There’s a generation out there that gets wistful for afternoon blocks of syndicated cartoons, or an American cable channel that pumped out nothing but animation.
Your yowping reporter pre-dates that. I go further back, back to a time when you got more than cartoons on pre- and after-school shows on TV. You got live hosts, introducing cartoons and kibitzing with others in front of the camera. Their routines could be silly and funny and, if I may editorialise, more entertaining than the cartoons (A sign of a successful show was hearing cameramen break up in the background).
These shows were all over the United States, and they were the ones that Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera had in mind when they developed the Lippy the Lion, Touché Turtle and Wally Gator cartoons. The five-minute comedies could be dropped into kids shows, or even run on their own if a station was too cheap to hire live talent.
This is a bit of a long-winded way to get into this picture I snagged off the internet.
This is from The Pappy Show on WICU-TV in Erie, Pennsylvania.
There were people dressed up as Yogi Bear who toured North America in the late ’50s and early ‘60s, putting on shows at fairs and department stores. This version of Yogi isn’t one of them. He's a little emaciated. I don’t have the background behind the photo, so I don’t know if this Yogi appeared with Pappy regularly.
(Pappy was a chap named Skip Letcher. He had been a disc jockey CHVC in Niagara Falls, Ontario. On-camera cohort Bernard Abbey died in 1964 at the age of 39).
Since I mentioned Lippy, etc., I will use this as an excuse to post this newspaper supplement cover. The characters are on model, so this must have been studio artwork, though I’m not certain why Touché is floating in mid-air. The Lippy, etc. cartoons were viewed in our home, using a special antenna, from KTNT-TV in Tacoma on the Brakeman Bill Show. The best part of the show was a hand puppet named Crazy Donkey. Even my dad would stop and watch Crazy Donkey do or say something ridiculous.
It’s a shame the live host period ended. You can blame those people who watered down cartoons to “protect” children. Hosts on some stations plugged things, and there was a lot of concern about advertising aimed at kids. The hosts vanished. (So did a droll series called Linus the Lionhearted, starring Post cereal spokes-cartoons).
We didn’t need a “Cartoon Network” back then. There was, at least where I grew up, plenty of animated fun after school. I could watch a live kids show that included cartoons, then switch to a half hour of The Flintstones in reruns, then switch to another channel with Warners and Fleischer Popeyes, then switch to another channel that aired Quick Draw McGraw or Huckleberry Hound. That took up a good couple of hours and you could get your cartoon fill for the day.
I’m pretty sure there are readers here who fondly remember the live, ad-lib kid shows on their TV set. The hosts were just as popular as the cartoons they showed. Bravo to them.
Earl Kress was among a handful of wonderful people who loved and really knew Hanna-Barbara cartoons, and would go out of his way to help others who did, too, even if it was just to chat by e-mail.
Hanna-Barbera and other studios employed Earl as a writer. He won Emmys. He was only 60 when he passed away from cancer in 2011. When he died, the good people in animation said many good things about him.
Earl amassed what, I gather, was a huge amount of material; he was involved in publicity of the H-B cartoons after the studio was sold to Turner, in addition to music CDs and cartoon DVDs. Much of it has been sitting in his home in the dozen years since he left for another plane.
Denise Kress went through her late husband’s material some time ago and mailed some of it to me. I’ve passed on some of it in this blog. I think he would have wanted it. Earlier this month, Denise bundled up a package of Earl’s files and took the great expense of sending it to me. It’s a bewildering amount of material, including voice recording session data and animation credits for The Flintstones, a whole episode guide from Wacky Races, one of his draft stories for H-B from 1980, non-cartoon cues from the Capital “Q” library (the one before Hi-Q) and a lot more.
With this overly long introduction, let me post the lyrics and music for what I suspect was a theme song for Touche Turtle.
Yes, Touché’s part of starting-to-get-blah period of Hanna-Barbera comedies. But I post this because the lyrics are by Mike Maltese, my favourite of all cartoon writers, and I don’t know if this was ever used on television.
Touche’s gestation period seems to have started in 1960. A Life magazine spread featured story director Dan Gordon looking over concept drawings for a proposed Hairbrain or Harebrain Hare series. One of the drawings is pretty much Touché Turtle. A Variety story of October 20, 1960 stated a deal had been worked out for two syndicated cartoon series, one starring swordsman Hairbrain and Dum Dum, and the other with Lippy the Lion and Hardy Har Har, another Maltese invention.
Somehow, during development, the rabbit disappeared and Dum Dum was paired with Touché Turtle. Wally Gator was added by August 1961 (sayeth the Hollywood Reporter) and the troika appeared (in colour) on the Beachcomber Bill Show on KCOP in Los Angeles on Monday, September 3, 1962, after a preview the previous August 27th—at 7:30 in the morning! (The station signed on early). The Los Angeles Citizen-News reported “Zero-Hero,” animated by Ken Muse, was previewed. Screen Gems claimed each episode in the three shows cost $9600 a piece, 156 cartoons in all (Variety, Mar. 7, 1962).
Those of you who have seen the series know the theme song before each cartoon consists of the Randy Horne Singers belting out “Touché, away! Touché, away! It’s Touché Turtle.” Maltese did better, though he’s been wittier (eg. “The Flower of Gower Gulch” at Warners).
As you can see below, Hoyt Curtin composed a theme, including chords. I have no skill at playing in A-flat on anything so I can’t attempt to recreate this aurally for you.
It might have been cool if Bill Thompson, the voice of Touché, had sung this, but I don’t know if it was ever recorded.
Late note: Kurtis Findlay, who is the only person who subscribes to this feed who has met me in person, gave it a go. That is so cool. Don’t expect perfect pitch as he has a cold (I was a boy soprano. My choir teacher told me I had almost perfect pitch. I’m a pensioner now and am extremely flat).
As you know, this blog is retired but when I get a chance, I’ll put up a few more things Denise has sent this way.
The Jetsons wasn’t the only effort from the Hanna-Barbera studio to make its first appearance 60 years ago.
Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera decided that, instead of having a half-hour show that a sponsor would sell to stations in different cities, they (or, rather, Screen Gems) would market their own short cartoons that a station could air as it pleased. The three different series could be dropped in individually in a hosted kids show, or they could be strung together into a show of whatever length it desired.
After fussing around with different concepts, the studio produced five-minute cartoons starring Lippy the Lion, Touché Turtle and Wally Gator.
This has raised the question—when did the cartoons debut?
It’s pretty much impossible giving an answer when it comes to syndicated cartoons that could be dumped into an omnibus cartoon show with anything else the station rented, or were just another part of a kid show with a live-action host. Someone on-line has raised the date of September 3rd—60 years ago today—perhaps based on a post on this Yowp-tastic blog. If you’re willing to accept the claims of an ad for KCOP in the Los Angeles Times on September 3, 1962, then today is their birthday.
(We can make a possible exception for Lippy’s sidekick Hardy Har Har, who appeared in an embryonic form in the Snooper and Blabber cartoon Laughing Guess that first aired February 29, 1960 when he sadly mutters “Oh dear, oh my.”)
Touché, Wally and Lippy got a preview in the Los Angeles Citizen-News entertainment page on August 28, 1962. It would appear the three made their first appearance on the air the day before (Aug. 27) then settled into regular daily programming the following week. The critic not only thought the characters would be enjoyable for children, she also outlined the plots of the preview cartoons, and mention’s H-B’s other 1962 series.
TV Time
Cartoon Stir Young Minds
By ARLENE GARBER
TV Editor
There may be more in cartoons for children then most of us think.
Because those animated antics are not performed by real people, but the creations of paper and ink, they could easily stir the young minds much more than a western adventure show or a “Dennis the Menace.”
It seems that an animated figure running across the screen leaves a lot to the imagination, especially to the willing imagination of children.
Hanna - Barbara Studios’ latest creations, “Touché Turtle,” “Wally Gator” and “Lippy the Lion” give credence to this idea. All three were previewed Monday morning on Channel 13, before they start their regular run next week at 6:30 p.m.
First thing that will tickle the young viewers’ curiosity is probably the names of these new cartoon characters. Just saying Touché Turtle and Lippy the Lion out loud must be fun for kids.
Lippy the Lion turned out to be just goofy enough to have a feline friend called Hardy Har Har. And the two of them seemed exactly the type of characters who would run from a loud pirate captain without any thought of fighting back.
Because they came across the screen as believable personalities you might never meet in this world, I’m sure the youngsters will not think any of their escapades are impossible.
A TURTLE
Touché Turtle had a rather throaty voice to go with his hard-shelled soft-hearted personality. His pal Dum Dum was an over-grown puppy type who was agreeable to anything.
These two got involved with a rather tame gorilla in what appeared to be a loose spoof on the movie of “Mighty Joe Young.” And they did it without filling the screen with terrifying violence.
l imagine that Touché Turtle could become everyone's favorite as he romps through his adventures as the unheroic underdog.
Wally Gator turned out to be an alligator with more size than sense or courage. His troubles began after an old English hunter mistook him for a dragon on his front lawn.
This segment had some of the best comedy lines of the three cartoons. Children must have enjoyed it when Wally Gator asked, “What are you, an alligator hater?” or “Don’t you recognize a confirmed coward when you see one?”
All three series have successfully relied upon continuous action based on story lines with which the viewer can associate himself.
Hanna-Barbera will be giving youngsters lots of laughs, plus something for the imagination to feed upon with their Channel 13 schedule this fall. And adults won’t be turning away from them either.
FOR GROWN-UPS
If grown-ups find these three-cartoon series a shade juvenile for their tastes, Hanna-Barbera have come up with another creation, “The Jetsons,” fashioned for the more sophisticated crowd. It will be seen Sunday at 7:30 p.m. on ABC-TV.
“The Jetsons’’ takes an animated family and projects them into the next century.
There’s the father, George, who drives the skyways to work in his atomic-powered bubble. And Jane, his wife, who has to remind son Elroy not to lose his rubbers during a school field trip to Europe.
Daughter Judy does the solar swivel on an anti-gravity dance floor and meets her friends at orbiting Space-burgers.
Although it looks like many of the lesser cartoon series which began hopefully a year ago will no longer be on the screen, these creative efforts by Hanna-Barbera may very well be among those which satisfy cartoon lovers in the season coming up.
Lippy, Wally and Touché were bi-coastal 60 years ago today. They also made their first appearance on WGAN-TV in Portland, Maine, and on the Sheriff Colepepper Show on WNDU-TV in South Bend, Indiana (one local paper alternated Lippy’s and Wally’s names for the half-hour show). In Salem, Oregon, KPTV aired a half-hour Lippy show starting September 3rd; one paper listed Lippy in the first 15 minutes and “Wally and Touché” the rest of the half hour.
Over the course of the next few weeks, a number of papers ran ads for the coming appearance of one of the three stars, but my favourite ads are in the September 29th edition of the Lansing State Journal. Kids were invited to colour in the cartoon characters on newsprint, and connect the dots on Touché. Yeah, it looks like someone at the paper traced a publicity drawing of Quick Draw McGraw, but they’re still pretty cool.
They had the same artists and writers as Huck and Quick Draw and Yogi Bear. They had the same music. Even the character designs looked fairly familiar. But Lippy the Lion, Touché Turtle and Wally Gator just didn’t have the same charm as the Hanna-Barbera cartoons that had come before. And they weren’t as funny, either.
Oh, there were the occasional nice quips. And the usual fine voice work that the studio was known for. But the cartoons themselves weren’t much more than pleasant little fillers. As a young cartoon fan, I’d make sure I’d never miss Quick Draw McGraw when he was on. I didn’t care if I missed Dum Dum running into a tree. The characters were okay but didn’t have the personality that their forefathers did.
Hanna-Barbera always seemed to be brimming with cartoon ideas. It had partnered with Kellogg’s (and the Leo Burnett agency) to produce half hour shows, first starring Huck, then Quick Draw, then Yogi, for syndication. The studio’s next syndication venture was one without a sponsor tied to it. Not a lot has been documented about it, so I’ll go through snippets of stories in chronological order from a couple of the trade papers.
A brief preface—for ages, portions of the internet have insisted the Lippy/Wally/Touché troika was known as “The New Hanna-Barbera Cartoon Show.” I have yet to find a single instance where that moniker was used to describe the cartoons. The cartoons aren’t even a show per se.
The first mention is in Variety of October 20, 1960, which outlines a bunch of new projects, including the Yogi Bear show and a Yogi Bear movie. And it mentions some short cartoons:
H-B has just concluded a deal with Screen Gems for production of 104 five-minute segments for syndication. “All our shows have been planned for syndication,” [Joe] Barbera explained, “but so far all have been bought by single sponsors.”
Emphasizing the new five-minute shows definitely will be syndicated, Barbera revealed they will encompass two separate series, one starring “Lippy the Lion” and “Hardy Har Har” and the other starring “Hairbrain Hare” and “Dum Dum,” all of them new H-B creations.
The story leaves some questions unanswered. Was it the intention to work the two series into half hour vehicles, like Huck, with other characters? And did H-B pitch them to Kellogg’s before deciding to syndicate them unsponsored through Screen Gems?
There were certainly serious plans for Hairbrain. A story about Hanna-Barbera in Life magazine a month after the Variety blurb contained a number of photos of a story conference for both Hairbrain and Lippy (who was wearing a king’s crown, like LeRoy the lion in the old Huckleberry Hound cartoons), and shots of concept drawings of Hairbrain on the floor of Joe Barbera’s office with Barbera and Dan Gordon looking at them. Well, it may be Hairbrain. The drawing right between Barbara and Gordon is labelled (the version posted may be impossible to read) “Hairbreath Hare.” You can click to enlarge them.
For the record, the players at the story meeting above are, left to right, Dan Gordon, Alan Dinehart, Joe Barbera, Bill Hanna, Howard Hanson (below Hanna), Mike Maltese, Warren Foster (crouched behind Maltese) and Alex Lovy. And it may be tough to see on the office photo but at the far left, there’s a drawing of Quick Draw McGraw riding what may be Baba Looey. One of the other photos has a better view of some of the drawings. I’ve blown it up as best as I can.
What a neat variety of designs. Some definitely look like Ed Benedict’s. What’s interesting is two of the drawings are of turtles; one at the bottom looks exactly like Touché. Was he the original Dum Dum? Or was he a third character in the series (like, say, Fibber Fox in “Yakky Doodle”)? Ah, well. There are always questions. In any event, a sword-wielding, plume-hatted rabbit was replaced with a sword-wielding, plume-hatted turtle. Writer Tony Benedict tells me he believes the idea of a heroic rabbit was merely filed away for a few years and emerged as Ricochet Rabbit.
The other characters in the Variety story above were in limbo while the studio figured out what to do next (and became busy with something called “Top Cat”). Finally, the studio was ready, almost a year later. Here’s Variety from October 31, 1961 (note the date on the model sheet to the right).
Hanna & Barbera Slate 3 More Cartoon Strips For Screen Gems
Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera have set three new animated cartoons for syndication through Screen Gems, with 156 five-minute shows being developed around “Wally Gator,” “Touche Turtle And Dum Dum” and “Lippy The Lion And The Sad Hyenna.” “Gator” is voiced by Bill Thompson and Paul Frees.
Frees, of course, never starred on any of these cartoons. Knowing Frees’ cache of voices, it’s altogether possible he was cast as Wally, but the voice might have been a little too close to Captain Peachfuzz on the Bullwinkle cartoons.
Now it was time to make the cartoons, and get out and sell them to stations. Weekly Variety blurbed on January 31, 1962 that the budget for the three series was $1,500,000 and they would likely be sold on a station-by-station basis, especially in cities with three or more stations, though it mentioned the possibility of regional sales. Variety reported on August 15th that $1,900,000 had been set aside for the 156 cartoons. Compare that to $2,000,000 for 26 “Flintstones” and the same for 24 “Jetsons,” and $140,000 for 12 Loopy De Loops. Broadcasting magazine published the trade ads you see below; the first four pages were taken out on January 29, 1962.
Broadcasting reported on March 12, 1962 that the first sales of what it called Hanna-Barbera Five-Minute Cartoons had been made to seven stations, the biggest being WPIX in New York. Variety of May 9th stated Westinghouse stations in San Francisco, Boston and Baltimore had picked them up. Variety had this to say on June 21st about a sale to a Los Angeles station.
175G Hanna-Barbera Sale Made To KCOP
KCOP will expend $175,000 for unlimited runs of three new all-color cartoon shorts from Hanna- Barbera. Original asking price was $2,600 per title but understood KCOP paid around $1,200. Titles are “Touche Turtle,” “Lippy The Lion” and “Wally Gator.”
Finally, on August 24th, Variety announced:
KCOP Early-Birding With New H-B Cartoons
KCOP will open the station earlier Monday morning to preview three new Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Starting at 7:30 a.m., the three five-minute color featurettes will be shown for the first time on tv. They are “Touche Turtle,” “Wally the Gator” and “Lippy the Lion.” Beginning Sept. 2, they will be seen as a weekly strip at 6:30 p.m.
Variety got the date wrong. The cartoons debuted in colour on September 3, 1962 on the Beachcomber Bill show (competing against cartoons on two other channels). That can be considered the birth date of Lippy, Wally and the rest, unless you would rather use the KCOP preview date of August 27th. By October 31, Variety reported the cartoons had been sold to 51 stations.
The one unfortunate thing about the cartoons is the cartoons were aired without any credits. From Variety we learn that veteran Frank Paiker did the camera work and Greg Watson was the film editor, but you need to be familiar with animation styles to pick out the artists and use educated guesses to determine who wrote what. The cartoons are average at best, but their creators should get their due.
By the way, the Lippy theme song is another one that suffers from Hanna-Barbera Indecipherable Lyric disease. I had no idea the words were “the most loveable, laughable looneys by far” until listening to a version done by the singers on Golden LP-90, released in 1962 (the Randy Horne Singers belted out the version opening each cartoon). I’ve posted their versions of the three theme songs before, but I’ll post them again. You know that Hoyt Curtin composed them, but Jim Timmens did the arrangements on these. Even though they’re a little barren instrumentally compared to what you’re used to hearing, I really like this version of the Wally Gator theme with a piano, trumpet and guitar. It’s a shame the musicians didn’t cut loose—I mean, if a song’s going to be about a swingin’ alligator, it should swing—but it is a kids’ record after all.
WALLY GATOR
TOUCHÉ TURTLE
LIPPY THE LION and HARDY HAR HAR
Since I mentioned Lippy, etc., I will use this as an excuse to post this newspaper supplement cover. The characters are on model, so this must have been studio artwork, though I’m not certain why Touché is floating in mid-air. The Lippy, etc. cartoons were viewed in our home, using a special antenna, from KTNT-TV in Tacoma on the Brakeman Bill Show. The best part of the show was a hand puppet named Crazy Donkey. Even my dad would stop and watch Crazy Donkey do or say something ridiculous.
