The Best To You...

Kellogg’s bankrolled the first three half-hour Hanna-Barbera series in syndication. Not only did the shows plug Kellogg cereals in the commercial breaks, the sponsor was worked into the opening and closing animated credits.

Actually, for the first series, The Huckleberry Hound Show, there was a little more of a connection than that. The new Kellogg’s Corn Flakes mascot, Cornelius the rooster, appeared after the opening animation to knock on a door through which Huck would enter and begin the show.

Cornelius showed up in the opening as well, crowing, leading an elephant clarinet and then finally rising above the ground in a hot air balloon.



The sponsor’s name (with Art Gilmore doing the first-season voice over) opened the closing animation in a paper hoop that Huck, and then a jalopy driven by Cornelius, burst through, as the two picked up all the other Kellogg’s spokes-cartoon animals. When the cartoons were syndicated later by Screen Gems, the animation was re-done to substitute characters on the show.



The third series, The Yogi Bear Show, had a creative opening where Yogi drove the ranger’s jeep into a billboard and snatched the Kellogg’s lettering as he motored into the distance and then emerged from a second billboard, holding out the letters.



The closing saw Yogi in the ranger’s helicopter flying under the Kellogg’s letters, pulling a banner with the company’s slogan “The best to you each morning.” The banner disappeared in the next scene.



Naturally, my favourite is from the second series, The Quick Draw McGraw Show. Quick Draw is driving a stage. He cracks the whip to make his horses go faster (let’s not get into the horse vs horse debate) and it forms the Kellogg’s letters. His expression changes when the letters fall around his snout. He cracks the whip again and it gets wrapped around his head before re-forming the Kellogg’s letters. The eyes are great. My guess is Dick Lundy animated this.



The Kellogg’s name shows up again superimposed over the cloud of dust caused when Quick Draw skids the stage to a stop.

The sponsor returns in the closing as the bumpy road reveals the Kellogg’s slogan on boards at the back of the stage. The bouncing caused by the bumps then jars Baba Looey and a chest off the stage. Running behind, he and Quick Draw engage in a Senor Wences routine where Baba opens the chest, pops up and says “S’all-right!” before closing on himself. When I was a kid, I had never seen Senor Wences and when I finally saw him do his routine on Ed Sullivan’s show, I thought he had stolen it from Quick Draw.



The animation had to be deleted when Kellogg’s no longer sponsored the half-hour. I noticed the change as a young viewer and was very disappointed. Screen Gems began shopping around the cartoons in 1966, coincidentally about the time Hanna-Barbera was negotiating with Taft to buy it.

The way the sponsor was worked in was fairly creative and added to each of the series.

Hey, Boss, Lemme Watch Huck!

Huckleberry Hound didn’t need a lot of hype to become a hit. People found the show upon its debut in 1958 (in some cases because of newspaper ads placed by local TV stations) and critics discovered it, too. They liked it. They were tired of old theatrical cartoons and perhaps the gentle humour of Huck and his friends elsewhere on the show fit the sedate suburban ‘50s.

We’ve reprinted a bunch of stories from critics-turned-Huck-fans from the show’s first season. Here’s one more from the Boston Globe of March 14, 1959. You likely won’t understand the local reference jokes. In case the reference to Fred Allen puzzles you, Daws Butler used his Allen voice as a narrator in the cartoon where Huck is quelled by mosquitoes. The Phil Silvers voice was heard in Little Red Riding Huck.

The critic goes on to say he likes Huck better than Tom and Jerry. The same opinion was made by no less a person than Bill Hanna, though we suspect Bill had a vested interest in promoting his new cartoon series. You can read about it in this post.

Adult Cartoons Now
Huckleberry Hound New TV Funny "Man"
By ROBERT P. ALLEN
DEAR BOSS—This may be a strange request, but what are the chances of sneaking out of the office a little earlier than usual on Thursday nights?
I gotta get home to a house that was never going to be ruled by television, scrub up and eat supper without bolting my food—all before 6:30.
That's "Huckleberry Hound" time, and I've gotta be ready. It's important.
If you haven't had a chance to catch hilarious Huck and his flip-talking pals on Tee-Vee, you're missing what's probably the funniest show ever—particularly if you're a push-over for "adult" cartoons.
This Huckleberry Hound bit—supposed to be the first all-animated, half-hour program ever produced specifically for television— should have you in stitches.
It does all of us at our house.

If Huckleberry himself won't get you roaring, the antics of Yogi Bear, Boo-Boo Bear, the mice Pixie and Dixie, the cat Mr. Jinks or some of his other furry and feathered friends will.
Should you find I'm wrong and you don't howl most of the 30 minutes except for the commercials, I'll promise to put in a full day on Thursday in the future and live, as I do now, real dangerously on that day.
In order to watch Huck and his pals—providing I can't sneak out earlier—I've got to:
1. Race that convertible 'round the corner right in front of the Quincy Police Station on two wheels without cutting my speed.
2. Leap the sometimes-open draw bridge at Fore River.
3. Ignore the oft-red traffic light in front of the Hingham Police Station.
4. Tear through Cohasset like I did something wrong.
5. Flop down at the supper table without scrubbing my hands—let alone taking off my overcoat and snowshoes.
6. Bolt that food, tote that barge, lift that bale.
And even with all this hustle, there's a chance I might miss the first few minutes of Huckleberry. You know as well as the next boss that things like that don't make for a happy, well-adjusted employee.
Of course, if you let me sneak out, you'll probably have to let some of the others sneak out, too.
I'm not the only Huckleberry Hound fan around.
If you've got a minute, let me tell you what little I know about the show.
It was first introduced last September, and now some 180 TV stations through the country carry it each week.
The characters' "voices," like the ones resembling Art Carney's, the late Fred Allen's and Phil Silvers', are tremendous.
But it's the dialogue that causes the fractures. The episodes are spiced with such ticklers as: "We gotta outwit that nitwit" and "How's that for size blue eyes?"

Huckleberry's cartoonists—William Hanna and Joseph Barbera—have faced each other daily over twin desks for 20 years.
When they began working together in motion pictures, Hanna was an idea-and-production man supervising photography and physical preparation, and Barbera was a sketch artist.
Cartooning was a sideline with them both. We should have such a sideline.
It developed into the Tom and Jerry cartoons. They turned more than 200 films detailing the adventures of the mischievous rodent, the bungling feline and, of course, the ferocious bulldog, Spike.
The creative routine which began with Tom and Jerry is now applied to Huckleberry Hound and his friends.
But there's one difference—Huck is twice as funny.
In the Hollywood offices of Hanna and Barbera's recently formed H-B Enterprises, there's only one set rule: "Always start the day with a laugh."
That's a pretty good rule.
Results of this rule are on Channel 7 Thursday at 6:30 p.m.
So can I sneak out early, huh?
Yrs.
HUCKY'S PAL.

We now have a late bonus, thanks to Jerry Beck. It’s, well, I’m not sure what exactly it is, but it must have been on toy store shelves close to when Huck was created, as you will note the presence of everyone’s favourite cartoon dog that speaks only one word.



A late note: reader Keith Semmell says it’s part of a toy put out by Knickerbocker in 1959.



Let’s finish our post with an endless loop from the first Huck cartoon that aired, Huckleberry Hound Meets Wee Willie (it was the fifth Huck put into production). There are loads of money-saving cheats in this cartoon, including a cel of a police car with the background by Sam Clayberger moved behind it. The car and Huck don’t move; you can see the wheels don’t even turn.

Was Boo Boo a Boo Boo?

Did Yogi Bear really need Boo Boo on his show? Before we look at that, let’s look at Boo Boo in one of those little cartoons between the cartoons on the Yogi Bear Show. He looks like he’s in pain sliding down the pole. The oval eyes and heavy eyelids make me think Don Williams animated this.



By this time, Boo Boo was firmly entrenched in Yogi’s world, along with Ranger Smith and Jellystone Park. But that wasn’t always the case.

Yogi first appeared on the Huckleberry Hound Show in 1958 before getting his own spin-off series in early 1961. The first Yogi cartoon put into production was Pie-Pirates. Boo Boo tagged along as he and Yogi tried to steal a pie from a rural home. Boo Boo didn’t warn “Mr. Ranger won’t like it” because there was no Mr. Ranger. Not many of the cartoons that year took place in Jellystone Park and Ranger Smith had not been invented yet.

During the rest of the season, Yogi appeared in a number of different situations without a “bear-type buddy.” Several of the cartoons were in a spot gag format which suited Yogi pretty well. Charlie Shows provided dialogue in the 1958-59 season with former New York animator Dan Gordon coming up with storyboards for his old buddy Joe Barbera who was involved in the story process, too.

Boo Boo or not, Yogi proved to be an incredibly popular character. The opening animation to the Huck show was changed in 1959 where Yogi now joined Huck in carrying the sponsor’s banner into the first scene. There was a change in the writing department as well. Shows went to work for Larry Harmon and Warren Foster was brought in from John Sutherland Productions. Foster got a full “writer” credit and was given the responsibility for all the cartoons on the Huck show. A decision was made to make Boo Boo a permanent sidekick, that a ranger be created as an antagonist and to centre the plots in Jellystone Park. The format limited Yogi an awful lot—no more spot gags or adventures with woodland creatures—but it arguably gave Foster a base to work with and Yogi became so popular, he was spun off into his own show.

Boo Boo was a solid character. Don Messick found an ideal voice for him. But if you’ve been reading the Yogi Bear newspaper comics we’ve posted here, Gene Hazelton and his writers didn’t deem Boo Boo essential and Yogi was involved in situations involving other character.

Personally, I like some of the Boo Boo-less cartoons of the first season (note that Boo Boo and Yowp never appeared together) and the Yogi/spot gag format. But the little bear is etched in the minds of pretty well all Yogi Bear fans, so perhaps it’s best that he became a permanent member of the TV cast.

Yogi Bear Weekend Comics, June 1970

Yogi Bear’s world is filled with good intentions but things don’t quite work out for him in the newspaper comics this month 49 years ago. He tries to help Ranger Smith wake up, he comes up with an idea to save a wedding and he finally protects other animals in Jellystone Park from a jerk.

You can click on the comics to enlarge them.


June 7, 1970. An owl is perched on the ‘Yogi’ sign in the opening panel and there are two silhouette panels. This is Mr. Ranger’s only appearance this month.


June 14, 1970. Me see-um stereotypes from reservation at Jellystone. Lonesome Coyote’s plan does have a certain type of logic to it.


June 21, 1970. Yogi is back to talking in rhyme. His attempt to be helpful isn’t appreciated. Hey, he did better than any of the humans did; why dump on him?



June 28, 1970. Talking squirrel last week, talking bird this week. Anyone hear Allan Melvin as the biker? A lot of detail in the long panel in the second row. I admire how the artist can draw cartoon-style animals and a realistic-looking motorcycle.

Boo Boo has the month off.

Mark of the Carlo

Limited animation at Hanna-Barbera didn’t necessarily mean an eye blink or a mouth changing shape while a character’s body remained rigid. Not when you had Carlo Vinci at work in the early days.

There’s a scene in the 1959 cartoon Mark of the Mouse where Mr. Jinks (played by Daws Butler) pretends to be afraid of Pixie (played by Daws Butler) who is disguised as the Zorro-like Mark of the Mouse (not played by Daws Butler).

Here are some frames as Jinks moves from pose to pose. Carlo did his own in-betweens and animated the whole cartoon (Mike Lah took on segments of some of the early H-B cartoons, but not this one). Jinks isn’t just inked on one cel with maybe an arm moving. Carlo has his whole body shifting. Complete drawings, just like in full animation.



Jinksie pauses to talk to the audience watching at home. “Am I overacting?” he asks. (He is). His right hand is at the left side of his mouth to make sure Pixie can’t see he’s talking to us.



“Gracious me! I must flee for my life!” exclaims the thespiating cat. Carlo limits his animation during the dialogue by only moving the head. Then Jinks turns and has a neat little half-eye-closed laugh toward the audience in a small cycle.



Jinks turns and then zips out of the scene. Again, these are full drawings. There are no short cuts, other than theatrical animation might be a bit more fluid (and slower as extra drawings take up screen time). See how Carlo moves Jinks’ right hand to the left side of the face and then over. I don’t know what other animator would have thought of doing that.



Carlo seems to have been let loose to do his thing in this cartoon. There are some unique cycles and I really like the shock drawings in the climax of the cartoon. You can see his work in this post.