Hoppity Hooper | |
---|---|
Also known as | Uncle Waldo's Cartoon Show |
Genre | Children's program |
Created by | Bill Scott Chris Hayward |
Written by | Chris Jenkyns Bill Scott |
Directed by | Pete Burness Bill Hurtz Lew Keller |
Starring | Waldo Wigglesworth, Fillmore Bear, and Hoppity Hooper |
Voices of | Chris Allen Hans Conried Paul Frees (1–100 only) Bill Scott Alan Reed (1–2 only) William Conrad (101–104 only) |
Narrated by | Paul Frees William Conrad |
Theme music composer | Dennis Farnon |
Opening theme | "Olga Moletoad's Ride" |
Composer | Dennis Farnon |
Country of origin | United States and Mexico |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 3 |
No. of episodes | 52 (104 segments) (list of episodes) |
Production | |
Executive producer | Peter M. Piech |
Producers | Jay Ward Bill Scott |
Editor | Skip Craig |
Running time | 30 minutes |
Production companies | Jay Ward Productions, P.A.T. |
Original release | |
Network | ABC (1964–1967) |
Release | September 12, 1964 – September 2, 1967 |
Hoppity Hooper is an American animated television series produced by Jay Ward, and sponsored by General Mills, originally broadcast on ABC from September 12, 1964, until 1967. [1] [2] The series was produced in Hollywood by Jay Ward and Bill Scott, with animation done in Mexico City by Gamma Productions. [3]
The three main characters are Hoppity Hooper, a plucky frog, voiced by Chris Allen; Waldo P. Wigglesworth, a patent medicine-hawking fox, voiced by Hans Conried, who posed as Hoppity's long-lost uncle in the pilot episode; and Fillmore, a bear wearing a Civil War hat and coat, (poorly) playing his bugle, voiced by Bill Scott (with Alan Reed portraying the character in the pilot). The stories revolved around the three main characters, who lived in Foggy Bog, Wisconsin, seeking their fortune together through different jobs or schemes, usually ending in misadventure. [4]
Each story consisted of four short cartoons, one aired at the beginning and end of each episode, with the four-part story shown over two consecutive episodes. Much like Jay Ward's previous series The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show , Hoppity Hooper used pun-based titles to identify each upcoming segment and a narrator (voiced by Paul Frees and later by William Conrad), who often interacted with the characters and broke the fourth wall. Interspersed were recycled second features from the earlier series Peabody's Improbable History , Fractured Fairy Tales, Aesop and Son and The World of Commander McBragg . [5] In later syndicated runs, each four-part story was assembled into a single half-hour episode.
Early versions of Waldo and Fillmore, under the names "Sylvester Fox" and "Oski Bear," were included in the proposed series The Frostbite Falls Revue, the unsold concept that would eventually form the basis of Rocky and Bullwinkle. [6] The two-part pilot was produced in 1960 and featured Alan Reed as Fillmore. Production did not begin on the series until September 1964, after Rocky and Bullwinkle had ended its run; by 1964, Reed was committed to the role of Fred Flintstone on The Flintstones and was unavailable, and Bill Scott took over the role; the pilot aired as produced with Reed's voice as the first two segments.
The series was broadcast first-run by ABC and NBC on their Saturday morning schedule. The series was later syndicated to local television stations under the title Uncle Waldo's Cartoon Show, beginning in 1965.
As of 2024, Wildbrain owns syndication rights to the series.
Over the course of three seasons, 52 episodes were broadcast with two segments of Hoppity Hooper each. With two exceptions (as noted), each story line consisted of four episodes (or four shorts – making 27 stories told over 104 segments).
Episodes | Title |
---|---|
1 & 2 | Ring a Ding Spring |
3 & 4 | Rock 'n' Roll Star |
5 & 6 | Diamond Mine |
7 & 8 | Costra Nostra |
9 & 10 | The Giant of Hoot 'n' Holler |
11 & 12 | Detective Agency |
13 & 14 | Olympic Star |
15 & 16 | Ghost |
17 & 18 | The Masked Martin |
19 & 20 | Jumping Frog Contest |
21 & 22 | The Traffic Zone |
23 & 24 | Wottabango Corn Elixir |
25 & 26 | Frog Prince of Monomania |
Episodes | Title | Parts |
---|---|---|
27 & 28 | Colonel Clabber—Limburger Cheese Statue | (4 parts) |
29 & 30 | The Giant Cork | (4 parts) |
31 & 32 | Ferkle to Hawaii | (4 parts) |
33 & 34 | Hallowe'en | (4 parts) |
35 & 36 | Christmas [7] | (4 parts) |
37 & 38 | Horse Race Follies | (4 parts) |
39 & 40 | Jack and the Beanstalk | (4 parts) |
41 & 42 | Granny's Gang | (4 parts) |
Episodes | Title | Parts |
---|---|---|
43 | Golf Tournament | (2 parts) |
44 | The Hopeless Diamond | (2 parts) |
45 & 46 | The Dragon of Eubetchia | (4 parts) |
47 & 48 | Rare Butterfly Hunt | (4 parts) |
49 & 50 | Oil's Well at Oasis Gardens | (4 parts) |
51 & 52 | Wonder Water | (4 parts) |
Hoppity Hooper was released in three separate volumes on VHS in the early 1990s. Volume One was released on DVD in the 2000s (the copyrights for each of these three releases were in question at the time of their respective releases).
In 2008, Mill Creek Entertainment released episodes 1–6 and episodes 8–11 as part of the Giant 600 Cartoon Collection. They also re-released these episodes as part of the Super 300 Cartoon Collection in 2009. Also in 2008, Mill Creek re-released episodes 1-6 as part of the 200 Classic Cartoons: Collectors Edition.
The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends is an American animated television series that originally aired from November 19, 1959, to June 27, 1964, on the ABC and NBC television networks. Produced by Jay Ward Productions, the series is structured as a variety show, with the main feature being the serialized adventures of the two title characters, the anthropomorphic flying squirrel Rocket J. ("Rocky") Squirrel and moose Bullwinkle J. Moose. The main antagonists in most of their adventures are the two Russian-like spies Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale, both working for the Nazi-like dictator Fearless Leader. Supporting segments include "Dudley Do-Right", "Peabody's Improbable History", and "Fractured Fairy Tales", among others. The current blanket title was imposed for home video releases more than 40 years after the series originally aired and was never used when the show was televised; television airings of the show were broadcast under the titles of Rocky and His Friends from 1959 to 1961, The Bullwinkle Show from 1961 to 1964, and The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show in syndication.
Joseph Ward Cohen Jr., also known as Jay Ward, was an American creator and producer of animated TV cartoon shows. He produced animated series based on such characters as Crusader Rabbit, Rocky & Bullwinkle, Dudley Do-Right, Peabody and Sherman, Hoppity Hooper, George of the Jungle, Tom Slick, and Super Chicken. His own company, Jay Ward Productions, designed the trademark characters for the Cap'n Crunch, Quisp, and Quake breakfast cereals and it made TV commercials for those products. Ward produced the non-animated series Fractured Flickers (1963) that featured comedic redubbing of silent films.
Crusader Rabbit is an American animated series created by Alexander Anderson and Jay Ward, and the first of its kind to be produced specifically for television. Its main characters were Crusader Rabbit and his sidekick Ragland T. Tiger, or "Rags". The stories were four-minute-long satirical cliffhangers.
Dudley Do-Right is a fictional character created by Alex Anderson, Chris Hayward, Allan Burns, Jay Ward, and Bill Scott, who appears as the main protagonist of "Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties", a segment on The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.
Hans Georg Conried Jr. was an American actor and comedian. He was known for providing the voices of George Darling and Captain Hook in Walt Disney's Peter Pan (1953), Snidely Whiplash in Jay Ward's Dudley Do-Right cartoons, Professor Waldo P. Wigglesworth in Ward's Hoppity Hooper cartoons, was host of Ward's live-action "Fractured Flickers" show and Professor Kropotkin on the radio and film versions of My Friend Irma. He also appeared as Uncle Tonoose on Danny Thomas' sitcom Make Room for Daddy, twice on I Love Lucy, and as the Mad Hatter along with Daws Butler, Dolores Starr, Stanley Adams, Francis Condie Baxter and Cheryl Callaway in The Alphabet Conspiracy (1959).
George of the Jungle is an American animated television series produced and created by Jay Ward and Bill Scott, who also created The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends. The character George was inspired by the story of Tarzan and a cartoon characterization of George Eiferman drawn by a cook on his minesweeper in the Navy during World War II. The series aired first-run for 17 episodes on Saturday mornings from September 9 to December 30, 1967, on the ABC-TV network. Then, rather than commissioning new episodes, the network was content to repeat the 17 episodes, keeping George of the Jungle on its Saturday schedule until September 19, 1970.
Quisp is a sugar-sweetened breakfast cereal from the Quaker Oats Company. It was introduced in 1965 and continued as a mass-market grocery item until the late 1970s. Subsequently, the Quaker Oats Company marketed Quisp sporadically, and with the advent of the Internet, began selling it primarily online. Quisp made its return to supermarkets as a mass-market grocery item in late 2012.
Mr. Peabody is an anthropomorphic cartoon dog who appeared in the late 1950s and early 1960s television animated series The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends, produced by Jay Ward. Peabody appeared in the "Peabody's Improbable History" segments created by Ted Key, and he was voiced by Bill Scott. In 2014, he was featured in the animated film, Mr. Peabody & Sherman. From 2015 to 2017, he appeared in a television series based on the film.
William John Scott was an American voice actor, writer and producer for animated cartoons, primarily associated with Jay Ward and UPA, as well as one of the founding members of ASIFA-Hollywood. He is probably best known as the head writer, co-producer and the voice of several characters from the popular programs Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show.
Bullwinkle J. Moose is a fictional character and one of the two main protagonists of the 1959–1964 animated television series Rocky and His Friends and The Bullwinkle Show, often collectively referred to as Rocky and Bullwinkle, produced by Jay Ward and Bill Scott. When the show changed networks in 1961, the series moved to NBC and was retitled The Bullwinkle Show, where it stayed until 1964. It then returned to ABC, where it was in repeats for nine more years. It has been in syndication ever since.
Fractured Flickers is a live-action syndicated half-hour television comedy show that was produced by Jay Ward, who is otherwise known for cartoons. The pilot film was produced in 1961, but the series was not completed until 1963. Twenty-six episodes were produced; they were syndicated by Desilu Productions and played for several years on local stations.
Super Chicken is a segment that ran on the animated television series George of the Jungle. It was produced by Jay Ward and Bill Scott, who earlier had created the Rocky and Bullwinkle cartoons. It debuted September 9, 1967, on ABC.
Jay Ward Productions, Inc. is an American animation studio based in Costa Mesa, California. It was founded in 1948 by American animator Jay Ward. As of 2022, the studio was headed by Ward's daughter, Tiffany Ward, and granddaughter, vice president Amber Ward.
Ponsonby Britt was the credited—but fictional—executive producer of the television series The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, Fractured Flickers, Hoppity Hooper, and George of the Jungle.
Bullwinkle's Entertainment, previously known as Family Fun Centers & Bullwinkle's Restaurant and formerly Bullwinkle's Family Food n' Fun is a chain of family entertainment centers. Locations feature a sit-down restaurant, complemented by arcade games, go-karts, bumper boats, mini golf, laser tag, a ropes course, a zip line, and small rides for children. Games and activities are generally themed around the company's namesake, The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show.
Commander McBragg is a cartoon character who appeared in short segments produced by Total Television Productions and animated by Gamma Productions. These segments first appeared in 1963 on the animated series Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales, then on the Underdog animated television show from 1964 to 1973, and have appeared in some syndicated prints of The Bullwinkle Show, Hoppity Hooper and Uncle Waldo's Cartoon Show.
Fred Flintstone and Friends is an American animated anthology wheel series and a spin-off of The Flintstones produced by Hanna-Barbera and Columbia Pictures Television that aired in daily first-run syndication from September 12, 1977, to September 1, 1978. The series was packaged by Columbia Pictures Television during the 1977–78 television season and was available for barter syndication through Claster Television through the mid-1980s.
Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales is an animated television series that originally aired Saturday mornings on CBS from 1963 to 1966 as one of the earliest Saturday morning cartoons. It was produced by Total Television, the same company that produced the earlier King Leonardo and the later Underdog, and primarily sponsored by General Mills. A co-sponsor was Pillsbury's Funny Face Drinks. The title is a play on the “tuxedo” dinner jacket worn as formal wear.