Beloved Huckleberry Hound Evokes Memories

JT, with tongue in her cheek, sends me two of her husband’s favorite toys: a 1959 Huckleberry Hound, marketed by the Knickerbocker Toy Co., and a Knickerbocker Pouty Bear, from 1950. I want to focus on the Huck toy, and the memories it evokes.

Do you remember the 1960’s Pebbles and Bamm Bamm Purex Bath Suds? Or the Squiddly Diddly Soaky Toy? How about the Peter Potomus Yipee Squeezey from 1965? How about Secret Squirrel Soaky toy? The team of Hanna and Barbera created all these and 3,000 more characters, along with JT’s husband’s Huck Hound.

My brother Paul, one Christmas, received an inflatable punching bag in the form of Huckleberry Hound, tinted bright blue. His favorite cartoon show featured Huck, and the mice, Pixie and Dixie, and their nemesis the cat, Mr Jinx.

So you don’t think my family discriminated when it came to punching bags, I received a Bozo the Clown one that year.

Daws Butler voiced the North Carolina hound on The Huckleberry Hound Show. The show began in 1958. Research indicates a suspicion that Mr Butler studied the voice patterns of Andy Griffith for Huck’s voice and accent. And many loved the show, which won an Emmy in 1960, making history as the first animated show to do so.

In the 1960’s, animated cartoons aired in half-hour character segments. Along with Huckleberry Hound and friends, my brother watched Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo, then Quick Draw McGraw and Ricochet Rabbit (bing bing bing), if my mother allowed. I can still see Paul sitting on the linoleum in front of the TV on a rickety wire legged cart in the kitchen.

Hanna and Barbera

Now we come to the men who created JT’s husband’s stuffed toy Huck, which remains in rather good condition for its age. It amazes me that grown men spent 60 years thinking up such characters. The image of a Carolina Bluetick hound becoming Huckleberry Hound is an example of Hanna and Barbera’s creativity in 1958. Hanna and Barbera put their heads together and created the show’s other characters: Powerful Pierre, the French tough guy, the outlaw Dinky Dalton, and those two Italian mobster crows, not to mention famous Crazy Coyote. Not bad for a day job.

Many of the characters created by this team acted out situations involving teams of characters. The  buddies William and Joseph perfected the buddy comedy in animation style. Married couples, animated, also became fair game, a first in animation history. The Family Guy owes plenty to the animated family story pioneered in the 1960’s.

In the late 1950’s William Hanna (1901-2001) and Joseph Barbera (1911-2006) co-founded the most successful animated TV shows the world had known, leading off with the mighty success of Tom and Jerry. Beginning their career together, as they sat facing each other across the desks in the 1950’s, they worked together until the end of the 1990’s, as octogenarians. In their joint endeavors, they enchanted millions of kids worldwide with the likes of The Flintstones, Yogi Bear, Scooby Doo, Top Cat, the Smurfs, and my favorite show, The Jetsons.

Innovators

Hanna and Barbera received seven Academy Awards and eight Emmys. Barbera, a great character artist, loved the visual and verbal gag. Hanna excelled in timing, story, and attracted a great team. The pair of animators made many other illustrators unhappy because they pioneered a less time consuming, slicker type of production called limited animation. They found it cheaper to use the same drawings in different ways instead of hiring artists to create more character moves. The Simpsons owes much to this technique.

Ah, the memories

I love the memories JT’s husband’s stuffed Huck evokes. My completely tone deaf dad possessed a tin ear just like Huck. He tried to sing “My Darling Clementine” along with the equally non-musical Huck, and if you remember, that little attempt at that song became Huckleberry Hound’s signature. It turns out Dad watched the show too. In fact a 1960 poll found half of the show’s viewers were grown–ups. That goes double for Hanna Barbera’s The Flintstones, a parody of the grown up show The Honeymooners.

JT, tell your sentimental husband that to my knowledge the Pouty Bear is not a Hanna Barbera character, and not worth anything. On the other hand, for his Huck Hound collectors might pay $75-100. Don’t wrap in plastic, which damages those faces!