| The Huckleberry Hound Show | |
|---|---|
![]() Title card for the Huckleberry Hound segment. |
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| Genre | Cartoon series |
| Voices of | Daws Butler Don Messick Doug Young |
| Theme music composer | Hoyt S. Curtin |
| Country of origin | |
| No. of seasons | 4 |
| No. of episodes | 57 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Running time | 30 min. |
| Production company(s) |
Hanna-Barbera |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | syndication |
| Original run | October 2, 1958 – April 24, 1962 |
| Chronology | |
| Preceded by | The Ruff & Reddy Show |
| Followed by | Quick Draw McGraw |
| Related shows | The Yogi Bear Show |
| External links | |
| IMDb profile | |
| TV.com summary | |
Huckleberry "Huck" Hound is a fictional cartoon character created and produced by Hanna-Barbera, and the star of the 1958 syndicated animated series The Huckleberry Hound Show, Hanna-Barbera's second series made for television after The Ruff & Reddy Show. The show was originally distributed by Screen Gems, then by Worldvision Enterprises and then Turner Program Services, before current distributor Warner Bros. Television picked up ownership of the show following its 1996 acquisition of Turner.
The Huckleberry Hound Show was probably the series that truly made Hanna-Barbera a household name, thanks to Huckleberry (or "Huck" as he was sometimes nicknamed, referencing the novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) and the two supporting segments of the show: Yogi Bear and his sidekick Boo Boo, and Pixie and Dixie, two mice who in each short found a new way to outwit the cat Mr. Jinks. After Yogi Bear was given his own show in 1961, his segment was replaced with one featuring Hokey Wolf and his sidekick Ding-a-Ling. The Huckleberry Hound Show won the first ever Emmy Award for an animated series in 1960.[1]
Contents |
Voiced by Daws Butler, Huckleberry was a blue dog that spoke with a Southern drawl, with a relaxed, sweet, and well-intentioned personality. The term "Huckleberry" can be a slang synonym for a rube or an amateur, and that seems to fit Huck's personality. Most of his shorts consisted of Huck trying to perform jobs in different fields, ranging from policeman to (ironically enough) dogcatcher, with backfiring results, yet usually coming out on top, either through slow persistence or sheer luck.
Huck did not seem to exist in a specific time period as he has also been a Roman gladiator, a Medieval knight, and a rocket scientist. He was never in the future though, only the present (as of the show's airing) or the past. One regular villain in the series was "Powerful Pierre", a tall and muscular unshaven character with a French accent. Another regular villain was "Dinky Dalton" a rough and tough western outlaw that Huck usually has to capture. Crazy Coyote, an indian who Huck often had to defeat who was his match. And the rows, two crows with mafia accents who often annoyedfarmer huck. Another trademark of Huck was his tone deaf (as well as inaccurate) rendition of "Oh My Darling, Clementine," often used as a running gag. He also commonly used the phrase "and stuff like that there" in place of "etc.". This phrase showed up quite often in many Hanna-Barbera productions of this time for some reason, but Huckleberry said it more often than anyone else. One of his careers had his job position on the door listed as "TS & SLTT". When asked what it stood for, Huck said "Top secrets and stuff like that there".
Various Hanna-Barbera characters were known for frequently turning to the viewing audience to make little comments and asides (following the tradition of the Warner Bros. cartoon characters of the 1940s, and earlier by Groucho Marx). Huck took this to somewhat of an extreme, as a significant part of a typical cartoon was his running narrative to the audience about whatever he was trying to accomplish.
Huck's voice was one that Butler had already developed and used in earlier work, such as the dog character in The Ruff & Reddy Show, and earlier characters in the MGM cartoon library. It was said to be based on the neighbor of his wife, Myrtis; Butler would speak with said neighbor when visiting North Carolina.
On November 15, 2005, Warner Home Video released The Huckleberry Hound Show - Vol. 1, featuring the complete first series of 26 episodes from the series on DVD. The other remaining 31 episodes are yet to be released.
| DVD Name | Ep # | Release Date | Additional Information |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Huckleberry Hound Show - Volume 1 The complete first series | 26 | November 15, 2005 |
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Alphabetized by city.
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