The Huckleberry Hound Show
Volume 1
Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Pisic and Dixie
Hanna-Barbera
26 Episodes
4 DVDs
Warner Home Video 2005
For a long time in the sixties and seventies Hanna-Barbera ruled the cartoon world and Saturday morning. The Huckleberry Hound Show originally ran for four years (1958-62) but was rerun countless time as part of some network’s cartoon lineup to sell sugary cereals, toys you had to buy so you could have friends play with you, and so on. Some dismiss The Huckleberry Hound Show out of hand, forgetting it won an Emmy for children’s programming in 1960.
The Hanna-Barbera team started as a result of MGM closing its animation studio in the sixties. William Hanna and Joseph Barbera had worked at MGM on the Tom And Jerry cartoons -which explains the strong similarities between Pixie and Dixie– and decided to strike out on their own. Hanna-Barbera was small budget mass production cartoon and that explains the flat animation technique Hanna-Barbera turned into a science. Flat animation consists in having a static body with only the head, arms, and legs moving and only on of the three at a time. It also results in the pinwheel effect you see so often on The Huckleberry Hound Show and other such cartoons when characters are running and the reason why all these funny cartoon characters seem to live in a long railcar with the same door, window, or table and potted plant placed every ten feet or so. Still, when I was growing up and watching these Saturday morning cartoons, I really do not remember anybody commenting on the animation technique. All we cared about was The Huckleberry Hound Show was a half hour of good cartoons, we did not notice how sometimes the bottom part of top part of Yogi were different shades of brown in a particular scene.
Granted, The Huckleberry Hound Show was not a groundbreaking cartoon like Hanna-Barbera’s The Flintstones but it is a fun cartoon show. Even if you are not a big fan of the turquoise southern drawl dog who always seems to have a different job in every cartoon, you will definitely enjoy the Yogi Bear cartoons and the Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinx cartoons.
Serious cartoon aficionados will definitely see resemblances between some of the stories in these cartoons and the Warner Brother classic Looney Tunes. Case in point is the Yogi Bear Tally Ho-Ho-Ho which is your basic hunter versus smart cartoon animal short. There are a few moments here in both Yogi’s attitude, speech, and in some scenes where you definitely get a feeling of Fudd versus Bugs.
The very annoying thing about The Huckleberry Show Volume 1 is it actually contains reruns. There are about ten or so cartoons that are repeated here such as Slumber Party Smarty, Lion-Hearted Huck, Kit-Kat-Kit, Jinks’ Mice Device, and so on. You can understand, perhaps, Warner Brothers wanting to present the shows as aired but still.
Special features on the Huckleberry Hound Volume 1 4 DVD funnycartoon collection include Reassembled Episodes (of minor interest), the very weird and not really funny Huckleberry Hound: A Linguistical Masterpiece, the banal montage Huckleberry Quotes: The Remix, and some minor black and white to color stuff on Disc 4. Much more interesting is The Legendary Sound of Daws Butler on Disc 3.
Track List:
Yogi Bear / Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinks / Huckleberry Hound
Disc 1
Yogi Bear’s Big Break/ Cousin Tex/ Huckleberry Hound Meets Wee Willie
Slumber Party Smarty/ Judo Jack/ Lion-Hearted Huck
Pie-Pirates/ Kit-Kat-Kit/ Tricky-Trapper
Big Bad Bully/ Jink’s Mice Device/ Sir Huckleberry Hound
Foxy Hound Dog/ Pistol Packin’ Pirate/ Sherriff Huckleberry
Big Brave Bear/ Scaredy Cat Dog/ Rustler- Hustler Buck
Disc 2
Tally Ho-Ho-Ho/ The Little Bird-Mouse/ Freeway Patrol
High Fly Guy/ Jiggers It’s Jinks/ Cock-a-Doodle Huck
Baffled Bear/ The Ghost with the Most/ Two Corny Crows
The Brave Little Brave/ The Ace of Space/ Huckleberry Hound Meets Wee Willie
Yogi Bear’s Big Break/ Jinks Junior/ Fireman Huck
The Stout Trout/ Cousin Tex/ Dragon Slayer Huck
Disc 3
The Buzzin’ Bear/ Jinks the Butler/ Lion-Hearted Huck
Slumber Party Smarty/ Jinks’ Flying Carpet/ Hookey Daze
The Runaway Bear/ Judo Jack/ Skeeter Trouble
Be My Guest Pest/ Puppet Pals/ Tricky Trapper
Pie-Pirates/ Mark of the Mouse/ Sheep Shape Sheepherder
Duck in Luck/ Kit-Kat-Kit/ Barbecue Hound
Disc 4 Side A
Bear on a Picnic/ Dinky Jinks/ Sir Huckleberry Hound
Big Bad Bully/ Hypnotize Surprise/ Hokum Smokum
Prize Fight Fright/ Jinks’ Mice Device/ Birdhouse Blues
Brainy Bear/ Nice Mice/ Postman Panic
Robin Hood Yogi/ King Size Surprise/ Ski Champ Chump
Daffy Daddy/ Cat Nap Cat/ Lion Tamer Huck
Disc 4 Side B
Scooter Looter/ Mouse Nappers/ Little Red Riding Huck
Hide and Go Peek/ Boxing Buddy/ The Tough Little Termite