Daws Butler Movies
Daws Butler was one of the powerhouses of cartoon voices and has worked on scores of short and feature-length animated shows for both television and movies. Butler came to Hollywood in the mid-40s and got his start as part of "The Three Short Waves," a nightclub act that made fun of famous radio actors. He then earned national recognition when he imitated Dragnet co-star Ben Alexander on Stan Freberg's classic comedy record "St. George and the Dragonette." Butler starred in one of West Coast television's first puppet shows, Time for Beany (1949). He began working as a voice artist for the Hanna-Barbera animation studios in 1957, and during his long association with them provided the voices of at least 42 regular characters, including Yogi Bear --whose voice is a loose imitation of Art Carney-- Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, Snagglepuss --based on comedian Burt Lahr-- and Wally Gator. Butler also voiced characters on Jay Ward's "Fractured Fairy Tales" and "Aesop and Son." ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide- 1962
The misadventures of the Space Age family--George Jetson, his boy Elroy, daughter Judy, and Jane, his wife--are collected in this animated series. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- 1962
The misadventures of the Space Age family--George Jetson, his boy Elroy, daughter Judy, and Jane, his wife--are collected in this animated series. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- 1962
The misadventures of the Space Age family--George Jetson, his boy Elroy, daughter Judy, and Jane, his wife--are collected in this animated series. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- 1961
The fourth and final first-run season of The Huckleberry Hound Show is dominated by the newest of the half-hour animated series' three weekly cartoon components, "Hokey Wolf", which had been introduced the previous season when former "costar" Yogi Bear defected to his own starring series. 16 new "Hokey Wolf" installments, featuring a crafty wolf who sounds like Phil Silvers' Sgt. Bilko, debuted this season, among them the best of the batch, "ovies are Bitter Than Ever". As for series headliner Huckleberry Hound, enough of his short cartoons had been stockpiled from previous seasons to allow him to take it easy this season, showing up in a scant nine new adventures, including the above-average "Ben Huck" and "Scrubby Brush Man". Likewise, the series' third component "Pixie and Dixie", featuring the titular mice versus their eternal antagonist Mr. Jinks the cat, yielded only nine new episodes. Of these, the standout is "Fresh Heir", if for no other reason than its superb dialogue: Upon learning that a famous cat-lover has just passed away, a tearful Jinks looks upward and sighs "We always lose the good ones!" Although no new Huckleberry Hound episodes were filmed after its fourth season, the series enjoyed a spinoff of sorts in the fall of 1962 with The Best of Huck and Yogi, a thirteen-week rerun package which sponsor Kellogg's Cereals targettted for late-night Prime Time play. And of course, Huck himself would remain a Hanna-Barbera stalwart in dozens of future "ensemble" shows like Yogi's Space Race and Laff-a-Lympics. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daws Butler
- 1961
Once again, Fred has forgotten to buy wedding anniversary present for Wilma. In his haste to find an appropriate gift at a cut-rate cost, Fred purchases a "bargain" Stoneway piano from a gent named 88 Fingers Louie. Unbeknownst to Fred, the piano has been stolen--which explains why the cops descend upon the Flintstone household just as Wilma is getting her gift. This is the episode in which the interminable ditty "Happy Anniversary" is sung (to the tune of "The William Tell Overture") by a quartet of musical policemen. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1961
This cartoon series, consisting of 130 5-minute programs, looked a lot like Mr. Magoo, which was understandable as both the Tracy and Magoo series produced by United Productions of America. Dick Tracy, drawn in the realistic style of the newspaper strip (and voiced by Everett Sloane), was primarily seen in the opening segment, sitting at his desk at headquarters, contacting his various operatives by the two-way wrist-radio and assigning them their tasks. Tracy's operatives include Officer Heap O'Calorie, Hemlock Holmes, Go-Go Gomez, and Joe Jitsu -- these characters were drawn in exagerated cartoon style which, in the case of Japanese detective Joe Jitsu, was also highly ethnically offensive in decades to come (which is why the series disappeared from syndication in the 1970's). The villains were more interesting, an array of physical grotesques drawn right from the comic strip -- Pruneface, Itchy, BB Eyes, Flat Top et al, drawn in a more realistic style. The voices of the supporting detectives were based, in most instances, on some familiar movie figures: Cary Grant for Hemlock Holmes, Andy Devine for Heap O'Calorie etc. The cartoons were long on laughs and short on logic and excitement, and the production values, even by the standards of the limited animation typical for television, were somewhat threadbare. Indeed, the most memorable and exciting part of this series was the opening and closing sequences -- an overhead shot of a big city street, looking a lot like midtown Manhattan in the early 1960's, shows a police car at full siren cutting through traffic, and gunshots spell out "Dick Tracy," accompanied to swish-pan shots of panicked onlookers; the patrol car pulls up in front of a police station, and we cut to Tracy at his desk, telling the chief on his intercom that he "get right on it." The closing sequence was similar, a police car cutting through traffic at full speed, siren blaring, while onlookers stare. The credit sequence animators at least knew the look and feel of film noir, as well as a good action show. ~ Bruce Eder, All Movie Guide
- 1961
Tired of Wilma's complaints that he takes her for granted, Fred arranges to spend a second honeymoon at the couple's former romantic rendezvous, the Rock Mountain Inn, on the occasion of their 15th wedding anniversary. Upon their arrival, Fred and Wilma are told that the judge who presided over their marriage was a phony--meaning, of course, that they aren't legally married. You guessed it: Fred is forced to woo and win Wilma a second time...and she isn't about to make it easy for him! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1961
In an effort to sneak off to a poker game, Fred tells Wilma that he's actually visiting a sick friend. The fun begins when Fred wins $200 in the game, forcing him to spin another fabrication, informing Wilma that he merely found the money. Dutifully, Wilma puts an add in the paper in hopes of finding the money's "rightful owner"...and now Fred REALLY has to do some quick thinking! Watch for a cute "point-of-view" shot in the climactic chase scene. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1961
Fred and Barney go into the private detective game, but business is slim to none until a gorgeous blonde named Dagmar slinks into their office to hire them for a job. Unbeknownst to our heroes, Dagmar is really "The Peroxide Kid", gun moll for criminal Boss Rockhead, who intends to use Fred and Barney as dupes for his upcoming bank heist. By the time our heroes figure out what's what, Rockhead and his henchman are taking them for a little one-way ride--and it's up to Wilma and Betty to save their husbands from an untimely end. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1960
By the time The Huckleberry Hound Show entered its third season in the fall of 1960, Hanna-Barbera's position as TV's top animation studio was secure. In addition to this series, Hanna-Barbera was also churning out episodes of Quick Draw McGraw and The Flintstones, with such future cartoon favorites as Top Cat, Touche Turtle and Wally Gator still waiting in the wings. Indeed, only Jay Ward's Rocky and His Friends and UPA's Mister Magoo in any way challenged H-B's market supremacy. The 13 new episodes of Huckleberry Hound served up this season include 13 new "Huckleberry Hound" cartoon shorts and an equal number of "Pixie and Dixie" efforts. Conspicuous by his absence is longtime Huckleberry Yogi Bear, who had been spun off into his own starring series, logically titled The Yogi Bear Show. Yogi's replacement is Hokey Wolf, a "Sergeant Bilko"-type carnivore who in the company of his pint-sized pal Dingaling spends most of his screen time trying to steal sheep or cadge from meals from gullible farmers. While none of the "Hokey Wolf" cartoons this season are truly memorable (with the possible exception of "Hokey in the Pokey"), the "Huckleberry Hound" and "Pixie and Dixie" shorts maintain their high standard. The best of the "Huckleberrys" include "Spud Dud", a satire of mutant-monster horror films in which an overgrown potato tries to conquer the world; and "Cluck and Dagger", a wild spy spoof wherein Huck plays "The Man of 1000 Faces" (actually, he's only got one face, but nobody's ever asked him to display the other 999). And the highlight of the "Pixie and Dixie" manifest is the sublimely titled "Plutocrat Cat." All of these cartoons benefited from the sprightly orginal music scores by Hoyt Curtin, replacing the familiar, overused stock-music themes that had run through the first two seasons. At the same time Season Three of Huckleberry Hound was making the syndication rounds, selected cartoons from the series' first two seasons were network-run by CBS as a part of the live-action Saturday morning series The Magic Land of Allakazam. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daws Butler
- 1960
Fred and Barney combine their money and their labor to build a swimming pool in Fred's backyard. As it turns out, Barney monopolizes the pool with his circle of friends, prompting Fred to take drastic action in order to get in some swimming himself. Hiring his pal Charlie to pose as a cop, Fred tells Charlie to break up Barney's latest pool party and charge him with "disturbing the peace"--but it is Fred who gets in the neck when the real cops arrive. Though telecast as the third episode of The Flinstones, "The Swimming Pool" was the first one to be filmed; in fact, it is an expansion of the original four-minute test film for "The Flagstones", the series' original title. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1960
Wilma arranges for Fred and Barney to babysit Egbert, the son of her bridge companion Edna, on the very night that boys have landed tickets for the big prizefight. Our heroes resign themselves to watching the fight on TV, only to discover that it has been blacked out for a radius of 25 miles. Undaunted, Fred and Barney pack up Egbert in Fred's car and head to the home of Joe Rockhead, who lives just outside the blackout range. What follows is a veritable chain reaction of disasters, beginning when the boys mistake Joe's pet "runtasaurus" for Egbert. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- 1959
Entering its second season as one of the most popular TV series in off-network syndication (beaten only by the live-action Sea Hunt), Hanna-Barbera's The Huckleberry Hound Show boasts better animation and sharper writing than ever before in the 13 new episodes produced for the year. As before, each half-hour show consists of three separate cartoon components, respectively starring Southern-fried "everydog" Huckleberry Hound, the "smarter than av-er-age" Yogi Bear, and the cat-mouse combo of Mr. Jinks and Pixie & Dixie. This year, all of these characters would appear for a curtain call in the closing credit sequence, replacing the advertising icons of series sponsor Kellogg's Cereals. This season's "Huckleberry Hound" offerings includes such gems as "Piccadilly Dilly", a wild and wooly spoof of "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." Of the "Yogi Bear" shorts, the best of the batch is "Snow White Bear", a witty skewering of the cutesy-wootsy Walt Disney offerings of the era (one of the Seven Dwarfs identifies himself with a proud "I'm 'Stupid'!") And let's not forget the "Pixie and Dixie" cartoon "Heavens to Jinksy", in which Mr. Jinks must stop being nasty to mice lest he never be allowed entrance in the Kingdom of Heaven--a limitation he immediately forsakes when he realizes that he's got nine lives! When Hanna-Barbera mounted its ad campaign for Huckleberry Hound in the fall of 1960, the producers never let the opportunity pass to inform local stations that the series was the first cartoon show to win an Emmy--in the "Best Children's Program" category. This in itself was good for a laugh, since it was well established that at least a third of Huckleberry Hound's audience consisted of adults! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daws Butler
- 1959
1001 Arabian Nights was the first animated feature film produced by the "progressive" UPA cartoon firm. The studio had originally planned to feature its star attraction, the nearsighted Mr. Magoo, in an adaptation of Don Quixote scripted by no less than Aldous Huxley. But Columbia, UPA's distributor, didn't think that a Quixote film would sell to the kiddie trade, so the studio settled on the oft-used "Aladdin's Lamp" story. It might have worked better had Magoo portrayed a bumbling genie; instead, the Myopic One is cast as Aladdin's uncle, a wholly extraneous character who has no bearing on the plot or its outcome. Beyond its script shortcomings, 1001 Arabian Nights boasts an attractive production design and color scheme, as well as some pleasant voicework by Dwayne Hickman, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Hans Conried and Herschel Bernardi. Many of the character designs seen in Arabian Nights were reused on UPA's weekly 1964 TV series The Famous Adventures of Mr. Magoo. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jim Backus, Kathryn Grant, (more)
- 1958
First telecast in the fall of 1958, the first season of Hanna-Barbera's The Huckleberry Hound Show offers 22 half-hour episodes, each comprised of three short cartoons respectively starring Huck Hound, Yogi Bear, and the mouse-and-cat combo of Pixie, Dixie and Mr. Jinks. Unlike later seasons, these aforementioned characters did not appear in the closing-credit sequence: Instead, the credits were played over images of several corporate icons from the Kellogg's Cereal firm, including Cornelius the Rooster (representing Kellogg's Corn Flakes), Tony the Tiger (Frosted Flakes) and Sugar Pops Pete (Sugar Pops). It is easy to identify the earliest cartoons in the Huckleberry Hound canon. The characters move more slowly, speak less frequently, and are more inclined towards sight gags rather than verbal jokes; also, the background music is almost exclusively culled from stock themes, instead of the original compositions by Hanna-Barbera stalwart Hoyt Curtin. Also, whereas the formula of the "Huckleberry Hound" cartoons is pretty well set from the beginning (Huck appears in a different job or personality each week), the producers were still tinkering with the format of the "Yogi Bear" cartoons (Yogi is a con artist in some, a victim of circumstance in others, and a good Samaritan in still others) and the "Pixie and Dixie" entries (the personalities of two mice are already established, but Mr. Jinks is generally a straight villain or fall guy, with none of the heart and three-dimensionality he'd later display). Finally, the character design tends to be inconsitent, as witness the many shapes and sizes of Yogi Bear's traditional enemy Ranger Smith. Of the 66 cartoons shown during Season One, several are standouts, including "Huckleberry Hound Meets Wee Willie", in which our highway patrolman hero tries to talk a runaway gorilla off a high girder; "Skeeter Trouble", highlighted by the "Fred Allen" voice adopted by narrator Daws Butler; "Sheep Shape Sheepherders", a delightful throwback to Tex Avery's classic "Droopy" cartoons; "Show Biz Bear", wherein Yogi Bear is hired to star in a horror flick "The Bear From Outer Space" (the director hands him a script and murmurs "Look over the bear's part"); "Duck in Luck", in which Yogi comes to the rescue of a baby duck who sounds very much like future Hanna-Barbera headliner Yakky Doodle; and "Little Bird Mouse", a charming "Pixie and Dixie" offering in which Dixie discovers that he can fly whenever he revs up his ears helicopter-style. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Daws Butler
- 1956
Another of director Bob McKimson's TV satires, this one is a broad "Superman" spoof with Daffy Duck in the dual role of mild-mannered reporter Cluck Trent and that "strange being from another planet" Stupor Duck. Overhearing the sinister schemes of evil Russian saboteur I. Aardvark Ratnik, Cluck Trent ducks into a closet (located in the McKimson Building, naturally) and emerges as Stupor Duck, intent upon seeking out and neutralizing the bad guy--never once figuring out that "Ratnik" is nothing more than a character on a radio soap opera. To the moon, Daffy! ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
