Okay, maybe not. But to the right you see Huckle Jerry Hound. Or, rather Hanna-Barbera layout artist Jerry Eisenberg drawn as Huckleberry Hound sent to me by former storyman Tony Benedict. The two of them worked on H-B cartoons through a good portions of the 1960s. Tony pretty much took over the Huck cartoons in the series’ final season, writing most of them.
I’ve been quite fortunate to have had the chance to talk with both Jerry and Tony about their careers at Hanna-Barbera. Unfortunately, in Tony’s case, due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, we chatted for just under a half-hour and I never got a chance to ask him a pile of questions on my mind. However, someone else will get the opportunity, and I urge you to tune in and listen. It’ll be a lot longer than a half hour. And there’s Tony’s career at Disney and UPA we didn’t even discuss that I imagine they’ll touch on.
Tony will be on the air on Stu’s show with Stu Shostak this Wednesday (the 8th) starting at 4 p.m. Pacific time. Stu generally goes two hours with his guests but tends to chat longer if the guest is willing and there’s still a bushel-full of questions to be answered. And I suspect there will be, certainly ones we never got a chance to touch on in my truncated interview.
Other than Mike Lah (who was gone), Tony worked with all of the studio’s early greats—ex-MGM guys like Ray Patterson, Irv Spence, Kenny Muse, Bob Gentle, Art Lozzi, Monty and Walt Clinton. And with George Nicholas. And Art Davis. And Carlo Vinci. And the two greatest writers in cartoon history, Mike Maltese and Warren Foster. Well, the list could go on. Tony wrote the first cartoon with Astro. Same with Alfy Gator. He also came up with an idea for a spy spoof featuring a squirrel.
So here’s how you listen to the interview. It’s not available