Quick Draw McGraw — El Kabong

Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Credits: Animation – Lew Marshall; Layout – Walt Clinton; Backgrounds – Dick Thomas; Story – Mike Maltese; Story Direction – Alex Lovy; Titles – Art Goble; Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Cast: Narrator, Gold Tooth Man, ‘Pay-Up’ Henchman, Don Chilada – Don Messick, Quick Draw/El Kabong, Baba Looey, ’50 Pesos’ Henchman – Daws Butler.
First Aired: November 9, 1959 (Los Angeles).
Plot: Quick Draw McGraw, as his alter ego El Kabong, battles the oppressor, Don Chilada, who has stolen the people’s gold.

In ‘Sunset Boulevard’, Norma Desmond rather haughtily informed Joe Gillis “It’s the pictures that got small,” declaiming how the silent films she appeared in were far superior to the talking pictures of the 1950s.

Despite the fact silents were no longer being made, they still had influence on film. Especially cartoons. That’s worthy of an essay on its own. But the influence reached into the late 1950s and the brain of Mike Maltese. And while Norma Desmond “appeared” in the period drama ‘Salome,’ Maltese was interested in a slightly different kind of silent film, as he told New York Herald-Tribune columnist John Crosby:

“...the original ‘Mark of Zorro’ with Douglas Fairbanks with its chases and its humor depended very much on the sort of action and pace cartoons use now. I’m going to draw Quick Draw as Zorro one day.”

And he did. Maltese pulled out almost every possible cliché used by Fairbanks and his successors, added a few lines that would have been at home in bad B-movies and added his own brand of silliness to come up with four cartoons in the first season of the Quick Draw show, three more the following year, and three (out of six cartoons) in the final season. In the process, he invented an alter ego that, arguably, is more popular than Quick Draw himself. After all, Quick Draw isn’t a band or a “speedy, yet forgiving, SAX-stylee HTML parser.” But El Kabong is.

Of course, Zorro was familiar thanks to the Disney TV series with Guy Williams which debuted in 1957 and was still on the air when El Kabong made his debut.

We get a bonus in the debut of El Kabong. Maltese has written the opening of the cartoon in rhyme, adding gags along the way to show the Zorro wannabe is just as much as a stupid klutz as he is when he’s not in his disguise. The cartoon opens with a left-to-right pan over books. Cue the narrator:


Of all the heroes in legend and song
There’s none so brave as El Kabong.


He appears when most needed,
He rights the wrongs,


Then he’s gone like a flash.
That’s El Kabong!


Now in old California, the story is told
How the folks of El Pueblo lost all of their gold.
‘Twas the cruel Don Chilada who took their last cent.
Why, even the termites had to pay rent!


No one knew what to do, how to stop Don Chilada
When out of the blue came a soft serenad-a.

That’s Quick Draw’s cue to come in strumming one note on a guitar and wailing off-key. One of Chilada’s goons demands a tax for singing in the name of “Don Chilada, the Oppressor.” “You mean like a pants oppressor?” asks Quick Draw. One of the great things about Quick Draw is you can give him the corniest dialogue and the worst puns and it’s funny because it fits his character. Maltese then gives him a line that sounds like it came out a third-rate Superman short: “I’ve got nothing but big bills. Mind if I make a little change first?” And with that, Quick Draw ducks behind a rock and emerges as El Kabong. He has to explain to the henchman who he is.



Henchman: Tell me, Kabong. What do you use—a sword? A whip? A shillelagh?
Kabong: I use a GEE-tar. Kabong!

And with that, we get the patented clobber with an out-of-tune guitar and accompanying sound effect that is recognisable to just about anyone.


The henchmen report back to Don Chilada, who is sceptical there is an El Kabong. The trusty guitar extended through a window provides some proof.



So now, it’s a battle of wits throughout the rest of the cartoon as El Kabong tries to get Don Chilada’s gold. We get a bunch of sight gags. Kabong uses a rope to “swoop down on him like an angry eagle.” Of course, the rope isn’t seem to be tied to anything. It’s simple logic. Since Doug Fairbanks was Zorro and used a rope to get around, then it must follow that El Kabong should, too. Case closed.

Chilada casually laces up a boxing glove and sticks his fist out the window. You can guess what happens. Kabong tries again, gliding in on his cape. But Chilada presses a button on his balony, decorative steel doors close and the balcony rises out of the scene like an elevator as just Kabong arrives.



Next Quick Draws poses as “a poor, but honest potter” to get inside the Chilada hacienda. Once he does, he ducks behind a screen for a costume change and then emerges, demanding Chilada guess who he is. “A ballet dancer,” replies the bad guy. And he’s right. It’s a gag Maltese used with Bugs Bunny in Super Rabbit (1944) and would use again in future episodes. Quick Draw puts his body into the take.



Another familiar gag: Chilada offers El Kabong a choice of swords. Kabong picks one, but Chilada tells him to take the other one. It’s, naturally, a sawed-off version. A stab in the butt by Chilada sends Kabong flying over to the next gag, a convenient sword-selling machine which really has no logical reason for existing, which makes it funny.



First, the sword rolls up. Then El Kabong blows into it and it unrolls like those paper horns at New Year’s Eve parties. Then Kabong’s sword is split down the middle (with an appropriate the two swords tie up in a knot, with an appropriate cloth-ripping noise. Then the swords tie up in knots, which gives Chilada the physically-impossible opportunity to lift Kabong back and forth over his head (which we don’t actually see) and crash him to the floor, yelling “Kabong!” Time for a catch-phrase from Quick Draw: “Hollld on thar! I’ll do the kabongin’ around here. And don’t-you-for-get-it!” Maltese packs this all into about 40 seconds; it’d sometimes take Charlie Shows about half a cartoon to roll out this many gags.



Now comes the big sword-fight climax. Naturally, it takes place up and down a staircase as you’d find in The Three Musketeers (1922), Robin Hood (1938) The Adventures of Don Juan (1948) and who knows how many more. And like in films such as The Mark of Zorro (1940), the two combatants exchange banter. In El Kabong’s case, an earlier gag pops up: “I’ll teach you to o-ppress and dry-clean the people.” And parodying the polite verbal repartee where one swordsman compliments the other, there’s friendly banter. “Say,” remarks Kabong, “Quite a place you got here.” Chilada reveals he’s “adding a swimming pool next summer.” A staircase sword-fight guarantees a Fairbanks-style slide down a banister. “Lucky for me, I was a kid once,” Kabong tells us. “And lucky for me, I am a villain,” replies Chilada with his sword awaiting at the bottom of the banister with the expected result. The impact sends Kabong crashing out an upper storey window, into a fountain, ending with an old cartoon water-out-of-the-body gag (Maltese carries it to a ridiculous degree with water coming out of the top of Kabong’s head for no reason except to be silly).



The evil Chilada thinks he’s won because he has El Kabong’s “kabonger.” But he didn’t count on an armed Baba Looey being inside it, who spouts the mandatory cliché “Your oppressing days are over.”

Our narrator returns to complete his verse:

Today the town bell rings loud and long
Recalling the deeds of El Kabong.




The bell turns out to be El Kabong’s guitar. Someone will have to let me know if this is a send-up of final shot of a Zorro movie; it sure seems like it.

Lots of Jack Shaindlin cues here, but I don’t have names for some of them. And I haven’t any idea if the public domain songs were recorded by Hoyt Curtin or came from the Hi-Q “X” Series, where they parked they’re speciality music.

0:00 - Quick Draw sub main title theme (Curtin).
0:06 - O Susannah (trad.) – El Kabong helps robbing victim, smoker, kid.
0:38 - western string music (?) – Shot of Don Chilada, Quick Draw stolls into scene.
1:05 - guitar strumming (Curtin) – Quick Draw sings off-key.
1:15 - CRAZY GOOF (Shaindlin) – Bandit demands 50 pesos, Quick Draw changes into El Kabong.
1:53 - La Cucaracha (trad.) – El Kabong banters with bandit; hits him with guitar.
2:28 - GR-96 BY JIMINY! IT’S JUMBO (Green) – Don Chilada with henchmen, El Kabong in tree.
3:07 - SIX DAY BICYCLE RACE (Shaindlin) – El Kabong swoops into boxer’s glove, wall where balcony was.
3:39 - CRAZY GOOF (Shaindlin) – Quick Draw pretends to be potter, dresses as ballerina, threatens to kabong Chilada.
4:27 - GR-99 THE DIDDLECOMB HUNT (Green) – “Choose your weapons,” El Kabong buys sword.
5:00 - tick tock/flute music (Shaindlin) – sword gags, Chilada kabongs Kabong.
5:44 - SIX DAY BICYCLE RACE (Shaindlin) – Kabong and Chilada on stairs, Kabong stabbed, flies out window, lands in fountain.
6:20 - medium circus march (Shaindlin) – Baba Looey arrests Chilada, pan shot.
6:42 - unknown (Shaindlin) – Bell substitutes for guitar.
6:51 - Quick Draw sub end title music (Curtin)

Coming Soon to the Yowp Blog...

Okay, we’ll get to “Coming Soon” in a moment. But first...

The blog suddenly got a stream of hits today and what’s happened is Mark Evanier.

Apparently, Mark has run out of tales of wild cats invading his porch/heart, brands of tomato soup and telling us where to find analysis of some American politician writing on her hand to turn his attention to some newspaper clippings here about Morey Amsterdam and Pat Carroll being hired—and fired—as the voices of George and Jane Jetson. It’s nice of Mark to link here; he’s been helpful over the years in conversations on Usenet, in forums and e-mail answering a variety of arcane questions about Hanna-Barbera cartoons.

This has brought readers to the blog as well as some helpful e-mails.

Bill Mullins brought a little more to the above story, as he managed to find a link I couldn’t—to the AP story in the Oxnard Press-Courier, dated Jan. 25, 1965:

TV firm sued
LOS ANGELES (AP)—Comedian Morey Amsterdam and actress Pat Carroll are seeking $12,000 each from Hanna-Barbera Productions, charging the firm signed them to provide the voices for an animated television show called “The Jetsons”—but used their services only once, not 24 times as called for in their contracts.
The case went to trial Tuesday, Amsterdam and Miss Carroll said their contracts called for them to get $500 each for each of the shows, planned for the 1962-63 season.

Today, $12,000 probably wouldn’t cover legal fees.

Regarding the Doug Young birthday post, Greg Ehrbar has lent some assistance about Doug’s past, via the folks at Shokus Internet Radio. I’ll make some notes when I get a chance. Doug revealed in the interview with Stu Shokus he had been in the Army in World War Two, and then caught the tail end of the Golden Days of Radio. A quick quote about Hanna Barbera:

I was driving a truck, you know, and ran into him [Daws Butler] at a book store. I had a little delay. He said “What are you doing?” I told him. He says “Forget it.” Come to my place. We’re going to make a tape, take you out to H-B and that’s it.

Doug revealed he and Peter Leeds auditioned for Joe Barbera. Leeds, of course, was one of a number of itinerate radio actors and one of Stan Freberg’s regulars. He made it into one Quick Draw McGraw cartoon—Scat, Scout,Scat—as a narrator. That was it. Doug’s career was considerably longer.

Anyway, these “Coming Soon” posts are only temporary. I’ll add the information to the appropriate posts. In the meantime, this post will be replaced on the weekend with a review of the first adventure of Quick Draw as that masked freedom fighter and guitar strummer, El Kabong. As for the rope, it’s simple logic. Zorro swung from a rope. So El Kabong does, too. That’s all you need to know.

Anyway, coming soon.. I promise...

• A look at Hanna-Barbera’s first writer, Charlie Shows.
• Some biographic notes and cartoon music from Jack Shaindlin. I’m still trying to identify a bunch of Shaindlin music; probably another eight cues.
• Ed and Ed team up in a Yogi Bear cartoon.
• Doggie Daddy takes on a con artist heckler who does impressions.

Feel free to send me an Email if you have comments about the blog. And click on the Facebook link if you’d like to be added. There isn’t a lot of traffic and it’s not there to spam your account or as an advertising vehicle. If you want to talk about the old cartoons there, that’s great.

Happy Birthday, Dear Old Dad

How can anyone not love Jimmy Durante? Listen to his old radio shows. He’s enthusiastic, a little hammy and laughs at himself. He created catchphrases people never got tired of. How many? “I got a million of ‘em!” he might say. Kicking the English language around came naturally; it didn’t need to be scripted. And just about anyone can do an impression of him. No one knew that better than a couple of cartoons studios.

Terrytoons had a Durante sound-alike in Sourpuss. Wally Maher mimicked him as the title character in Tex Avery’s Jerky Turkey (1945) at MGM (thanks to Keith for the likely ID). And when Hanna and Barbera’s Spike the dog got a voice change in the 1950s, he started speaking in a Durante style provided by Daws Butler.

A few years later when Joe and Bill opened their own studio, they borrowed ideas from themselves, modifying the Durante-sounding dad with a young pup into the Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy segment of the Quick Draw McGraw Show in 1959. And picked to play Dear Old Dad was radio actor-announcer Doug Young.

And with that elongated introduction, we wish Doug a belated happy birthday.


On-line sources say he was born February 10, 1931 and therefore turned 79 on Wednesday, but you have to pardon my scepticism. Doug was the fill-in announcer and provided character voices on a low-budget comedy show called The Anderson Family. Radio listings show KECA in Los Angeles was airing it in October 1946. That would make Doug 15 years old. On top of that, the U.S. Army Enlistment records show an actor named Douglas H. Young joining the U.S Army in 1941 and who was born in 1919. That sounds a little closer to me. If February 10th is correct, Doug would be 91.

You can listen for yourself and see if you think a 15-year-old is the announcer. Click here for show No. 8 in the series. Doug also plays an out-for-himself lawyer at the 20:10 mark. (Yowp warning: any humour on this show is purely accidental, despite the presence of Walter Tetley. Just listen to Doug and skip the rest).

One thing you’ll notice about Doug is he doesn’t have the big “radio voice” that was almost mandatory for announcers in the ‘40s. He’s pretty natural with a relaxed sound. And that’s the same sort of characteristic he brought to Hanna-Barbera when he was handed the Doggie Daddy role. Daddy has a lot of Durante’s cadence, inflections and catch-phrases, but Doug gives him a warm, friendly sound (the real Durante was a little hammier on the radio) that leaves you with the impression Daddy really does care about Augie, no matter how exacerbating his son is at times.

Old time radio histories can be sketchy, but it appears Doug spent his radio career (Andersons aside) doing incidental work. He’s not listed at all in John Dunning’s Encyclopedia or Buxton and Owen’s The Big Broadcast. Cartoon writer-producer Mark Evanier reveals Young met Daws Butler while voicing radio commercials, and when the time came to cast Doggie Daddy, Daws recommended Doug. Daws had been asked by Joe Barbera to reprise his Spike voice, but he was worried about the effect on his throat, especially after doubling or tripling in the same cartoon. So, when the 1959 TV season started, the three main cartoon voices at Hanna-Barbera were Daws Butler, Don Messick and Doug Young.

Doug’s next main role was Ding-a-ling, the dedicated sidekick of Hokey Wolf in the revampedHuckleberry Hound Show starting in March 1961. He played the first-named Goofy Guard in the ‘Yippee, Yappee and Yahooey’ portion of The Peter Potamus Show (1964). But mainly, he served as a utility player on a number of series, including providing his own voice in the first episode of Jonny Quest (1964). He dusted off a Jimmy Cagney impression for Bigelow Mouse in several Augie Doggie and Snagglepuss cartoons and even transplanted his Durante voice into the Loopy De Loop cartoon Horse Shoo (1965) and as Police Chief Rockschnozzle (joking, as Durante does, about his large nose) in the Dripper’ episode of The Flintstones.

I wish I could give you some biographical information about Doug, but there isn’t really much out there. The one newspaper reference I could find quoting him is already on this blog—Doug was fired from a radio job for doing an impression of the humourless station manager. He’s not a star, at least you don’t think of him when you think of the top cartoon voices of all time, so he wasn’t asked to do many interviews. He did appear on Stu Shostak’s very interesting internet radio station a couple of years ago and talked about his career. (Yowp update: read about the interview here.

What is clear is that Doug’s career at Hanna-Barbera was prolific but relatively short. It appears his last series was the syndicated Laurel and Hardy. Doug did incidental voices and got to work with Paul Frees. Doug went through the same experience with Paul at recording sessions that June Foray talks about in Keith Scott’s book “The Moose That Roared.” In another book, Tim Lawson’s “The Magic Behind The Voices: A Who’s Who of Cartoon Voice Actors”, Doug describes Frees as:

what we in the business call ‘The Mickey Rooney Syndrome.’ In other words, the guy was always on, but very funny. Finally, the director would have to say, “Paul, come on, shape up. We've got work to do.” He had to get really mean, because Paul just didn't want to stop.

By the time H-B’s Wacky Races hit the air in 1968, Doug was gone. He moved to Seattle where he did freelance work and appeared in radio dramas produced by well-known Pacific Northwest broadcaster Jim French (who was ubiquitous on one automated radio station a number of years ago). We understand, Doug is still enjoying life in the Puget Sound area.

So, as Augie might say every Febru-rarary 10th: “Many happy returns on this, your natal day.” A million of ‘em.

Snooper and Blabber — Bear-ly Able

Produced and Directed by Joe Barbera and Bill Hanna.
Credits: Animation – Brad Case, Layout – Paul Sommer, Backgrounds – Dick Thomas, Story – Mike Maltese, Story Director – Alex Lovy, Titles – Art Goble, Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Cast: Snooper, Blabber, Wolf – Daws Butler; Bertram Bear, Junior Bear – Don Messick; Gladys Bear – Jean Vander Pyl. (BCDB credits)
Released: November 20, 1960 (BCDB).
Production: J-114, shot August 18, 1960.
Plot: Snooper and Blabber investigate who stole the Three Bears’ porridge and come across the wolf from Little Red Riding Hood.

Mike Maltese was a great cartoon writer. Readers to this blog don’t need to be convinced of that. But this cartoon shows why he was so great when he was at his best.

A parody of TV and B-movie detectives is a funny idea on its own. So is a parody of fairy tales. But in this cartoon, Maltese marries both. And he isn’t satisfied with that. He tosses in those twists of phrases like he used to chuck into Chuck Jones cartoons at Warners. And he isn’t satisfied with that. He takes the whole ‘Happy TV Family’ concept of the 1950s and turns it around with a nagging wife and a pitying, intellectual kid. So we’ve got several different spoofs going on simultaneously. Maltese knew if you pile humour onto humour, you get bigger humour.

Not only that, if the animation and layouts are really lacklustre, like they are in this cartoon, then you’d better have a good story and some clever dialogue. This cartoon really depends on Maltese and, for the most part, he comes through.

If you’re going to rely on dialogue-based humour, then you’d better have people that can pull it off well. And this cartoon does. Jean Vander Pyl is especially good in this one; she has the perfect tone and delivery for the badgering Mama Bear who endlessly reminds her husband he ignores her even though she’s smarter than he is.

Maltese tried out the dysfunctional bear family in A Prince of A Fella’ but he puts them at the centre of the plot of this cartoon. Before we get to bears, the cartoon opens with some gag dialogue in Snooper’s office, as Blab gets Detective Lesson No. 427 on clues as Snoop points to pictures on an easel. The best part of this routine is the last gag and shows you why Maltese is great. One picture is entirely black. Blab knows what it is. “It’s a black bear eating a liquorice stick in a forest at midnight.” “Wrong again,” informs Snooper, “It’s merely a black sheet of paper.” Other writers would have reversed the lines and made the silly-sounding picture the gag. Maltese turns it around and his twist is unexpected and funnier. That’s smart writing.



Despite Blab’s less-than-stellar answers “never-the-nonetheless” results in Snooper presenting him with his first magnifying glass. But there’s no glass in it. “Anybody who can’t swim, don’t deserve water in the pool,” Snoop informs him. “You know,” Blab remarks to the camera, “That makes a lot of sense to me.” And Maltese’s twist on logic strikes again.

The dialogue’s interrupted by the ringing phone. “Snooper Detective Agency. No case is too tough if the fee is enough,” Snoop answers. And he accepts the case. Maltese tosses in another one of his Dragnet-style criminal code numbers as Blab tries a running gag: “A 903? Somebody stole their liquorice stick at midnight? Somebody stole their black piece of paper?” No, Blab, it’s a porridge theft. Maltese has dumped Snooper and Blabber in the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

The next shot is of the bear family waiting outside their suburban home. For some reason, Hanna-Barbera mama animals wear a hat with a daisy in it. Here’s the dialogue:

Papa – Here come the detectives, Gladys.
Mama – That’s great! (Papa looks surprised) Spend money on private eyes. Don’t buy a key for the house, oh, no!
Papa – Now don’t start in, Gladys.
Junior – Please, dear parents. At least let us attempt to show family unity in the presence of strangers.
Papa – Junior’s right. Later, after they’re gone (looks angrily at mama) we’ll sit down and have a heart-to-heart, knock-down, drag-out argument about it, okay?

The capper comes when Don Messick (as Junior) throws in a Ronald Colman impression: “Ah, if I were king, what peace and quiet I would bring!”

Snooper prefaces his questioning by showing off his “genuine, stimulated gold badge with lettuce leaf clusters.” Papa Bear starts in on his story:

Papa – Well, somebody broke in while we were...
Mama – (interrupting) They didn’t break in. They walked in. The door was wide open! “Lock the door, Bertram,” I said.
Snooper – Yes, m’am.
Mama – “What’s to steal,” he says. “Admit you lost the key,” I says. “We never had a key,” he says.
Snooper – Yes, m’am. What time was this, sir?
Papa – Look, if I said it was 9 o’clock, she’d say it was two minutes after nine.
Snooper – What time was it, yes m’am? I mean ‘m’am’?
Mama – It was two minutes after nine.

“Little Ragged-muffin” Junior suggests everyone go inside where the crime happened (Maltese pulls off a groaner here. Snooper asks what grade he’s in and he responds that next term he hopes to join the California Bears). Once inside, there’s more nagging dialogue when Blab spots a clue on the floor—a lock of golden hair.

We cut to Junior’s bed where, like in A Prince of A Fella’, Maltese mashes his fairy tales by inserting a Bilko-sounding wolf in the story. He’s disguised in a blonde wig and on the lam from the grandma in the Little Red Riding Hood story. Snooper and Blabber enter the room. “Ee, good gads! She photographs better in the book,” Snoop remarks, who tells ‘Goldilocks’ she’s under arrest as “a porridge filcherer.” The wolf hams it up, begging not to be arrested, but the wig falls off. “It’s a wolf in she’s clothing,” Snoop puns.

The detectives chase after the wolf, who’s told to “Stop in the name of the Private Eye Downtown Office.” Instead, the wolf stops Snooper with a well-timed door close. At least temporarily. Snoop runs after him again, only to be tripped by the wolf, who plops the wig on top of him. Blab skids into the scene and looks across the room at the prone Snooper. “It’s the wolf! That wig don’t fool me!” he exclaims as he bashes him with a nearby cane, telling the wolf next to him “Snoop is sure going to be proud of the way I caught you, huh?” Blabber realises his mistake. The angry Snooper drops the wig on the mouse’s head and chases him with the cane out of the house and down the street, calling him a “little squeak-pip.”

Unfortunately, Maltese’s ending is weak and unsatisfying. Blabber simply turns to the camera as he’s running and states the obvious: “I don’t know why, but I always end up saying ‘I’m sorry, Snoop.’” and smiles as the iris closes. It’s not exactly topper dialogue. And it’s like Hanna-Barbara passed a law in the ‘60s that its cartoons could have only one of two clichéd endings: either someone was being chased, or everyone laughed at something (even Jonny Quest suffered from HB-laughing-itis).

Despite that, it’s a good thing Maltese was around because, aside from him and voice acting, this cartoon doesn’t have much going for it. In fact, it has all the negatives associated with the decline of Hanna-Barbera cartoons. The animation is dull with no exaggeration and consists mostly of head bobs and a few cycles (kind of like Lew Marshall). In Switch Witch, Snooper answers the phone in a shot with his feet on the desk. Here, the layout has him solo, from the waist up in front of an almost plain background. It’s hard to tell from the washed-out screen caps, but to break up the monotony of the background colour, there is a differently-shaded, tilted square. You can find that effect in a bunch of H-B cartoons of that era. The character designs are reused. The fact the cartoon is funny as it is demonstrates why Maltese was such a great writer.

Most of the music is pretty familiar stuff by Phil Green but there’s one spot where a dissonant piano chord is sounded to halt the action. It’s the same kind of effect Hoyt Curtin used in The Flintstones when Fred would ignore someone and yammer until he realised what had been said to him and suddenly stopped. Curtin was writing some underscore stuff for other cartoons at this point and it may have been borrowed from him.

One music bed used periodically in H-B cartoons pops up when the wolf first appears. The first bar used in most cartoons starts with a C, goes up an octave and settles back at F-sharp. It doesn’t sound like anything out of the Hi-Q library. Jack Shaindlin provides the music that reminds me of happy, scurrying squirrels but I don’t have the name for it.

Sorry I don’t links to a couple of these. Reader Rick G. has pointed out several other non-Shaindlin pieces in my collection I haven’t linked to as well, so I’ll get around to it.

0:00 - Snooper and Blabber Main Title (Curtin).
0:15 - GR-74 POPCORN (Green) – Snooper teaches Blabber how to spot clues.
1:38 - GR-453 THE ARTFUL DODGER (Green) – Snoop answers phone.
2:12 - jaunty bassoon and skippy strings (Shaindlin) – Bears argue.
2:48 - GR-93 DRESSED TO KILL (Green) – Snooper questions bears.
3:41 - GR-87 SKELETON IN THE CUPBOARD (Green) – Bears re-enact crime, Blab finds blonde hair.
4:25 - C-C-F# light underscore (?) – Wolf talks to camera, pretends to be asleep.
4:49 - GR-257 BEDTIME STORY (Green) – Wolf snores, wakes up.
5:01 - Piano Chord/Tuba effect (Curtin?) – Wolf goes “eek!”
5:04 - PG-161G LIGHT COMEDY (Green) – Snooper arrests wolf.
5:16 - Sad trombone music (?) – Wolf gives sob story, wig falls off.
5:22 - GR-98 BY JIMINY! IT’S JUMBO Bridge No 2 (Green) – Snooper realises Goldilocks is a wolf.
5:31 - SIX DAY BICYCLE RACE (Shaindlin) – Wolf runs away, slams door in Snooper.
5:44 - HIDE AND SEEK (Bluestone-Cadkin) – Blabber pulls doorknob out of Snoop’s mouth.
6:04 - GR-77 CUSTARD PIE CAPERS (Green) – Wolf trips Snooper, Blab canes Snoop, Snoop chases Blab.
7:00 - Snooper and Blabber End Title (Curtin).

The Case of the Missing Word at Hanna-Barbera

John Kricfalusi has put together a rant an essay on the indescribably bad Hanna-Barbera cartoons of the 1980s here. And, coincidentally, reader Adel Khan wrote me on Facebook to ask me my opinion of a Loopy de Loop cartoon.

Some of the problems with both are the same. And it may have stemmed from the personalities of Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera themselves.

It could be said that Joe and Bill abhorred one word—originality.

Yes, that’s even though they were responsible for some of the most loved—and infamous—characters in television animation.

It really started when their theatrical career took off because of two characters. The idea of ‘mouse vs. cat’ wasn’t original. Paul Terry had used it for years. And once Joe and Bill had their two characters—whose names came right out a 1930s Van Beuren B-Grade studio series—they repeated the same basic premise over and over and over and over again for 17 years. Seven Oscars showed there was no need for change. Some really inspired direction, layout drawings and animation and a few plot variations managed to keep the Tom and Jerry series fresh, funny and occasionally charming. But it was evident by the 1950s things were getting shop-worn and needed something. But why come up with something original? Instead, they merely ripped off themselves and inserted an annoying duck in several shorts. Or an annoying baby mouse. In their big non-Tom and Jerry cartoon, they purloined the concept from 1939-era Hugh Harman, even down to the Bible verse used for the title (“Peace on Earth” “Good Will to Men”).

Then came the television cartoons. Those already had one strike against them—there’s no way the animation could compare to what Hanna and Barbera had accomplished at MGM. Fortunately, talented designers, likeable characters and good writing managed to overcome that. Still, a small sense of unoriginality hovered over the cartoons. It surely wasn’t a coincidence one of the star characters had a name that sounded like a New York Yankees catcher with a voice reminiscent of Ed Norton. Or that another reminded everyone of a nightclub comic who had made it big in the movie No Time for Sergeants, no matter what Daws Butler later (and, I suspect, truthfully) insisted. Or that a dog spoke like Jimmy Durante. Or a cat like Ed Gardner. Or a burro like Desi Arnaz. Or a bunch of characters like Phil Silvers. Fortunately again, Daws was such a marvellous talent, he only invoked the memory of the radio and TV stars by changing the voices a bit and using his own funny particular inflections. He made the characters different. But Bill and Joe used the familiarity of something—not originality—as the starting point for their best TV cartoons.

The half-hour shows were no different. All the publicity about the new concept of a half-hour prime-time cartoon didn’t stop opinions at the time (which continue today) that all Joe and Bill did was steal from The Honeymooners (with a chunk of I Love Lucy’s birth-of-Little Ricky shows tossed in), Blondie and Bilko. But again, in the best of the episodes, there was enough interesting design and great voice work that made the cartoons not only entertaining, but much different than their inspirations.

Unfortunately, all the elements that added up to fun cartoons in the Huck days started disappearing in the shorts. Loopy de Loop is a prime example. Loopy doesn’t do anything funny, say anything funny or even sound funny. Mike Maltese started running out of ideas and started not only borrowing gags from his Warners cartoons but from earlier Hanna-Barbera cartoons. Even the designs looked like they had come out of earlier cartoons. The Hanna-Barbera shorts started losing whatever originality they had. And, as you can see, originality wasn’t really a strong suit by the guys ultimately in charge.

And the shorts started sounding the same. In the Quick Draw series, all three segments used completely different parts of the Capitol Hi-Q library (with occasional exceptions). Now, Hoyt Curtin’s tracking library appeared everywhere and music you’d associate with The Flintstones or Magilla Gorilla would shake your eardrums by unexpectedly leaping out at you in Touché Turtle or Squiddly Diddley.

We roll into the later part of the ‘60s and, suddenly, Hanna-Barbera went on a fantasy-adventure binge. So we got a bunch of similar looking and sounding cartoons like The Herculoids, Space Ghost and Birdman. Space Ghost borrowed (are you surprised?) a concept from Jonny Quest that appeared endlessly and unoriginally again and again in Hanna-Barbera series—a little animal(-like) comedy relief sidekick who could both get into trouble and save the day. They loved the concept so much that they even shoe-horned a modified version into The Flintstones when they created the Great Gazoo. In Jonny Quest, Bandit was a good element to take a break from the drama and suspense. In The Flintstones, Gazoo was annoying and unnecessary. Why detract from (and, in the script, insult) likeable, funny main characters?

And things got worse.

With Filmation’s practically instant success with blandly-designed, constantly-reused-animation shows, Hanna-Barbera decided to hew to the unoriginality route and rip off Archie. Thus we got another comic book property—Josie and the Pussycats, complete with the singing teenaged band concept that was ripped off again and again.

And things got worse.

Hanna-Barbera snatched some elements of the radio show I Love a Mystery, a line from a Sinatra song, more teenagers and Astro’s voice and came up with Scooby-Doo, Where Are You? At first, the series counter-balanced ugly character designs and all that unoriginality because it kept the one thing that made the radio show a success. It was a mystery show with some comic relief tossed in. Viewers could play detective and try to solve the case. But then—at least it seemed to this young viewer at the time—the producers made the same mistake as the creators of the ‘60s Batman series with Adam West. They played up the comedy and played down the dramatic part. Soon, you could solve a Scooby plot in your sleep, which is what the cartoons started inducing. Then, to try to waken viewers, they started adding appearances by people like an animated Phyllis Diller. Phyllis Diller?! Even kids could see out-of-character stars had no real business being there and the series was dead. The show lost me. Between that and the ugly, stiff, laughtrack-bathed Filmation shows with Dal McKennon screeching at me, I stopped watching most Saturday morning cartoons. Oh, Bugs and Daffy were still on and worthy of my attention. But forget that new stuff. If I’m going to watch something I’ve seen before, I’m going to watch something really funny.

And then things got worse.

Hanna-Barbera, bereft of ideas, ripped off itself (Pebbles and Bamm-Bamm, Yogi’s Gang, Tom and Jerry with a bow-tie, endless Scooby shows, Roman Holidays) and after playing that card, ripped off live action (Jeannie, These Are the Days, The Addams Family). And it’s perhaps telling that Hanna-Barbera’s biggest property of the ‘80s wasn’t even created by the studio—they licensed The Smurfs.

Not a stick of originality in the lot. But, really, the studio had never been too high on originality to begin with. Though, to be fair, networks love familiarity. And producers love squeezing whatever cash they can out of a property. If they can take something they’ve exhausted and find a different way of doing it, they can revive their animated cash machine.

Perhaps this was all inevitable. Success begats money which begats growth which begats a corporate structure which begats conservatism which begats less risk-taking and originality. Yes, Joe and Bill sold out to Taft fairly early in the studio’s life so there were stockholders to worry about. And, yes, there were pressure groups and network censors who watered down cartoons so much that Quick Draw couldn’t be shown quick drawing because of paranoia that seeing a gun would turn children into mass murderers (a good thing cartoons were emasculated way back then because that made mass-murdering extinct today). But, for whatever reason, and with rare exception, the Hanna-Barbera cartoons stopped being fun or entertaining.

Fortunately, for a while, Joe, Bill, Carlo Vinci, Mike Lah, Ed Benedict, Daws Butler, Mike Maltese, Warren Foster, Art Lozzi and a bunch of others created some enjoyable cartoons and that’s what this blog is here to celebrate.

And, in the end, perhaps you can’t really blame Joe and Bill in the area of (un)originality. After all, didn’t they start in animation at a time when almost everyone felt the only way to make a great cartoon was to rip off Walt Disney? How original is that?