As we had a good response to my post on Lost 60s TV Cartoons I thought this might make a good follow up.
Wanna good snapshot of 1960s TV cartoons that have been virtually forgotten and rarely celebrated? Look to the children’s coloring books that were issued by various pulp publishers during that decade. Today we present a gallery of covers – for characters that I didn’t mention (or barely mentioned) in last week’s post. In some cases the coloring book images are better than the actual cartoons (Sinbad Jr. is one) – in other cases, the coloring book art might discourage you from ever sampling the show (Super Six is an example of that). That said, here’s a bunch of baby boomer memories – in alphabetic order:
ASTRO BOY (NBC Enterprises)
Created by Osamu Tezuka in 1952 – and brought to television in 1963 with Tezuka in charge of the studio and stories – this was the first animated series made for Japan television, and the first anime brought to the US (by Fred Ladd). Like the dubbing – this cover is a little inaccurate (Astro’s coloring: pink and yellow?). Great show – better than the coloring book would suggest.
ASTRONUT (Terrytoons)
A “new Terrytoon” character, cashing in on the “Space Race” trend of the 1960s – and somewhat ripping off the live action comedy series My Favorirte Martian – the character was introduced in a 1963 Deputy Dawg cartoon, and was spun off into his own shorts distributed to theaters by Fox in 1964. The Astronut Show was a syndicated by CBS in 1965. Astronut looks somewhat cool, but don’t be fooled by the sci-fi graphics. It’s still a Terrytoon.
CLUTCH CARGO (Cambria)
Does anyone here NOT know Clutch Cargo? Raise your hands – or speak up with your “live action lips”! More about the character can be learned if you CLICK HERE.
CLYDE CRASHCUP (Format Films)
Everyone’s favorite supporting characters from the original prime time THE ALVIN SHOW (1961). Voiced by Shepherd Menkin – these Crashcup cartoons were incredibly clever – and unforgettable. Each episode featured Crashcup demonstrating how he invented common things – like “baseball” and “shoes”.
COURAGEOUS CAT (Sam Singer)
Good ‘ol Sam Singer (the “Ed Wood” of animation). Teaming up with Batman creator Bob Kane – a few years before Kane’s greatest creation (with Bill Finger) struck it rich as a weekly live action show – Kane ripped-off himself in conceiving Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse. The super hero duo rode around in a Cat Mobile and lived in a Cat-Cave. And fought several outrageous villains – but mainly “The Frog”. To say this is the best show Singer produced is not the compliment you think it is. Especially if you know his work.
CRUSADER RABBIT (Jay Ward)
Jay Ward and Alex Anderson (Paul Terry’s nephew) created this – the first cartoon series for television – in 1949. A mainstay of 1950s kids shows, Crusader Rabbit and Rags the Tiger were definitely the template for all the cartoon duos to come.
THE FUNNY COMPANY (Pantomime Pictures)
Major warning – any show that has to tell you in its title that it’s “funny”… isn’t. This series from 1963 was one of the first (if not the first) educational ‘toons that were being encouraged during this era – as cartoons were further perceived as children’s fare. Others followed (including Do-Do The Kid From Outer Space, The Big World of Little Adam and Max The 2000 Year Old Mouse). I recall liking the character designs, the voices (by Dick Beals, Nancy Wible, Hal Smith, among others) and even that opening theme song – but the Funny Company cartoons themselves were (to me) a BORE.
HOPPITY HOOPER (Jay Ward)
Hoppity Hooper was Jay Ward’s follow up to Rocky & Bullwinkle, made for ABC Saturday morning, and thus skewed a little more towards the kids. That said, it’s still a fun show that doesn’t deserve the obscurity it seems to have today.
KIMBA, THE WHITE LION (NBC Enterprises)
Kimba The White Lion was Osamu’s Tezuka’s show, based on his famous “Jungle Emperor” manga. Like Astro Boy, NBC picked it up for US syndication and hired Fred Ladd to dub it in English. The original Japanese series ran 52 episodes – an additional “season” of 26 episodes featuring Kimba as an adult character were held off from the original 1966 syndication. This show was, I believe, the first anime series produced in color. It has a huge following – particularly among “furries” – and was the center of controversy over similarities in Disney’s The Lion King (1994).
KING LEONARDO AND HIS SHORT SUBJECTS (Total Television)
The first series from Total Television – a company sharing the animation services of Gamma Studios with Jay Ward. An all-star New York-based voice cast which included Jackson Beck and Allen Swift. The Total shows aren’t as funny as the Ward shows – but they have their charms.
KING FEATURES TRILOGY (AND POPEYE)
If rushing to produce 220 made-for-TV Popeye cartoons in 1960 wasn’t enough, producer Al Brodax pushed through 150 more cartoons utilizing several other comic strip favorites in King Features Syndicate’s arsenal: Krazy Kat, Snuffy Smith and Beetle Baily (50 cartoons each). There are nuggets of gold in these if one wants to wade through them – Jim Tyer’s animation in the Snuffy’s, Gene Deitch’s animation and art direction in the Krazy’s – and Alan Melvin and Howie Morris having a lot of vocal fun in the Beetle Bailey’s.
LAUREL AND HARDY (Hanna-Barbera/Larry Harmon)
We all love Stan and Ollie – but it’s unanimous that these cartoons don’t come close to keeping their spirit alive. Larry Harmon should never have been granted the rights to exploit Laurel & Hardy… but he got them. Hanna Barbera produced the cartoons as a work-for-hire. The shorts (there are 250 of them) are not generally available – and not many people care.
MARINE BOY (Seven Arts)
Marine Boy is back on MeTV Toons. It was dubbed by the same team who did Speed Racer but it doesn’t have the same charm. That said – I like the show. Call it a childhood guilty pleasure.
THE MIGHTY HERCULES (Joe Oriolo)
The theme song. Helena. Newton. Another childhood guilty pleasure.
ROGER RAMJET (Pantomime Pictures)
Next to the Jay Ward shows – this is the funniest set of TV cartoons to come from the mid-1960s. The animation is crazy limited – but funny drawings abound. The gags are often over the heads of the kiddie crowd – and Gary Owens is terrific as “Roger”.
SINBAD JR. (Sam Singer/Hanna Barbera)
Another horrifying Sam Singer production. So bad – that American International dismissed Singer and hired Hanna Barbera to finish the order for 130 shorts.
SUPER SIX (DePatie-Freleng)
Depatie Freleng’s first TV series – and it’s a good one – but you wouldn’t know it from the cover of this coloring book. This and a frame-tray puzzle I think were the only merchandising done for this series.
TALES OF THE WIZARD OF OZ (Rankin-Bass) / OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD (MGM)
The Wizard Of Oz is such a classic – producers still, to this day, keep trying to make something animated to exploit those characters further. The Rankin Bass Tales Of The Wizard Of Oz was a good attempt to bring them to animation in a stylized way. MGM (who produced the 1939 live action classic) had Chuck Jones do an adaptation – as bridging footage during the commercial brakes on an MGM family movie night series in 1967.
Yeah – I know – there’s more. Tell me about it in the comments below.
Jerry Beck is a writer, animation producer, college professor and author of more than 15 books on animation history. He is a former studio exec with Nickelodeon Movies and Disney, and has written for The Hollywood Reporter and Variety. He has curated cartoons for DVD and Blu-ray compilations and has lent his expertise to dozens of bonus documentaries and audio commentaries on such. Beck is currently on the faculty of CalArts in Valencia, UCLA in Westwood and Woodbury University in Burbank – teaching animation history. More about Jerry Beck [
Oh how I wish I had a picture to share of it but you left out “QT hush“ which actually had a coloring book! Believe it or not I had a copy of it when I was a kid, but unfortunately, I never thought to save any of those coloring books. There were many of them! They were of course coloring books around characters that were very popular like “the Flintstones“ which had a very big coloring book which also included all of the other Hanna-Barbera characters. This book was done at the time of the creation of “Wally gator“. So of course, he was featured in the book as well. At any rate, all I can remember is that the “QT hush“ comic book, rather coloring book had a very bright yellow cover. The colors all over that cover were very bright, including those of the characters of QT hush and his dog, Seamus.
Here’s the yellow cover to the Q.T. Hush coloring book,
https://m.retroreprints.com/img.php?p=%2Fbook_631%2F201806290749200.qthush_cvr.jpg
It didn’t show up. Here’s the actual image: https://m.retroreprints.com/book.php?book_id=631&ttb_imgsPage=221
I’ve been saying this for thirty years, and I’ll say it again: Michael Richards and Jason Alexander should have been signed to star in a live-action Clyde Crashcup and Leonardo movie the minute that “Seinfeld” was cancelled. Even if it flopped, it still would have been better than anything either one of them has done since then.
Bob Kane ripped himself off again with King Features’ “Cool McCool”. While essentially a spy parody along the lines of “Get Smart”, Cool regularly faced a rogues’ gallery of Batmanesque villains including the Owl, the Rattler, Mad Cap, Jack-in-the-Box, etc.
I agree with you about “Marine Boy” and “The Mighty Hercules”, except that I don’t feel the least bit guilty about those pleasures.
Another lost TV cartoon of the 1960s that I really liked was Hanna-Barbera’s “Adventures of Gulliver”. Young Gary Gulliver and his dog are shipwrecked on the island of Lilliput, where they are befriended by pompous King Pomp, clever Bunko, flirtatious Flirtacia, eager Eager and glum Glum. Young Gulliver faces everything from dinosaurs to tiny Vikings as he tries to track down his lost father and to prevent the nefarious Captain Leech from stealing his treasure map. A great series with engaging characters and inventive stories, it arguably represents the studio at its creative peak.
I totally agree! That Gulliver cartoon was one of Hanna-Barbera’s finest!
An episode can be found on the DVD set Saturday Morning Cartoons 1960s Volume 2.
The Funny Company resembled more the Jiminy Cricket Book Club animated segments on The Mickey Mouse Club.-
the animation was designed to bookend the live action.
Let’s move on.
(For younger readers – before recording devices, the only way we could revisit these characters for 167 or so hours of the week was either by book, comic or coloring book. That is why these were important to us.)
All of the front seat passengers are off model in Courageous Cat.
Laurel’s hair was brown in the cartoons – not yellow.
And Krazy Kat looks as if he had a very hearty breakfast (they’re the cartoons I disliked)
I had the King Leonardo book.
But this is why my mother did not like taking me through toy departments.
I would have wanted Sinbad Jr. (natch), KImba, Hoppity Hooper, Tales Of The Wizard Of Oz ….
(And Courageous Cat, Laurel And Hardy despite their faults)
Although.. I would have wanted to see if the artwork inside was of the same quality as the cover.
There’s a lot of value from these old coloring books, even if once upon a time they were nothing more than cheap pulp meant to be tossed out to the kiddies and discarded just as fast. Official artwork of any show is well worth examining, and any kid their age would’ve definitely used them as reference sheets for their own drawings. I just hope that scans of the insides are available somewhere; in an era where adult-oriented, stress relieving coloring books can be bought at grocery store newsstands, the old ’50s and ’60s coloring pages might have enough kitsch value to still stand out.
I know a good bunch of people might be drawn to the ones featuring Tezuka’s characters, but the Clutch Cargo book might be the most interactive of the bunch. Cut out the mouths and use your own for the true Synchro-Vox Experience!
Why nothing about the other (and far superior) series from Cambria–Space Angel? It’s Alex Toth character designs were gorgeous!
In those pre-Internet, pre-cell phone, and pre-video game days, coloring books were a thing.
I recall one coloring book that tied in with the animated Hercules series. This one featured Newton the Centaur and his little nephew. The title of it was “Newt and Tewt” (might have been “Toot”). My brother and I absolutely loved “The Mighty Hercules” and so coloring the antics of the centaurs would have been sheer joy.
Some of these coloring books actually told a story through the sequence of pictures. The one and only piece of merchandise that I ever got of “The Man Called Flintstone” feature film was a coloring book. I have mentioned elsewhere that I never got to see this film on its first release because it only played out in the suburbs and didn’t make it into the city. I wasn’t even allowed the comic book. But the coloring book gave a pretty good idea of the storyline of the movie.
One more type of children’s publication that hasn’t received much mention in recent years–is punch out books. We had a punch out book of “Hey There It’s Yogi Bear”, “The Huckleberry Hound Show,” “The Flintstones,” “Top Cat,””Popeye,””The Sword in the Stone,” “Mr. Magoo’s Christmas Carol,” and probably several others. These kept us playing for hours. In case anyone forgot or is too young to remember, these books were made of sturdy cardboard paper and included perforated images of the characters that could be separated (“punched out”) from the page, and made to stand up. Usually elaborate backgrounds were also included. sometimes even a house or other dwelling place, such as with one of the Flintstones sets we had which had their stone-age house to assemble. The figures were also quite durable if not subjected to extreme wear, and our sets lasted for years. My mother kept them in a large envelope and we could set them up, play with them, and then fold them up and put them away for future use. One very unusual one was “Bugs Bunny in Paris,” which showed the Looney Tunes characters cavorting around in the City of Lights, including Elmer Fudd as a Parisian style policeman with a cape. (I’m thinking this last was a punch out book, but it may have been a coloring book, I can’t recall exactly–or it might have been in both formats. But if memory serves, I’m pretty sure the characters were all in color and detachable.)
It probably would seem like nothing to kids of today who have the whole world at their fingertips, but for us who grew up in the 60’s, these coloring books and punch out books were great ways to keep engaging with our favorite characters even when they were off the air.
Punchouts! I got really frustrated with the stuff printed on comic book or magazine pages. Delicate outlines mocked little kids scissors, and trying to glue or paste pages to cardboard first almost never worked out.
It’s a coloring book. I guess the kids could color Astroboy however they wanted. In subsequent color cartoon versions of him, I believe they made him mostly nude colored. Perhaps they didn’t want that on the cover of a coloring book.
Ah, Crusader Rabbit… just happened to be up late last night desperately looking for somewhere to find the last 10 crusades from the Ward / Anderson series. I think the best hope is that maybe Disney will let it go into public domain at some point. I couldn’t think it’s any more valuable to them than Steamboat Willie.
I watched nearly ALL of these shows and loved them!
I remember coming across a Beany and Cecil coloring book that had everyone BUT Beany & Cecil — all the ancillary characters such as Davey Cricket, Li’l Homer, the guy who shoots bubbles out of his head — even caricatures of Bob Clampett and his wife! (Sody?) Now I wish I’d picked it up but at the time my funds were limited.
That book was featured in a past CR column.
https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/the-bob-clampett-coloring-book/
That was very interesting! Loved seeing the colouring books, and reading the summaries of the shows I wasn’t that familiar with (and even the ones I was!) The only colouring book I have to share is a Whitman title of The Amazing Chan and the Chan Clan. I loved seeing the 1970s fashions the kids wear, and those villains are more evil looking than anything I’ve seen on the small screen! https://imgur.com/gallery/qcngar6
Several Popeye coloring books were produced by LOWE. Originally the artwork was pulled from Sunday strips by Bela Zaboly. Later art by Bud Sagendorf. Artwork was also provided by cartoonists from Paramount Cartoon Studios. Popeye and Olive Oyl looked like they came out of a Famous Studios short. Popeye’s nephew was included called Sweet Pea. The dates of production ranged from 1958 through 1964.
“Another horrifying Sam Singer production. So bad – that American International dismissed Singer and hired Hanna Barbera to finish the order for 130 shorts.”
What did you think of H-B’s version? I thought it was an improvement (especially the voice cast).
Krazy Kat looks a lot more like his (or hers) original comic design than King Features’ 60’s design on that cover with Beetle Bailey and Popeye
Mischievous me wants to know most about the Clutch Cargo one. Do you just color the same faces over and over? Do they have cartoon mouths? The questions are endless!
I seriously want the Jay Ward ones. I hope somebody finds them!
The Super Six cover could have been improved in a few ways: making Dispatcher look grouchy (he usually was, and any smiles weren’t friendly) and representing the number with its numeral as the show did. Stars and Stripes in SUPER would also have been nice, especially for distribution in the USA.
Jerry: THIS is the kind of thing i’d want to see in the ME-TV TOONS block of merchandising. A “Limited Edition” set of these TV cartoon coloring books! I don’t remember seeing ANY of these cartoon coloring books when I was a kid – and I’m an “old fart” – in the tail end of my ’60s. I would have loved THE CLUTCH CARGO and CLYDE CRASHCUP coloring books – that’s for sure! Ditto for HOPPITY HOOPER, KING LEONARDO and LAUREL AND HARDY, too!
I’ll never get over that Super 6 artwork on their coloring book, spelled Super “Six” on the cover. Someone turned Granite Man into an African American, made Elevator Man an elevator operator, and left out Captain Whammo/Zammo entirely. (I guess they count the three headed Matzorileys as the sixth hero in this case). Even as a kid, I knew how off model this mess was.
The “Laurel & Hardy Cartoon Show” featured 156 shorts (not 250). They originally aired in 1966-67 as 39 half-hour episodes (each one containing four shorts – hence the 156 total). The entire series has been released on DVD … in France! Roughly a third of them are in English, and if you look around online, most can be found in English.