Шоу Ха́кльберри Ха́унда: История американской анимации

American animated television series

The Huckleberry Hound Show is an American animated television series produced by Hanna Barbera Productions, and the second series produced by the studio following The Ruff and Reddy Show. The show first aired in syndication on September 29, 1958, and was sponsored by Kellogg's. Three segments were included in the program: one featuring Huckleberry Hound, another with Pixie and Dixie and Mr. Jinks, which starred two mice who in each short found a new way to outwit the cat Mr. Jinks, and a third starring Yogi Bear and his friend Boo Boo. The series last aired on December 1, 1961. The Yogi Bear segment of the show became extremely popular, and as a result, it spawned its own series in 1961. A segment featuring Hokey Wolf and Ding A Ling was added, replacing Yogi during the 1960 61 season. The show contributed to making Hanna Barbera a household name, and is often credited with legitimizing the concept of animation produced specifically for television. In 1960, it became the first animated program to be honored with an Emmy Award.

The show was originally intended to be part of a line up of kid programmes sponsored by Kellogg and broadcast on ABC TV, joining Woody Woodpecker, Superman and Wild Bill Hickok in an early evening, weekday line up. However, Kellogg's agency, Leo Burnett, decided instead to syndicate the show and buy air time on individual stations. The show was originally distributed by Screen Gems, which held a part ownership of Hanna Barbera at the time, over 150 stations. In April 1967, Screen Gems announced the show had been released from advertiser control, and would be made available to stations on a syndicated basis with available bridges to create 92 half hour shows. The distribution was later passed to Worldvision Enterprises, after it became a sister company to Hanna Barbera. It was later distributed by Turner Program Services, after Turner's purchase of Hanna Barbera; current distributor Warner Bros. Television picked up ownership of the show following the 1996 acquisition of Turner by parent company, Time Warner.

The show was not broadcast on the same day of the week, or the same time, in every city; airing depended on the deal for time that the Leo Burnett Agency brokered with individual stations. However, the first time the Huck series appeared on television was on Monday, September 29, 1958; it was first seen at 6 p. m. on WOOD TV in Grand Rapids, Michigan, which also served Battle Creek, home of Kellogg cereals. A few other stations airing it that day were WLWI in Indianapolis (at 6:30 p. m.) and WTAE in Pittsburgh (at 7:30 p. m.). The show debuted on other days that same week in other cities; Huck originally aired in Los Angeles on Tuesdays on KNXT, Chicago on Wednesdays on WGN TV, and New York City on Thursdays on WPIX. The show first aired in Canada on Thursday, October 2, 1958, at 7 p. m. on CKLW TV in Windsor, Ontario. The show first aired in Australia on Monday, February 16, 1959, on the National Television Network (now the Nine Network), and the show first aired in the United Kingdom on Friday, July 3, 1959, on ITV.

Each of the three segments featured one or two main characters acting as a duo, and numerous one off or supporting characters.

Huck's voice was one that Butler had already developed and used in earlier work, such as Ruff in The Ruff and Reddy Show, Smedley the Dog in the Chilly Willy cartoons, 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.

Pixie (voiced by Don Messick) and Dixie (voiced by Daws Butler) are two mice who every day end up being chased by a cat named Mr. Jinks (voiced by Daws Butler impersonating Frank Fontaine).

Yogi Bear (voiced by Daws Butler impersonating Art Carney's Ed Norton character from The Honeymooners) and his friend Boo Boo Bear (voiced by Don Messick) live in Jellystone Park and occasionally try to steal picnic baskets while evading Ranger Smith (also voiced by Don Messick).

Hokey Wolf (voiced by Daws Butler impersonating Phil Silvers) is a con artist wolf who is always trying to cheat his way to the simple life (much like other Hanna Barbera characters, Top Cat and Yogi Bear). He is accompanied in this by his diminutive, bowler hat wearing sidekick Ding A Ling Wolf (voiced by Doug Young impersonating Buddy Hackett).

In the film Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Holly Golightly (Audrey Hepburn) briefly dons a mask of Huckleberry. 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). Australian prison slang vernacular includes "huckleberry hound", a term originated in the 1960s, meaning "a punishment cell, solitary confinement." In January 2009, IGN named The Huckleberry Hound Show as the 63rd best in its "Top 100 Animated TV Shows". In 1960s Hungary, the series there called Foxi Maxi gained an instant following, also among adults. The reason for this was the fact that legendary scriptwriter József Romhányi had penned dialog with his trademark puns and humor, and some of the most popular actors of the day had supplied the voices. Romhányi and some of the same actors later worked on the Hungarian version of The Flintstones.