Huckleberry Hound

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The Huckleberry Hound Show
Image:Huck.jpeg
Title card for the Huckleberry Hound segment.
Genre Cartoon series
Voices of Daws Butler
Don Messick
Doug Young
Theme music composer Hoyt S. Curtin
Country of origin Flag of the United States United States
No. of seasons 4
Production
Producer(s) William Hanna
Joseph Barbera
Running time 30 min.
Production
company(s)		 Hanna-Barbera
Broadcast
Original channel ABC
Original run October 2, 1958 – April 24, 1962
Chronology
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 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.

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[edit] Huckleberry Hound, the character

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 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 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.

[edit] The inspiration for Huck's voice

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.

[edit] Following the original series

After his original series ran its course, Huck continued to make appearances in other Hanna-Barbera series, mainly as a supporting character for his former costar, Yogi. Huck appeared in such series as Yogi's Gang, Yogi's Space Race, Laff-A-Lympics and even as a teenager in the series Yo, Yogi! Huck was also the star of the 1980s made-for-television movie, The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound.

Today, Huck's television appearances, like those of the rest of the early Hanna-Barbera characters, are rare, though his shorts can often be found on Cartoon Network's sister cable TV channel Boomerang, which are broadcast around the world. In addition, some of Huck's cartoons are also featured on various VHS and DVD MCA Universal home video releases.

[edit] DVD release

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
  • A Bonus collectible animation cel
  • Featurette on reconstructing the premiere episode
  • Never-before-seen bumpers and bridge
  • A Tribute to legendary voice talent Daws Butler

[edit] Huckleberry Hound in popular culture

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • An episode of the prime-time animated TV show The Simpsons ("Behind the Laughter") parodies Huckleberry Hound, having him state, "I was so gay ... but I couldn't tell anyone."
  • Huckleberry Hound appeared in the Johnny Bravo episode "Back on Shaq". He was the good-luck character for Seth Green who was facing off against Shaquille O'Neal and his good-luck person Johnny Bravo.
  • Huckleberry Hound was key to Joel Barish's character in the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Having the memory of his girlfriend named Clementine erased caused connected memories to be lost. Due to Huck's constant singing of "Oh my darlin', Clementine", it caused him to forget who Huckleberry Hound was as well.
  • Huckleberry Hound appeared in the Robot Chicken episode "Ban on the Fun." In a segment that parodies the Laff-A-Lympics in the style of the Munich massacre, Huckleberry Hound was killed alongside his teammates.
  • Cartoon Network's Boomerang channel plays a more recent Huckleberry Hound animated short that strays greatly from the animation and story style of the original. Using cutout style animation, Huck simply makes everyone in a town be quiet so he can sing "Oh my Darlin'" in peace. It didn't follow the formula of the show which always gave him a career, and it made his singing seem more important to him than it ever did on the series where it seemed to simply be a tune he sang to himself during idle time.
  • In one episode of Head of the Class, Arvid was so sad for the loss of his dog he answered "Huckleberry Hound" when asked a question whose correct answer was Huckleberry Finn.

[edit] Syndication

Alphabetized by city.

  • The name for Rock et Belles Oreilles, a Québécois comedy group popular during the 1980s, was a pun on the name of Huckleberry Hound ("Roquet Belles Oreilles" in French).

[edit] Huckleberry Hound in other languages

[edit] External links