Augie Doggie — Playmate Pup

Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Credits: Animation – Dick Lundy; Layout – Paul Sommer; Backgrounds – Art Lozzi; Written by Mike Maltese; Story Direction – Alex Lovy; Titles – Art Goble; Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Voice Cast: Augie Doggie, Radio Announcer, Irish Cop, Guy in Window – Daws Butler; Doggie Daddy – Doug Young.
Music: Jack Shaindlin, Phil Green, Harry Bluestone/Emil Cadkin.
Episode: Quick Draw McGraw Show M-039, Production J-111.
First Aired: week of March 27, 1961.
Plot: Augie invents an invisible playmate whom Doggie Daddy keeps offending.

The best pun in “Playmate Pup” is completely unintentional. Doggie Daddy climbs up the side of a building next to a window. The guy inside it says “What’d you lose, Mac—a parakeet?” The thing is, for two frames, the guy has lost something. His head. The cel with the head on it is missing for two frames. A mouth is in mid-air.



I don’t know if the cartoon would have been any funnier by having a character without a head for no particular reason. It would have fit, though. The cartoon is based on an invisible friend of Augie’s. The whole cartoon is a set-up to one joke at the end. Doggie Daddy has read in a “child sick-ol-lo-logical book” (almost halfway into the cartoon) that kids make up imaginary friends but it turns out Lonesome Leonard isn’t imaginary. He’s just invisible.

Mike Maltese’s story contains elements we’re all too familiar with in the Augie Doggie series:

● Augie imitating Sylvester, Jr. with an “Oh, the shame of it” line. In this one, it’s “Oh, the shame of it. My father would rather patch up his neglected and seedy-looking home-sweet-home than play ball with his only devoted son.” The home-sweet-home line is a verbatim repeat of what dear old dad has just said, another example of Maltese’s echoing dialogue.
● Daddy goes along with Augie’s whim because that’s what a good dad does.
● Daddy gets bashed around for his trouble.
● A disbelieving Irish cop comes to a sudden realisation, decides he’s sick and makes a crack to the camera.
● The “after all, how many” tag-line at the end of the cartoon. In this one, it’s “After all, how many boys have pals who don’t eat?”

Add to that Maltese’s (mis)use of the word “avuncular”. In this cartoon, it’s “Come to think of it, Augie, we don’t have an old oak tree. Will an old avuncular bush do?”

And Maltese dredges up the old cartoon routine of the radio that talks back to the characters. I’ve always liked it. The radio in this cartoon sounds like Fibber Fox. Here’s the dialogue, as Daddy is about ready to play baseball with Augie:

Radio: Friends, this is Repair Your Home Week. Does your house need painting?
Daddy: It does.
Radio:: Is your garage a mess?
Daddy: It is.
Radio: Is your front yard the scandal of the neighbourhood?
Daddy: Well, people are beginning to talk. Heh heh heh heh.
Radio: Are your children ashamed to bring their little friends home because you let it get rundown and seedy?
Daddy: I never tought about dat.
Radio: Well, think about it.
Daddy: I’m thinkin’.
Radio: Are you through thinking?
Daddy: I think so.
Radio: Well, take off that silly-looking baseball outfit and do something about it.

So here’s the story. Daddy’s set to play baseball with his son but he’s convinced by the radio to fix up their home because it’s suggesting Augie isn’t bringing friends over because of it. Daddy thinks disappointed Augie has reacted by inventing a friend. The friend is a jerk but Daddy puts up with it because a book tells him to do it. The friend, Lonesome Leonard, doesn’t put up a ladder to stop Daddy from falling, then demands a “thank-you.” Then he wants to lie down under the shade of an oak tree after Daddy sits on him (because Daddy can’t see him). Only an oak tree will do. Daddy and Augie carry him all over the place for an hour to find an oak tree. They find the sceptical cop instead. The cop’s reaction? He takes off his cop hat, puts on a fireman’s helmet and says “It’s the fireman’s life for me.”

No sooner do they get to the tree that Lonesome decides “to leave forever.” Daddy chases after him up a phone pole, across a phone wire and then up a building which ends with dear old dad chatting with the missing-head guy before yelling for help. The wind up of the cartoon has invisible Lonesome forgiving Dad then sucking up spaghetti from a plate, proving he exists after all. “How about dat? A fig-a-ment of dee imagination. With an appetite.”

Dick Lundy is the animator. Here are some poses. Daddy gives us a blank stare in one.



Art Lozzi’s backgrounds aren’t as interesting as some of the things he did on Yogi Bear or even Loopy De Loop cartoons. Daddy likes pictures in his home. In fact, he has the same couch and large picture in two spots in his home. Well, he walks past it twice in the cartoon.

And here’s a bit of a cityscape. Sorry for the lousy screen grabs. See the house with the door in the middle of the second storey? Daddy runs past it four times to catch Leonard after he and Augie carry him past it three times. I like how he changes the grey tone of the pavement, much like he and other H-B artists (Bob Gentle, particularly), had more than one colour on a wall to break up the monotony (you can’t tell too well but when Daddy walks by the couch above, the wall has a loop of a different shade in the upper-left-hand corner). By my count, Lozzi drew 18 backgrounds for this cartoon.

You’ll know doubt recognise the music in this cartoon. It’s pretty standard Augie Doggie fare.

0:00 - Augie Doggie Main Title theme (Hanna-Barbera-Curtin).
0:25 - CB-90 HAPPY HOME (Cadkin-Bluestone) – Augie wants to play baseball, radio talks to Daddy, Daddy starts walking.
1:11 - CB-83A MR TIPPY TOES (Cadkin-Bluestone) – “No boy of mine…”, Daddy hit by baseball, Daddy holds onto gutter, “Gettin’ awfully tired.”
2:30 - PG-160G LIGHT MOVEMENT (Green) – “Tanks, Lonesome,” Daddy drops, Augie turns head.
2:46 - GR-155 PARKS AND GARDENS (Green) – “What’s that, Lonesome?,” Daddy reads book, sits on Leonard, “I didn’t see him.”
4:18 - CB-89A ROMANTIC JAUNT (Cadkin-Bluestone) – “And dat’s da trut,” Augie and Daddy carry Leonard, Irish cop scene.
5:27 - GR-334 BUSTLING BRIDGE (Green) – Scene fades, Dad and Augie at tree.
5:33 - GR-253 TOYLAND PARADE (Green) – “Look, dad,” Augie points.
6:04 - Medium circus march (Shaindlin) – Daddy runs, climbs pole, climbs building.
6:19 - GR-348 EARLY MORNING (Green) – Guy in window scene.
6:41 - GR-65 BUSH BABY (Green) – Augie and Daddy have dinner, spaghetti disappears.
7:01 - GR-77 CUSTARD PIE CAPERS (Green) – “How about dat?” iris out.
7:10 - Augie Doggie End Title theme (Curtin).

It's Ruff and Reddy's Birthday

“Ruff and Reddy” isn’t among my favourite cartoon series, but it did start the Hanna-Barbera empire and it debuted on tomorrow’s date in 1957, so we’ll mark the anniversary with a short post.

If you haven’t read the background before, you can go to this blog post. To boil it down, H-B Enterprises signed a deal with NBC to broadcast its new made-for-TV cartoons, which ran alongside old Columbia/Screen Gems theatrical cartoons (due to H-B’s bankrolling by Screen Gems), with a human host introducing everything.

The cartoons were wisely filmed in colour, though NBC originally broadcast them in black and white, like almost all its programming in 1957. When did the network begin to show them in colour? The answer’s in a column by J. Don Schlaerth in the Buffalo Courier-Express of June 27, 1959. I presume he was a local columnist.

COLOR SHOWS — NBC-TV will add two new color shows to its schedule today. "Buffalo Bob" Smith and his "Howdy Doody" show will be given the tinted treatment starting at 10 this morning on Ch. 2. The "Ruff and Reddy Show" cartoon series also will be in color following at 10:30. . . . The Trendex rating service indicates that the audience of color television programs in color TV equipped homes is twice as large as the audience in homes with black and white sets. The survey was conducted in five major cities.

Pressure groups basically screwed up kids cartoons shows, but that wasn’t for a few more years yet. Hanna-Barbera cartoons in the ‘50s received nothing but plaudits. “Ruff and Reddy” was among them. Here’s the pertinent part of a squib from the Lockport Union-Sun and Journal of December 3, 1959:

PTA Turns Critical Gaze On TV
The National Parent - Teacher, the official publication of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers, in its new program on TV evaluations, turned its critical gaze on nine more continuing shows for children and adults. The magazine's official viewers generally beamed on "Here's Geraldine" (ABC) and "Ruff and Reddy" (NBC), while taking a much dimmer view of the CBS "Heckle and Jeckle" and ''Lunchtime Little Theater" (independent) as adequate fare for children.

Despite that, NBC took “Ruff and Reddy” off the air less than a year later. Whether it was contractual, I don’t know. However, the network brought it back. Broadcasting magazine of July 2, 1962 reported:

'Ruff and Reddy' returns
The Ruff and Reddy Show, a former NBC –TV morning children's show, is returning to the network as a color series Saturday, Sept. 29. It replaces Pip the Piper in the 9:30 -10 a.m. time -spot. Previously shown on NBC from December 1957- October 1960, the Ruff and Reddy Show is a Hanna -Barbera cartoon production, distributed by Screen Gems. It will be sponsored by Marx Toys, New York, through Ted Bates; Horsman Dolls, Columbia, S. C., through Manchester Organizations, and Selchow & Richter Games, New York, through Doner- Harrison.

To show you how times have changed, NBC offered no network service on Saturday mornings until “Ruff and Reddy” aired and ABC didn’t sign on until 10:30.

“Ruff and Reddy” left the network again after September 26, 1964, replaced with “Hector Heathcote.” By the following March 15th, Screen Gems was offering all 156 “Ruff and Reddy” cartoons (along with 156 Lippy the Lion/Touché Turtle/Wally Gator) in syndication. Interestingly, Broadcasting magazine reported in a September 20, 1965 story on syndicated shows:

Robert Seidelman, vice president for syndication for SG [Screen Gems], conceded that demand by local stations is high, but said the company has no immediate plans for producing first -run syndicated series in color because of economic considerations.

That shows you how things had changed. Hanna-Barbera built its name on syndication with “The Huckleberry Hound Show.” But most of its syndicated deals up to 1965 had involved a co-sponsor, Kellogg’s on the Huck-Quick Draw-Yogi shows and Ideal Toys with “Magilla Gorilla” and “Peter Potamus.” Screen Gems apparently decided for, or was told by, Hanna-Barbera that even joint deals such those couldn’t bring in the necessary cash to make TV cartoons profitable. Ironic, considering H-B got into the business because it could produce cartoons cheaply enough for television.

Flintstones Weekend Comics, December 1963

Sometimes Fred Flintstone’s schemes work. Sometimes they don’t. We get examples of both in the Sunday comics (Saturday in Canada) 50 years ago this month. And, no, there’s no Christmas story this time, but we do get a bunch of mastodons.



Mastodon No. 1 shows up in the December 1st comic. The poor beast’s expression in the last panel is nice. There’s a rarity here, and I don’t mean the fact the plot revolves around Bamm Bamm. I’m referring to the opening panel. Usually, it’s longer with scenery. Not this time. Well, I suppose there’s another rarity in that Wilma doesn’t appear.



Aw. If the December 8th comic were animated, the triceratops would have a wise-crack to end things. Instead, it’s Fred. I love the confident look in the lower left-hand panel.



Here’s another comic where Fred thinks he knows best and doesn’t. The best frames are the ones with the shocked expressions of the dinosaur and sabre-tooth tiger. You’ll notice another mastodon in the background. Dino’s wearing ear-muffs in the opening panel of the December 15th comic but it doesn’t appear he went skiing with Fred and Barney.



Fred’s scheme works in the December 22nd comic. Maybe it’s a gift from the story writer to Fred.



Ah, Fred’s scheme doesn’t work in the December 29th comic. He kind of had the right idea, though the weight of the ice might have cracked the roof. I like the snow on the Flintstones’ logo. I presume those buckets in the first panel were filled with water to make Charlie’s ice pond. Lots of angle changes in the characters in this one.

As usual, you can click on any of the comics to make them larger to see.

Yogi Bear — A Bear Living

Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Credits: Animation – Art Davis, Layout – Tony Rivera, Backgrounds – Bob Gentle, Written by Warren Foster, Story Director – Alex Lovy, Titles – Art Goble, Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Voice Cast: Yogi Bear, Dad with Camera, Charlie’s Buddy, Maître d’ – Daws Butler; Boo Boo, Ranger Smith, Boy Scout, Charlie – Don Messick.
Music: Hoyt Curtin.
First Aired: 1961.
Plot: Yogi decides to build a wishing well to earn money to buy food.

There’s not a lot of laugh-out-loud comedy in the Yogi Bear cartoons exclusively for his own show in the 1961-62 season. Most of them are amusing at best and pleasant at worse. “A Bear Living” is pleasant.

The cartoons had devolved to a point where the plots were mainly Yogi-vs-Ranger Smith, usually involving food or park rules. This cartoon contains both. Warren Foster’s story is well-constructed but the dialogue merely services the plot. There’s nothing I would really call hilarious. Even Yogi’s rhymes are at a minimum (“My conscience is clear. I have nothing to fear,” he tells Boo Boo). It’s tough to blame Foster, though. He was busy writing “The Flintstones” at the time and the workload doing that series and a dozen-or-so Yogis (plus Huckleberry Hound, plus Pixie and Dixie, plus Hockey Wolf, plus some Loopy De Loops) is just mind-boggling. A lesser writer would come up with disjointed crap like any “Bucky and Pepito” story.

Foster’s dialogue isn’t the only thing that’s tamer here. The animation is by the great Art Davis. But if you compare it to what he did on the Quick Draw McGraw cartoon “El Kabong, Jr.” the previous season, which has some neat angular poses and stylisation, there’s a lot of talking and walking and not a lot else. Davis tends to curve up the mouth high into the face in his Hanna-Barbera cartoons around this time. Here are a couple of examples.



Davis left behind some eyes when Yogi zips out of the scene.



I’ve mentioned before how the positions of the characters don’t match after cuts. Here’s a good example of consecutive frames. The shot cuts from two characters to three (I gather in layout, these are considered separate scenes).



Bob Gentle doesn’t get a chance to shine. Like the dialogue, the backgrounds service the plot. In fact, 40 seconds of screen time features a background that’s a greenish-tan coloured card. That’s it. Here are two of his drawings that are in the clear.



And here’s a basic drawing of the Ranger Station to open the cartoon. Gentle gets some varied angles in it.



There aren’t any of the isosceles triangle-shaped trees that you normally see when Tony Rivera is the layout artist. Rivera designed the cars in this.



The straight-forward story starts with Ranger Smith holding up a park rule book and telling Yogi that’s what he’s going to follow. Yogi apparently thought the Ranger was a preacher with a Bible. “But for a minute, I thought you were going to marry us.” Even Boo Boo laughs as that, not realising that a couple of generations later, people with too much time on their hands would try to read something into his relationship with Yogi. “This book won’t sell big amongst us bears,” Yogi tells the Ranger.

Ah, but smarter-than-the average Yogi has found a loophole. It doesn’t say bears can’t buy food at the park. So he decides to construct a wishing well (as a “Flintstones” bassoon underscore plays in the background) and make some cash from the coins dropped in (“The Ranger isn’t going to like that, Yogi). It’s visited by characters with pipe-stem legs (Rivera’s favourite), including a Boy Scout (Bill Hanna’s favourite) with 5 o’clock shadow.

The income from the well must be incredible. Yogi makes enough to not only eat everything on the menu the park inn “twice-t,” he can afford a sports car. After a ho-hum car chase scene, Yogi tells Ranger Smith “I got a little thing goin’ for me, sir. It’s a regular gold mine.” The ranger takes it literally, thinking there’s a mine in the park that will attract prospectors. The ranger’s offer—if Yogi fills up the “gold mine,” he’ll throw away the rule book and the bear can do whatever he wants (until the next cartoon). Before the well is bashed apart with a sledgehammer in the final scene, Boo Boo makes a wish—that the ranger never finds out about the wishing well. “That’s a good one, Boo Boo” Yogi says, looking at the camera, “because if he does, we’ll wish he hadn’t. Nyea, hey, hey, hey, eee.”

We mentioned one cue you’ll recall from “The Flintstones.” The rest of Hoyt Curtin’s music should be familiar from Touché Turtle and Wally Gator cartoons.

The Many Fingers of Snuffles

Who doesn’t love Snuffles? Right! We all do. So let’s look at some drawings courtesy of the internet.



Here’s what I presume (due to a lack of dialogue underneath) is a layout drawing from “Bow-Wow Bandit,” the first Snuffles cartoon. The layout man on this cartoon was Walt Clinton. To compare, here’s the closest matching animation by Ken Muse. The production number of the cartoon was J-30 (the 30th cartoon on the Quick Draw show to put into production) but it was the fourth Quick Draw McGraw cartoon to air. I suspect it was aired early at the behest of the sponsor, as Kellogg’s loved Snuffles and used him to push its Gro-Pup Dog Food and Dog Biscuits (evidently, Yowp was not deemed a suitable spokes-dog). I will show my ignorance of animation production by telling you have no idea what the “8FC” stands for; I presume it’s some kind of instruction.



Next we have another Snuffles (outlined in green) with some colour notations.



I’m at a loss to tell you which cartoon used this drawing. I’ve watched all seven cartoons on the Quick Draw show that Snuffles was in and none have him running with his feet in that position. The production numbers I have for the second season are not accurate (they are from a web site), as J-86 supposed to be a Snooper and Blabber cartoon. J-86 would have been in the 1960-61 season, which included Snuffles appearances in “Ali-Baba Looey” and “Scooter Rabbit.” The only run cycle in the latter doesn’t look anything like this drawing, though there’s walk cycle where Snuffles has the same wavy-mouthed expression. Note that Snuffles is running behind “BG10.” Perhaps it is from a deleted scene. No, I don’t know the significance of “Dog Driven;” there was no Quick Draw cartoon with that name. (Late note: our smart readers have figured this out. See the comment section).

Here’s a comparison of some of the animators’ work on Snuffles pointing.



Ken Muse animated “Bow-Wow Bandits.” Snuffles isn’t named in this cartoon and he doesn’t float up, either. The story has Snuffles pointing a couple of times but Muse didn’t re-use the animation. Here’s a sheet of nine panels that Muse followed pretty closely:





Here’s Muse again in “Bronco Bustin’ Boobs,” a second-season cartoon.



Dick Lundy drew Snuffles in “Cattle Battle Rattled” in the first season.



This is Lundy again, from the second-season “Ali-Baba Looey.” Note the teeth and the leash attached to the collar. The leash disappears during the ecstasy part; just the ring on the collar remains.



Bob Bentley’s version of pointing Snuffles from “Scooter Rabbit,” a second-season cartoon. Like Muse, Bentley doesn’t re-use animation later in the cartoon when Snuffles points at himself while facing the other direction. He draws Snuffles with three or four spots on his muzzle then.



This is from “Dynamite Fright,” animated by Hicks Lokey in the third season. Sure looks the same as Lundy’s from “Ali-Baba Looey” but it’s not. Maybe Lokey re-worked Lundy’s drawings but the crook of the finger isn’t the same and Lokey’s mouth is a little wider.



Finally, here’s Bob Bentley again, this time from “Mine Your Manners,” Snuffles’ last appearance on the Quick Draw show. I’ve cheated as I’ve flipped the drawing for a better comparison. His snout is horizontal while his open mouth is at a bit on an angle.



This is from later in the cartoon. Other than the arm position, it looks like re-used drawings from the Lokey cartoon, which seem to be based on Lundy’s drawings.

I’ve never had a chance to compare the hugging and floating animation from the last two seasons but at first glance, it appears the animation was re-used. I’ll try to compare those drawings in a future post.

Yogi Bear Weekend Comics, December 1963

“Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear” was not the original title of Hanna-Barbera’s first foray into feature cartoon production. Associated Press reporter Bob Thomas revealed in a column in June 1963 the film was called “Whistle Your Way Back Home.” Evidently someone came to the smart conclusion if you’ve got a star like Yogi Bear, why not use his name in the title? So the studio did.

But the original title seems to have hung around for a bit. It’s referred in a Yogi Bear newspaper comic 50 years ago this month. Of note—there was no Christmas colour comic in 1963, and Boo Boo only makes brief appearances in two of the five weekend comics. And the seasons change awfully fast.


You’ll notice in the December 1st cartoon a reference on the camera in the opening panel to “H-B Prod.” and Columbia Pictures (Hanna-Barbera’s bankroller when the studio opened in 1957) on the clapboard in the first panel of the middle row. The last panel seems to have a real ranger station on a set with a real swimming pool. It’s been years since I’ve seen the Yogi movie, but I don’t recall beach babes being in it.


A week later, December 8th, and it’s suddenly not swimming pool weather any more. It’s winter in the next four comics. How did the weather change so quickly? Must have been global warming in 1963. Notice how Boo Boo is a nice bear, accepting Yogi for what he is, instead of ol’ sour puss Smith.


Sorry for the lousy scan of the December 15th comic. The same snowy-covered first from the week before are back. The composition in the first panel of the middle row is just great. Characters on either side in the foreground, action in between them in the middle ground and a ski lift to fill the dead spots in the background. The final panel has some good varying perspectives, too. The silhouette of the phone booth is a nice touch.


Oh, another one of the über-cute kids again. She evidently takes after Mrs. Smith. The two only appear to fill the top row of the December 22nd comic; neither play a role in the story. Nice variations of angles on that rickety old two-seater prop plane. You’ve really got to appreciate Harvey Eisenberg. He can draw a funny animal, a cute kid and a realistic-looking plane, and all in the same cartoon. He’s also using jagged dialogue balloons, presumably to express changing emotions. The less said about the rhymes, the better.


Why can’t Yogi help the kid in the December 29th comic? Isn’t he smarter-than-the-average bear and can, therefore, solve problems? Ah, well. That would spoil the plot. It appears Ranger Smith has a pet lynx, judging by the opening panel. Look at the size of the cat. Angled fireplace and wood panelling are very attractive. I like Ranger Smith’s boyhood flashback. He looks like a munchkin instead of a little boy. The drawing of the rabbit is an interesting way of getting a change in visuals during dialogue. No rhymes this time.

As usual, you can head to Mark Kausler’s site where he’s taken the time to post the bottom two rows of each of these cartoons in colour.