, potion drinking scene.
6:29 - ‘FIREMAN’ (Shaindlin) – Evil Scientist answers phone, Snoop and Blab in office.
7:10 - Snooper and Blabber End Title theme (Curtin).

Note: We have now reviewed all cartoons from the first two seasons of the Quick Draw McGraw Show.