Augie Doggie — Ro-Butler

Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Animation – Ken Muse; Layout - Dick Bickenbach?; Backgrounds – Bob Gentle; Story – Mike Maltese; Titles – Lawrence Goble; Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Voice Cast: Doggie Daddy – Doug Young; Augie Doggie – Daws Butler; Robot – no voice.
Music: Hecky Krasnow; Phil Green; Jack Shaindlin; Harry Bluestone/Emil Cadkin.
First aired: week of February 1, 1960 (rerun, week of August 1, 1960).
Episode: Quick Draw McGraw Show No. M-019, Production J-48.
Plot: A robot servant Augie builds for his dad on Father’s Day doesn’t work as Daddy hoped.

Do robots ever work properly in cartoons? A sampling going back to the early 1930s would indicate either “no” or “too well.” Mike Maltese knew that, and could point to the experience of Hubie and Bertie in House Hunting Mice (1947) that he wrote for Chuck Jones at Warners.* In this cartoon, Maltese has decided to marry the concept of a robot that follows orders to the letter, a Father’s Day gone awry (he had experience with that in the great 1951 cartoon A Bear For Punishment) and the enthusiastic boy-genius version of Augie Doggie. Unlike Maltese’s Super-Genius, Wile E. Coyote, the invention doesn’t backfire on the inventor, but on Dear Old Dad.

The cartoon starts off with Augie hammering the robot together in the basement (the one seen in Cat Happy Pappy) and Daddy in bed sleeping. Daddy talks in his sleep, too, and mutters “Get in the roundhouse, mouse. The cat can’t corner you there,” leaving it up to us all to figure out what his dream is all about. The robot tries to wake Daddy and startles him into jumping into the light fixture in the ceiling. There’s a shot that’s supposed to be from Daddy’s viewpoint but the angle strikes me as being too low. Daddy agrees to allow the mechanical man to be his Father’s Day butler.



The rest of the consists mainly of a series of sight gags, based on the robot taking everything Daddy says literally. Let’s go through them.

● Let me have a couple of lumps. We all know where this gag’s going. Daddy wants it for his coffee. The robot bashes him on the head with a coffee pot.

● Toast. Daddy says “give to me straight.” So the robot shoves the toaster straight in Daddy’s mouth. His ears pop up like toast. Cleverest gag in the cartoon.



● Morning bath. The robot grabs Daddy by the neck and throw him in the tub. Everything goes fine until Daddy says “How about hanging me out to dry?” Cut to Daddy hanging from the clothes line by his ears.

● Morning paper and cigar. The “alu-minium val-let” brings them. Daddy orders “First, the cigar, then the paper, then light it.” The robot shoves the cigar in Daddy’s mouth, then the newspaper to encase it, then puts a match to it. Flames flash up and dear old dad is left with a charred stick extended from his mouth (remarkably, his face isn’t touched). “I mean first the cigar, then the paper, then. The robot reversed the order of insertion with the same end result. Daddy has a squarish flat head here, like Huck Hound in some early cartoons.



● Get the dust pan and the broom. Daddy changes his mind about firing the “lachry-mose ro-butler” and gives him a final order to “get rid of the mess in this room here.” The robot decides that means Daddy, and picks him up with the dust pan before dropping in a garbage can outside.



● Let me have that broom and dust pan. Before Daddy can get out the word “pan,” the robot brings the broom down on him, and smashes the remote control at the same time. That means the robot has to repeat the order over and over until Augie can get a new control box. It’s remarkable, and perhaps a bit unsettling depending on how you look at it, that Daddy is smiling as he’s getting bashed. “Take your time, son,” he says. “After all, how many fathers are lucky enough to get a butler on Father’s Day?” Hmm. The robot is obviously not the major invention here. Augie must have created a battery that never goes dead.

Only six background tunes have been used by the sound cutter in this one. They’re pretty well timed to end when a scene does. Afraid I don’t have names for a couple of the Jack Shaindlin tunes.

0:00 - Augie Doggie Main Title theme (Curtin).
0:05 - THE HAPPY COBBLER (Krasnow) – Daddy sleeping, Augie builds robot, pushes button.
1:11 - ASININE (Shaindlin) – Augie orders robot to get Daddy breakfast, Daddy jumps into light fixture.
2:20 - jaunty bassoon and skipping strings (Shaindlin) – Daddy gets lumps, toast, bath, dries off.
3:55 - EM-107 LIGHT MOVEMENT (Green) – Cigar/Paper gag.
5:06 - CB-89A ROMANTIC JAUNT (Cadkin-Bluestone) – Dustpan scene.
6:06 - fast circus chase music (Shaindlin) – Smashed control box, robot chases Dad.
6:49 - Augie Doggie End Title theme (Curtin).

* House Hunting Mice owes a little something in plot to Jones’ earlier Dog Gone Modern (1939), written by Rich Hogan.

His Girl Elroy

The first few Hanna-Barbera prime-time shows beloved by fans would sound a lot different if some of the original casting decisions had been carved in, um, Flintstone. (I’m allowed one bad pun. It’s my blog, after all). Bill Thompson and Hal Smith as Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble. Michael O’Shea as Top Cat. Morey Amsterdam and Pat Carroll as George and Jane Jetson. All of them did voice tracks that were later scrapped, with footage that was presumably re-animated, because the roles were given to the people we associate with them today.

There was one other change as well. Lucille Bliss, best known for her role as Smurfette in the original Smurfs cartoon series, was hired to play the part of Elroy Jetson. Five years ago, Lucille sat down with the Archive of American Television to discuss her career. We transcribed part of her interview about how she was manoeuvred out of Ruff and Reddy here. We promised then we’d get around to giving you her story about her short life as the youngest Jetson. Here’s what she told the Academy about her hiring and firing.

A heartbreaker, okay? I worked for six weeks on The Jetsons. I was Elroy. And the shows were done and everything. And I had Miles Auer, who was the best agent at that time, and Miles, I liked him very much, was Daws Butler’s agent. Daws was a dear friend of mine and we worked together so much. Daws drove me around when I first came down here [from San Francisco] to help me; I’d go on auditions with him so that I’d get acquainted. And then he said “You ought to have my agent.” And my agent talked to me and heard what I did, he said “I’ll take you immediately. I don’t take usually other people. I have Daws but I’ll take you.” [Yowp note: Auer was also Stan Freberg’s agent].

So Jetsons came along and everything was going wonderful and they loved me. But—who was the director on that?—he was the son of this movie actor [Alan Dinehart]...he said to me “They think you’re a little boy, Lucille. Madison Avenue wanted a real little boy and we sent your tape in. And we called you Little Lou Bliss. L-o-u, Lou Bliss. And you should see the letters, they are crazy about this apple-cheeked little six-year-old boy, Little Lou Bliss. But you must never, ever, ever, divulge your name. You’ll lose your job.”

“My, God,” I said, “I’ll never divulge it, I’ll never go to New York anyway for the show, anyway, but I’ll never divulge it. Not to my best friend.” So, what happened is, Miles said “What the hell is this ‘Little Lou Bliss’ crap?” He said “You’ve made your name as ‘Lucille Bliss,’ what are they doing to you, calling you ‘Little Lou Bliss?’ He’s going to get big and famous and who the hell is he? It’s you. That can’t go on.”

I said, “Miles, please, Miles, Miles, Miles, just leave it alone, I’ll lose my job.” “Aw, you won’t lose your—” “Yes,” I said, “I will. I heard it from the director himself. He said it must be a secret, Hanna-Barbera’s keeping it a secret. Don’t tell them, please.” He said “No, that’s ridiculous.” I said “Miles, I want to work, I don’t want to lose the series. I got a lead in it, for God’s sakes leave it alone.”

He didn’t. He went to Hanna-Barbera and said “First of all, she gets more money. Secondly, I want to see ‘Lucille Bliss’ on there.” I got the pink slip two weeks later. And it broke my heart. And they couldn’t find an Elroy so they started with Billy Barty. And that didn’t work. And then they started with somebody else and that didn’t—oh!—I think Morey Amsterdam even read for it, don’t quote me, but I think he did. That didn’t work. But then they got Daws Butler. And the only thing they could do is, he couldn’t be six years old, he had to be nine years old because Daws couldn’t get that young so they had to make him older. And I got the pink slip. And I went to pieces. I really did. I’d think “You know, you can take so many disappointments in one career.” And then, my God, there was, of course, my disappointments turned out good but, still, I lost the one with Bergen, I lost that one, I lost another one, and now comes this one. And this would have been a big series and I was furious. So, maybe I did the wrong thing, but I let Miles go. ...

Six weeks of shows I had done. They had to destroy it. That didn’t make Joe Barbera very happy. And I tried to tell him “Well, I fired the agent, what can I do?” And he says “Well, now they know that it’s not a little boy. So that’s the end.”

The story is an interesting one but it leaves a bunch of questions. How did Alan Dinehart and/or Joe Barbera think no one would learn the identity of Elroy’s voice actor? Certainly something like that couldn’t be kept secret, I suspect not even by Hanna-Barbera’s vaunted and busy publicity machine. And if Madison Avenue was so intent on a little boy, why would the wonderful (but somewhat older than nine) Daws Butler be acceptable to agencies but not Lucille Bliss? And what about the fact that three years later, Lucille had no problem being billed as “Lou Bliss.” Take a look at this title card from her next H-B endeavour, the best-forgotten Space Kidettes (1965).



To sidetrack a bit, this wasn’t the first time she and Janet Waldo worked together. Kind of. The two did a cerebral palsy telethon in June 1952 that was broadcast on KGO-TV, San Francisco. Janet was in Los Angeles with stars like Cliff Arquette (Charley Weaver), while Lucille was in the City by the Bay along with host Jack Webb and guests such as “the vivacious Dorita” (now there’s a study in contrasts).

Lucille was “Auntie Lou” on KRON-TV, San Francisco, in 1951. The spelling of her alter ego seems to have varied depending on the newspaper reporting. The Hayward Daily Review had this little profile of Lucille in its Video Notes column by T.R. Temple of August 13, 1952. The picture you see is from the paper and indicates it is Lucille and not someone attempting Joan Crawford on stage at Finnochio’s.

Lucille Bliss, who is known to several thousand kids as Aunty Lu, is one of those studies in contradictions.
When she was a teen-ager in radio (not so long ago), she was usually cast in adult roles. Now that she’s reached the voting age, she often plays a little girl—or boy.
Just to keep the thing interesting, she got a part in Edgar Bergen’s show in Hollywood — but performed it in San Francisco. She also won a role in Disney’s Cinderella through a Bay Area audition—and played it in Hollywood.
Was she Cinderella? Wrong again. Disney liked her voice as “Anastasia,” the nasty old stepsister, so gentle Lucille wound up as a villain. She also continued in this part for the RCA record album of the tale.
NO STORY
Newspaper writers are always looking for a twist on the familiar, but actually Miss Bliss has one of those open, blameless faces that really goes with an innocent character.
She loves children, and kids, being sensitive, respond to her.
You can watch this unrehearsed psychology at work on her program every Thursday when KRON-TV puts on her “Happy Birthday To You.”
Miss Bliss has no eccentricities. She is not a stage personality, and seems completely unspoiled by success. Which in itself is something unique in this crass world.
HOW TO GET ON TV
For aspiring young actresses, Lucille has this advice: appear on an audition. Everything came easier after she got up the nerve to make an appointment some 12 years ago with a San Francisco station.
Mind you, success didn’t come rapidly, but at least the studios knew who she was, and would phone her now and then for bit parts.
What does she do between “Birthday” programs? Makes regular trips to the Disney studios. Her most famous “voice” was that of a character named Crusader Rabbit, heard on TV stations all over the country.
It seems a bit strange to make a career of imitating little furry animals’ voices — but then, no more strange than hunting for paradoxes in normal, healthy people.

Back to the interview, now. Lucille’s memory about Morey Amsterdam being in voice sessions is certainly bang-on. We’ve mentioned Morey was the original voice of George Jetson. You can read more here.

She goes on about how losing the role started to affect her health, and then she turned things around again. Certainly she was busy in the months ahead as she recorded ‘Peter Cottontail’ for Disneyland Records (released in 1963).

If you’re wondering how Lucille would have sounded as Elroy Jetson, you can get a bit of an idea by going to the interview here. The portion about The Jetsons starts at 5:12. Granted, Lucille was 90 when she talked to the Academy—she’s 95 now—but you can get a flavour of what Elroy could have sounded like.

A Yowp P.S.: Lucille told Jeff Kisseloff in The Box, An Oral History of Television, 1920-1961 (Viking Press, 1995) “I also did ‘Tom and Jerry’ and ‘Droopy’ cartoons.” If anyone knows more about that, please post a comment. I’m at a loss to figure out which specific cartoons she voiced for MGM.

Yogi Bear — Prize Fight Fright

Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Animation – Ken Muse; Layout – Dick Bickenbach; Backgrounds – Fernando Montealegre; Dialogue and Story Sketches – Charlie Shows and Dan Gordon; Titles – Lawrence Goble; Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Voice Cast: Yogi, Champ, Straw Hat Photographer, Sportscaster, Reporter – Daws Butler; Boo Boo, Manager, Fedora Photographer, Reporter – Don Messick.
Music: Bill Loose/John Seely; Jack Shaindlin.
Episode: Huckleberry Hound Show K-021, Production E-49.
First Aired: week of February 16, 1959.
Plot: Yogi decides to be a sparring partner to the Champ to get some free food.

In 1927, Jack Dempsey trekked to the San Rafael Mountains north of Los Angeles to train for a match against Gene Tunney for the heavyweight championship. In 1957, Archie Moore trekked to the mountain country of Cuyamaca Rancho State Park east of San Diego to train in the hope of a match against Floyd Patterson for the heavyweight championship. So it was in 1959, a heavyweight boxing champ trekked to mountainous Jellystone Park to train. And lose his title to Yogi Bear in the process.

This Yogi adventure offers the occasional good line, one nice pose and a cute twist ending. And the following:

● The oddest looking profile view of Boo Boo. Ken Muse has drawn Yogi’s friend with little cheek lumps for some reason. The excited Boo Boo doesn’t run; he walks briskly to get Yogi out of the bed in his cave with news the “world’s champeen” is in Jellystone.



● Boo Boo’s rare “you’re a @$#%*& idiot” look. Yogi misreads the Champ’s training camp sign as “Barbecue and Pic-a-nic Tonight.” Boo Boo briefly shows what he really thinks of Yogi’s “smarter than the average” intellect before quickly resuming the happy mien we come to associate with him. He helpfully reads another sign which allows the cartoon to continue—“Wanted, Sparring Partners. Good Pay. Free Meals.” The food is what Yogi’s after.



● A semi-familiar cartoon voice. Cut to the Champ and his manager. The Champ has a busted nose and the manager is shaped like a missile. But Don Messick seems to have been inspired by Ned Sparks, the crabby guy who provided comic relief in Warners musicals in the ‘30s, and got parodied in a bunch of cartoons in that decade. Messick uses the same cadence and inflection as Sparks for the manager’s voice, without the crabby dialogue. Yogi offers his services as a sparring partner. “Ain’t you a little roly-poly,” asks the Champ, punctuating his question with a sock to the cut. Yogi’s eyes roll (with appropriate sound effects). “Hee hee hee. I did not feel nothin’,” claims the bear, as he falls backwards.

● Charlie Shows’ rhyme time. “He hit me low with a sneak blow,” the prone Yogi tells Boo Boo.

● How’d he change jackets? In each shot until now, the manager was wearing a pin-striped jacket. Not surprising, considering the character was in the same position against the same background and Ken Muse only moved his mouth. But in this cut from Yogi on the ground to the Champ and his manager, the manager’s jacket is solid blue.

● Familiar cartoon bit. Yogi goes into training. Can’t do more than two push-ups. “I’m skippin’ the rope skippin’.” He cons Boo Boo into jumping rope and lifting a log as a weight while he rests against a rock. Haven’t we seen something like this somewhere? “You in shape yet, Yogi?” the tired Boo Boo asks. Yogi shows his strength by lifting the rock over his head. It crashes on top of him.

● Charlie Shows’ rhyme time, again. Says Boo Boo to his buddy under the boulder: “Yogi, you’re in the pink. I think.”



● The character with two voices. The manager comes up with a publicity gimmick—let the Champ fight Yogi for photographers (“Glad I thought of it,” says the Champ). The photographer with the straw hat at ringside says one line like Daws Butler, but the next one like Don Messick. Seems the other photographer was supposed to have the second line.

● Best line of the cartoon. Boo Boo rings the bell because the Champ keeps punching Yogi in the face and the back of the head (Muse’s cycle animation causes no ill effects, no even an “ouch”). Boo Boo pushes Yogi to the corner and waves a towel in front of him.

Boo Boo: How come you didn’t move a muscle, Yogi?
Yogi: I got to warm up, don’t I?
Boo Boo: Oh.
Yogi: I got the Champ scared, Boo Boo.
Boo Boo: Scared?
Yogi: Scared he might murder me, Boo Boo.

The bell rings. Now is the climax of the cartoon. Yogi feebly raises his arm. “Never lead with your right. Never, never,” advises the Champ. He knocks down Yogi’s gloved right first, which does a windmill and bops the Champ on the head. He’s out cold. The manager reacts with a flying hat and cigar take. The hat leaps up and rocks back and forth in two drawings, the cigar does a 360 in six drawings on ones.



● Goofy take and surprise ending. The last scene opens with a shot of newspapers. Naturally, newspapers publish an extra every time a bear knocks out the world champion. Cut to a sportscaster (wearing a Walter Winchell-esque fedora) reading the story. Gotta love the ash tray on the desk. Back in Jellystone, Yogi demonstrates to the assembled reporters (in silhouette) how he beat the Champ. He asks Boo Boo to raise a fist. Boo Boo obliges. And knocks out Yogi. The three-drawing Yogi quiver may be the silliest thing Muse did at Hanna-Barbera. “Does that make me the new world’s champeen?” grins Boo Boo, who laughs as the iris closes. Jack Dempsey and Archie Moore, beware!



If you had to pick the quintessential Yogi Bear stock music, it’s probably the Bill Loose/John Seely music (né David Rose music) you’ll hear in this cartoon.
0:00 - Yogi Bear Sub Main Title (Hanna-Barbera-Shows-Curtin)
0:14 - no music – Boo Boo walks into Yogi’s cave, talks to Yogi.
0:37 - TC-303 ZANY COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Boo Boo runs from cave, bears read signs, Champ punches bag. “No! Yes!”
1:53 - no music – Yogi and Champ talk, Yogi punched in stomach, falls out.
2:09 - TC-300 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Yogi on ground, push-up scene, Boo Boo skips rope.
3:23 - no music – Boo Boo lifts log.
3:40 - TC-202 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Yogi goes to lift rock, Champ and manager talk, photographers take shots.
4:58 - no music – “How about some action shots?” “...my public.”
5:03 - TC-303 ZANY COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Champ punches Yogi, Boo Boo rings bell, Yogi rests, Yogi back in ring, “Naaah.”
6:01 - no music – “Never lead with your right,” Champ knocked out, photos taken.
6:18 - LAF-7-12 FUN ON ICE (Shaindlin) – Newspaper, Yogi talks to media, Boo Boo knocks out Yogi.
6:58 - Yogi Bear Sub End Title end theme (Hanna-Barbera-Shows-Curtin).

More Fun With Layouts and Model Sheets

A little while ago, you were promised more Hanna-Barbera drawings that were gleaned off auction and art sites on-line. Unfortunately, I didn’t make a notation of the sources. Sorry.

First we have (I think) layout drawings, one from the closing of the original Huckleberry Hound Show and the other from the original Quick Draw McGraw Show. For you newcomers reading, Kellogg’s sponsored both half hour shows and the company was worked into the opening and closing credits. The Huck show was the most Kellogg-friendly. Besides Cornelius the Rooster (who hawk-a-doodle-dood Corn Flakes), the end sequence featured all the spokes-characters popular at the time in 1958—Snap, Crackle and Pop, Tony Tiger and Tony Jr., Super Pops Pete and Smacksie the Seal. My guess is the layout is by Bick Bickenbach. Compare it to how it appeared on TV which, unfortunately, isn’t in colour. I gather only the black-and-white version (which looks like it was recorded on a VHS machine) exists.




Here’s one from the end of Quick Draw McGraw. You can compare it to what it looked like when combined with the background.




Speaking of sponsors, this looks like a colour chart for some kind of promotional art, as H-B kisses up to the sponsors of its various half-hour cartoon shows. Magilla Gorilla began airing in syndication in 1963 when, as a six-year-old, even I rolled my eyes at the obviousness of including his sponsor in the theme song lyrics (the Peter Potamus theme was equally ham-handed about it). Evidently, this drawing was done after The Jetsons was cancelled. Too bad Fred isn’t taking a big drag on a Winston.



Next a couple of storyboard drawings from El Kabong Strikes Again. You’re looking at the handiwork of one Michael Maltese.



Finally, some model sheets from Jonny Quest, which debuted in 1964. Cynthia Lowry of the Associated Press described it as “an adventure series that looked like a realistically drawn animated cartoon strip. It is designed to identify with young viewers...The kids will adore it.” Well, I loved the show and I was sad when it wasn’t renewed for the following season. That’s more than I can say for Magilla and Peter Potamus. Apparently Jonny Quest was reworked a couple of decades later and included a bunch of back stories for people who don’t want to use their own imagination.

If you’ve seen the JQ documentary on some on-line video sites, you’ll know the show went through a pile of changes while in development. That’s certainly reflected in the model sheets. You have to wonder how long it took to make each half hour before it got on TV. The Dr. Quest-Jonny-Race size chart is dated July 9, 1964, less than three months before the pilot aired on ABC. The Bandit sheet is signed by Bick, the rest are by Doug Wildey.







There were only two questions about Jonny Quest I had as a child. The former I can answer now, but the latter still puzzles me. I could never figure out why Dr Quest sounded like John Stephenson one week and Don Messick the next. And I wondered why Dr. Zin couldn’t make us all happy and get rid of stupid Bandit once and for all.

Snooper and Blabber — Adventure is My Hobby

Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Animation – Gerard Baldwin; Layout – Walt Clinton; Backgrounds – Joe Montell; Story – Mike Maltese; Titles – Lawrence Goble; Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Voice Cast: Announcer, Alfred Adventuresome, Man in Sewer, Sea Monster – Hal Smith; Snooper, Blabber – Daws Butler.
Music: Phil Green, Jack Shaindlin.
First Aired: week of January 4, 1960 (repeated, week of July 4, 1960).
Episode: Quick Draw McGraw Show M-015, Production J-51.
Plot: Snooper relates on a TV show how he brought in a sea monster.

Perhaps it’s not a surprise that during his first year at Hanna-Barbera, Mike Maltese would repeat or re-work ideas he’d already used at the studio. He had done the same thing at Warners. The concept of Elmer hunting Bugs and Daffy got three funny workouts. Making Daffy a braggart with Porky as a meekish sidekick worked once, so it was tried a few more times. A clueless Porky and a protective, scared Sylvester managed to find life in more than one cartoon. One could argue the Roadrunner series was nothing more than the same basic idea continued for as long as there were gags to fill seven minutes.

Maltese must have liked the idea of an Adventurers/Explorers Club. It appeared three times in the first season of Snooper and Blabber (Fee Fi Fo Fumble, The Lion is Busy and Wild Man, Wild! before Maltese transplanted it into the Snagglepuss series when it aired in 1961. But Maltese re-worked the idea for this cartoon. Instead of cynical fellow explorers disbelieving the latest tale of discovery by one of their upper-crust colleagues, this features the cynical host of a TV adventure show disbelieving the latest tale of discovery by Super Snooper. And to get there, he’s twisted the title of the old radio show ‘Mystery is My Hobby’ and John Craig’s 1941 book ‘Adventure is My Business’ (it doesn’t appear a 1955 syndicated TV show with that name made it to air).

This is the second of two Snooper cartoons animated by Gerard Baldwin. His tell-tale signs are here, though not quite as noticeable as his earlier Monkey Wrenched and a couple of Yogi cartoons. Characters talk from the side of their mouths, Snoop has floppy, angular jowls in some scenes, and characters have a stretched neck when the head is raised during dialogue. He did a nice job with the blue-green sea monster. Walt Clinton’s design is pretty appealing.



Maltese dumps in some of the punny and silly verbiage he’s known for. The cartoon starts with a shot of a TV set (with no rabbit ears) and on it, Alfred Adventuresome brings on the World’s Greatest Detective.

Adventuresome: What tale of derring-do have you for us this evening?
Snoop: Well, the tale I’m about to unfold is so derring with do, it makes me hair curly with cue.

Snooper tells the story in story in flashback when he answers “the trinkling of the phone.” Off he and Blab go to Lake Wotcha-motchapoo to investigate a 14-11: “a crime committed by monsters, or monsters, unknown.” Snoop narrates that they find “the owner hidin’ in an unseemingly place” (he’s down a sewer). Maltese pulls his redundant dialogue bit:

Snoop: Why are you hidin’ in that unseemly place, owner?
Owner: I’m allergic to monsters. Surprised?

They’re offered $20,000 to find the monster. The next scene puts them in a boat on a lake. Snoop is fishing, looking stage left. The monster pops his head up and frightens Blab at the other end of the boat, looking stage right. Snoop doesn’t believe there’s a monster (“You’d better see your optimistic, Blab”) until the creature carts away Blab in its mouth. Then it’s a catchphrase—“Halt in the name of the Private Eye Summer School!” The sea monster lifts Snoop and the boat on its tail.We get a “low bridge” gag (a bridge on a lake?). We get another catchphrase—“Halt in the limb of the law!”

Today’s cartoon science lesson: pepper doesn’t dissolve in water. Snoop tries the old pepper gag with “a few dashes under the water.” And like in every cartoon, pepper creates a sneeze. Blab is achoo-ed out of the water, flies up into the air and down onto the boat, which catapults Snooper into the monster’s mouth.



Blab: What do you see, Snoop?
Snoop: It could be the hemogoblin or the doowah-dinal-diddy.
Blab (to audience): A private eye must have a rounded education. And Snoop’s is the roundest.

I don’t know what the last one Snoop is trying to pronounce (adenoids, maybe?), but Doo Wah Diddy was popularised in Phil Harris’ most famous song ‘That’s What I Like About the South.’

The smoke from the match makes the monster sneeze Snooper skipping across the water and up and down a tree. Snoop paddles on a log toward Blab, but the monster grabs him, plunks him into his boat, winds up the motor and sends him sailing over the lake and then under the water. I guess Maltese is going for sight gags here but the last part of it is in long shot which doesn’t make it remotely funny.

Snooper survives as, in the next scene, we find him in a helicopter lowering a rope to rescue Blab off an island. But it turns out the monster isn’t much of a danger and starts behaving like a whimpering dog. Blab has discovered he’s just. That ends the flashback. Back on the TV show, Alfred Adventuresome is sceptical of Snoop’s tale and until the detective orders the curtains of the set to be “impart”ed and there is the sea monster in a huge fish bowl as Blabber feeds him fish food. “Gee, Snoop, he’s awful hungry” is the best Maltese can come up with as a finish line. The monster ends it by making some happy gurgling sounds. Perhaps Baldwin lost interest in the cartoon by then or was behind on his footage quota because the monster’s mouth doesn’t even move while he makes noise (we do get cycle animation of bubbles, though).



Snoop has a black sedan in this cartoon. The tail lights are close to what you’d find on a ’56 Cadillac.

The sound cutter has edited together Jack Shaindlin’s ‘Mad Rush No 3’ several times to make it longer.

0:00 - Snooper and Blabber Main Title theme (Curtin).
0:05 - GR-58 GOING SHOPPING (Green) – Snoop speaks with Adventuresome, phone rings.
0:49 - GR-93 DRESSED TO KILL (Green) – Snoop on phone.
1:20 - GR-58 GOING SHOPPING (Green) Snoop and Blab in car, talk to owner.
1:49 - CAPERS (Shaindlin) – Snoop and Blab in boat, Sea Monster pops up out of water, takes off with Blab, “Halt in the name of...”
2:48 - MAD RUSH No 3 (Shaindlin) – Snoop chases Sea Monster, low bridge, sneeze blasts Blab from underwater, monster swallows Snoop, Snoop strikes match.
4:21 - GR-453 THE ARTFUL DODGER (Green) – Snoop in monster’s mouth, Snoop sneezed out of monster.
5:01 - MAD RUSH No 1 (Shaindlin) – Snoop skips on water, paddles toward monster, Snoop and boat go underwater.
5:34 - CRAZY GOOF (Shaindlin) – Snoop in chopper, scene with Blab and monster on island.
6:18 - GR-454 THE ARTFUL DODGER SHORT BRIDGE No 1 (Green) – Snoop talks to to Adventuresome.
6:38 - rising scale vaudeville music (Shaindlin) – Sea Monster in bowl.
6:49 - Snooper and Blabber End Title theme (Curtin).

Yogi Bear, Sunday, August 1961

Mark Kausler is a nice man. It may strike you as being odd for me to say that as I’ve never met him in person. But he’s been kind enough to send me things he knows readers here would be interested in. And he likes Screwy Squirrel, which accounts for a lot.

Mark took pity on this poor old cartoon dog when I originally posted more of those image files of .pdf scans of microfilmed photocopies of old newspapers containing only two-thirds of the Yogi Bear Sunday newspaper comics for 50 years ago this month. He’s posted scans of actual colour newspaper pages of those same comics. All three rows, too. So, I’m reposting them. You can visit Mark’s blog here. Thanks, Mark.

Now, it’s time for some cartoons.

The August 6th comic has some nice little poses on Yogi. He’s got both feet wide off the ground when he “discovers” water. I like the off-balance drawing of Yogi when he’s lifted up by the water. You’ll notice the geyser’s at a bit of an angle in the final panel.



Heap Big Stereotypes August-Um 13th. What, no one says “How”? We get an “ugh,” which may describe some of Yogi’s rhymes. Harvey puts some silhouettes to good use. Didn’t Yogi do some kind of rain dance in a Kellogg’s Corn Flakes commercial?



Dig the mountain peak and clouds in the August 20th comic.



You know how Huckleberry Hound used to be a dog catcher, even though he’s a dog? Kind of the same thing is happening in the final panel of the August 27th cartoon. Huck was really a human stand-in. Here, Yogi’s a human stand-in while he locks himself in a cage with a bear. Harvey does something interesting in this cartoon. He has light shining on Yogi and Boo Boo in the stands. Notice their shadows on the steps. And I like Yogi’s juggling pose while Boo Boo looks apprehensive.



Let’s give you a bonus, thanks to reader Rick Greene. He’s scanned a clipping of the Flintstones Sunday comic from August 19, 1962. I’m sure you’ll recognise some of the Stone Age inventions as being borrowed from the TV show.



As usual, click on any of the comics to enlarge them.