The Huckleberry Hound Show

Background/production

Joseph Barbera traveled to Chicago to pitch the program to Kellogg's executives through their ad agency, Leo Burnett. Barbera later recalled that he had never sold a show before, as at MGM he simply made ideas; now he faced a room of forty-five people and promoted Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, and "the Meeces," and they bought it. The series was originally intended for ABC-TV as part of a Kellogg-sponsored weekday lineup with Woody Woodpecker, Superman, and Wild Bill Hickok, but Leo Burnett opted instead to syndicate the show and buy air time on individual stations.

Screen Gems, the television division of Columbia Pictures and a part-owner of Hanna-Barbera, distributed the show to over 150 stations. In April 1967, Screen Gems announced the show was released from advertiser control and made available on a syndicated basis with bridges to create 92 half-hour shows. Distribution later passed to Worldvision Enterprises after it became a sister company to Hanna-Barbera, then to Turner Program Services after Turner's purchase of Hanna-Barbera, and finally to Warner Bros. Television following the 1996 acquisition of Turner by Time Warner.

Plot and characters

Each show is split into three seven-minute cartoons, with Huckleberry Hound always leading off and the other two segments featuring different stars. Daws Butler voiced Huck by mimicking a family friend; his son later said the voice came from a neighbor of Butler's wife in North Carolina. In one segment, Don Messick voices Pixie and Daws Butler voices Dixie, two mice who get chased every day by Mr. Jinks, a cat also played by Butler. Another segment follows Yogi Bear, voiced by Butler doing an impression of Art Carney's Ed Norton from The Honeymooners, and his pal Boo-Boo Bear, voiced by Don Messick.

They live in Jellystone Park and frequently try to swipe picnic baskets while dodging Ranger Smith, also played by Messick. The third segment stars Hokey Wolf, voiced by Butler imitating Phil Silvers, a con-artist wolf always scheming for an easy life, alongside his small, bowler-hatted sidekick Ding-A-Ling Wolf, voiced by Doug Young doing an impression of Buddy Hackett.

Legacy

In the 1961 film Breakfast at Tiffany's, Audrey Hepburn's character Holly Golightly briefly wears a Huckleberry Hound mask. The Québécois comedy group Rock et Belles Oreilles took its name from a pun on Huckleberry Hound ("Roquet Belles Oreilles" in French). Australian prison slang from the 1960s uses "huckleberry hound" to mean solitary confinement. In January 2009, IGN ranked The Huckleberry Hound Show 63rd on its "Top 100 Animated TV Shows." In 1960s Hungary, the series—called Foxi Maxi—gained a following among adults due to scriptwriter József Romhányi's pun-filled dialog and popular voice actors.

Media information

Warner Home Video released The Huckleberry Hound Show – Volume 1 for the Hanna-Barbera Classics Collection on DVD, containing the complete first season of 26 episodes (66 segments) remastered and restored, but with edited versions lacking original opening and closing titles and interstitial segments. No further DVD volumes followed; Warner Archive President George Feltenstein cited rights issues between Warner Bros. and the estates of composers over stock music cues from Capitol Records.

In 2025, Warner Archive Collection cleared the rights and announced The Huckleberry Hound Show: The Complete Original Series, an 11-disc Blu-ray box set with all 68 episodes (178 segments) restored with original credits and bridging material, plus extras from the 2005 DVD, released on August 26, 2025. Colpix Records released the first Huckleberry Hound album in October 1958, with stuffed animals and games sold in record stores. By 1961, costumed characters of Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, and Quick Draw McGraw appeared at events such as the Florida State Fair.

Taft Broadcasting's theme parks, beginning with Kings Island in 1972, included areas themed to Hanna-Barbera cartoons and walk-around characters. Licensed products included an Aladdin-brand Thermos, a 25-cent Golden Press book titled Huckleberry Hound Christmas, and a 1978 Ottenheimer Publishers book Huckleberry Hound: The Case of the Friendly Monster.