If you are a vintage animation fan and a Physical media Collector, 2025 is simply the biggest year in history to live – largely thanks to a label effort.
Earlier this year we covered Warner ArchiveBlu-ray Collections of Classic Looney Tunes Cartoons, all lovingly restored and released with untouched transfers. Now, under the direction of film historians George FieldsteinThe Warner Archive have done it again with ”Huckleberry Hound Show“An 11-record Blu-ray package that represents one of the label’s most heroic reconstruction and conservation efforts.
Huckleberry Hound and Hans cost on the Hanna-Barbera series has never really disappeared-The adventure has sent bit by bit and in decades-but their show has not been available in their original form in over 60 years. To date.
“The Huckleberry Hound Show,” which premiered in 1958 and ended in 1962 after four seasons, not only introduced the relaxed title character but fans favorites such as Yogi Bear and Mr. Jinks. The show was originally sponsored by Kellogg’s, with the show’s characters represented in the original commercials. In each section, Huckleberry Hound presented a collection of cartoons with itself and other characters, divided by the Kelloggs commercials and other interstitial animation.
After the four seasons were broadcast from 1958 to 1962, it was a little break in the availability of the series before it was sold to individual stations without national sponsorship. Generations of children then became acquainted with Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear and Boo Boo, and Pixie and Dixie through the individual cartoon films, which were extracted from the original series and repackaged in different ways for syndication.
The original half-hour shows were divided into segments, with new head and final drawers created to eliminate all references to Kellogg’s. Local stations used this material to create the programming that they looked appropriate, and Hanna-Barbera did not save the full half-hour shows; Instead, the segments were invented by their respective characters (Huckleberry Hound, Pixie and Dixie, Hokey Wolf, etc.), Yogi Bear spun into their own series during the third season of the original “Huckleberry Hound” broadcasts, and these segments were invented in the same way.
None of the original bridge material and commercials were properly invented, which meant that when Feltenstein and a large team of dedicated Warner Bros. archivists, master supervisors, colorists and sound engineers started working on Blu-ray almost three years ago they had their work to cut out for them. None of the original programs were saved in their full original broadcast form, which was the way Warner Archive wanted to present them.
Thankfully, with one exception, the original 35 mm negatives survived the negatives of all main persons segments, and Feltenstein’s team could scan them in 4K. (One segment whose negative could not be located was taken from a 16 mm reduction negative.) Finding connective tissue and restoring it was the major challenge, a long process to get each potential film and sound elements that can relate to the pieces needed based on older documents in Hanna-Barbera archives.
Given that the segments of the specific cartoon films were the only articles that were invented properly, to try to find all interstitials – bumpers, bridges and all original advertising films created for the series – was a massive commitment to the archives. In some cases they found image but no sound, or the opposite; Some materials were useless due to vinegar syndrome.
After months of sighting through containers, the team was able to clarify exactly what they had and began the year -long process of matching the original broadcast versions of each of the 68 show as close as possible. The end result is pure gold for animation enthusiasts, especially considering the abundance of recently restored material, everything made with Warner Archives’s usual technical rigority.
Just outside the bat, there is a fantastic surprise in the form of the original opening sequence with all Kellogg’s mentions – in color. Even learned animation researchers have generally assumed that Hanna-Barbera had not filmed the opening in color, since the first broadcasts were only in black and white, but it is only one of many delightful discoveries Feltenstein and his team made during the reconstruction process.
Looking at the show with its original structure and advertising intact feels like a form of time travel – Vintage advertising films and bumpers create a sense of joy nostalgia, even if you are a viewer who does not live when the show first airs. And drawn the films themselves, leased by Daw’s Butler’s huge voice talents (which is profiled in an extra feature on the record) and Don Messick, have aged beautifully.
They are smart and fun, and in this impeccably composed package they look better than they have ever done.
