Misbehavin' Raven.

Hey kids (of all ages), it's Saturday Morning Cartoon time again!

Since the WTFery of SUPER PRESIDENT has led us into DePatie–Freleng territory, let's have a look at one of their later Saturday Morning Cartoons...

When Warner Brothers closed-down their animation division in the early '60s, former employee (and model for Yosemite Sam) Friz Freleng partnered up with Dave DePatie to negotiate a sweet deal to take over the old studio. They soon hit it big when Blake Edwards hired them to animate the opening credits of a feature film called THE PINK PANTHER. (We've covered the pastel pussycat before on this channel.) This gave them their biggest star character by-far. But they did tons of other work too, including new cartoons featuring the Looney Tunes characters, various Dr. Seuss specials, and several TV cartoon series.

This one was a knockoff of the short-lived BEARCATS! live-action series which was itself a knockoff of MISSION IMPOSSIBLE (it was a TV series long before Tom Cruise got 'hold of it, kids) but set in the early 20th Century American West. A team of anthropomorphic cats and dogs go on missions as directed by exploding messages. (That was a popular bit from MI used in kids shows.) One of the characters is voiced by Joe Besser. Joe had the thankless task of replacing Shemp in the THREE STOOGES in the closing years of their two-reeler film production. He may be the only member of the Stooges to be better-known for his other work, having been a regular with Abbott & Costello as well as Joey Bishop. He loaned his distinctive vocals to cartoon characters well into the 1980s.

The show was thirteen episodes and out, which is pretty typical for TV cartoons. Probably didn't help that this fleabitten bunch were up against the NEW SCOOBY-DOO MOVIES.

So here, from 1972, is the first episode of HOUNDCATS.

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