The Monkey and the Bear (1972)

The great comic book cartoonist, Howard (Howie) Post, did some great characters for Marvel Comics back in 1972 within the pages of "Li'l Pals: Fun-Filled Animal Antics"!
Howie Post is best known for his work for Harvey Comics, where he had a hand in developing Hot Stuff the Little Devil and Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost. Here are a couple of articles discussing Howie's work.
http://drawn.ca/2005/03/24/the-howie-post/
http://johnkstuff.blogspot.com/2007/07/howie-post-cartoony-harvey-artist.html
Seems that Melvin Monkey is a greedy, manipulative little character who is always trying to take advantage of his neighbor Boinard Bear. Check out their first adventure here from the first issue of Li'l Pals.

Book Look: Huck Hound 1961

When I came across the Flintstones' strips in my previous post, I actually found a great storybook as well.Huckleberry Hound: Giant Story Book from Whitman Publishing is a great cartoon book from 1961. The book offers short stories based on 20 classic cartoons from Hanna-Barbera's The Huckleberry Hound Show.The interior artwork is illustrated by Frank McSavage who does a great job with H-B's character designs. Here are some examples of the illustrations that are found through-out the book.The 192 page book is also a fun, retro read since a lot of the classic cartoon action, violence and sterotypes are still intact as you read it.
For example, here's a line of text from "Wolf! Wolf!" the classic Huck Hound story that introduced early versions of Hokey Wolf & Ding-a-ling:
"Why the Indian outfit?" asked Shorty.
The wolf painted a yellow streak across Shorty's nose. Then he answered, "They always blame things on the Indians, don't they? This is the plan. You go out and give some bloodcurdling war whoops. That dumb sheepherder Huck will panic and run away! And we grab the sheep!" He shoved Shorty out of the doorway. "Go get him, Brave Eagle!"
Soon the wolf heard bloodcurdling cries. Very nice ones, he thought.
"WHOOP-WHOOP-WHOOP-WHOOP!"
Then, BLAM! BLAM! Gunshots.
And a very sad-looking Brave Eagle returned.
"Brave Eagle got blasted," said Shorty, removing his tattered feather.

Funky H-B

John K, the cartoonist/director behind Spumco's line of characters, has created yet another blog!
John has always been influenced by the classic characters of Hanna-Barbera and has been doodling them his whole life.
He's decided to share those scribbles and doodles with his fans on John's Funky HB!
http://funkyhb.blogspot.com/

Flintstones Strips '85

I recently came across these comics collections that ran in the Sunday paper during the 80's at an antique shop.
Great memories and I totally forgot that Hanna-Barbera's The Flintstones still had a Sunday strip running. I'm not sure if there were dailies, but these are examples of the Sunday strips from 1985.These strips really have a lot of personality going for them. Not like a lot of the lackluster strips we see today. I'm unsure of the name of the artist working on these strips, but I'm certain they worked on quite a bit of H-B stories for Marvel Comics in the late 70's. Their style is very fitting for the classic Hanna-Barbera characters.

Spider-Man's Spectacular DVD Set

Sony Pictures has finally announced The Spectacular Spider-Man: The Complete 1st Season 2-disc DVD set will be released this July.
http://tvshowsondvd.com/news/Spectacular-Spider-Man-Season-1/11906
The collection will contain all 13 episodes from the already released single-disc titles plus 2 all-new featurettes that go behind-the-scenes.

Retro Rewind

Happy Victoria Day to my fellow Canadians!
Teletoon Retro seems to be taking advantage of the holiday by airing a sneak peek of their upcoming shows which should be joining the line-up later this year.
Retro Rewind is a 6-hour event airing classic animated shows such as Huckleberry Hound, Quick Draw McGraw, Yogi Bear, Top Cat, Josie & The Pussycats, Captain Caveman, The Transformers and G.I. Joe. Plus the 1964 theatrical feature, Hey There, it's Yogi Bear.

Teletoon Retro Rewind Ad
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Plastic Man Stretches Onto DVD

Warner Home Video has officially announced a 4-DVD set of The Plastic Man Comedy/Adventure Show - The Complete Collection.The classic Saturday Morning show will be released to DVD on Sept. 1st and will come complete with 35 cartoons plus special features. For a listing of the adventures and bonus material, visit the link here.
Here's the opening for the series from 1979...

Officially 3 Years Old

Hey Hey everybody! May 13th 2009 marks J.E. Daniels' 3rd Year Anniversary!
And seeing how this is my 1000th post, I really wanted to do something special but due to "not-enough-time", I could not complete the second comic story featuring B.B. Wolfe who first appeared in 2007!
http://jedaniels-adventures.blogspot.com/2007/05/happy-mothers-day-anniversary.html
For the meantime, here's a title card for the upcoming story entitled "3 Times the Charm". This time, B.B. Wolfe returns to get even with Red & Grannie but finds out that the cottage has been left in charge by pigs. It's been a couple of years since B.B. has had a decent meal so he decides to try to catch himself a three course dinner. I will be posting the new story here once it is complete!
Seeing how the comic is still in it's production phase, I thought I would take this time to celebrate Walt Disney's return to traditional animation since 2004's "Home on the Range". Here's a look at the current theatrical poster and the official trailer of the upcoming film, "The Princess & The Frog"!

Real Fruit Filling

I was going through some old comics and noticed that quite a few issues contained advertisements for Hostess Fruit Pies featuring various comic characters.
Thanks to my admiration of Spider-Man, I was aware of the ads that featured Marvel Superheroes selling the pies, but did not know about the different cartoon characters that also loved the real fruit filling.
Here is an example of classic advertising that used classic characters to hawk their products.Wile E. Coyote actually got something to eat in 1975!Casper's eyebrows were nowhere to be seen in 1978!I assume the Roller Disco Devils did not survive? The Hulk's hard-core in 1980!
Hostess had their own cartoon mascot with Fruit Pie the Magician.Follow the link to view a classic animated commercial featuring Fruit Pie from 1973.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovh4pdkpF0Y&NR=1

Flintstone Spy Film End Credits

I made a post before featuring the animated titles of the 1966 feature, The Man Called Flintstone, which were a spoof of other spy films of the time.
http://jedaniels-adventures.blogspot.com/2009/03/flintstone-spy-film-titles.html
Here are the interesting looking end-titles of the same film which take a total turn around by adopting a more storybook style. The look is very graphic and simplistic, characterizing the Flintstones and Rubbles.Add this great Flintstones adventure to your collection by picking up the DVD from Warner Home Video.