Where's Huddles?
Where's Huddles? is an American adult animated sitcom produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions that premiered on CBS on July 1, 1970 and ran for ten episodes as a summer replacement show for The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour until September 2.[1]
| Where's Huddles? | |
|---|---|
| Genre | |
| Voices of | |
| Composer | Hoyt Curtin |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 10 |
| Production | |
| Executive producers | |
| Production company | Hanna-Barbera Productions |
| Distributor | Taft Broadcasting |
| Release | |
| Original network | CBS |
| Original release | July 1 – September 2, 1970 |
It was similar in style to the studio's considerably more successful The Flintstones, and used several of the same essential voice actors and plots.[2] Also, like The Flintstones, Where's Huddles? aired in the evening during prime time, had a laugh track, and had somewhat adult themes. All ten episodes were produced and directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.
The summer replacement was intended be a trial run for a full prime-time series, but only lasted for ten episodes. The episodes were repeated on the network's Sunday afternoon special in the summer of 1971.[3]
Overview
The show's premise involved a professional football quarterback named Ed Huddles (voiced by Cliff Norton) and his neighbor, the team's center Bubba McCoy (voiced by Mel Blanc).[4] They played for a team called the Rhinos. Other characters included Ed's wife Marge Huddles (voiced by Jean Vander Pyl), the Huddles' daughter Pom-Pom, and their black teammate Freight Train (voiced by Herb Jeffries). Bubba's wife Penny McCoy was played by comedic actress Marie Wilson in her final role before her death from cancer in 1972. The regular foil was Claude Pertwee (Paul Lynde), who lived alone with his cat Beverley and could tolerate the wives, but considered the men to be "savages".[5] His look and temperamental behavior are similar to Mr. Peevly from Help!... It's the Hair Bear Bunch.
The Rhinos' football announcer was voiced by sportscaster Dick Enberg, who at the time was the voice of the Los Angeles Rams. Alan Reed had a recurring role as Mad Dog Maloney, the Rhinos' coach. The Huddles had a dog named Fumbles, voiced by Don Messick. Fumbles, much like Muttley, would often laugh at someone's misfortune, but whereas Muttley's laugh was wheezy in nature, Fumbles' laugh was more guttural. Most of the in-game action consisted of recycled animation (a shot of the team's running back side-kicking and stiff-arming defenders was one shot that was particularly frequently used).
Paul Lynde was credited for his role in this series as Claude Pertwee; this was unusual for Lynde, as he generally went uncredited in his other work for Hanna-Barbera at the time, which consisted mostly of Saturday morning cartoons (as opposed to Where's Huddles?, which aired in prime time). In addition to the Huddles television series, there was also a comic book (with art by Roger Armstrong) which ran for three issues from Gold Key/Whitman Comics in 1971.
Episodes
Season 1 (1970)
| No. | Title | Original air date | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "The Old Swimming Hole" | July 1, 1970 | |
| Things go terribly wrong when Pertwee and company try to install a swimming pool. | |||
| 2 | "A Weighty Problem" | July 8, 1970 | |
| Bubba's overweight problem threatens to have him and Ed traded to a team in Alaska, so he goes on a crash diet program concocted by Ed. But neighbor Pertwee is ecstatic that the next-door "savages" may have to move and schemes to sabotage every diet effort made by the Huddles and McCoys. | |||
| 3 | "The Ramblin' Wreck" | July 15, 1970 | |
| Pertwee's new acquisition, and love, is an antique European roadster. After he leaves on a business trip, it does not take long before Bubba and Ed accidentally turn it into a pile of parts. When Pertwee returns early, the boys enlist the help of Freight Train and the other Rhino players to rebuild the car and buy time by letting Pertwee think that it has been stolen. | |||
| 4 | "The Offensives" | July 22, 1970 | |
| When "Mad Dog" Madowski, a Chicago Bears linebacker, finds fame as a Tiny Tim-like singer, Ed, Bubba and Freight Train create their own trio, "The Offensives." With Pertwee as their agent at a 50% fee, the boys are booked into the hottest nightclub in town. Unfortunately, Coach Mad Dog (noticing Madowski's singing career has weakened his playing talent) has instituted a new "no moonlighting" policy for his players, suspending any violators from the team. | |||
| 5 | "Hot Dog Hannah" | July 29, 1970 | |
| Hot Dog Hannah, an elderly snack vendor at the football stadium, is actually rich from investing in real estate and hides her huge fortune in her mattress. But since she lives in a shack at the city dump, everyone, including Ed and Bubba think that she is destitute. With good intentions, they fix up her shack and replace her mattress. Learning their mistake, the boys begin a scavenger hunt to find Hannah's fortune before she sues them. | |||
| 6 | "To Catch a Thief" | August 5, 1970 | |
| Marge has scrimped and saved $100 to surprise Ed with a sports jacket that he wants. Ed accidentally finds the money, assumes that she has been holding out on the family finances and, in a huff, he takes the money and splurges on himself. Marge thinks that the money has been stolen and calls the police. Now that Ed knows the truth, he has to find a way to replace the money and keep Marge from knowing how he doubted her, all before amateur investigator Pertwee figures it out. | |||
| 7 | "Get That Letter Back" | August 12, 1970 | |
| Ed and Bubba invest the families' savings into a car wash and are so sure of financial success, they send an angry letter to Coach Mad Dog and resign from the Rhinos. They learn that a new highway project will reroute all traffic from their business and now the mad rush is on to retrieve their letter from the post before Coach receives it. | |||
| 8 | "The Odd Trio" | August 19, 1970 | |
| A storm damages the neighborhood, and while Pertwee fights with his insurance company, Ed and Bubba set out to repair their own houses. Ed's ladder falls on Claude, and rather than continue dealing with his insurance man, he exaggerates his injuries and threatens a lawsuit, turning Ed and Bubba into his personal repairmen and servants. Because of Pertwee, the boys may have to miss Sunday's big game. | |||
| 9 | "A Sticky Affair" | August 26, 1970 | |
| Rhino quarterback Ed has fallen into a fumbling slump, so Bubba cooks up an idea to put glue on his hands before the game. Not just any glue, but Bubba's homemade concoction. His invention turns into a superglue and, with Pertwee's help, they are in a get-rich-quick scheme to put it on the market. Bubba cannot remember his recipe and when the boys look for their last remaining batch to be analyzed, they discover that it has been picked up with the trash. | |||
| 10 | "One Man's Family" | September 2, 1970 | |
| As a favor, Ed goes to Bubba's doctor to pick up his buddy's test results. Overhearing the doctor, Ed thinks that Bubba is pregnant! Pampering his best friend, Huddles soon has the entire team coddling Bubba, even during Sunday's game. | |||
Home media
On July 26, 2016, Warner Archive released Where's Huddles?: The Complete Series on DVD in region 1 as part of their Hanna-Barbera Classics Collection. This is a Manufacture-on-Demand (MOD) release, available exclusively through Warner's online store.[6]
References
- Woolery, George W. (1983). Children's Television: The First Thirty-Five Years, 1946-1981, Part 1: Animated Cartoon Series. Scarecrow Press. pp. 308–309. ISBN 0-8108-1557-5. Retrieved 22 March 2020.
- Perlmutter, David (2018). The Encyclopedia of American Animated Television Shows. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 693. ISBN 978-1-5381-0373-9.
- Erickson, Hal (2005). Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949 Through 2003 (2nd ed.). McFarland & Co. p. 903. ISBN 978-1-4766-6599-3.
- Markstein, Don. "Where's Huddles". Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
- It was broadly hinted that Pertwee was gay, especially since "savage" was slang for homosexuals at the time. (Lynde, who did the voice, was gay himself, though not publicly.)
- Where's Huddles? - 'The Complete Series' of the Classic Hanna-Barbera Show Archived 2016-07-01 at the Wayback Machine
External links
- '"Where's Huddles? at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on January 12, 2015.