The first Ruff and Reddy adventure may not have featured an awful lot of animation, but the uncredited background artist was pretty busy.
In the final cartoon in the Muni Mula adventure, from the time the S.S. Gizmo II is hit by a meteor (which we never actually see) to the end of the cartoon 2½ minutes later, there are at least 20 pieces of background art. Only a few of them are reused from earlier cartoons.
My guess is Fernando Montealegre is responsible, at least judging by the flat living room scene toward the end of this cartoon.
The story-line is simple. After the meteor hits the spacecraft, and Reddy breaks its brake, the automatic pilot sends it toward Earth, and it smashes into Mount Cucamonga after warnings are sent around the world about a UFO.
Space orb overlay in the first background, just like a theatrical.
Director Bill Hanna simulates animation by turning this background counter-clockwise while the camera pulls in. I keep waiting for the Randy Horne Singers to chirp "Meet George Jetson."
Inside gag on the microphone.
“And our boys made the headlines,” says narrator Don Messick, who reads what we can see on the screen.
Cut to the newscaster explaining these were not Martians, “but nothing but an ordinary dog and cat...and a wacky little professor,” as the camera pans over to the three battered protagonists.
“So, you see,” intones the announcer, “there is no such thing as flying saucers.” How that is determined from one UFO that is identified is unclear. An animated slap at government denials, perhaps?
“Poor Ruff, Reddy and Gizmo,” says narrator Messick, as they trudge away from Hard Sell O’Dell’s car lot. “No one believes they’ve ever been to Muni Mula.”
Director Hanna engages in a diagonal wipe.
There’s a shot of the battered rocket on the lot and a cut to a close-up of the sign in front of it, which Messick reads.
This cuts to the background drawing of Mt. Cucamonga with its launch pad on a wooden platform on top. The camera trucks in to provide movement in the scene. There’s another cut the camera moving in quickly on silhouetted animation of Gizmo building a third rocket.
The camera pans upward as the narrator explains the professor is being helped by Ruff, who stops to look at the audience watching home, then cuts to snoring Reddy, before panning up to the stratosphere. Messick happily adds “Who knows? In the not-to-distant future, the space spaceketeers may again be exploring the mysteries of space. I hope we can all go along with Gizmo. And Ruff. And Reddy.”
End theme out.
I didn’t intend on reviewing any Ruff and Reddy cartoons, but after I posted on the first two episodes, decided to see if I could finish it. Will there be others? Not that I’ve planned. But as a narrator might say, “Who knows?”
Readers have asked me about the state of these cartoons and if the series will, or can, be restored. I am not plugged in to people who know about these things; I’m just an aging person who happens to like old cartoons. Of course, tweaking this series into pristine home-video format would delight those who like it. And, Crusader Rabbit notwithstanding, Ruff and Reddy does have some historical value in my estimation, and is worth restoration for this reason. We’ll have to wait and see.
The music used in this final, first-adventure cartoon, is credited to Bill Loose and John Seely.
0:00 – no music – title card
0:06 – TC-219A CHASE MEDIUM (Loose-Seely) – recap, meteor hit spaceship, Reddy snaps break.
1:27 – TC-221A HEAVY AGITATO (Loose-Seely) – “Broke the brake,” warnings flashed, crashes into Mt. Cucamonga, headlines.
2:26 – no music – TV newscaster.
2:36 – TC 304A FOX TROT (Loose-Seely) – “Ordinary?” car lot, new rocket built, cartoon ends.
One of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera’s first hires when they (with silent partner George Sidney) opened their own studio in July 1957 was someone who hadn’t worked with them at MGM. It was a writer named Charlie Shows.
Charlie was a former police detective from El Paso who ended up working on, and/or creating, children’s TV shows in Los Angeles, including Time For Beany. He came up with KNBH’s Adventures of Patches, which starred Don Messick as the voice of Patches (Larry Harmon was Wacky Rabbit). In 1951, he was named honorary mayor of Sun Valley, California.
Long-time readers know I’ve been tough on Charlie. He loved rhymes and, to me, too many were really forced or hokey. But he was a good artist and when he worked on Ruff and Reddy, his dialogue comes across better because the series was aimed at younger kids.
(Side note: I give Charlie credit for the immortal words “I hate meeces to pieces.” Whether he came up with it, or Joe Barbera did, I honestly don’t know, but it sounds like something Shows wrote).
Mr. Shows peppers the 12th Ruff and Reddy cartoon, Reddy’s Rocket Rescue, with his (in)famous rhymes. Narrator Messick talks of “Professor Giz, the rocket whiz,” Ruff adds a “Gee whiz, Giz,” and Gizmo observes that “Redd is dead ahead” and to “stand by for a dizzy dive” as he and Ruff make the aforementioned rescue.
As usual, the cartoon starts with a close-to-30-second recap (with re-used animation) from the last episode, when the “whiz” shoots off Reddy’s propeller from his metal beany, and we see the plummeting pooch dropping to his doom.
The adventure continues with Gizmo using a “secret weapon.” It’s an ordinary toilet plunger. “It’s lucky the professor has a bag of tricks, ‘cause Reddy is falling like a bag of bricks,” narrator Messick exclaims. Gizmo proves to be an accurate shot.
Silhouette drawing.
Reddy is his usual belligerent self. “Put me down, you clown!” he gripes. “Oh, gee, Reddy,” responds Ruff, adding “What an attitude! Where’s your gratitude?” It’s no quirk. Reddy’s a jerk (See, Charlie? I can write that way, too).
“What happens to me shouldn’t happen to a dog,” is the episode’s ironic comment.
The troubles aren’t over. The Muni-Mula Air Force, their propellers moving in cycle animation, return. Gizmo uses his “super-secret weapon”—a package that reads “Do not open until Christmas” that has a Fourth of July cracker in it. The “noisy rascals” stare at the package. It explodes. End of Air Force. (Fourth of July? On Muni Mula?).
“You’re a whiz, Gizmo,” says Reddy. “Just call me ‘Giz’,” is the response in more of Shows’ sparkling dialogue.
The three decide to head back to Earth. But look! A mammoth meteor is heading toward them. Will it hit them? We’ll have to wait for the next episode.
Shows left Hanna-Barbera in 1958 to work for Larry Harmon on his Bozo the Clown TV cartoons, but was re-hired in the mid-1960s to craft stories and even lyrics for record albums starring the Hanna-Barbera characters in various tales. He certainly contributed to the studio’s legacy.
Two cues from Bill Loose and John Seely are heard in the background of this episode.
0:00 – No music – Title card.
0:06 – TC-219A CHASE MEDIUM (Loose-Seely) – Recap, Reddy pulled into spacecraft.
1:51 – No music – Reddy in the capsule complains about his treatment.
2:01 – TC-217A CHASE MEDIUM (Loose-Seely) – Muni Mulas fly in formation, end of cartoon.
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.
How’s this for an in-between?
I’ve mentioned before I’m not a big Ruff and Reddy fan, but some of you reading this are, so here are some frames from Surprise in the Skies, the tenth cartoon from their first adventure.
Professor Gizmo tells Reddy their spaceship needs a push to get off the planet Muni Mula. Reddy dashes away to go outside. These are the basic drawings, although Gizmo’s left arm on the lever is on a separate cel than the rest of him. The arm moves. The rest doesn’t.
The Ruff and Reddy cartoons didn’t cut corners altogether. You’ll notice in the shots that show the three characters inside the space ship control room that the same background art isn’t used. Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera could have saved some money by using the same background, but didn’t.
On the other hand, there are run cycles taking up footage. One doesn't even show Reddy's feet. Reddy simply bobs up and down in four drawings for eight seconds. When narrator Messick says Reddy thinks his pals "are a couple of skunks," skunk tails simple pop onto the back of the characters, who are immobile through the scene.
Whether they came from Dan Gordon's story sketches or from the layout artist (likely Bick Bickenbach), I don't know, but silhouette drawings make things visually interesting in the first Ruff and Reddy cartoons. The animation is limited in this scene; only Gizmo's moustache moves in four drawings. No need to animate a mouth!
Hanna and Barbera also use overlays in this cartoon. The Muni Mulas are behind whatever the ragged purple thing is.
Even though the cartoons originally aired in black and white, the background man goes for different shades of purple, as well as outlines in both white and black. You can see green vines that are sponged onto the painting and wispy white clouds. This is exactly the same as you’d find in an MGM theatrical, which would have had a larger budget.
In this scene, the clouds are on an overlaid cel.
The battered S.S. Gizmo II shooting through the stratosphere after bashing through the metal planet, Muni Mula. The rocket is on one cel, the smoke coming out of back is on a three-cel cycle, and some of the clouds are on an overlay.
The team at H-B Enterprises tries to make up for the lack of animation by making this science fiction adventure visually interesting. I like the interiors in this one. This one of inside the space ship can't look much more 1950s in design.
Here's an example of simulating animation. The Muni Mula army is on a cel, moved up from behind the front of the space ship, which is on an overlay. Director Bill Hanna doesn't maintain the same shot. He cuts in closer to the same cell-under-overlay movement.
The Muni Mulans have Don Messick's tongue waving voice that you heard on The Herculoids.
This cartoon aired with The Creepy Creature on January 5, 1958. I can’t find any TV listings mentioning the Columbia theatrical short also seen on the show.
Greg Watson or Warner Leighton or whoever the sound cutter was only uses two piece of Bill Loose/John Seely music from the Capitol Hi-Q "D" series on this cartoon.
0:00 – no music – spinning title card
0:06 – TC-217A CHASE MEDIUM (Loose-Seely) – Ruff, Reddy, Gizmo run into spaceship; need a push.
1:31 – no music – “A push?”; Reddy zips out.
1:33 – TC-219A CHASE MEDIUM (Loose-Seely) – Ruff pushes to end of cartoon.
