Yogi Bear Weekend Comics, July 1967

Funny animal cartoonists had to know how to draw more than funny animals. Yes, there were trees, mountains, lakes and other settings. But there were other things. Cars, trucks, trains, airplanes, equipment. There are some fine examples in the Yogi Bear Sunday newspaper comics 50 years ago this month.

I don’t know if Gene Hazelton was responsible for the layouts, but they really are great this month.



Check out the perspective in the comic from July 2nd. Some of the panels are looking from the ground up. Ranger Smith has some interesting fingers; see the first panel in the second row and the final panel.


Cindy Bear is on a pic-a-nic two comics in a row. The dancing, waving Boo Boo in the final panel of the July 9th comic is a nice addition.


The artwork is really nice in this July 16th comic; too bad the scan isn’t the best. The screeching train is beautifully drawn. And what a nice perspective on the tracks in that first drawing of the middle row. The opening panel is, again, well laid out, with a good use of foreground, background and detail. Top work.


Again, a fine job of perspective in the first panel of the second row of the July 23rd comic with Yogi swooshing around the airport control tower. Interesting to see Jellystone Park has not only an airport but a zoo.



By contrast, the backgrounds are much more sparse in the July 30th comic. And now you know how to make a shadow elephant.

Click on any of the cartoons for a bigger view. My thanks again to Richard Holliss for sharing the colour comics from his archive.

Snagglepuss in Remember the Daze

Produced and Directed by Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera.
Credits: Animation – Bill Keil, Layout – Walt Clinton, Backgrounds – Dick Thomas, Written by Mike Maltese, Story Director – Paul Sommer, Titles – Art Goble, Production Supervision – Howard Hanson.
Voice Cast: Snagglepuss, Dinner Emcee, Turner Backwards – Daws Butler; Major Minor, Win a Million announcer – Don Messick.
Music: Hoyt Curtin.
Episode: Production R-57.
Copyright 1961 by Hanna-Barbera Productions.
Plot: Snagglepuss tries to escape from the Major in a TV station.

This cartoon’s got a lot going for it—Snagglepuss in disguise (including in drag), cameo appearances by Yogi Bear and Boo Boo, and a pile of 1950s TV spoofs. It could very well be a Warner Bros. cartoon. In fact, it was. The story is similar to the 1956 Bugs Bunny/Elmer Fudd short Wideo Wabbit, right down to the hero disguised as Groucho Marx and voiced by Daws Butler. It was written by Tedd Pierce, Mike Maltese’s former writing partner.

Regardless, this cartoon is still a lot of fun. It starts out as a parody of Ralph Edwards’ weepy reunion show “This is Your Life,” right down to Edwards making an unexpected appearance at a phoney dinner set up for Major Minor (host Turner Backwards is hiding under a food platter dome lid). Like the Edwards show, the honouree is taken to a couch in a TV studio, where the host is carrying a book (labelled “This is Your Strife”) and asks the victim if he recognises an off-stage voice from the past before the person (Snagglepuss, in this case), comes out on set to reminisce. I particularly like how the dinner’s main course is roast aardvark that the Major shot in the Mato Grosso.

Maltese comes up with some great nonsense dialogue. “Heavens to Murgatroyd, Major. Remember the jolly times we had together? Separate, even,” says the off-stage Snagglepuss. There’s also the usual vaudevillian tete-a-tete between the two.

Major: I thought I bagged you in the Bongo. Or did I boomerang you in Bolivia?
Snag: Au contraire, Major. You buckshotted me in the La Banza.

When Backwards points out the Major has never been able to catch Snagglepuss, the mountain lion “interjects an interjection” and points out he’s smarter than the Major. That sets off a chase through the television station that takes up most of the rest of the cartoon. “By Gadfrey,” cries the Major. “I’ll teach you to embarrass me before my millions of TV fans!”

Bill Keil is the credited animator. He worked on shorts at Disney in the 1940s and ’50s, and stopped at Jack Kinney’s studio before moving on to Hanna-Barbera in 1961 (he retired from the studio in 1982). He uses a lot of dry brush and ghosting effects when characters zip off stage.

First off, Snagglepuss appears as a surprise guest as “Nanny,” the Major’s “old nursemaid. Governess, even. Come all the way from Plum-Puddin-on-the-Thames...Coo! You were just a mere crumpet.” Snagglepuss plunks a baby bottle into the Major’s mouth and rocks him to “London Bridge.” “Sleepin’ like a bloomin’ daffodil, he is,” Nanny Snagglepuss tells us. “Sleep tight, ducks.” The Major realises he’s been had and stars firing his rifle at Snagglepuss (“You bounder!” “Exit, boundin’ all the way, stage right.”). The Major then confides in us, “Besides, my nursemaid’s name was Lady Ashtabula. By Gadfrey! She was a smasher.”

The chase is on. First, Snagglepuss disguises himself as an usher (as Bugs did in Wideo Wabbit) directing the Major to the filming of the Wagons West Show. Cut to the Major having been shot in the butt by arrows. I love how the scenery has folds so you know it’s a backdrop.



Next, a You Bet Your Life parody. Snagglepuss is disguised as Groucho welcoming the Major to What’s the Secret Word?.

Snagglepuss: Guess the secret woid and get yourself a new hat.
Major: Huh?
Snag: That’s the secret woid.
(gun on string drops from above and fires at the Major’s pith helmet)
Snag: Get yourself a new hat. You need one. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must be shoving off. Or is it shovelling snow? Exit, stage right. Or is it stage fright?

Daws sounds closer to Fibber Fox than Groucho during much of the dialogue. The Major’s hat remains shot-up for the rest of the cartoon.

Cut to the next scene. It’s the filming of The Yogi Bear Show, complete with camera and obvious sets. Yogi and Boo Boo engage in some dialogue (as the Yogi show’s main theme plays in the background). When Yogi opens the lid of a pic-a-nic basket, Snagglepuss’ head pops up. “There’s no one here but us chicken sandwiches,” he remarks before more gunfire and the chase resumes. “It could be a major disaster, Yogi” puns Boo Boo. “Don’t worry, Boo Boo,” replies Yogi. “Ol’ Snagglepuss is on his way. Hey, hey, hey!”



Next, to the set of The Horror Show (“Come back here, by toffet!”) .The Major isn’t fooled by Snagglepuss in a Frankenstein’s monster costume. Thence to the set of The Win a Million Show. (“That’s for I’m,” remarks Snagglepuss). It turns out the winner is “that gentleman with the new hat in the first row”—the Major. He wins a million peanuts. Finally, Snagglepuss directs the Major into the Man Into Space Show, where he sets off a rocket and sends the Major into orbit.



The cartoon ends some time in the future with Snagglepuss walking to his mailbox, where he admits he misses the Major. “What doth the mail bringeth? Mayhap a letter from the old potato,” he says to himself. Nope. Turner Backwards pokes his head out of the mailbox, proclaiming “This is your strife!” “Exit, not on your life, stage right,” shouts Snagglepuss, and the cartoon ends with a run cycle. Backwards’ eyes go from little dots at the beginning to flesh-coloured little ovals at the end.



Dick Thomas is the background artist. Here’s his establishing shot from a layout by Walt Clinton, who I believe was spending more time in 1961 on The Flintstones and Top Cat than on the short cartoons.

H-B Number 60 to H-B

The New York Times published a column of short blurbs from Hollywood on July 6, 1957. One of them read:

George Sidney, director-producer, will serve as the president of H.B. Enterprises, a cartoon film producing company formed in association with William Hanna and Joseph Barbera. The company will open offices next week at the Kling Studios to make cartoon movies for theatres, television and commercial purposes.
The Mssrs. Hanna and Barbera were responsible for the “Tom and Jerry” cartoons at Metro-Goldwyn Mayer.
Mr. Sidney currently is associated with Columbia Pictures in theatrical film production through his company, George Sidney Productions.

Similar stories appeared in the trade press at the same time. H.B. Enterprises was incorporated on July 7, 1957. From this modest, inauspicious beginning sprung a multi-billion-dollar TV cartoon empire. So it is we wish a Happy 60th Birthday to Hanna-Barbera.

While even non-cartoon fans know who Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera are, they weren’t the big names when their studio was formed, despite all the Oscars and their surnames on the company entrance. George Sidney was the big player. At the time, he was president of the Directors Guild of America. He had a lot of weight in Hollywood. And, more importantly, he had access to cash, because Hanna and Barbera didn’t have quite enough, even after home mortgages, to set up their own company. Sidney was a silent investor. And, more importantly, he set up the deal with his contacts at Columbia that got Hanna-Barbera’s first series, Ruff and Reddy, made. Dick Bickenbach recalled to historian Mike Barrier that the series was already being worked on during the last week the Hanna-Barbera unit was still employed at MGM, though the characters had been copyright the previous year through a company called Shield Productions, co-owned by Hanna, his brother-in-law Mike Lah, and Dan Driscoll, who redrew backgrounds so old Tex Avery cartoons could be released in CinemaScope.

The blog has published almost every story we’ve been able to find about the studio from the pre-Flintstones days; Charles Witbeck wrote what was likely the first piece, an excellent one, in early 1958. But to celebrate the anniversary, let’s post another from the early years to give you an idea of the studio creation and expansion. This is from Newsday of March 4, 1960. By this time, Hanna-Barbera had achieved incredible success with The Huckleberry Hound Show, thanks to ex-MGM artists like Fernando Montealegre (left). It had a huge impact. Critics and parents loved it because it subtly funny and not old and “violent” like theatrical cartoons dominating television at the time. It won an Emmy. And it made money, money, money. Pretty soon, other studios started hawking TV cartoons. Hanna-Barbera was the foundation behind television animation today.

TV Cartoons Animate Business
By Ben Kubasik
Newsday Entertainment Editor
Walt Disney’s Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck had better watch out. For they are getting more than their share of competition from animated cartoon figures such as “Huckleberry Hound” and “Quick Draw McGraw.”
The latter two Johnnies-come-lately are animated cartoon commodities made especially for television. And already they are big business in the toy and novelty fields as well as in comic books. Perhaps the most surprising quality about “Huckleberry Hound” and “Quick Draw McGraw” is that necessity—combined with imagination, of course—was the source of their invention.
The birth of the two TV cartoon figures began less than five years ago when two of Hollywood’s top animated cartoon producers found themselves without jobs. The two men—William Hanna and Joseph Barbera—had won seven Oscars during 20 years at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer where they produced that studio’s successful “Tom and Jerry” cartoons.

“The studio went on an economy drive,” recalled Barbera, “and since our old ‘Tom and Jerry’ cartoons were doing well at theaters, they decided they did not need any new ones. So one little call from some faceless executive put Bill and me out of work. Producing cartoons is a rather specialized business so we had no idea what we were going to do after the studio laid us off.”
Hanna and Barbera investigated the possibility of doing cartoons for television but were discouraged by everyone in the industry. “Everybody told us television would be impossible because it eats up more material than could possibly be created in the field of animation,” he said. “We had a huge staff at MGM for our ‘Tom and Jerry’ cartoons, but all we ever turned out there was 50 minutes of cartoons a year, which is not even the equivalent of two half-hour television shows.”
Even so, the animated cartoon business was all Hanna and Barbera really knew about. And they were convinced that television, despite what they were told about its hazards, offered the most promises. They were the only two men in their company (Hanna-Barbera Productions) when they first started knocking on studio doors. Screen Gems, a TV film producing organization, was first to welcome their ideas and sold one series, “Ruff and Reddy,” to NBC starting in December, 1957. That show still is on the air (Saturdays, 10:30 AM).
As a result of that success, Hanna and Barbera were able to expand their staff and concentrate on still more ideas. That’s when they came up with “Huckleberry Hound: and then “Quick Draw McGraw,” seen locally over WPIX (Tuesdays and Thursdays, 6:30 PM).
To turn out their animated cartoons for TV, Hanna and Barbera today have over 200 technicians and cartoonists. And they are hiring even more people for a new prime time animated series, “The Flagstones,” which will deal with how a modern family might have lived during pre-historic times. The series is due on ABC in the fall.
“Before we started doing animated cartoons especially for television,” said Barbera, “a major cartoon-producing firm was asked to survey the idea of doing series such as ours for television and flatly said it would be impossible. I sometimes wonder how we’re able to do it ourselves. At the most, we used to turn out eight ‘Tom and Jerry’ cartoons as year while we were with M-G-M. Now, we’re turning out up to 200 cartoons a year for television.”
There are no short cuts in animation, said Barbera. “But ‘Tom and Jerry’ never achieved fame as fast as our television cartoon characters. Television exposure is fantastic—because of the millions upon millions of people who see our shows week in and week out. People saw our occasional ‘Tom and Jerry’ shorts only when they went to movies. They can see ‘Huckleberry Hound’ and ‘Quick Draw McGraw’ regularly—which accounts for their phenomenal success on the air and in toys and comic books.”

As you can see above, Hanna-Barbera took the next step in its growth in 1960 with a move into prime time. Despite some initial pans, The Flintstones became a hit. Copycats followed. The 1961 prime-time schedule saw a number of other brand-new animated series. They failed. So did H-B’s efforts to duplicate the success of The Flintstones; Top Cat, The Jetsons and Jonny Quest were all cancelled after one season. Hanna-Barbera had to turn away from prime time and look elsewhere.

That elsewhere was Saturday mornings.

In the 1950s, Saturday mornings on the networks were the province of test patterns, puppet shows and a few filmed shows. Cartoon reruns began taking up more and more of the time. Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera asked themselves “Why not new cartoon shows for Saturday morning?” They weren’t the first to do it—much like their Ruff and Reddy wasn’t the first serialised, narrated TV cartoon show—but the great success in 1965 of the spoofing Secret Squirrel and Atom Ant shows begat more copycats and kickstarted the hugely profitable Saturday morning cartoon industry.

Those profits created a time bomb.

The TV cartoon creators began to turn away from comedy and move into action-adventure. Space Ghost and The Herculoids are fondly remembered by many who were kids back them. Their parents were horrified. Such violence! Nanny groups had been around with their noses in the air chiding networks since the radio days. They moved into television; one group in the mid-‘50s even criticised clean-living Roy Rogers because—gasp!—he carried a gun. The groups were given ink in newspapers and media trade publications and forgotten. The assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 resulted in a quick federal task force which concluded that kids imitate the violence they see on TV. That gave the nanny groups a huge amount of fuel to pressure the networks to get rid of “violent” cartoons, demanding children be educated on Saturday mornings instead.

For the first time, people in large numbers were criticising the Hanna-Barbera shows.

Everyone got into the Saturday morning bashing game. “Kidvid trash” is what Variety called the programming. The networks and sponsors were worried about those huge profits vanishing. They gave in.

Hanna-Barbera reacted as well. By now it had new owners, and Taft Enterprises wasn’t about to jeopardise what it hoped would be a cash cow. A call was placed to writer Mike Maltese to come back and write funny cartoons again. For fall of 1968, the studio produced Wacky Races (and The Banana Splits Adventure Hour). The following year, it added Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines, The Perils of Penelope Pitstop and The Cattanooga Cats. Oh, and another show about a scared Great Dane and some meddling kids. Can’t recall the name of it. But it arguably became Hanna-Barbera’s biggest success.

No matter. “Drivel Replaces Sat. AM Mayhem,” sniffed Barbare Delatiner (or her headline writer) of Newsday. “TV: More of the Same,” yawned “J.G.” of the New York Times. The latter particularly went overboard in the rhetoric department, suggesting children were so stupid, they couldn’t tell the difference between the war in Vietnam and “make-believe cartoon mayhem.”

Let’s catch up again with Joe Barbera in this feature story from the Scripps-Howard News Service of November 5, 1972. Hanna-Barbera had tried prime-time again, this time ripping off The Flintstones and putting the characters in football drag in Where’s Huddles?. Now the studio wanted to get a foot in the door using the new prime-time access rules. Despite Barbera’s claims, their newest cartoon used the conservative/liberal, father/son-in-law dynamic of All in the Family as the basis. Barbera was a great salesman and he sells his studio nicely in this story, raising good points in the process.

Entertain vs. Teach
Bill, Joe and the Saturday Morning Furor
By RICHARD K. SHULL
“When kids go to school all week, on Saturday they shouldn’t have to go to school again on TV...learning to count or to roll a ball of string,” Joe Barbera said. “I know when I was a kid, I never missed a Saturday serial at the theater.”
Barbera, whose name usually is seen hyphenated behind the name of his partner of 35 years, Bill Hanna, understandably gets upset these days with the continuing furor over the state of children’s programs on TV.
Hanna-Barbera Studios is the single largest supplier of those Saturday and Sunday morning shows on the commercial networks. The H-B cartoon characters are tied in with cereals, and the H-B “Flintstones” characters also pitch a line of kiddie vitamins—“Abba dabba doo, they’re good for you.”
So when the Boston moms, officially known as Action for Children’s Television (ACT), launched an attack on that noisome, hard-sell segment of the TV dial known as children’s programming, it came as a dagger aimed at the vitals of the Hanna-Barbera empire.
Barbera is neither embarrassed nor ashamed of which his cartoon shop has created. And Lord knows, he has ample evidence of his own good instincts—he’s president of the Huntingdon and Greek Theaters in Los Angeles and plays a key role in the prestigious programs presented there.
He has shows to which he points with pride. For instance, the recent “Last of the Curlews” special on ABC, a beautifully-animated ecology feature for children. Or the soon-to-be released theatrical animated feature version of the children’s classic, “Charlotte’s Web.”
Even in the Saturday morning idiom, he’s been responsible for long-playing characters such as Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound. And currently on BC, the “Sealab 2020” cartoon series is a scientifically factual series based on an underwater city 50 years from now.
On the negative side, H-B has had its share of the superviolent cartoons with superheroes tangling with superinsidious villains. And there’s the matter of the Flintstones vitamins, which he tends to pass off quickly. “I took horrible-tasting stuff by the teaspoon when I was a kid. Are pills shaped like familiar characters so bad?”
Barbera said he has been invited to participate in many of the profusion of panels and seminars on children’s programming in recent months, but has categorically declined.
“Nothing I say could change their minds,” he said. “They’d destroy me, if I said what I believe; that I don’t want to educate, I want to entertain.
“Last year George Heinneman (NBC’s vice president for children’s programming) gave them what they wanted and it was a disaster for NBC. Millions went down the drain last year in educational shows on Saturday morning.
“I had a Bible story project and luckily it didn’t sell. I’d have lost. And I couldn’t do it according to the Bible and stay within TV’s rules.”
“He went on to say, “I agree. Take the violence out of the kid shows. But the shows have to be funny if you want anyone to watch.”
“We watch it very carefully, but in attempting to please everyone, we may wind up with no individual expression.”
This season, Hanna-Barbera branch into another division of TV with their “Wait Till Your Father Gets Home,” a show designed for syndication in prime time under the FCC “access rule.”
The show was instantly labelled by many who saw it as a cartoon version of “All in the Family.” It drew some howls of protest when its premiere episode centered on a misunderstanding in which the family thought the father character had spent the night in a motel with a female client.
Barbera insists that episode wasn’t typical, nor does his cartoon center on any Archie Bunker type. “He’s an old-fashioned father image who says things all parents should be saying to their kids. Our father loves the mother. And the mother is not a kook. And the father is not a screaming stoop,” he said. “We’re handling a lot of subject matter in the show. Watch. You’ll see,” he added.

Barbera’s Bible idea waited until the home video market was invented. He pushed it along—apparently against the instincts of Bill Hanna—and it proved to be a success.

Meanwhile, back on Saturday mornings, Hanna-Barbera followed the trends. There were propaganda shows where Yogi Bear told kids not to pollute. There were cartoons based on toys. There was a kiddie version of the Flintstones. There were teenaged mall-rat versions of the funny animals of the original H-B successes. Unlike the originals, these were kids-only shows. I suppose they all came into being because they tested well.

By the 1980s, there was a huge boon to cartoons in general with the creation of cable television channels in the United States which showed nothing but animation. That’s part of the reason Hanna-Barbera remained a very valuable property, even though its new owner in 1987, Great American Communication Co., was having money troubles. On August 29, 1991, Turner Broadcasting System signed a letter of intent to purchase the “animation entertainment assets and businesses” of Hanna-Barbera Productions. The deal was finalised in December. One day later, Turner axed 115 Hanna-Barbera employees, 92 of them in North America. By now, the studio employed dedicated artists and other staff members who had grown up with and loved the early Hanna-Barbera characters.

Merry Christmas from Ted Turner.

Bill Hanna died in 2001. Joe Barbera followed five years later. But their characters carry on. Your family can still pull in to a Yogi Bear’s Jellystone Park. There’s talk of a live-action Jetsons movie. And the folks at Warner continue to release DVDs of the studio’s cartoon series although, sigh, we will never see a Quick Draw McGraw Show on home video.

In other words, people still enjoy and laugh at the old Hanna-Barbera cartoons. You do, too, or you wouldn’t be here. And I’m sure you’re wishing a happy birthday to the great studio built by Joe and Bill, their employees, and those fine cartoon characters.

They Made The Flintstones?

Were you one of those kids who read the credits at the end of Hanna-Barbera cartoons to learn who made them? I did, particularly on the Flintstones, so I could see and guess who the guest voices were. I learned fairly quickly that a bunch of the cartoons were incorrect. They listed “Additional Voices: Hal Smith, John Stephenson”, and I could tell what both sounded like. It wasn’t until the series DVDs came out years later did I learn that the show originally aired in the first two seasons with different opening and closing animation, and it had been replaced with for syndication in the ‘60s (with one episode’s closing credits edited onto two full seasons’ worth of cartoons).

So here’s something for you credits fans spotted by reader Kerry Cisneroz on eBay. They’re file cards listing who worked on three different productions of The Flintstones in Season 3. The cartoons exist with credits but they don’t match what’s on these cards.


“Flash Gun Freddie” (evidently originally titled “Flash Gun Fred”) aired December 21, 1962. Unfortunately, the bottom is cut off, but it gives the time line of when each aspect of the cartoon was completed, although there are discrepancies in the recording dates. It came out of story on June 29, 1962. The other elements are RECORDING, TRACK READING, DETAIL, LAYOUT, ANIMATION, ASSISTANT ANIMATION, a step that’s unviewable, BACKGROUND, INK, PAINT, CAMERA, LAB., CUTTING, DUBBING, CUT NEGATIVE, VIEW, COMPLETION DATE. Where the end-title cards with the credits fit into this, I don’t know.

The card reveals some interesting information. First, in story, Tony Benedict’s name is written in. Tony recalls how he had to punch up scripts with visual gags because the sitcom writers hired by Hanna-Barbera didn’t think in those terms.

Evidently the cartoon needed extra artwork. You’ll see Dan Noonan and Lance Nolley’s names written next to “Inserts.” Both were layout artists. Neither were credited on screen.

If you look at the layout line, you’ll see “McCabe” crossed out. That can’t be anyone else but Norm McCabe, the veteran Warner Bros. animator and director. He never received any screen credit at Hanna-Barbera around this time and the following year begun working on Pink Panther shorts at DePatie-Freleng. Dick Bickenbach isn’t on the card, but he received screen credit with Willie Ito and Irv Spector.

The animators listed are Carlo Vinci, Hugh Fraser, with Chuck Harriton typed in later, Ed Love written in and Ed Parks in brackets. Harriton didn’t receive screen credit. The animation took 13 working days.

Listed in brackets below is what I believe are the assistant animators on this cartoon. Bill Hutten was an animator for many years and was employed by Fred Crippen on Roger Ramjet. Bill Hajee spent part of his career at Filmation. I couldn’t tell you who McCormick is.

Neenah Maxwell and Fernando Montealegre both get screen credit for backgrounds. The camera operators listed are Ted Bemiller, Hal Shiffman, Roy Wade and Charles Flekal. The first two never got screen credit; Frank Paiker and Norm Stainbeck did. And the credits add Greg Watson’s name as a Film Editor next to Don Douglas’. And the checker is Natalie Yates, though I believe Janet Gusdavidson’s name is written in.


There was a problem with “The Birthday Party” (previously titled “Fred’s Birthday Party”). The studio got it out of story on July 13, 1962, recorded the voice track on August 10th, got it through animation and then realised the cartoon was 500 feet short (by my calculation, that’s almost six minutes of animation). So Jean Vander Pyl, Bea Benadaret and Doug Young (who hadn’t been in the first voice session) came in October 2nd and recorded dialogue for an insert. It would appear the insert is the sequence involving the construction worker, the car salesman on the air, and the little old ladies. In fact, there’s a written note that says “Insert A – Walt” and if you look at the design of the construction worker, it has the lower ear that Walt Clinton liked in his designs.

Ed Love began animating this on August 15 and finished all but the insert in nine days.

Vic Shank gets the sole camera mention but the screen credits add Wayne Smith, Jerry Smith and Joe Nasta. Larry Cowan, Don Douglas and Warner Leighton are written in as the film editors but Cowan and Greg Watson got the screen credit. The animation checker is Merle Welton. She had been employed at Disney.

Note that Paul Sommer received the story director credit, not Alex Lovy as per the card.

It aired April 5, 1963.


Tony Benedict added gags to Joanna Lee’s teleplay for “The Big Move,” which came out of the story department on September 21, 1962. It aired March 22, 1963.

The card gives Walt Clinton sole layout responsibility but he and Bick appear on screen.

The animators are even more interesting. Ed Aardal, Ralph Somerville and Allen Wilzbach’s names are typed with Chuck Harriton added. But Wilzbach’s name has been rubbed off and Ed Love’s written in. Wilzbach has been pencilled in with the assistant animators who consist of Jack Parr, Bob Carr and someone named Howard (Howard Baldwin?). But on screen, Wilzbach gets a credit. So do Love, Aardal and Harriton. Regardless, the animators began work on October 21st and were done in 12 days.

Charles Flekal and Frank Parrish were the assigned cameramen with Ted Bemiller, Frank Paiker and Hal Shiffman pencilled in. Flekal, Paiker, Roy Wade and Norm Stainback got the credits, as did Don Douglas and Greg Watson for film editing (sorry Larry Cowan). Among the checkers are Natalie Yates, Evelyn Sherwood and Maggi Raymond.

So which credits are accurate, the ones on the card or the ones on the actual cartoon? Well, when they both match up, I don’t think there’s any dispute. For what it’s worth background artist Art Lozzi once said that he saw his name on screen for cartoons he didn’t work on, so we may never know the answer.

One thing is certain—all the voice credits are accurate. We can only hope more of these cards come to light.

Yakky Doodle in Happy Birthdaze

Produced and Directed by Joe Barbera and Bill Hanna.
No credits.
Voice Cast: Yakky Doodle – Jimmy Weldon; Chopper – Vance Colvig; Finnigan the Guard, Butcher, Bone Carriers – Daws Butler; Museum Boss – Herb Vigran.
Music: Hoyt Curtin.
Episode: Production R-28.
Copyright 1961 by Hanna-Barbera Productions.
Plot: Yakky “buys” a dinosaur bone from a museum for Chopper’s birthday and the museum’s security guard tries to get it back.

You know by now that I’m not a fan of Yakky Doodle, but I have some sympathy for the little duck in this cartoon. He paid 27 cents for a bone. Why should he think it wasn’t a legal transaction? And he wanted to give Chopper a present. So his intentions were good and his actions are quite logical. I think the characterisation is a good one in this short.

That doesn’t mean this is a great cartoon. It’s actually really lacklustre. There’s a lot chasing but not a lot of witty dialogue to punctuate the stops and starts of the chase. And the writer (my guess is this is Tony Benedict’s story) is marking time in spots. “It’s not real money, Chopper,” Yakky says. “It’s candy money. Yum, yum!” What’s Chopper’s brilliant response? “It’s candy money. Ha, ha, ha, ha. Yum, yum. Now ain’t that cute? Ha, ha, ha, haw, haw.”

It’s accompanied by a rigid Yakky (who blinks his eyes), and a rigid-except-for-head Chopper. The animation’s really limited in parts of this short, but the characters are well drawn. There’s lots of dry brushwork, too.



The story is simple. Yakky raids his piggy bank to buy Chopper a birthday present. He has 27 cents. He goes to a meat store. The largest bone there isn’t big enough as far as Yakky’s concerned. “What is your pal, Chopper, a rhino-saucer-us-sus-sus?” says the butcher (Daws adds extra syllables in a German accent).

Yakky sees a dinosaur bone being carried into a museum, which didn’t pay anything for it. Yakky takes it and leaves his 27 cents. A security guard is dispatched to bring it back. Chopper gets into the fray until the guard explains it was from a museum. Chopper tells Yakky it’s against the law. But, no, the guard doesn’t send Yakky to jail for theft. Instead, there’s a happy ending with the duck and the Irish stereotype singing “Happy Birthday” to Chopper to the theme of “Clementine” (I still can’t decipher all the lyrics). Naturally, the cartoon ends with another “Now, ain’t that cute?”



Mismatched shots. These are consecutive frames.



Dick Thomas, the workhorse of the Hanna-Barbera background department, was assigned this cartoon.

Herb Vigran supplies a voice in this cartoon. At least, I think it’s Herb Vigran. My guess is he was recording something on The Flintstones and Joe Barbera had him cut a couple of lines for this one while he was there. (I can’t help but wonder if Vigran was one of the people who auditioned for Fred when Barbera was looking for voices at the start of the series). The possibility has been raised that the museum boss could be Vance Colvig, and I can’t dispute that.

Hoyt Curtin’s version of “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” opens the cartoon. In fact, the sound cutter used only two cues from the start to the scene when the guards walk into the museum with the bone, which takes up a minute and 36 seconds. The bulk of the music can be heard in a typical Touché Turtle cartoon.