Hoppity Hooper

Hoppity Hooper

DVD cover
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 Uncle Waldo P. Wigglesworth, Fillmore Bear, and Hoppity Hooper
Voices of Chris Allen
Hans Conried
Paul Frees
William Scott
Kathy Steinberg
Alan Reed
Bill Conrad
Narrated by Paul Frees
Bill Conrad
Kathy Steinberg
Theme music composer Dennis Farnon
Opening theme "Olga Moletoad's Ride"
Composer(s) Dennis Farnon
Country of origin United States and Mexico
Original language(s) English
No. of seasons 2
No. of episodes 104 (list of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s) Peter M. Piech
Producer(s) Jay Ward
Bill Scott
Editor(s) Skip Craig
Running time 30 minutes
Production company(s) Jay Ward Productions, P.A.T.
Distributor P.A.T., Filmtel International, DFS Program Exchange
Release
Original network ABC (1964–1967)
Picture format Color
Audio format Mono
Original release September 26, 1964 (1964-09-26) – September 2, 1967 (1967-09-02)

Hoppity Hooper is an American animated television series produced by Jay Ward, and sponsored by General Mills, originally broadcast on ABC on September 26, 1964.[1] The series was produced in Hollywood by Jay Ward and Bill Scott, with animation done in Mexico City by Gamma Productions.

Premise

The recurring characters were Hoppity Hooper, a frog, voiced by Chris Allen, Uncle Waldo P. Wigglesworth, a fox, voiced by Hans Conried; Fillmore, a bear wearing Civil War clothes, voiced by William Scott; and Alan Reed and the narrator, voiced by Paul Frees, and William Conrad. Fillmore, as in the picture at right, often blew on his bugle, producing loud, sour notes (mostly due to Waldo Standing on Fillmore's foot).

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.

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. Interspersed were recycled second features from the earlier series Peabody's Improbable History, Fractured Fairy Tales, and Aesop and Son. In later syndicated runs, each four-part story was assembled into a single half-hour episode.

One of the best-remembered stories is "The Traffic Zone," a parody of The Twilight Zone in which the characters were transformed into vegetables.

Background

The first two episodes were produced in 1960 and featured Alan Reed as Fillmore. The series wasn't picked up for broadcast until September 1961, and by that time Reed was unavailable, because of his commitment with another ABC animated TV series, The Flintstones, as the voice of Fred Flintstone. Therefore, Bill Scott was named to do the voice of Fillmore.

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" in 1963.

Episodes

Over the course of two 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).

Season 1 (1964–1965)

Episodes Title
1Ring a Ding Spring
2 Rock 'n' Roll Star
3 Diamond Mine
4 Costra Nostra
5 The Giant of Hoot 'n' Holler
6 Detective Agency
7 Olympic Star
8 Ghost
9 The Masked Martin
10 Jumping Frog Contest
11 The Traffic Zone
12 Wottabango Corn Elixir
13 Frog Prince of Monomania

Season 2 (1965–1966)

Episodes Title
1 Colonel Clabber—Limburger Cheese Statue (4 parts)
2 The Giant Cork (4 parts)
3 Ferkle to Hawaii (4 parts)
4 Hallowe'en (4 parts)
5 Christmas (4 parts)
6 Horse Race Follies (4 parts)
7 Jack and the Beanstalk (4 parts)

Season 3 (1966–1967)

Episodes Title
1 Granny's Gang (4 parts)
2 Golf Tournament (4 parts)
3 The Hopeless Diamond (4 parts)
4 The Dragon of Eubetchia (4 parts)
5 Rare Butterfly Hunt (4 parts)
6 Oil's Well at Oasis Gardens (4 parts)
7 Wonder Water (4 parts)

Production

Voice cast

Releases

Hoppity Hooper was released in three separate volumes on VHS in the early 1990s. Volume One was released on DVD in 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 their "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 released the first 6 episodes under their 200 Classic Cartoons: Collectors Edition label.

References

  1. ↑ Erickson, Hal (1995). Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949 through 1993. McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN 0-7864-0029-3.
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