That Oh-So-Merry, Chuckleberry

What is a Chuckleberry, anyway?

Hanna-Barbera theme songs are difficult to decipher at the best of times—I was happy to discover others couldn’t figure out the words to “Meet the Flintstones” and “Top Cat” either—but I, as a young viewer, pretty well figured out the lyrics to Huck’s opening and closing theme. However, I admit I don’t know whether “Chuckleberry” was a lame attempt by Bill Hanna to find a rhyme for “Huckleberry” or if such a thing exists.

Such a problem didn’t bother that noted musical group The Scarlet Combo. They recorded a non-lyric version of the Huck theme, released on the Spin and Zin-a-Spin labels in 1961.

Who is The Scarlet Combo, you ask?

A pretty good question. About all I can tell is they were a band out of Kentucky, apparently fronted by a guy named Jimmy Wayne, as he sings “That’s the Way the Mop Flops” (written by Charles R. Holt) on the other side of the 45. That song doesn’t contain the word “Chuckleberry,” either. Why the tunes were released on two labels that were seemingly the same is your guess, as is the fate of the band.

Whether the instrumental Huck theme got regional airplay, I don’t know, but it didn’t chart nationally. However, someone has graciously uploaded it onto the internet so you can hear it. No one will mistake this for Hoyt Curtin’s arrangement. It’s kind of a surf guitar-meets-cha cha. The most intriguing thing is the absence of Curtin’s name on the label. It’s an indisputable fact he co-wrote the song. If I had to guess, I’d say it’d have to do with the fact that Curtin was a member of BMI, not ASCAP. The label lists the ASCAP publisher and composers. Perhaps Curtin only got credit if the song was used in broadcast media.



We can’t tell you when Huck first appeared on Ed Benedict’s drawing board at Hanna-Barbera but we have a pretty good idea when, at least, a pilot show had been produced and sold. William Ewald’s television column out of New York for United Press International revealed on June 24, 1958: “ ‘Huckleberry Hound,’ an original half-hour cartoon series, has been bought by a cereal company for full showing—no network has been picked yet.” Interestingly, six weeks earlier, syndicated columnist Steven H. Scheuer wrote: “Hanna and Barbera would like an early evening spot to catch the adults, too, but they’re too busy turning out the cartoons to have any time to sit back and dream about ideal time spots.” Perhaps Bill and Joe were playing a game of semantics because it seems improbable Huck wasn’t in development when Scheuer’s story made the papers on May 11, 1958.

While HB Enterprises signed a five-year deal with NBC in 1957 to broadcast “Ruff and Reddy,” Huck never ended up on the network. Why? Again, it’s a matter of speculation. But it very well could have been that “early evening” idea Hanna mentioned in the interview with Scheuer. Because that’s what they worked out with the ad agency for their sponsor who, as it turned out, had decided to start looking for non-network properties.

There are wonderful archival sites on the internet with radio, movie and TV industry publications, yours for viewing if you stumble upon them. I’ve stumbled upon a site which has old editions of Broadcasting Magazine. The edition of June 30, 1958 goes into the background of the blurb in Ewald’s UPI column. Here are the pertinent parts:

REPS WIN TV BATTLE FOR KELLOGG
• Cereal company to shift money from ABC-TV to spot
• Budget to allow $7-7.5 million for time and talent
Leo Burnett Co. will start seeking spot tv availabilities for Kellogg Co. in the next fortnight, armed with a $7-7.5 million budget for time and talent.
The agency officially announced Kellogg’s decision last week to shift its monies from ABC-TV for a similar schedule of half-hour children’s shows in an estimated 170 markets next September. Chicago station representatives were plainly elated over the cereal-maker’s decision and acceptance of a discount formula for bulk program time purchase involving a “program contribution” technique . . .
The decision was dictated, the agency reported, “by a desire for complete flexibility in the replacement of this segment of the Kellogg broadcasting activity.” . . .
A newcomer to the Kellogg stable is Huckleberry Hound, described by John Mitchell, vice president of Screen Gems, as the first all-animated half-hour produced specifically for television. The all-cartoon series was produced for Screen Gems by H-B Enterprises. Others slated for the fall spot schedule are Woody Woodpecker, Superman and Wild Bill Hickok—the last-named perhaps running twice weekly in some markets.

In other words, it was cheaper for Kellogg’s to barter a half hour on local stations than to buy network time. And the cereal company’s decision seems sudden. It had agreed only a month early to go with a half-hour (5 to 5:30 p.m., weekdays) on ABC running Woody, Wild Bill and two different live-action shows. That’s right. In May, Huck wasn’t in Kellogg’s plan. In June, he was.

Very little was said in the popular press about Huck’s pending debut. The earliest story I’ve found was likely a Screen Gems or Leo Burnett handout. It’s in the Cumberland Times, August 3, 1958.

‘Strictly TV’ All-Animated Cartoon Due
In its fourth new national sale for next fall, Screen Gems has sold the first all-animated half-hour program to be produces specifically for television. Titled “Huckleberry Hound," this precedent breaking new show was bought by a cereal company.
Huckleberry Hound will be produced by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, producers of Screen Gems’ “Ruff and Reddy” cartoon series and multi-Oscar winners for their “Tom and Jerry” theatrical cartoons.
The cartoon character Huckleberry Hound will serve as emcee of the three segments of the half-hour show. Huck himself will be be the hero of the first segment; Yogi Bear will be hero of the second, and Pixie and Dixie will be heroes of the third. Previous cartoon shows on TV have consisted at least partly of theatrical cartoons or live action. “Huckleberry Hound” will be the first half-hour TV show consisting entirely of made-for-TV animation.

The Howdy Hound Dog Clown made his debut on Monday, September 29, 1958 on, among other stations, WLW-I (internet sources that give a different premiere date are, to be polite, incorrect). Huck was the runaway success out of the four shows that Kellogg’s put in early-evening syndication. When Broadcaster announced in September, 1959 that The Quick Draw McGraw Show had been picked up by Kellogg’s, it gave American station tallies for each of the four shows—Huck, 165; Superman and Wild Bill Hickok, 98; Woody, 100. That’s right. Huck was more popular than the Man of Steel.

Hanna-Barbera evidently liked Broadcasting magazine, or at least felt it was an effective way of shilling the studio’s product to the industry. The studio took out full-page (sometimes two-page ads) in the ‘60s and there were a number of stories about its operations through the decade from a business point of view (including the sale to Taft Broadcasting). The scans of the ads aren’t 100% but we’ll pass on a few in the coming days. And at least one story about a neglected studio voice artist from that decade. But, unfortunately, we have been unable to glean from any of it the elusive definition of a Chuckleberry.

Yogi Bear — Spy Guy

Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Credits: Animation – Ed Love, Layout – Tony Rivera, Backgrounds – Dick Thomas, Story – Warren Foster, Story Direction – Alex Lovy, Titles – Art Goble, Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Voice Cast: Yogi Bear, Installer – Daws Butler; Narrator, Ranger Smith, Boo Boo – Don Messick.
Music: Bill Loose/John Seely, Geordie Hormel, Spencer Moore, Jack Shaindlin.
First Aired: week of December 7, 1960.
Episode: Huckleberry Hound Show No K-044, Production E-117.
Plot: Ranger Smith pretends to be Yogi’s conscience to stop him from stealing food.

When the third season of The Huckleberry Hound Show rolled around at the start of the 1960-61 TV season, Warren Foster was writing a completely different kind of story for Huck than he was for Yogi Bear. Huck never had a set occupation, mental state or even time. Huck would be a little more dense in some cartoons than the others, and Foster had no qualms about plunking him somewhere in the past. Yogi became a formula. It was Yogi versus Ranger Smith, generally over food, with Boo Boo pleasantly giving warnings to his big bear buddy. About the only difference from cartoon to cartoon was sometimes Yogi came out on top and sometimes he didn’t. That was a wise decision. It kept the viewer wondering what would happen as a Yogi cartoon unfolded which, of course, kept him/her tuned in.

But, other than that, there wasn’t much to speak of in Jellystone Park. The limited animation started getting more lacklustre and the comedy in the Yogi cartoons grew out of the situation, as opposed to what Mike Maltese was doing over on The Quick Draw McGraw show, which relied more heavily on silly, if not stupid, characters and dialogue. But Foster’s stories were very well constructed. In Spy Guy, Foster takes the “Yogi hears his conscience” situation to a perfect climax point, the revenge is just long enough to keep everyone’s attention, and there’s a twist ending.

Ed Love is the animator on Spy Guy. Ed, I’ve been told, animated the original Huck show’s cartoons-between-the-cartoons even though the characters are far rubbier than anything that was ever done in the actual cartoons, or anything he did later at H-B. Here, you can see traces of his style, though the animation isn’t as interesting as some of his work on cartoons a year earlier. The characters exhibit two upper teeth and bite their lower lip in dialogue, and have that curvy upper mouth he liked using.



About the only thing that Ed does that’s a little interesting is a walk cycle where Yogi’s accompanied by a drum roll and a cow bell. 12 drawings on twos equals one second of screen time. There’s a head turn while Yogi is strolling.














The plot of the cartoon’s pretty straight forward. As usual, there’s opening narration over a night scene telling us something secret’s going on at the ranger station. The studio saves money by having drawings of trucks on a cel and simply pulling the cel across the background. It turns out that a crew has installed TV cameras and microphones “concealed in every trouble point in the park.” Ranger Smith will use them to watch for Yogi and then go on the mike, pretend to be his conscience and shame him into giving up picnic baskets. And it features that well-known cartoon device—Instant Watch Syndrome. That’s when a character has a watch but only when it’s needed in the plot. It disappears during the rest of the character’s existence. In this case, the watch switches from one arm to the other.



Yogi’s a little more contemptuous of the ranger than normal in this one. “A battle of wits between him and me,” says Yogi, “And he’s running out of ammunition.” So the ranger plants a picnic basket with a rubber chicken in it. “This spring chicken is springier than the av-er-age, Boob,” Yogi says through clenched teeth before getting smacked in the face by it. The ranger pretends to be the voice of the bear’s conscience. The “conscience” follows Yogi to the kitchen at the Inn and the tourist cabins (“I had the measles once, and that went away,” Yogi remarks. He decides the park is haunted and goes to tell the ranger. Ah, but the plot turns. Ranger Smith is having lunch at the Inn with the TV installer and brags to him how successful the “conscience” routine is going. Yogi overhears the whole thing. Now he plots his revenge. He removes a couple of tubes from the TV set (it is 1960, after all, though the ranger has a colour set; a bit of overkill for what amounts to a colour security-cam monitor) and he and Boo Boo run away. Cut to the phone ringing in the ranger station. “Every picnic basket in the park has disappeared? The tourists are rioting?” asks the stunned Ranger Smith. He rushes out the door. Yogi and Boo Boo zip back in to the ranger station, Boo Boo re-installs the tubes and they turn on the set.



“Lynching me won’t get your picnic baskets back,” Ranger Smith tries to reason with the grumbling crowd from a sound effects record. Yogi gets on the microphone and tries to cut a deal. The ranger, shirt-sleeves torn (presumably by the angry mob which is shown as a static drawing), refuses until the Hanna-Barbera sound department turns up the effects record and he gives in.

The deal is revealed in the final scene. “A king-size picnic basket, loaded with goodies, to be served every morning for two weeks.” Ah, but the sneaky ranger saved the rubber chicken. “That Mr. Ranger is one of the good ones,” Yogi says, until he can’t bite into the chicken. “And this chicken is one of the tough ones,” he adds. But he’ll eat anything, he reveals, as long as it comes out of a pic-a-nic basket. The chicken smacks him in the face again to end the cartoon.

A couple of surprises from the sound cutter. The booming TC-221A was used heavily on Ruff and Reddy and periodically on the first season of the Huck show (1958-59) but rarely after that. It makes an appropriate appearance here during the angry mob scene. And the tail end of Jack Shaindin’s “Lickety Split” is the final cue, one that got more use in other series, though it was on the soundtrack at the end of “Wound-Up Bear” the season before.

0:00 - Yogi Bear Main Title theme (Curtin-Hanna-Barbera-Shows).
0:26 - TC-202 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Night shot of ranger station.
0:35 - TC-437 SHOPPING DAY (Loose-Seely) – Ranger talks to workman, Yogi and Boo Boo in cave, leave cave.
1:43 - L-1139 ANIMATION COMEDY (Moore) – Yogi and Boo Boo walking off camera from cave, Yogi grabs chicken, chicken smacks him in the face.
2:13 - TC-300 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – “Don’t ever do that,” “conscience” speaks. Boo Boo and Yogi walk.
3:01 - L-80 COMEDY UNDERSCORE (Moore) – Ranger looks at TV, inn door scene, strolling to cabins scene.
4:22 - ZR-50 UNDERWATER SCENIC (Hormel) – Berry bush scene, inn scene, Yogi removes tubes.
5:16 - L-81 COMEDY UNDERSCORE (Moore) – Phone scene.
5:34 - TC-221A HEAVY AGITATO (Loose-Seely) – Ranger runs out of cabin, mob scene.
6:22 - C-14 DOMESTIC LIGHT (Loose) – Cave scene.
6:54 - LAF-74-2 LICKETY SPLIT (Shaindlin) – Yogi tries eating rubber chicken.
7:10 - Yogi Bear End Title theme (Curtin).

A Visit to the Hanna-Barbera Studio

Want to see the Hanna-Barbera studio in its days of glory, say the late 1960s? Let’s pay a visit. No doubt we’ll receive some assistance from knowledgeable readers about who some of the people are.




First, we see the Editing Department. The second photo is great. Grease pencil in the ear, plastic cups and film all over the place. Jay Sabicer points out the man at the left of the top photo is Bill Getty.



Obviously, this isn’t Editing. It’s Iwao Takamoto at his drawing board. Evidently, he stole his pants from Alexander of Josie and the Pussycats. Groovy, man, groovy!! It looks like his office on Cahuenga faces the parking lot and the empty hills nearby.





Several shots of Ink and Paint. I believe the woman in the smock is Robert Greutert. Note the drawing of the Herculoids and the Galaxy Trio in the background of the last photo, along with what I guess are drawings by the woman’s kid.



Two shots of sound recording. The man in the suit is Frank Paiker, who had a long career in animation going back to the ‘20s.


A background being worked on. I can’t tell which cartoon is being worked on, nor who the artist is.


Back to layout. Here’s Dick Bickenbach, who’d been in the business about 35 years when this was taken. Bick spent time at the Iwerks studio before appearing at Walter Lantz’ door in late 1936. A few years later, his name started appearing on Warner Bros. cartoons. He left the McKimson unit in the mid-‘40s to work in layout on the Tom and Jerry cartoons at MGM and followed T and J’s creators to their own studio in 1957, providing model sheets for the main characters from Ed Benedict’s character drawings for the early shows, and laying out cartoons into the early ‘70s.


Someone at Hanna-Barbera in the mid-‘60s might point out this is a rare shot of Jerry Eisenberg because he’s not talking. Jerry rates having a window. There’s an unidentified screaming woman on his wall. It looks like Gladys Kravitz (also a Screen Gems Presentation).


What? No Alexander pants? Notice the drawing of the non-Wacky racing cars next to him. Speaking of cars, Iwao once mentioned that he designed Speed Buggy because no one could figure out what to do with the character (which was not among Mel Blanc’s best. It was Jack Benny’s far-funnier Maxwell with a five-pack-a-day habit).



Two shots of Art Babbitt, who ran Hanna-Barbera’s commercial division for a time. Thanks to Rudy Agresta for the ID. I’m used to seeing pictures of a much-younger Babbitt from his days at Disney.


Ah, the friendly reception desk. Observe the rotary dialers sticking up to the right of each person at the switchboard. I wonder how many times they had to tell people Huckleberry Hound was out.



Staff and characters outside the building at 3400 Cahuenga. The studio later erected other buildings on the block to handle the company’s expansion. You can see the Banana Splits out front, so the photo is from 1968 at the earliest.


Here’s a picture of the building taken recently by reader Jessie Martinez. No Ruff and Reddy, no Carlo Vinci and Ed Love, no sounds of Hoyt Curtin. Just a reminder that time carries on and of the fine artists who entertained several generations.

Yogi Bear Weekend Comics, October 1962

It was Harvey Eisenberg Month some 50 Octobers ago, at least on the Yogi Bear weekend comics. Harvey drew all four in the month of October, 1962. Boo Boo appears in all four, Ranger Smith is in the last two and we get some typical Hanna-Barbera-looking incidental characters in the final one.

The three-row comics from my usual sources were photocopied too black and are almost unviewable, so you’re stuck with the two-row versions. However, you can see the three-rows in colour at Mark Kausler’s blog. Just like here, you can click on each comic to enlarge.


October 7th is a fun comic, exploring distortion. Boo Boo’s an aware character here. He’s dismissive of Yogi’s ego, not the idoliser in a bunch of cartoons in the TV series.


Boo Boo isn’t terribly impressed with Yogi in the October 14th comic, either. I love how Harvey’s layout pulls back the scene to reveal the final gag.


The most admirable part of the October 21st comic is the various angles that Harvey gives the Ranger’s car. He’s just as strong with objects as he is with characters. Really nice layout work.


Uh, can someone explain why the Navy is in Jellystone Park? Isn’t Jellystone in the mountains somewhere, with geysers and that sort of thing instead of an ocean? Well, the Navy shows up on October 28th. Cute kid appears in the first panel along with a guy who’d probably have an English accent if he had lines. Interesting drawing in the third panel with Yogi being in silhouette in the background with the Ranger fully visible in the foreground.

I wasn’t intending on posting these comics here on the blog, but I hope you’ve enjoyed them. My thanks to Mark Kausler for taking the time to scan his collection and upload onto his blog the colour versions he snipped out of papers when he was a boy.