| Huckleberry Hound | |
|---|---|
| The Huckleberry Hound Show character | |
 Title card featuring Huckleberry Hound. |
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| First appearance | Huckleberry Hound Meets Wee Willie (1958) |
| Created by | William Hanna Joseph Barbera |
| Portrayed by | Daws Butler (1958-88) Greg Berg (1990-) |
| Information | |
| Species | Hound Dog |
| Gender | Male |
Huckleberry "Huck" Hound is a blue dog that spoke with a Southern drawl, with a relaxed, sweet, and well-intentioned personality. He first appeared in the series The Huckleberry Hound Show. Huckleberry Hound's southern drawl and laid back mannerisms bear close resemblance to Southern Wolf in the MGM Cartoons including those produced by Hanna and Barbera.
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 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 annoyed Farmer 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 MGM cartoons directed by Tex Avery and produced by Fred Quimby 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.
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Concept and creation
Huckleberry's name is a reference to classic American novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain. Hanna and Barbera almost named Yogi Bear as "Huckleberry Bear."[1]
He was voiced in the original cartoons in 1957 by Daws Butler, who had given a similar voice and characterisation to a wolf character in the 1954 Tex Avery MGM cartoon Billy Boy. Butler denied he based the voice on Carolinian actor Andy Griffith, and had been using it since the late 1940s.[1]
Episodes
Role in later productions
Yogi, Boo Boo, Magilla Gorilla, Snagglepuss, and Huckleberry travelled around America in the half-hour series Yogi's Gang. Debuting in 1973, the characters travelled in Ark Lark, a hot air balloon. They solved problems including Mr. Waste and pollution, Mr. Bigot's bigotry, and other various issues.[1]
The Galaxy Goof-Ups segment of the 1978 series Yogi's Space Race featured new characters Captain Smerdley, Scarebear and Quack-Up with returnees Huckleberry and Yogi, travelling through space, to multiple planets. The series soon split off to its own half-hour program.[1] Huckleberry also appeared as a member of the Yogi Yahooeys team in Laff-A-Lympics from 1977-1979.
Syndicated series The Funtastic World of Hanna-Barbera included a segment in 1985 called Yogi's Treasure Hunt; Huckleberry appeared alongside characters including Yogi and Boo Boo, Snagglepuss, Dick Dastardly and Muttley, Top Cat, and others.[1] In 1987, he appeared in Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose, travelling around the world, saving animals and fending off the Dread Baron and Mumbley.[1]
With fuller (but not feature quality) animation Yogi's First Christmas featured Huckleberry and others helping Yogi Bear prevent Jellystone Lodge's owner from tearing it down.[1]
His main comeback was in the television film The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound released in 1988.[1]
Impact on popular culture
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.
Huckleberry Hound in other languages
- Brazilian Portuguese: Dom Pixote
- Portuguese: Dom Quixote
- Spanish: similar to English
- Dutch: Huckleberry Hond
- German: Hucky
- Italian: Braccobaldo Bau
- French: Roquet Belles-Oreilles
- Finnish: Hakki-koira
- Hungarian: Foxi Maxi
- Japanese: 珍犬ハックル (Chin-ken Hakkuru)
- Czech: Pes Filipes
- Polish: Pies Huckleberry
- Swedish: Huckleberry Hund / Blåbärsjycken
- Turkish: Akıllı Bıdık
- Croatian: Hucky i Prijatelji
- Bulgarian: Хъкълбери Хрътката
- Icelandic: Hökki Hundur
Later appearances
- 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 co-star, Yogi. Huck appeared in Yogi's Gang (1973), the short lived Yogi's Space Race (1978), Laff-A-Lympics (1977-1978), and 1985-1986's Yogi's Treasure Hunt.
- Huckleberry Hound appeared in the "Fender Bender 500" segment of Wake, Rattle, and Roll voiced by Greg Burson. He is paired up with Snagglepuss where they drive a monster truck called the Half Dog, Half Cat, Half Track.
- Huckleberry Hound appeared as a teenager in the series Yo Yogi! voiced by Greg Berg. Wee Willie was also featured as a teenager with his vocal effects done by Rob Paulsen.
- Huckleberry Hound made two cameo appearances on Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. Admiral Mutt appeared in the episode "Peanut Puberty" amongst the Board of Directors.
- Evil Con Carne once alluded to him when The Lady of the Lake suggested that Hectar do an impression of "Huckleberry Hound fighting Mojo Jojo". When Hector did his impression of Huckleberry Hound, it was provided by Tom Kenny.
- Huckleberry Hound appeared in the Johnny Bravo episode "Back on Shaq." He was Seth Green's "good-luck charm" when Shaquille O'Neal was using Johnny Bravo as his "good-luck charm."
- He also made an appearance in The Brak Show. In the episode Huckleberry appears at the end and takes Brak's new nose drom his Poppy.
- 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. Like the 2002 Pixie and Dixie short, it used to air on Cartoon Network until the relaunch in 2004.
Parodies and references
Multiple television series have included the character in their plots, usually as a quick gag:
- Huckleberry Hound appeared in The Simpsons episode "Behind the Laughter" voiced by Karl Wiedergott.
- Huckleberry Hound appeared in the Robot Chicken episode "Ban on the Fun." In a segment that parodied Laff-A-Lympics in the style of the Munich massacre, Huckleberry Hound was among the Yogi Yahooies
- References have been made in Head of the Class, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, where the lead's memory of the series is erased, because his girlfriend shares the name Clementine with Huck's song.
- A Huckleberry Hound bobble head is seen on the dashboard of the Mystery Machine in Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins.
See also
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h Ted Sennett, The Art of Hanna-Barbera: Fifty Years of Creativity. Viking Studio Books, 1989. ISBN 0-670-82978-1, 274 pages.
External links
- The Huckleberry Hound Show at the Internet Movie Database
- The Huckleberry Hound Show at TV.com
- The Cartoon Scrapbook – Profile on Huckleberry Hound.
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