Augie Doggie — Bud Brothers

Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Credits: Animation – Don Patterson, Layout – Paul Sommer, Backgrounds – Art Lozzi, Story – Mike Maltese, Story Director – Alex Lovy, Titles – Art Goble, Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Voice Cast: Doggie Daddy – Doug Young; Augie Doggie, Plant – Daws Butler.
Music: Phil Green, Jack Shaindlin.
Episode: Quick Draw McGraw Show M-029, Production J-87.
First aired: week of November 22, 1960.
Plot: Augie keeps a hungry man-eating plant as a pet.

The cult movie favourite of 1960 was a feature that Roger Corman put together for something like $30,000 about an insatiable man-eating plant called Little Shop of Horrors. Whether that movie influenced Mike Maltese may never be known at this late date, but Maltese took the concept of a carnivorous plant that same year and plopped it in an Augie Doggie cartoon. And Maltese, known for his off-beat sense of humour, gives the cartoon a bit of a warped ending.

By the way, you can be sure Bill Hanna didn’t spend anywhere near $30,000 on this. To be honest, I don’t know how much the budget was for each short in 1960.

Don Patterson’s the animator on this one, and he doesn’t appear to have done a lot of work in the 1960-61 season. He did one Yogi, and this cartoon and, later, a few Flintstones. No Hucks, Quick Draws, Pixie and Dixie and Snooper and Blabber cartoons that I can tell. Patterson draws teeth in a closed mouth somewhat like Ed Love and he also draws closed eyes like a dissected triangle. I’ve moaned about how the animation started getting lacklustre as 1960 rolled into 1961. Patterson’s work here is an example. There are no outrageous expressions, other than a couple on the plant. Augie and Daddy’s mouth movements are basic. Even his walk cycle for the plant is simple, three drawings on twos.



Art Lozzi is the background artist and batted out ten drawings for this cartoon. I like how Lozzi has a pennant on the wall in Augie’s room from “H.B.U.” Again, nothing adventuresome. Same with Paul Sommer’s layouts. The scenes are set up like you’re watching a stage play with all the action moving from one side to the other.



The Augie we get in this cartoon is the combination of the Boy-Genius version and the Can-We-Keep-Him-Dad? version. Well, for at least part of it. “Dad of the sensitive nose” smells Augie making a noiseless explosive (no, it’s not called “Hushaboom”). Patterson gives us some perspective animation as Doggie Daddy swirls the bowl around toward the camera before the explosive in it poofs in dad’s face. Augie’s invention works and he dreams of a million dollars to give to “unscientific dad” but dad’s so annoyed with the burn marks on his face (which disappear after a brief medium shot of Augie) he demands Augie get a new hobby.

So Augie’s new hobby is growing an Africa Flora Carnivorous. “Unhobby-like dad,” à la Durante, butchers the name through the whole cartoon. It has a tremendous appetite. We learn that when it bites Daddy’s finger. Now comes a long set-up that goes for sentiment more than comedy. Over the course of a year, Augie feeds the plant. Carny, as the plant is called for short, claps its leaves together like hands (and uses one to point to its mouth) and even grows lips to kiss Augie in gratitude.




Yes, the cartoon’s half over. No, not a lot has happened.

Now Daddy decides to enjoy a late-night snack. We all know what’s going to happen. The plant eats Daddy’s cake, then drinks his milk while gets another piece of cake, then eats the second piece of cake while Daddy looks for Augie. But there are no accents even in the limited animation, not even a pair of wide eyes. The scene just rolls along at an even pace, with strings benignly skating along in the background and Daddy chatting a superfluous monologue, that any comedy potential is sucked out of it, just like the plant sucked the cake off the plate. Here are two consecutives frames.



While Daddy sees Augie sleeping in room, the plant plucks itself out of its pot and using roots as feet, toddles to the kitchen and the raids the “refridger-atator” of a roast chicken, running under Daddy (who has returned to the living room) in the process. Dear old Dad demands the plant drop the chicken, but Carny turns snarly and starts chasing after daddy, finally putting some life into the cartoon. The plant’s body is on a two-drawing cycle on ones, while the snarling head has four different positions on twos (not in a cycle).



Augie stops the action by shaming the plant. Then there’s the usual “can he stay?” routine that we’ve heard in a bunch of Augie cartoons. Not only can he stay, the final scene cuts to Augie going to school with the plant going with him as a classmate. Why did a school enroll a plant? And why is it wearing glasses; has it become near-sighted through domestication? And why is the plant following behind Augie, but Augie is on the front sidewalk of the house while the plant is clearly walking along a street? Oh, well. “After all,” says Daddy to end the cartoon, “It ain’t every dad who’s got a boy and a franica awful carnivious in the second grade.”

There are surprisingly few background tunes in this cartoon and all but one by Phil Green. We get the two main themes from Green’s Small Town Story Suite (EMI Photoplay Q5-009)—“Picnic or Country Scene” and “Parks and Gardens” (the other, “GR-157 Rural Romance,” was never used in cartoons but was also pressed on the Capitol Hi-Q ‘L’ Series).

0:00 - Augie Doggie Main Title theme (Hanna-Barbera-Curtin).
0:25 - GR-65 BUSH BABY (Green) – Explosive concoction scene, Augie brings in plant, “No, unhobby-like dad.”
2:01 - GR-155 PARKS AND GARDENS (Green) – “It’s a little flower plant,” Daddy bitten, Augie feeds plant, plant eats cake.
3:57 - GR-154 PICNIC OR COUNTRY SCENE (Green) – Daddy realises cake is gone, plant eats more stuff, gets out of pot, carries chicken, knocks over Dad, Dad rushes out of scene.
5:46 - fast circus chase music (Shaindlin) – Daddy runs after plant, plant runs after Daddy, skids to a stop.
6:13 - GR-255 PUPPETRY COMEDY (Green) – Augie shames plant, Daddy agrees to let plant stay, “It ain’t every dad…”
7:02 - GR-79 CUSTARD PIE CAPERS SHORT BRIDGE No 2 (Green) – “…who’s got a boy…”, end of cartoon.
7:10 - Augie Doggie End Title theme (Curtin).

See Fred Strike Out

Old storyboard panels are always great fun, but rarely does anyone get to see a full board for any of the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons.



But Charles Brubaker has alerted me to one for “Fred Strikes Out” posted on Mike Milo’s web site. Yes, the full storyboard, direct from the Hanna-Barbera archives. You can simply go HERE, click on the first panel and then click on the right arrow to look at all 124 pages, including layout drawings. I’ve posted one of them above because I love the drawings of Fred and Barney on it.

The cartoon is from the Flintstones’ second season. Joanna Lee wrote the episode and while she may have been perfect in Plan 9 From Outer Space, she was no storyboard artist. So someone had to draw the board for her. Who? I’m almost the last person to ask. There are readers who may know if it’s by Alex Lovy or maybe even Warren Foster (I don’t think it’s Dan Gordon). I can’t tell you who the Story Director was on this cartoon as the original credits were removed for syndication in the ‘60s. But you can tell George Nicholas did some of the animation because Fred gets beady eyes and a floppy tongue in some scenes. Here’s how the last drawing in the story panels above turned out on the screen. Moo Team!!

Wipe Your Feet on Jinks and a Ride a Yogi

Friendly and thoughtful readers are again sharing items from the old-time Hanna-Barbera world, so let’s pass them on.

Dr. Mark Hill, the Doctor of Pop Culture, sent a note after we posted pictures of H-B rugs with pictures of another rug. I guess it’s both sides as one is the reverse image of the other. The main cast of The Huckleberry Hound Show is featured.



Now some things from roving correspondent Billie Towzer. The Impossibles are from a date past the focus of this blog and I never got into them anyway. But here’s one of those maddening slide puzzles. Did anyone else ever try to take the pieces out to reinsert them and solve the puzzle?



What? Kellogg’s giving away a ’63 Ford Falcon? Not exactly a kid’s prize, is it? This, of course, comes from the back of a Corn Flakes cereal package. The example of the jingle is kind of screwy. The rhyme should be with “folk”, not “fair,” shouldn’t it? How about “articholk?” Oh, well. I’m not a Ford person anyway.



Good thing this isn’t one of those unauthorised editions. This comic book was one of a number copyrighted in March 1963 by Watkins-Strathmore Co., Racine, Wisconsin. Huck seems to have been replaced by Augie Doggie. I wonder if you got to colour Bill and Joe, too.



Ah, poor Yogi. Left alone to rust on an unmowed lawn.



At least he’s in better shape than this Yogi that a youngster rode.



Finally, Tim Hollis sent this note: In one of the early Jellystone franchise booklets was this stunning shot of the merchandise they offered in their souvenir shops. As you can see, some was produced especially for them (like the green plastic ranger hats), while others were items that had first been available a decade earlier (the Kellogg's mugs, the Yogi/Magilla coloring books, etc). If I'm not mistaken, that Day-Glo pink Yogi poster is the same one that was a major plot element in the Brady Bunch episode that was filmed at King's Island.



Thanks again to everyone who sent notes. We have a few more banked for a later post.

Yogi Bear — A Bear Pair

Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Credits: Animation – Ken Muse, Layout – Tony Rivera, Backgrounds – Bob Gentle, Story – Warren Foster, Story Direction – Alex Lovy, Titles – Art Goble, Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Voice Cast: Yogi Bear, Game Show Host, E.G., Airport Announcer, Stewardess, French Airport Radio Man, 2nd French Government Man, 1st Man in Crowd, Chef, Return Airplane Pilot – Daws Butler; Ranger Smith, Boo Boo, Pilot, 1st French Government Man, 2nd Man in Crowd, French TV Announcer, Maître D. – Don Messick.
Music: Bill Loose/John Seely, Geordie Hormel, Spencer Moore, Jack Shaindlin, Phil Green, unknown.
Episode: Huckleberry Hound Show K-043, Episode E-110.
First aired: 1960.
Plot: Yogi and Boo Boo are mistaken for ambassadors after Boo Boo wins a trip to Paris.

Through history, nations have been friends of other nations for purely convenience’s sake. Yesterday’s enemy is today’s political ally. Or, as Warren Foster puts it in this cartoon:

Official 1: Allez, allez! Roll out the red carpet! The ambassadors from Jellystone are arriving!
Official 2: Jellystone? Where’s that?
Official 1: Who knows? The way things are going, we have to be friendly with everybody.

In fact, diplomatic relations in this cartoon are based on something other than mutual political interest. They started because of ignorance by a stewardess and farcically built on that. For good measure, Foster comments about how diplomacy falls apart at the most inane perceived slight (someone doesn’t eat his meal as prepared, again due to ignorance). And the cartoon ends with the stand-in for the head of the slighted diplomatic power (ie. Ranger Smith of Jellystone) reacting the only way he knows how—with violence. War solves everything when diplomacy fails, you know.



The cartoon also points out how people do things from force of habit. People will go to a restaurant where meals are specially prepared with just the right amount of spices to give it the proper flavour, and then dump loads of salt or something else on it because that’s the way they eat everything. Special preparation be damned. It’s meat, so tons of salt must go on it, which destroys the whole reason for selecting the meal in the first place. So, to this day, when I go to (non-fast food) restaurants, I eat food only as prepared, all because of this cartoon. Warren Foster, the chefs of the world salute you.

This cartoon tested Daws Butler and Don Messick. They play 17 roles between them, including two that are shouts from the crowd noise (that they help make).

Layouts are by Tony Rivera, so certain things are recognisable. Thin-headed characters with the H-B 5 o’clock shadow. Isosceles triangle trees (Bob Gentle has given them a bit of foliage on the side so they’re not just a geometric shape).



The cars in the early Hanna-Barbera cartoons are fascinating and it’s something I haven’t had time to post about. They contain design elements of real models of cars around the time the cartoons were made but aren’t exact copies. The proportions on the car in the scene above are wrong—the back is way too large—but there was a car that had the same kind of light blue body indentation along the side extending to the tail light. I keep thinking of a Pontiac for some reason.

The cartoon starts with Yogi and Boo Boo rooting through garbage pins in the picnic area. Boo Boo finds a puzzle contest on a box (did Kellogg’s have something like that on a cereal box?) and all he has to do is send in a box top (presumably, he has to fill out the puzzle, too, but that’s never mentioned). “Boo Boo is always dreamin’ when he should be schemin’,” says Yogi, but it turns out Boo Boo’s box top is selected and the bear wins the grand prize—a trip to Paris, since there’s nothing that says a bear is prevented from entering. The contest company rep, E.G., calls the head office. The guy running things is, not uncoincidentally, “H.B.”



Boo Boo is allowed to take a friend on the trip, so he takes his best friend Yogi, who pokes his head through the door and gives us a variation on Jimmy Durante’s line “That’s my little bear-type buddy who said that.” Cut to a Bob Gentle background drawing of an airport tarmack. Now Ranger Smith plants the diplomatic disaster by telling the bears they’re “good will ambassadors from Jellystone Park.” That doesn’t really make sense because Boo Boo won the contest on his own, not as some kind of representative. But we’d have a lot different cartoon otherwise. Yogi shows his ignorance early on the flight.

Boo Boo: Yogi, where is Paris?
Yogi: Uh, some place in,uh, Rhode Island, Boo Boo.

Yogi tells the stewardess they’re “the ambassadors from Jellystone Park.” That sets off the stewardess who garbles a bunch of Gallic sounds to simulate French which sets of a chain reaction which results in the bears receiving a cheering welcome at the Paris airport (“They sure treat a puzzle contest winner right,” grins Yogi), a limo ride past a shouting throng lining the street (“These Paris-type people are friendlier than the av-er-age”) and a key to the city, which we never see presented because it’s cheaper just having characters stand there, while Yogi moves only his head and Boo Boo blinks his eyes.



Cut to a TV set showing the 10 o’clock (in black and white). It shows Yogi (in still pictures) on his head on the cracked sidewalk after falling from the top of the Eiffel Tower. No matter. Yogi and Boo Boo drop into a five-star Parisian restaurant where Yogi mispronounces “filet mignon” and tries to put ketchup on it. The enraged chef crashes the glass ketchup bottle (no plastic bottles back then, folks) and the TV shows Yogi being kicked out of the country “due to an international crisis” as he and Boo Boo “threaten war on France” (mild little Boo Boo? Really? Sounds like the media got it wrong). Cut to a plane where Yogi, with the only parachute, holds Boo Boo as he is literally kicked off the flight over Jellystone. You’ll notice the studio saving money again. The footage of the plane in the air is simply the earlier cel of the plane turned around and the background drawing of clouds moving in the opposite direction.

The bears land on the forest ground safely. Ranger Smith pops out of the bushes, then starts chasing Yogi and bashing him with a baseball bat. Tsk. Is such violence necessary? And so yet another Hanna-Barbera cartoon ends with a character chasing another one past the same scenery, stage left this time. They pass the same non-triangular tree 23 times to the strains of Jack Shaindlin’s “On the Run.”

The cutter found a copy of “La Marseillaise” in the Capitol Hi-Q ‘X’ series, and it makes a couple of appearances on the soundtrack. Phil Green’s “Period Fanfare” from the ‘S’ series shows up as well. The rest of the music is typical for a Yogi cartoon, though using a nautical theme for the scene of the contest announcement is a little odd.

0:00 - Yogi Bear Sub Main Title Theme (Curtin-Shows-Hanna-Barbera).
0:28 - C-3 DOMESTIC CHILDREN (Loose) – Boo Boo and Yogi scene at garbage can.
0:56 - TC-202 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Ranger Smith scene.
1:10 - L-1121 ANIMATION NAUTICAL (Moore) – Game show scene.
1:26 - L-1158 ANIMATION COMEDY (Moore) – Car pulls up to ranger station, “Excuse me.”
1:28 - TC-301 ZANY WALTZ (Loose-Seely) – E.G. in Ranger Smith’s office.
2:17 - ZR-48 FAST MOVEMENT (Hormel) – Airport scene, Stewardess babbles, pilot on radio.
3:09 - LAF-20-5 TOBOGGAN RUN (Shaindlin) – French Airport Radio room, scene in French government office.
3:37 - LA MARSEILLAISE (Moore) – Dignitaries at airport, “Welcome to Gay Parree.”
3:47 - PG-171 PERIOD FANFARE (Green) – Cheers, Yogi and Boo Boo at plane entrance.
3:58 - LA MARSEILLAISE (Moore) – Yogi and Boo Boo in limo, keys to city.
4:20 - TC-202 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – TV broadcast.
4:42 - L-1139 ANIMATION COMEDY (Moore) – Yogi and Boo Boo lope down street.
4:58 - C-14 DOMESTIC LIGHT (Loose) – Restaurant scene, Yogi wants ketchup.
5:19 - LAF-72-2 RODEO DAY (Shaindlin) – “Yipe!”, ketchup bottle on Yogi’s head.
5:56 - L-78 COMEDY UNDERSCORE (Moore) – TV broadcast.
6:13 - TC-437 SHOPPING DAY (Loose-Seely) – Airplane and parachute scenes.
6:36 - TC-303 ZANY COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Yogi and Boo Boo on ground, ranger enters, Yogi zips out of scene.
6:49 - LAF-2-12 ON THE RUN (Shaindlin) – Ranger Smith clubs Yogi during chase.
7:10 - Yogi Bear Sub End Title theme (Curtin).

Yogi Bear Weekend Comics, January 1963

Perhaps it was a foregone conclusion that the Flintstones would have a child designed by Gene Hazelton in early 1963. The Hanna-Barbera newspaper comics started getting littered with children about the same time. Gene was the head writer for the comics so he would have been the one putting kids in the stories, though it appears the comics themselves (at least some of them) for January 1963 were drawn by Harvey Eisenberg.

We get a boy in one of the Sunday colour comics this month and, rather unexplainably, native Indians in two of them. There are more kids and natives in February, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Ranger Smith doesn’t make an appearance in any of these comics. Perhaps Hazelton is signalling he wants to go off in a different direction than the TV series and create his own little world around Jellystone Park.

As I’ve mentioned, the photographic quality of these is not very good. I’ve married the top row from one paper with the bottom two from another to give you the best possible version I can find on-line. With luck, Mark Kausler will post his excellent colour copies on his blog later in the month. I hope you appreciate them because you get a better idea of the artwork than you do from these.



Why does Yogi Bear get his own day at Funville Park? And where is Funville Park anyway? Well, I suppose if a TV station can give Yogi a sponsored special like the plot of one of his animated half-hours (which happened later in 1963), an amusement park can give something to honour Yogi, too. That’s what happened in the January 6th comic. It seems the horses on the merry-go-round are alive. Interesting drawing with the merry-go-round in the background in silhouette.



I really like the clever patterned logo in the opening panel of the January 13th comic. Good composition, too. Lots of people but not cluttered, with silhouettes again giving a little depth. Nice puzzled look on Yogi when he’s in the canoe in the middle row. Boo Boo gets the comic off.



Did Hazelton have a son named Christopher? There was a blond-haired kid named Christopher in one of the December comics, and on January 20th, we’ve got a blond-haired kid named Kit. It’s hard to say if it’s the same kid. They all kind of look the same. The hair-style’s different, the mother’s different and this one’s wearing a one-stripe vest and collared shirt instead of a t-shirt. Anyway, Yogi comes up with a trite rhyme in the opening panel, but I like the gag set-up, though it’s a little cringing in this age to see the word “squaw” amongst the perfect English. Oh, well. At least they don’t talk like the Go-Go Gophers.



If we can have talking merry-go-round horses, why not taking worms? That’s the capper to the January 27th as we learn that ocarina is really made by worms burrowing holes in sweet potatoes underground. Boo Boo returns after a two-week absence. I suppose he was away earning money to buy a musical instrument. I wonder what instrument Sam makes from corn in the final panel.

Next month, besides kids (one is suspiciously named “Eugene”) and Indians, there’s a cameo by an oh-so-merry, chuckleberry dog.

P.S.: Being New Year’s Day, here’s a non-Yogi comic bonus. This is from January 1, 1965. Wilma’s hung over. Imagine that! Next, she’ll be smoking cigarettes or something.

Snooper and Blabber — Scoop Snoop

Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Credits: Animation – Lew Marshall, Layout – Paul Sommer, Backgrounds – Dick Thomas, Story – Mike Maltese, Story Director – Alex Lovy, Titles – Art Goble, Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Voice Cast: Snooper, Blabber – Daws Butler; Editor, Snowman – Doug Young, Hazel – Jean Vander Pyl.
Music: Jack Shaindlin, Phil Green, Harry Bluestone-Emil Cadkin, Clarence Wheeler?, unknown.
First aired: week of January 10, 1961.
Episode: Quick Draw McGraw Show M-033, Production J-104.
Plot: The editor of the Daily Beagle hires Snooper and Blabber to find the Abominable Snowman.

In “Scoop Snoop,” Snooper and Blabber are on their way in their helicopter to the Himalayas to find the Abominable Snowman. Blab asks: “Gosh, Snoop, do you think this copter can make to the Hima, Hima, uh, those mountains?” And Snooper replies: “It better, or we won’t have no cartoon.”

Hanna-Barbera cartoons commented on the action to the audience all the time but this is one of the few cases where a character actually referred to the fact he was in a cartoon while a cartoon was in progress. It’s not quite the same as the characters appearing in bumpers during the syndicated half-hours saying there were going to put on a cartoon show or watch the next (eg. Yogi Bear) cartoon.

Mike Maltese writes some neat little dialogue bits, but there really aren’t terribly many gags in this one and the ending is all too familiar. How many cartoon characters are sceptical about something but then look out the window and realise it’s true? Still, Maltese and Daws Butler’s word-bending is about all the cartoon has going for it. There’s nothing distinctive in the animation, character design or the settings (though the murky, digitally-pixilated dubs from TV prints may be to blame for the latter). In fact, Paul Sommer couldn’t be bothered to design Snooper’s helicopter with the eyeball that was on office doors, windows and, yes, even helicopters, in previous cartoons. About the most interesting thing is the “flash-bulb” effect when Blab takes a couple of pictures. The colours change to simulate a large amount of light being thrown on the subject. Here’s the effect when Blab, inside the Abominable Snowman, takes a flash picture.




The opening has Snooper and Blabber in the chopper with Snoop getting the lowdown on their next caper. “Stop speakin’ in griddles, Hazel,” “Give us the glory details” and “Leave us descend on the impatient editor, Blab, and find out what’s news” are among Snoop’s punny lines. And there’s the usual time-filling dialogue about Hazel’s parakeet.

There’s a brief scene in the office of the editor of the Daily Beagle. The editor’s on the phone with his boss, J.R. It should be noted that the man who oversaw the writers at Hanna-Barbera was one J.R. Barbera. “Stop the pressin’!” shouts Snoop. The gig: J.R. believes there’s an Abominable Snowman. The editor believes there’s not. Cut to Blab looking at a phone book. “He’s not in the Yellow Pages, Snoop.” “He probably has an unlisted number,” figures Snoop.



So at the 2:29 mark (including about 25 seconds of opening titles), the plot’s underway. Snooper is offered $5,000 for a picture of the Abominable Snowman (throughout the cartoon, Snoop pronounces the word “abdominable”). Landing in the Himalayas, Snooper points out Blab is standing in a huge footprint. “We’ll folly his footprints and viola! He’s on page one,” Snoop says. Blab muses “I hope he’s photogenic.”

Well, the Snowman is “lurchin’” around. He comes out from behind a mountain. The snowman’s only word through the cartoon is “gloogle,” so Blab decides to call him Mr. Gloogle. The Snowman uses his huge hand to squash Snoop through the snow and through the underside of a cliff, then winds up Blab’s tail and the assistant falls through the hole Snoop made.

Blab swings from a rope (being a Hanna-Barbera rope, we don’t learn what it’s tied to) and gets swallowed by the Snowman. Blab takes a picture inside. “How’d you make out?” Snoop asks (no, we don’t know how Blab got out of the Snowman’s mouth). “Great, Snoop,” Blab says. “I got a swell picture of his tonsils. “Great Josephine! What good is a picture of his tonsils?” “Well,” figures Blab, “it might help some deserving medical student pass his exams.”

In the helicopter, Snooper tries snagging the Snowman with a lasso. The Snowman just pulls the chopper to the snow, wrecks it and runs in a cave. “Stop in the long arm of the law and me five-thousand-bucks fee,” shouts Snoop as the detectives run after him. Now the plot turns a bit, kind of like how Porky Pig came to the rescue when hero Daffy Duck kept failing in those 1950s Chuck Jones cartoons written by Maltese. “I just want to take your picture, Mr. Gloogle,” says Blab. Now the Snowman is interested, especially since the shot “will be in all the newspapers.” Blab goes in the cave where he takes a photo of the whole smiling Gloogle family. Now how do Snooper and Blabber get back to civilisation since their helicopter is wrecked? Easy. They get in a large paper airplane which is thrown aloft by the Snowman. Where did the paper airplane come from? Who knows.



The final scene is back in the office of the editor, who is looking over the photo. Even though it hasn’t been invented yet, the editor thinks it’s Photoshopped. “If this picture isn’t a fake, I’ll eat your hat. I still say there is abdominable snowman.” That’s when Mr. Gloogle appears in the office window (Blab had invited him to look him up whenever in town). Cut to the editor chewing. “I hope Mr. Editor has a 6 7/8ths stomach,” Blab tells us as he laughs and the iris closes on another cartoon.



This will give you an idea when the cartoon went into production. The Hollywood Reporter of April 15, 1960 reveals: Doug Young has been signed for a signing role opposite Daws Butler in the "Scoop Snoop" telefilm in the "Snooper and Blabber" teleseries. Bill Hanna directs the Mike Maltese script.

The sound cutter must have had plenty of time to work on this cartoon. Most of the music cues are very short. Some last around ten seconds and flow into each other pretty well, though using two short cues seems like overkill. Phil Green and Jack Shaindlin dominate as usual but there’s one little (contra bassoon?) tune toward the end that may be Clarence Wheeler’s “Woodwind Capers,” which found its way into some cartoons, according to ASCAP.

0:00 - Snooper and Blabber Main Title theme (Curtin, Hanna, Barbera).
0:25 - GR-248 STREETS OF THE CITY (Green) – Helicopter dialogue scene.
1:34 - jaunty bassoon and skippy strings (Shaindlin) – Editor on phone.
1:42 - GR-93 DRESSED TO KILL (Green) – Snooper at door, editor dialogue scene.
2:28 - GR-334 LIGHT AGITATED BRIDGE (Green) – Helicopter in flight.
2:40 - GR-457 DR QUACK SHORT BRIDGE No 1 (Green) – Snooper and Blabber in snow, “Standing in his footprint!”
2:51 - COMEDY SUSPENSE (Shaindlin) – “Gee, he’s a big one,” Snoop and Blab talk.
3:05 - CAPERS (Shaindlin) – Snowman appears, Snoop pushed through snow.
3:42 - GR-455 THE ARTFUL DODGER BRIDGE No 2 (Green) – Blab with camera, falls through hole.
3:51 - GR-454 THE ARTFUL DODGER BRIDGE No 1 (Green) – Blab with camera, scene fades out.
4:03 - GR-74 POPCORN (Green) – Blab on rope.
4:18 - GR-77 CUSTARD PIE CAPERS (Green) – Blab swings down, Snowman swallows Blab, Blab swings up to cliff.
4:33 - CB-85A STEALTHY MOUSE (Cadkin-Bluestone) – Snoop and Blab on cliff.
4:51 - light symphonic strings (?) – Helicopter in sky, pulled to ground.
5:11 - GR-455 THE ARTFUL DODGER BRIDGE No 2 (Green) – Snooper and Blabber in crashed copter.
5:16 - fast circus chase music (Shaindlin) – Snowman runs into cave, Snooper and Blabber skid to stop.
5:27 - C-C-F# short light underscore (Wheeler?) – Blab makes offer to Snowman, takes picture of Snowman family.
6:17 - comedy flute cue (Green) – Snooper and Blabber in paper airplane, Snowman throws airplane.
6:26 - GR-78 CUSTARD PIE CAPERS BRIDGE No 1 (Green) – Snoop and Blab flying in paper airplane.
6:33 - GR-456 DR QUACK (Green) – Editor talks with Snoop, Snowman peers through window.
6:48 - rising scale music (Shaindlin) – Snowman gloogles, editor eats Snoop’s hat.
7:10 - Snooper and Blabber End Title theme (Curtin).