This is news that fans have been waiting for.
Many of you know that about 20 years ago, the first season of The Huckleberry Hound Show came out on DVD. Sales weren’t as good as expected, and that partially weighed into a decision not to release the remaining three seasons. There were also issues finding elements of the half-hour series but, more importantly, there were money problems trying to get the rights to use the Jack Shaindlin and Bill Loose cues as they had returned to the composers’ heirs.
This, evidently, has been worked out. The Huck show, in its entirety, will be available on Blu-ray next month.
The Warner Archive news release contains the following:
To faithfully present these episodes as originally aired, you’ll be able to enjoy each show containing original bumpers and bridges, as well as rarely seen vintage commercials featuring the characters from the series.
This means all the Huck, Pixie and Dixie, Yogi and Hokey Wolf cartoons that appeared on the show (Yogi, of course, was spun off and some of his cartoons appeared exclusively on his show).
You can read more in this release.
Hanna-Barbera may have ended production of new Huckleberry Hound cartoons in 1962, but he was still deemed a big enough star that box ads were taken out in newspapers that year for his half-hour show.
Here are a few. These chatty ones are for a TV station in Indianapolis.
This is one for a station in Amarillo. I think. The ad doesn't mention a station or channel.
Flint, Michigan to the left; Roanoke, Virginia to the right.
Cincinnati.
It is only appropriate that Huck is seen and heard in North Carolina, where his accent should be familiar to viewers.
Portland, left; Tulsa, right.
Sioux Falls, above; Atlanta, below. They had trouble spelling Huck's name in South Dakota.
This is for Miami, Nov. 29, 1962. Whose brilliant programming idea was it to run Huck opposite The Jetsons? Maybe it was "Bobb."
There are other ads, but this is good enough for now.
If Huck wasn’t on your TV set, you could get your blue hound fix at home by watching him on a Give-a-Show projector by Kenner. It wasn’t a home movie like, say, a Super-8 of Woody Woodpecker. It was a strip of slides. That had to suffice for us kids in the ‘60s. There was no sound so we could practice our impressions of Daws Butler doing Yogi. Look at the price!
Jon B. Knutson in Olympia had a wonderful blog with links to Give-a-Shows he had put together with Capitol Hi-Q music in the background. We had linked to it here in 2010, but it seems to have died the following year. Too bad. There’s so much on the internet that has disappeared. We are still here, however.
The Yowp blog is supposedly on hiatus, but we do have some new posts that will appear periodically (closer to monthly instead of weekly), we hope, through to Christmas, which has been our traditional H-B music post.
Not too long after The Huckleberry Hound Show debuted on the week of September 29, 1958, newspaper columnists began praising the series.
An early thumbs-up for Huck and his gang came from the entertainment section of the Tampa Times, where cartoons aired on WFLA-TV on Thursdays in the early evening. The entertainment page on October 18, 1958 included this anonymous review of all the Kellogg’s sponsored shows that aired over the course of the week, but focused on Huck.
Huckleberry Hound Delightful Cartoon
Designed to delight the youngsters, the 6 to 6:30 P.M. spot, Mondays through Fridays on channel 8, will undoubtedly find lots of grownups looking in. The varied program brings everything from a beguiling little cartoon of a hound . . . to the great gift of the imagination Superman.
Most of the shows are time-tested favorites of the young-in-heart TV watcher, but the cartoon doggie, Huckleberry Hound, is new and the most enchanting cartoon character to come along since Mickey Mouse.
Huckleberry Hound, complete with a 10-gallon hat and a side arm worn about his fat little middle, is the delightful creation of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, who produced and directed the Tom and Jerry cartoons.
Satire in the sketches may go over the heads of the tots in front of the TV . . . but the grownups will love it. And the youngsters will find enough enjoyment in the characters which include Yogi Bear, his patient little friend, Boo Boo Bear; a cantankerous cat, Mr. Jinx and two mice, Dixie and Pixie.
Huck and his friends are appearing every Thursday in the 6 to 6:30 series.
Monday's segment of the show takes viewers to Sherwood Forest, where Robin Hood defends the honor of ladies' fair and strives to keep England free.
On Tuesdays Woody Woodpecker is the star performer. Superman and Wild Bill Hickok share in Wednesday slot, and come Fridays . . . It's Roy Rogers.
Even before this, on the other side of Florida, the Miami News cheered “Wonderful cartoons” next to its highlight listing of the Huck show in its Oct. 9, 1958 edition. The series aired in that city on Thursdays, originally at 7 p.m., on WCKT-TV.
By the end of his show’s first season, Huckleberry Hound was a full-blown fad. This assessment was published in the News on August 13, 1959.
OFFICIAL HONORS
Adults Like Huck Hound
By KRISTINE DUNN
TV Editor of the Miami News
The college kids of the nation are officially adopting Huckleberry Hound.
Huckleberry Hound, on Channel 7 at 8 tonight, is that Southern-drawling pooch originally designed to amuse the kids.
He's the pen-and-ink child of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera, the creaters [sic] of Tom and Jerry. Tom the cat and Jerry the mouse have entertained movie-goers during intermissions for the past 20 years. They also brought MGM seven Academy Awards.
But Huck's philosophy—and his friend, Yogi Bear—caught the fancy and affection of adults.
Right here at The Miami News, in fact, a few of our reporters and editors tote about a lofty disdain for television in general. But four words—"It’s Huckleberry Hound time"—will send them sprinting for the tube.
The college kids are proclaiming their esteem.
The University of Washington held a "Huck Hound Day" on campus and 11,000 students joined his fan club. Southern Methodist and Texas Christian Universities have dedicated days to Huck this October.
At UCLA, Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity initiated him and hung his portrait over the fireplace.
Homecoming Theme
In the Big Ten, Huckleberry Hound is the theme of Ohio State's homecoming celebration.
All the admiration isn't Ivy-League, either.
Bars have been named for him; poker games adjourned for him; airplanes decorated with his picture and speed limits broken for him.
Why?
"Huck is put upon, embarrassed, taken advantage of and thrust into horrendous situations," said one professor. "But he never seems to mind.”
Perhaps his ability not to mind is the key to his infectious popularity.
Hanna and Barbera also turn out the Ruff and Reddy cartoons seen Saturdays at 10:30 a.m. on Channel 7.
The duo used to produce 50 minutes of Tom and Jerry cartoons per year for MGM. Last television season, they did more than 900 minutes of cartoons.
Their 200 employes use more than a full tank-car of ink a year. It takes 90 separate drawings for one laugh movement, and 10,000 individual drawings for a half-hour cartoon sequence.
There was a Florida connection with the Huck show in late 1960. In a third season Yogi Bear segment (just before he got his own show) entitled “Gleesome Threesome,” where Ranger Smith’s vacation in Miami Beach takes a wrong turn when Yogi and Boo Boo check in to his hotel.
TV stations in Tampa and Miami weren’t the only ones in Florida to air the Huck show in 1958. Both WDBO-TV, Channel 6 in Orlando, broadcast the cartoons at 5:30 on Thursdays. WCTV, serving Tallahassee and environs on Channel 6, put on Huck at 5:30 on Wednesdays.
Toward the end of the first season, when the Huck show was in reruns, a Florida department store chain was a little disingenuous in a Miami News ad exhorting fans to “meet huckleberry hound and his friends.” You might think this was an early example of H-B PR maven Ed Justin getting someone to dress up in a Huck costume for a meet and greet. It was too early for that, though. Instead, what fans met were plush dolls, likely the ones made by the Knickerbocker company which coloured Huck red instead of blue (or black-and-white as seen on TV).
As fads are apt to do, Huck’s came to a slow end. Yes, he “ran” for President of the U.S. in 1960, the same year his show became the first cartoon series AND first syndicated series to be awarded an Emmy. But when plans were announced for a Hanna-Barbera cartoon feature, it was to star Yogi Bear. Huck was nowhere to be found. When McNaught decided to syndicate a funny animal comic in the papers, it starred Yogi Bear, not Huck. And when the 1964 U.S. election rolled around, the H-B presidential opponents were Yogi Bear and Magilla Gorilla.
Huck was still on TV, in reruns and in new series where all kinds of characters were lumped together. He still had drawing power to be handed a starring role in the 1988 TV feature—The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound (with Daws Butler still around to voice the lead character). But Huck didn’t have an “ark lark”—Yogi did. Huck didn’t have Yahooeys competing in a “Laff-a-Lympics”—Yogi did. He didn’t have an “All-Star Christmas Caper”—well, you get the idea. At least he wasn’t saddled with a teenaged version called “Yo, Huck!” (though he was in the supporting cast of the Yogi mall-rat, er, bear, cartoon).
Ruff and Reddy notwithstanding, The Huckleberry Hound Show was Hanna-Barbera’s breakthrough series, giving the studio lots of positive ink. It was in no small measure due to the star of the show.
The Huckleberry Hound Show was a phenomenon. Critics liked it, and even admitted watching it. Colleges formed Huck Hound clubs. An island in the Antarctic was named for the star. It not only was the first cartoon series to win an Emmy, it was the first syndicated show of any kind to do it.
But why?
I could give you a pile of my own reasons, but let’s find out an answer from someone else.
The Huck show was broadcast not only in the United States, but in Canada, Australia and England. It was the subject of Alan Dick’s column in the Daily Herald of London on May 22, 1962.
Magic of Mr. JINKS
(AND THE MEECES HE HATES TO PIECES)
FOR millions of youngsters Friday teatime is the peak of the viewing week. Spellbound they watch Yogi Bear's exploits. Which is as it should be, for Yogi is glorious kid stuff.
But I know a minor poet, a university graduate, an American expatriate professional man, two market porters and a road sweeper who contrive to get home in time that evening to join their children round the telly.
What is the subtle appeal that unites such an unlikely cross-section? As a member of the Yogi Union in good standing, let me try to the drawing power of these animated animals—Yogi himself and Boo-Boo; Huckleberry Hound, the dog; Mr. Jinks, the cat. and Dixie and Pixie, the meeces Mr. Jinks hates to pieces.
My conclusion is that they have a methodical madness which interprets the subconscious loves and hates of men and nations.
Feud
Although it is Yogi Bear who has given his name to the cult, it is Mr. Jinks the Cat who sits most behind the psychiatrist's couch. He is the one who interprets our love-hate libidos, our blood-lusting and our bravado.
His everlasting feud against Dixie and Pixie, the mice, fulfils our human yearning to give the other fellow a bloody nose without really hurting him.
Here is the magic of Mr. Jinks and the meeces he hates to pieces.
They inflict upon one another the most devastating punishment. But after the horrendous impact, both sides testily shake themselves and walk unscathed away.
"I hates meeces to pieces," breathes Mr. Jinks with venom. I despises them mices."
But the day the meeces disappeared. Mr. Jinks moped on his bed, inconsolable with grief. And another day when Mr. Jinks was missing, the meeces went to pieces.
That was the love-hate relationship showing clear. You always love the one you hate.
Yogi Bear sits on the other side of the couch. He is the excitable fall-guy in all of us, the permanent sucker who never learns.
With the dead-pan expression and the self-satisfied voice, with an upward lilt like Schnozzle Durante, Yogi and his little stooge Boo-Boo always become involved.
Yogi is emotional, but self-centred with it. He is forever trying to help, while helping himself.
Knight
Huckleberry Hound—who drags out his name like a hunting cry: How-ow-ownd!—is Don Quixote tilting at windmills.
He is the good-natured, love-thy-neighbour, turn-cheek we would all like to be, and aren't.
He is the knight with a broken lance, the prince of derring-don't.
When he besieges the wicked knight's castle the portcullis is sure to fall, the moat to drain, the molten lead to pour.
And when he reaches his fair damsel in distress, she turns out to be a toothless hag.
But Huckleberry takes it all with good grace and lives to fight another day.
There they all are, our mixed-up love-hate, do-good, derring-do subconscious selves, scribbled in a psychiatrist's notebook by a gang of shadow animals.
Or are they more real than we like to think? Do we all hate meeces to pieces?
Hanna-Barbera cartoons have been tarnished with a reputation of little real animation, with a lot of eye blinks and maybe an arm and mouth moving, the rest of the character left on one cel, frame after frame after frame.
I won’t comment about the later cartoons. Going back to the beginning, the first Ruff and Reddy cartoon in 1957 barely had any animation, but it wasn’t as static as Crusader Rabbit. When the Huckleberry Hound Show debuted in 1958, some of the cartoons featured characters that simply popped from pose to pose without any fluidity.
In Huck’s second season, additional artists had been hired and the animation was treated like you would find in a theatrical cartoon. Not often, but it happened. Characters would move in full, sometimes one drawing to a frame. At the same time, director Bill Hanna and his animators would try to get some emotion out of the characters without resorting to a lot of talk (that would change soon).
Here’s an example from the Pixie and Dixie cartoon Hi-Fido, which aired at the start of the 1958-59 TV season. Warren Foster’s plot is simple. The meeces try to drive Mr. Jinks nuts by making the sound of a barking dog through a microphone, meaning the cat can hear a dog, but not see one.
Jinks catches on to what’s happening. But the plot turns and a stray bulldog strolls into the yard and then up to Jinksie in the house.
The animator is Manny Perez, formerly of Warner Bros. and, I suspect, working freelance on this cartoon. He employs several drawings, animated on twos, to shift Jinks’ weight from one foot to the other, and lean on the dog. Note that Jinks is drawn in full in each frame. There’s no cheating here.
Mr. Jinks lies to the meeces he was hip to their scheme, and that he “knewwww there was no dog around the house.” Jinks then chuckles about the situation. Here, Perez limits the animation to Jinks’ head in three movements. The cat then looks at the dog and continues to chuckle (the exposure sheet may have screwed up as there is no movement as Jinks laughs).
Then he realises there IS a dog. The drawing below is held for at least 16 frames to establish what’s happening.
The dialogue switches from a chuckle, to a nervous laugh, to crying as the cat expects the dog to maul him.
These are some of the crying drawings. Only the head is animated. No two drawings are used in consecutive frames.
This is where the famous H-B eye-blinks come in. That’s the only animation as the basic pose is held for about 60 frames, or roughly 2 1/2 seconds.
The shock drawing and the back-up-to-the-wall are held for two frames each.
The dog moves in and barks at Jinks. I won’t post them all but Perez uses three barking drawings, with the entire dog moving as in full animation. A Jack Shaindlin cue runs out and a Spencer Moore cue takes over in the background.
You’ll notice the lovely colour on these frames, even though there’s some digital fuzz. It would appear these cartoons were restored either for cable television or for the non-existent second volume DVD set of the Huckleberry Hound Show.
