‘The Huckleberry Hound Show: The Complete Original Series’ Reviewed

Warner Archive provided me with a free copy of the Blu-Ray I reviewed in this article. The opinions I share are my own.

I don’t think I ever watched The Huckleberry Hound Show as a kid. I did, however, grow up with a Huckleberry Hound and friends book that I adored and which, as an adult, gave me the false sense that I’d seen this show and heard the characters before when, in reality, I just read the book a lot.

The first thing that must be said about Warner Archive’s complete series set is kudos for doing the packaging right because it literally never happens these days. It’s infuriating when you decide to spend the money on a multi-disc set only for it to arrive with scratched, loose, and/or stacked discs that are very difficult to get out of the packaging, let alone more than once, as is the whole idea. Huckleberry comes in three Blu-ray cases that are collected in a box slip case. Season One (which is also the longest season) and four get their own cases. Season two and three are packaged together. This works fine, and all 68 episodes are listed on the back of the cases, so it’s easy to figure out which episodes are on which disc,

Each episode of The Huckleberry Hound Show has three segments plus commercials and intros. Huckleberry acts as the host of the show. One thing that’s amazing is how ingrained the product placement is for Kellogg’s. Never is there any doubt who the sponsor is for this program. The Kellogg’s rooster literally appears as a character in the opening titles for all four seasons. In fact, the opening titles never change, which is disappointing, especially since the theme song is on the annoying side.

Every episode has a Huckleberry Hound and Pixie and Dixie segment. In seasons 1 and 2 there’s also a Yogi Bear segment and in seasons 3 and 4 that changes to Hokey Wolf (though Yogi keeps appearing in the season three intros for a bit, which is misleading).

Huckleberry Hound has a tendency to play lawmen and authority figures. His episodes have the biggest range, in terms of where they’re set (examples include the Wild West and medieval times). What really sets Huckleberry apart from other cartoon characters, though, is he doesn’t get angry. He just kind of soldiers on and takes life’s hardships in stride and sings “My Darling Clementine” off key. Voiced by Daws Butler (who voiced many of the characters on the show), one of his best episodes is “The Tough Little Termite,” where he tries to contend with a singular termite (if you’re not singing “buzza buzza buzz” along with the termite by the end then you’re not doing Huckleberry Hound right). “Knight School” is also really interesting and involves Huck getting drafted into knighthood. Instead of asking kids to be the hero, this cartoon shows it’s ok to not want to risk your life, and feels especially daring knowing that the Vietnam War was going on at the time this aired. There are a few culturally insensitive episodes, like “Wicki Wacki Huck” (Hawaii) and any of the ones featuring Crazy Coyote (the show’s play on Crazy Horse).

Pixie and Dixie and their cartoons with Jinks the cat are essentially Hanna-Barbera remaking Tom and Jerry, with Jinks chasing those “miserable meeces” all over the place. However, the best moments of Tom and Jerry were when they admitted they were really friends and Pixie and Dixie has even more of those, like in “Rapid Robot” when Pixie, Dixie and Jinks enlist the help of antagonistic robots but then end up working together when the robots combine and start going after all three of them instead.

With Yogi Bear, Yogi and his sidekick Boo Boo live in Jellystone National Park, where feeding the bears isn’t allowed and they have to come up with new and inventive ways to get their hands on “pic-aha-nic” baskets

The best Yogi episodes are when he goes out of his way to protect small critters, like “Slumber Party Smarty” (a little blue duck who then returns in “Duck in Luck”), “High Fly Guy” (a baby eaglet), or “Bear on a Picnic” (a human baby).

Switch out “pic-aha-nic baskets” for sheep and chickens and Boo Boo for Ding-a-ling and Hokey Wolf is very much a cartoon in the Yogi Bear mold. Hokey Wolf does a lot more fairy tale parodies, though, which are fun, especially “Which Witch Is Witch” (a take on Hansel and Gretel).

The bonus features are nothing substantial, the best being a twelve and a half minute featurette on Daws Butler where a bunch of voice actors (including Nancy Cartwright, who voices Burt Simpson) and animation historians sing his praises and note how generous he was as a teacher and not one of those creatives who tried to gatekeep information, like magicians or chefs that are very secretive about their tricks and recipes. It doesn’t sound like that was Butler at all. He’s a voice talent who would’ve warranted a whole documentary, though, and what of Don Messick, the series’ other main voice actor?

The Huckleberry Hound Show: The Complete Original Series is available on Blu-ray now from Warner Archive and to purchase from Movie Zyng.