Take Me To Your Leader

Were the 1950s the Golden Age of Outer Space? People sure seem preoccupied with it back then, judging by all the movies and TV shows made about it. Even cartoons. Warner Bros., Paramount (Famous) and Walter Lantz all had cartoons about space exploration or aliens. Gerald McBoing Boing ended up on the Planet Moo. And the very first Ruff and Reddy adventure involved robots from the planet Muni-Mula (“That’s aluminum spelled backwards,” Don Messick would remind you).

So it was that space craft and such found their way into a couple of the bumpers on the Huckleberry Hound Show.

Watching this opening mini-cartoon frame-by-frame, you can see how a character will move one body part in the next frame, and then hold it while one or two other parts move in the following frame. Heads are moving in all kinds of directions, too. I admire Frank Paiker or whoever it was working the camera trying to keep all those cel instructions in order.

If you’ve seen some of these great first-season circus setting bumpers, you’ll have noticed Huck stretching his head and rounding his lips to make an “Oooo” sound (as in “cartoon”). Even Yogi does it in this mini-cartoon.



I love Mr. Jinks. Here are some good expressions. Not a lot of animation, but you know what the cat is thinking when he says “Featuring yours truly, Jinks the Vill-i-an.”



Yogi wags his head. Five positions from almost head-on to profile.



Yogi dips his head, looks at his knuckles and scratches them against his body. This is one of those bits of business that add to a character.



The premise behind this cartoon-between-the-cartoons is Huck descends to the ground from his saucer and acts like an alien. “Take me to your leader, Earth folks,” he says to the rest of the cast. Pixie and Dixie beg off. They’re getting ready to show some Pixie and Dixie cartoons. Yogi puts in a word for his cartoons. Huck reveals that he’s the leader, as we’ll see in the next Huck cartoon. The cast, in the saucer, flies left to right across a repeating background. Fade out.

And here’s the evil Jinks, slowed down.

Invading the TV Schedule

Huckleberry Hound may have given the first real boost to the Hanna-Barbera empire but, by 1961, he wasn’t number one in the kingdom. Monarchs Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera were putting more of their efforts (and treasury) into their prime-time success, The Flintstones. And not only had Yogi Bear been pulled away from the Huck show into his own, he had been tapped to star in the studio first full-length animated movie. At the end of the 1961-62 season, Huck went into permanent reruns.

We’ve spent pretty close to nine years on the blog passing along ancient articles on the studio in its growing years. Here’s an interesting one from the Philadelphia Inquirer of November 28, 1961. It was a gold strike for Hanna-Barbera. Not only did it give the studio publicity, it was a free plug for a feature story on the Flintstones, Yogi, Joe, Bill, and all in the December 2, 1961 issue of the Saturday Evening Post, which gave H-B even more publicity.

Ingeniously, the Inquirer played Reader’s Digest, boiling down magazine articles for a column as an easy way to fill space on its entertainment pages. All it took was a rewrite. You can read the Post article on Joe Bevilacqua’s web site devoted to Daws Butler, but you can see the “TV Digest” column from the Inquirer below.

Pair of Cartoonists Surprise Themselves With Sudden Riches
HERE'S what one of the Nation's magazines is saying this week about television:
SATURDAY EVENING POST: The most surprised men in Hollywood these days are a pair of middle-aged cartoonists named William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.
Four years ago they were has-beens, bounced out of the movie business with no prospect of future employment. This year, as owners of four fantastically successful television shows plus a major contender, they will gross an estimated $9,000,000.
Leading the list in order of importance on this two-man hit parade is "The Flintstones"—the first cartoon show to make a successful invasion of television's supposedly adult hours.
If it all sounds and looks like a prehistoric version of "The Honeymooners," nobody seems to care. "The Flintstones" finished the 1960-11 season with an audience of 13,882,000 homes, according to Nielsen figures.

The rest of the Hanna Barbera cavalcade is both a cast of characters and a menagerie. The Barrymore of the bunch is three-year-old "Huckleberry Hound," star of a half-hour show which appears weekly on some 180 independent stations.
On another midweek evening, same time, same station, Quick Draw McGraw stalks his man. . .on still a third evening during TV's kiddie hour, Yogi Bear cavorts around Jellystone Park.
• • •
LAST, but by no means least is Hanna and Barbera's economic expectations, is a new half hour, "Top Cat," featuring a band of Dead End cats led by a Bilko-type hustler.
Desperation, plus their own artistic instincts, inspired the partners to create a process which they called "Planned Animation."
Realism was junked for drawings that were broadly comic and basically simple. They worked out short eats. When a character spoke, only his mouth moved. When he walked, only his legs moved.
The result was a seven-minute cartoon which needed only 2000 drawings but still resembled full animation so closely that only a professional could tell the difference.
“The Flints,” as everyone at Hanna-Barbara Productions calls it, cost $65,000 per half hour, making the program one of the most expensive half hours on television. (In full animation it would cost $200,000.)
This year the company will gross around $1,000,000 from television, but the partners swear that profits are low. "We plow every cent we get back into better quality production," Bill Hanna says.
This may well be true of the cash they receive from advertising sponsors. But their animal cartoons are earning them at least $1,000,000 more is other markets, Last year sales of games, soaps, stuffed animals and other toys based on Huckleberry Hound and his entourage totalled $40,000,000.
Their success has inevitably inspired the most sincere form of television flattery—imitation.
There are a swarm of rival cartoon characters on the evening air this evening, ranging from a moose that talks like a man to a trio of chipmunks who cut up like small boys.

Huckleberry Vinci

It’s tough to pick a favourite animator who worked at Hanna-Barbera in the 1950s. I can think of several. But only one of them would be celebrating a birthday were he with us today, and that’s Carlo Vinci. He would be 111.

Carlo spent years in the B cartoon studios of New York, Van Beuren and Terrytoons. He worked with Joe Barbera at both of them and in 1956, Barbera offered him a job animating at the MGM cartoon studio. When it folded a year later, Barbera promised him work when the new Hanna-Barbera operation got off the ground. Barbera was true to his old paisano and Carlo stayed at H & B for more than 20 years. Before that he also worked briefly at Disney and for Paul Fennell’s studio on the side.

Carlo plunked out 50 feet a day and wondered why he couldn’t do as well as Ken Muse who churned out twice as much footage, according to layout man Bob Givens. The answer is simple. Carlo used more drawings, and more complete drawings.

Here are some drawings from a scene from Skeeter Trouble (1959). Notice in the sixth frame how Carlo plants the heel with the leg at an angle, and draws Huck with his knee up and leg stretched. You can see the same thing in a bunch of his early H-B cartoons.



My favourite Huck take is in Hookey Days (1959) when the little brats tie him to railway tracks. He thinks it’s all pretend until he realises a train is actually coming toward him. The studio really didn’t go for this kind of animation but I wish it had.



Carlo died on September 30, 1993.

Here’s Harvey Deneroff chatting all too briefly with Carlo at the Animation Guild’s Golden Awards Banquet in 1984.

Dukes Up Daddy

Here’s a gag you can see several miles away. I’m afraid the little cartoons preceding the Augie Doggie cartoons on the Quick Draw McGraw Show weren’t terribly strong when it came to humour. Doggie Daddy tells Quick Draw he’s teaching Augie “the manly art of self defence.”

Daddy tells Augie to let him have it. Ken Muse holds Augie in position while we get some effect animation.



“Dat’s my boy, dere. Knockin’ a chip off the old block.” Fade out.

It’s hard to tell from this beet-red Eastmancolor print but the backgrounds are by Dick Thomas.

Pebbly Poo, Age 55

Today marks the day, 55 years ago, The Flintstones changed. What had been a situation comedy revolving around grumpy Fred Flintstone and his relationship with his wife and neighbours suddenly veered in a different direction. A baby was added to the permanent cast. Fred’s character, in my estimation, softened in many of the episodes.

The birth wasn’t altogether a case of the show imitating I Love Lucy in an effort to garner a ratings boost. The impetus came, not for entertainment value, but from a company looking to sell girl dolls. Ideal Toys basically told Hanna-Barbera to throw out any idea of having a Fred, Jr. (something that was part of the series’ original Flagstones concept, with the boy designed by Ed Benedict) and have a girl instead (designed by the great Gene Hazelton). There’s a cut in it for you, of course, Joe and Bill. Money was talking. Hanna-Barbera didn’t need to listen long.

I’ve talked before about how I’m not a big fan of Pebbles, so there’s no point in treading that ground. Instead, cast your eyes upon this story from the King Features Syndicate from the day of Pebbles’ birth, February 22, 1963. Yes, the columnist gets her name wrong throughout. Maybe the most interesting thing in the story is that the studio, not willing to waste any creative idea, considered dredging up the “Flagstones” name. As a side note, Joe Barbera mentions that business for the studio has dropped off. No doubt that was due to the failure of Top Cat and The Jetsons in prime time. After three consecutive seasons (1960, 1961 and 1962) managing to make a sale to the networks, no one was biting in 1963. And, as it turned out, Pebbles didn’t help declining ratings for The Flintstones in 1964.

‘Pebble’ Arrives to Keep Flintstones Off the Rocks
By CHARLES WITBECK
HOLLYWOOD — Television is truly a wonder. Wilma Flintstone has been pregnant only five weeks, yet tonight, Washington's Birthday, Wilma is going to give birth to a child in color, on ABC's "The Flintstones."
The kid has been planned for almost 10 months, and Joe Barbera, co-creator, wonders if it's been worth all the trouble, because he and Bill Hanna are bushed. Artists went to work first, and most had boys in mind, because boy's names like Rock would fit better with Flintstone.
However, girl babies looked cuter, and cuteness is the key, so boys were out. After 500 sketches or so, one stood out, a cute little girl with a bow in her hair.
"Then we had to name her," said Joe, "and we came up with handles like Flagstone Flintstone."
Flagstone didn't have quite the right ring to it, but the direction seemed right.
A Name Develops
In dialogue Hanna and Barbera had Barney Rubble saying to Fred: "Boy, she's a chip off the old block." Fred tops it with, "It's more like a pebble off the old Flintstone," and there was the name — Pebble Flintstone.
As soon as Pebble had been labeled the toy world went into orbit. Sketches of the girl were sent to a certain toy manufacturer, and officers hopped a plane west to tie up this merchandising item.

Pebble Flintstone is going to give the Friday night cartoon series a shot in the arm, and it expects to do the same in the toy world. You'll soon see turtle strollers, rock cradles, dinosaur high chairs, turtle shell basinettes and leopard skin diapers.
There will be Pebble baby dolls of all sizes, the cuddly type to hold and bigger stand-up dolls. And you can't leave out coloring books!
Hanna and Barbera have all sorts of exploitation stunts going too. All women who have babies during the half-hour Flintstones tonight, and the estimate runs around 216 babies, will receive a $25 government bond and a Pebble Flintstone doll. The big, big contest "involves guessing the weight of Pebble at birth. The weight guessing contest closed Feb. 15th and the winner, the first one who guesses correctly, as pulled out of a bin, wins a round-the-world trip for two. As of two weeks ago H & B had not decided Pebble's initial weigh-in, so hot tips were phonies.
Staff Clobbered
Neither have the two men overlooked any publicity gimmick for spreading the news about Pebble. Both are family men, and both look worn. "Having real kids of your own is easier." they say. The Pebble birth has clobbered the whole H & B staff.
Joe Barbera was particularly impressed with the efficiency of the toy manufacturers. First came wax models from the cartoon sketches, then arms, head and eyes were interchanged among the models to narrow it down to the right look for the doll.
"It works." says Joe. "The best doll was made. She's so cute and cuddly I think even teen-agers will want her."
The TV animated cartoons
Business has dropped off a good deal of late because of its initial high cost plus the deluge of cartoons on the market at one time, but H & B are waging a fight to survive and Pebble is just one weapon. Joe says the company has a new way of cutting costs to stay in the market, by cutting down" on the number of drawings, standardizing a closeup, a medium shot and a faraway shot.
"We're reorganizing our thinking cost-wise," he says. "We moved so fast we forgot about watching costs in some areas."
With the squeeze on, Joe and Bill are going to fight. "We've learned lessons — like an 8:30 spot is just too late for animated cartoons," says Joe. "If we can get a show on at 7 p.m. we get the kids and hold the set. The grownups have to join in. I don't think the animated cartoon business is through. Kids will always want to see new cartoons. They won't live on reruns alone."

Flintstones Weekend Comics, February 1968

It’s Wilma 2 Fred 0 in the Sunday newspaper comics 50 years ago this month, though Fred actually suffers three defeats. The fourth comic features Fred’s niece. Barney makes a brief appearance this month, Betty and Dino are nowhere to be found.


My sources for these comics has almost dried up, so I can not find a full version of the February 4th comic. Why Wilma is being snarky in absentia, I haven’t the faintest idea. I suppose we’re supposed to think of Fred as a demanding, thoughtless husband, which he certainly could be in the first season of the cartoon series. By this time, the series had been off prime time for more than a season and Fred had become a little calmer.


Wilma’s playing semantics in the February 11th comic. “I didn’t say a word,” my butt. She was just tapping her foot in time to some music. Yeah, that’s it. The snowfall we saw in the previous week’s comic is still here; check out the little shrub in the penultimate panel.


Richard Holliss has, thankfully, the last two comics of the month in his collection and passed them along. February 18th has Wilma being sarcastic when all poor Fred is doing is trying to save money after hearing from other people (“they say” in the opening dialogue) about how little this place charges. If he was forcing Wilma to eat a tough steak, I could see where he’d deserve abuse. We still have snowy climes in Bedrock in this comic.


The February 25th comic ends with a commentary on the shallowness of teenagers. A guy’s unfit because he can’t dance. Even though he’s trying hard by bringing a dance chart with him. For a change, Fred isn’t grumping about the music teenagers are listening to. I love the question mark over the head of the record needle bird when Wilma talks about “be-rock.” Wilma’s subtly funny in this. Her Swingsville/Daddy-O vocabulary is at least ten years out of date, showing how out-of-touch adults are in the teenaged world. It’s that Generation Gap we used to talk about way back then (in the ‘60s, not the Stone Age).

Next month, Pebbles is a jerk, and Dino makes a return appearance in a funny comic.