Channel Frederator Blog

I was going through the web yesterday, looking for great cartoon character art, and found the website of Patrick Owsley.

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Adam Koford over at Drawn! has posted a great link to Alex Toth art. While some of it has been seen elsewhere, there are some great unpublished pieces. It would be great to see artwork of this caliber in a modern television series.

-Floyd Bishop

There have been many Hanna Barbera characters with personalities based on famous actors and personalities. The Flintstones had their Honeymooners influences, Jabber Jaw sounded a lot like Curly from the Three Stooges, and Doggie Daddy (from the series of Augie Doggie cartoons) was no different. While he sounds like Jimmy Durante, his character and his relationship with his son are actually borrowed from two earlier Hanna Barbera characters, Spike and Tyke, who were created while they were at MGM. Spike’s son Tyke first appeared in the 1949 short “Love that Pup”.

The main difference (other than breed of dog) would be the character of the son. Spike’s son Tyke is seemingly much younger than Augie, as Tyke cannot speak, only bark. Perhaps the time difference in first appearances would account for the aging of the son? Tyke was created in 1949. If he continued to age in real time, he would be very close [Read more…]

I caught this commercial today at Jeaux’s personal blog. I’m always drawn to animators from the vintage years of Hanna-Barbera, but I must say I never thought any of them had made it into network commercials. Go Carl!

–Fred

Muttley first showed up in the 1968 series “Wacky Races”, as the sidekick to Dick Dastardly. Both characters were based on characters from the film “The Great Race”.

Dick Dastardly was based on the character Professor Fate, while Muttley was based on Max Meen. Dick Dastardly and Muttley have appeared in later Hanna Barbera series as bumbling villains.

In “Wacky Races”, Muttley wore only a collar, but in “Dastardly & Muttley and their Flying Machines” he wore an aviator’s cap and scarf.

A lot of people confuse Muttley with Mumbly. It’s easy to do, since they are so similar. While their laugh is similar, Mumbly has gray fur, wears a trench coat, and fights crime. He’s almost the other side of Muttley in that regard.

Interestingly enough, when they needed villains for the “Laff-A-Lympics” series, Hanna Barbera used Mumbly as the team leader of the Really Rottens.  He was accompanied by a Dick Dastardly [Read more…]