Pixie and Dixie — Jinks the Butler

Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Credits: Animation – Ken Muse; Layout – Ed Benedict, Backgrounds – Fernando Montealegre; Dialogue and Story Sketches – Charlie Shows and Dan Gordon; Titles – Art Goble; Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Cast: Pixie – Don Messick; Dixie, Jinks, Butler – Daws Butler.
Production E-27, Huckleberry Hound Show K-013.
First aired: week of Monday, December 22, 1958.
Plot: Pixie and Dixie try to get by Jinks to get to a table full of food for a party by 'The Maw-stah.'

Two mice try to steal food on a long table guarded by a cat. Must be The Two Mousekeeters, that 1952 Tom and Jerry cartoon by Joe and Bill, right? Uh, no. It’s a 1958 Pixie and Dixie cartoon by Joe and Bill, who were never above borrowing anything from their days at MGM to get their TV cartoons made.

I never liked The Two Mouseketeers (Walt Disney must have, as he seems to have borrowed from it himself). The whole story concept struck me as a contrived attempt to do something, anything, different with the characters. After all, why else would Tom and Jerry be in the French Revolution anyway? And Nibbles—especially the version with the French girl voice—is a character who would have done everyone a favour by meeting up with Screwy Squirrel. So, from the start, this cartoon has something going for it because of what it isn’t.

A lot of early Hanna-Barbera cartoons start with a money-saving establishing pan over one of the pleasant and imaginative backgrounds by Monte or Art Lozzi or whoever. In this case, Joe and Bill save even more money as the camera slowly pans right over the banquet table—then pans back! There isn’t a lot of animation for the first 31 seconds, other than moving an arm on Jinks and the heads of the cat and the Charles Laughton-inspired butler as they run through a check-list of rich-folk food for a feast. The “et cetera, et cetera, et cetera” bit comes from the 1956 Yul Brynner movie The King and I (whether that bit of dialogue by the king was in the previous stage version or the book upon which they were based, I don’t know). Amos and Andy were famous for a “check and double-check” routine on their radio show; Fred and Barney did their own version on The Flintstones once.


Jinks is charged by the butler to guard the food. I can’t help but wonder if Mike Lah did this opening sequence, judging by the close, small eyes and thick ink-line around Jinks, not to mention the odd-shaped eye given to the butler. It looks a bit different from the rest of the cartoon.

Meanwhile, Jerry and Nibbles .. I mean Pixie and Dixie .. don white tie and tails and stroll to the table to first partake of an “ample sample” of “some of that gooey goop.” Then we get a little vaudeville-like routine.

Jinks: Who invited you?
Pixie (pointing to Dixie): He did.
Jinks: And who invited him?
Dixie (pointing to Pixie): He did.
Pixie: And who invited you?

That’s when Pixie smacks Jinks with the spoon. Here are the four drawings Muse uses to do it.



Chuck Jones once griped—I think it was in Chuck Amuck Redux—about how the Hanna-Barbera cartoons had little swirls in the air after characters ran away, so he parodied it with Witch Hazel having bobby pins in the air instead. Of course, that’s more of Chuck’s revisionist history because Witch Hazel preceded the H-B TV cartoons by a couple of years. But, Muse at least, liked to animate the swirls on twos and there were four drawings from start to finish. Here’s how he did it in this scene.




My favourite bit of the whole cartoon is next; Bugs Bunny did the same sort of thing. Pixie and Dixie rush into a broiled turkey and Jinks sticks a fork inside to stab them. “Ooch! Ouch!” yell the meeces. But when Jinks pulls out the fork, they’re still screaming in pain. Look at the take from Jinksie in 12 drawings. Sure, it’s not an outrageous Avery take (we are talking Ken Muse, after all), but it’s damned good for limited animation. You can tell what Jinks is thinking.







Jinks catches on, and KA-POW! Now the meece say “Ooch! Ouch!” for real as they leap around, crushed under their top hats. It’s such a goofy little sight gag, though I still don’t know how the fork suddenly became a shovel.



The shovel (né fork) somehow grows a lid to become a dust-pan. The hat-headed mice run past the same covered dish five times, into the dust-pan and are deposited into a garbage can out side a window. Muse gives Jinks a great ‘This is too easy catching you guys’ expression here.

The next gag has the party-crashers under the table drilling a hole. Pixie pokes his head through it (after testing with his hat on a stick to see that everything’s okay). But Jinks is ready and Pixie gets thunked on the head with a spoon. We get a little sight gag here. And a tame one. Instead of the lump growing into a funny shape, we get:
Pixie: Does it hurt, Dixie?
Dixie: Only when I put my hat on, Pixie.

Next is a little personality bit that you’d never get even a couple of years later in a Yakky Doodle cartoon, where the violence gag would simply be a drawing showing the aftermath of the pounding, explosion, etc. followed by a wisecrack. Here, the butler checks up on Jinks and the cat shows his contempt by sticking out his tongue.



Muse has the tongue wagging on ones in a short cycle of four drawings. The butler catches Jinks in the act and BAPP! (Below are consecutive frames)


Jinksie stretches up and down like an accordion and then the tongue zips back into his mouth. Below are the last four drawings.



The only problem is the tongue gag gets thrown away at the end because it happens too fast. Those last three drawings happen in four frames so there’s no emphasis of the tongue going back in the mouth, like there was when it flapped in the air for about a second. In a theatrical, there’d be lots of room for fun here. Tex Avery might have the tongue journey around the room first, halting to lick some soup from the bowl and then stopping to read an Esquire magazine (growing bulging eyes in the process) before going back in the mouth with a thunk. Bob Clampett might toss in a tongue sandwich pun. One can only guess what a pre-Code Dave Fleischer might have done. But in a TV cartoon like this, just slowing down the gag by maybe adding an extra drawing of an elongated tongue would have enhanced the end. Points for trying, though.

Jinks’ toadying up to the butler is ended by Pixie and Dixie flying through the window on a paper airplane, fork in hand, ready to spear some food. But a convenient candelabrum (which somehow got lit) snuffs out that idea, as the meece fly over the same tureen five times (then twice more after a reaction shot of Jinks), out the window and into a garbage can.

The mice don’t give up. They use a bow and arrow to hunt down an orange in a fruit bowl, as Pixie exclaims “Fire when ready, Gridley!” something said countless times in cartoons but only once by Admiral George Dewey during the Battle of Manila. Jinks observes and decides to use some “stragedy,” something else said countless times in cartoons but not once by Admiral Dewey.

Jinks rushes to the kitchen (with a stove obviously designed by Ed Benedict) and, in an overhead shot, ingeniously removes an apple core, replaces it with a firecracker, and puts the apple back on the table. Unfortunately, before Pixie and Dixie’s next arrow can be fired at it, the butler grabs the apple and stuffs it into his back pocket. The butler strolls toward Jinks, who explains he’s awaiting the apple to explode. The butler suddenly realises the situation and the camera tracks back for a better view of the explosion, part of which consists of some animation-saving alternating shots of a black and white screen for four seconds.


The butler and his trusty and accurate broom chase Jinks in silhouette, right to left, as the iris closes. The timing is different on one of the swats just to vary the scene a bit.

Most of the oft-heard Bill Loose-John Seely and Geordie Hormel cues are in this cartoon, but Jack Shaindlin’s Toboggan Run is surprisingly absent from any chase scenes. There are a couple of spots where the cutter has edited the same bed together to lengthen it.

0:00 - Pixie and Dixie main title instrumental theme (Hoyt Curtin).
0:26 - ZR 51 LIGHT ANIMATION (Hormel) – Butler and Jinks check menu list.
1:21 - TC 204A WISTFUL COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Pixie and Dixie get ready for party.
1:42 - ZR 52 LIGHT QUIET (Hormel) – Meece walk onto table; who-invited-you bit.
2:11 - ZR 48 FAST MOVEMENT (Hormel) – Jinks pokes inside turkey; smashes mice with shovel.
2:58 - TC 202 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Jinks drops mice into the garbage, Dixie drills hole in table.
3:51 - TC 300 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Jinks bops Dixie with spoon.
4:29 - TC 202 ECCENTRIC COMEDY (Loose-Seely) – Jinks bites off tongue when Butler bops him.
4:41 - ZR 47 LIGHT MOVEMENT (Hormel) – Mice fly into room, Jinks sets plane on fire.
5:26 - TC 301 ZANY WALTZ (Loose-Seely) – Pixie spears orange, Jinks puts firecracker in apple.
6:15 - L-81 COMEDY UNDERSCORE (Spencer Moore) – Butler grabs apple, explosion.
6:57 - Z 48 FAST MOVEMENT (Hormel) – Butler chases Jinks.
7:10 - Pixie and Dixie end title theme (Curtin).

Joe and Joe on the Radio

We in Yowp-Land are commercial-free, but would like to pass on word (for no commission, naturally) of a coming attraction on your computer, the very computer you’re on right now. See how easy this is already?

The first Joe in question is Joe Barbera, the second is Joe Bevilacqua (see right), and the rhyming Radio in question is Shokus Radio.

Joe Bev is beginning a show called ‘Cartoon Carnival’ which he’s describing as the first radio cartoon show ever. He’s graciously, and quite unexpectedly, sent me a copy of the first programme.

For anyone interested in the early Hanna-Barbera cartoons, Joe starts off with a real treat. It’s a piece he did for NPR in the U.S. on Joe Barbera, with portions of an interview from 1990.

You can hear Daws Butler giving a couple of tips on voice acting. It’s like Daws is still with us which, in a way, he is. And there’s a cute little bit with Daws doing a conversation between Huck and Yogi.

It’s not all Hanna-Barbera. There’s much more, including the always wonderful June Foray reprising her role as Rocky in a performance on stage (whoever is Bullwinkle does a terrific job). Mel Blanc fans (and who isn’t among them?) will enjoy his audition reel. There’s even a contest. And Joe briefly plays disc jockey as he spins ZR-51 Light Movement from the Hi-Q library (now, if he only had some Jack Shaindlin cues I’m trying to find!).

There’s a very easy pace to the show, punctuated by familiar sound effects utilised almost as transitions. The production is top-notch. It must have taken Joe forever to assemble the elements and do a mix. He’s probably thankful he’s not dealing with a mono reel-to-reel machine and a razor blade for editing, as aging radio producers did in their youth.

The programme will be on Shokus from 3 pm to 4pm (Pacific) Monday through Sunday so, if you’re like me and can’t listen during the week, you can tune in on weekends. There’ll be a fresh show every week.

Oh, yes, the link. Go here to check out Shokus Radio. And Joe’s site is here.

Snooper and Blabber — Puss N’ Booty

Produced and Directed by Joe Barbera and Bill Hanna.
Credits: Animation - Lew Marshall; Layout - Walter Clinton; Backgrounds - Bob Gentle; Story - Mike Maltese; Story Sketches - Dan Gordon; Titles - Art Goble; Production Supervision - Howard Hanson.
Cast: Snooper, Crumpet - Daws Butler; Blabber, Hives - Elliot Field.
Released: September 19, 1959.
Plot: Aloysius the cat hires Snooper and Blabber to capture an imposter working with a disgruntled Butler to rip off his million-dollar inheritance.

When Hanna and Barbera were asked to create another half-hour cartoon show following the success of Huckleberry Hound, they decided to spoof the three most popular genres on TV at the time—westerns, crime shows and clueless dad/smart kid sitcoms. And that’s how Quick Draw McGraw, Snooper and Blabber and Augie Doggie came into being.

Quick Draw is my favourite of all the Hanna-Barbera half-hour packages. The parody isn’t hard-hitting, even by 1959 standards, but it’s still fun. The characters are funny-stupid, not annoying-stupid. Daws Butler’s voices are stellar and he finds wonderful ways to comically butcher words. The stories are well-constructed and Mike Maltese comes up with enough odd and silly phrases to at least create a smile.

Puss N’ Booty is the first Snooper and Blabber. Snooper’s voice is Daws Butler’s take on Archie, the bartender on Duffy’s Tavern played by the show’s creator, Ed Gardner; its previous cartoon owner was Ziggy the Crow in the Huck series. Blab’s full name is Blabber Mouse, but he doesn’t really blabber during the whole run of the show, so it must merely be a pun. His sibilant voice was provided in the first four cartoons by radio afternoon host Elliot Field before Butler took it over.

The voice isn’t the only thing different here. H-B now had two series going, so they added to their staff. That included Maltese, who came over with Warren Foster from Warners to replace Charlie Shows. Even the music was different. While the Capitol Hi-Q and Langlois Filmusic (Jack Shaindlin) libraries were still providing the background cues, the new series generally avoided the composers used in the Huck show and larded up with material by the prolific English composer Phil Green. And the sound cutter used cues from the Hi-Q “S” (for ‘short’) series, so the music changes far more often.

Not all the familiar Snooper and Blabber elements are in place in this cartoon, such as a number of catch-phrases like “Stop in the name of the Private Eye (fill in the blank)!” And Snooper plays it fairly straight. Maltese decided to open Puss N’ Booty with a Dragnet-style narration and Butler’s voice is suitably monotone. That concept lasted one cartoon.

The cartoon opens with one of those great, long, late-‘50s fin-tailed cars racing down a city street. “My name’s Snooper. I’m a private eye. Cat-eye, that is.” After the necessary introduction, Snooper begins to tell the story of how they were staked out one night by the bridge waiting for a suspect, as the camera pans to the pair reading a newspaper.



Snooper sees by the Daily Bugle that a fortune was left to pet cat Aloysius and nothing to the Butler. Suddenly, the conversation is interrupted by sound of a black, late-‘50s fin-tailed car stopping on a bridge and tossing a package into the river. The two private eyes pull the sack from the water and out pops Aloysius.



Being a parody, Maltese sticks with the format of a detective film, which dictates we now flashback as the victim relates his tale of woe, which begins at the reading of the will.


Aloyius gets 100 acres of downtown Dallas and three golf clubs. Hives gets nothing. The viewer gets reaction shots of the butler with more action than the entire Touché Turtle series a couple of years later. I like Maltese’s variation on a Tex Avery’s jaw-drop take. Instead of the jaw, the huge teeth fall out, squash and stretch, and bounce back into Hives’ mouth.



The thick plottens (oh, sorry, Snooper used that one on a later cartoon) as we flash to a week later when Aloysius comes face-to-face with a phoney version of himself. That’s when Hives stuffs him into the bag and we arrive back at the present.








Snooper suggests the services of a professional snooper (“And Blabbermouse,” helpfully adds Blab) and Aloysius offers to pay $150,000. Apparently, our heroes aren’t used to anyone paying the “usual, small, exorbitant fee” because they faint.

It doesn’t take much of a private eye (which is fortunate, because Snooper isn’t much of one), to look through the window and see that Hives has enlisted his crony Crumpet to pretend to be Aloysius to collect a $1,000,000 inheritance.



“First the Butler, then Crumpet.” That’s Snooper’s plan to capture the bad guys, using Aloysius as bait to induce them into chasing him around the mansion. But that booby Blab boobs things. First the ironing board, then the lamp.



But finally a French door and a shovel manage to stop the crooks.



Or does it? Hives disposes of the fake Aloysius with the off-screen police, but it turns out to be the real one instead. Which means the real one had been chasing the fake one, but the fake one knew Snooper’s name when he shouldn’t and the real one didn’t yell out the other was an imposter and .. oh, you’re not supposed to think about stuff like that in a cartoon.

Whether Lew Marshall really did work on this cartoon is open to debate, but I like the end with the little side-step escape move Snooper and Blabber pull before a neat silhouette running sequence, bullets whizzing by, with Bob Gentle painting some faint buildings in the background. If Warner Home Video would get off its and release these cartoons, you could see this far better than on these murky screen captures from a TV recording.



“Leave us face it, folks,” Snooper remarks, borrowing from Archie’s lexicon, “the good guys don’t always win.”

The music selection goes from great to odd in this one. Jack Shaindlin orchestrated a bunch of detective music, for some ‘B’ picture or use by a ‘B’ studio I’m guessing. It works really well. Excitement Under Dialogue is perfect for when the black Chrysler-esque four-door appears on the scene. Even Shaindlin’s circus-like music used during the running sequences somehow fits. But then it’s suddenly cut off and we hear some piece from Phil Green’s Kiddie Comedy Suite. It’s like the sound track can’t make up its mind what mood it wants to set. Jumping back and forth doesn’t work. Later cartoons used more Green than Shaindlin and sound all right, but for this cartoon a score of Shaindlin crime music (and there was lots never heard in cartoons) would have been really effective. The ersatz film noir music enhances the parody aspect.

Just a note about the Green cue names. The ‘GR’ names come from the original EMI Photoplay 45s. Capitol leased the cues for the Hi-Q library and gave them different names and ‘PG’ designations. I don’t have the EMI discs for some of the cues, so I’ve been forced to use the Hi-Q names. My thanks to Earl Kress for identifying Six Day Bicylce Race, one of a number of Shaindlin cues in this one.

0:00 - SNOOPER AND BLABBER MAIN TITLE (Hoyt Curtin)
0:25 - GR-333 BUSTLING BRIDGE (Green) - Snooper & Blabber drive.
0:49 - GR-348 EARLY MORNING (Green) - S & B read newspaper story.
1:11 - EXCITEMENT UNDER DIALOGUE (Shaindlin) - Bag retrieved from river.
1:40 - GR 81 FRED KARNO'S ARMY BRIDGE No 1 (Green) - Aloysius pops out of bag.
1:50 - GR 254 THE ARTFUL DODGER BRIDGE No 1 (Green) - Aloysius says Butler did it.
2:01 - COMEDY SUSPENSE (Shaindlin) - Will is read.
2:41 - TC-216 TENSION (Joe Cacciola) - Aloysius meets phoney; Hives puts him in bag.
3:13 - GR 93 DRESSED TO KILL (Green) - Aloysius offers $150,000.
3:38 - COMEDY SUSPENSE (Shaindlin) - Hives and Crumpet laugh, Aloysius enters.
4:30 - LFU 117-3 MAD RUSH No 3 (Shaindlin) - Aloysius runs, S & B get ironing board ready.
4:51 - SIX DAY BICYCLE RACE (Shaindlin) - Blabber hits Snooper, Aloysius yells help.
5:21 - GR 74 POPCORN (Green) - S & B plot to trip Hives and Crumpet.
5:33 - SIX DAY BICYCLE RACE (Shaindlin) - Snooper bashed with lamp.
5:47 - SIX DAY BICYCLE RACE (Shaindlin) - Door closed on Hives.
6:06 - vaudeville type cue (Shaindlin) - Fake Aloysius bashed with shovel.
6:18 - GR 87 SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD (Green) - Hives removes fake Aloysius, discover fake one wasn't fake.
7:02 - GR 77 CUSTARD PIE CAPERS (Green) - S & B run away.
7:10 - SNOOPER AND BLABBER END TITLE (Curtin)

Money, Disney and Hokey Wolf

“When did Hokey Wolf debut?”

It’s such a simple question, you’d think there would be a simple answer. Ah, but the pesky internet gets in the way.

It seems even news agencies rush to Wikipedia for a quick-and-dirty way to get information when they need it, say when a star dies. And there’s no doubt that people who have knowledge of arcane subjects have gone there to enumerate the definitive story on them where none seems to exist elsewhere. But the problem is, of course, anyone can post anything there, with not so much as a footnote to reveal if the information came from a respected journal or as a joke developed after a night of too many Mai-Tais.

And so, let’s toddle off to Wiki-land to get an answer to our question about Phil Silvers in wolf’s clothing.

Wiki has a painstakingly-prepared episode list for the Huck and Yogi shows by someone who must have some knowledge of the subject. It starts:

Hokey Wolf is a Hanna-Barbera cartoon that appeared on The Huckleberry Hound Show in 1960, filling the slot left by Yogi Bear.

And it goes on to reveal the first Hokey episode, “Tricks and Treats,” debuted on September 11, 1960.

The source is apparently The Big Cartoon Database, which is also assembled by well-meaning and presumably well-informed fans.

There’s just one problem. Yogi Bear was still on the Huck show until he got his own show. In 1961. Hokey Wolf was still on someone’s storyboard in 1960.

This brings us to a little newspaper column from the Newspaper Enterprise Association, a venerable syndication service. If you’re not interested in Hokey Wolf, and as a character he doesn’t do a lot for me, you may be interested in reading how getting laid off at MGM was the best thing that ever happened to Joe and Bill’s accountants. This is a portion of an un-bylined article dated Jan. 31, 1961:

Hanna Tops Disney
NEW YORK (NEA) Joe Barbera, the second half of the Hanna-Barbera combine which produces the Flintstones, Quick-Draw McGraw, Huckleberry Hound, etc., has uncovered a gold mine. . .he says he and his partner will do a $7 million film business this year. . . “But that doesn't count merchandising—toys and things—and that should do better than $20 million. And that's wholesale.”
Barbera says there now are more than 87 items bearing the names of the various H-B characters. . .everything from bath salts to rugs. . . “We are now outselling Disney, is his prime, by four to one.”
And there probably will be a better year ahead. . .Barbera says they’ve decided to give Yogi Bear, one the characters on the Huckleberry Hound show, his own program. . .this will introduce new characters, so pretty soon you'll be meeting such actors as Hokey Wolf and Dingaling (two wolves), Snagglepuss (a mountain lion) and Yakky Doodle (a duck).
The thing keeps mushrooming . . .Barbera revealed plans for a Yogi Bear feature film. . . and an amusement park, a la Disneyland and Freedomland, named after Yogi's haunt, Jelleystone [sic] National Park. . .this will probably be built near Phoenix, Ariz.
The H-B studio can turn out so many products (five new half-hours a week) because “the old cartooning style is out.” . . . “It isn’t necessary to have thousands of drawings, with flowers and leaves rustling in the breeze. The story and character are the things we concentrate on.”

So let us leave Joe to count his money and Disney to create tween musical comedies and return to Mr. Wolf. If he hadn’t aired by the time this article made it into print, just when did he first appear on the screen?

Granted, dates in syndication back then might vary by a few days, but the L.A. Times of March 14, 1961 states:

Huckleberry Hound, KTTV. (11), 7 p.m.. Professor Huck is called upon by the nation’s leaders to save mankind from an Idaho potato which has not only eyes, but a brain as well. This show also brings the debut of a new personality, Hokey Wolf, and his little pal, Ding A Ling.

A very unscientific check of newspapers on the net can find Hokey was spotted on channels in several cities but none before the story mentioned above. In fact, the previous week’s Times lists Bare Face Bear with Yogi as being on the Huck show on March 7th. So, Yowp-pedia™ will bow to the Times and declare Hokey first appeared on the week starting Monday, March 13, 1961.

For the record, the Times occasionally lists plots of a few other episodes (generally, it only gave a plot for the Huck segment):

Lamb-basted Wolf, April 9, 1961
Castle Hassle, April 16, 1961
Pick a Chick, April 23, 1961
Bean Pod’ners, April 30, 1961
Booty in the Bounty, June 6, 1961
Hokey Dokey, July 9, 1961 (possibly a repeat).

Of course, judging by the NEA column, the real question should be “Where can I get some of those Hokey Wolf bath salts?”