Imagine your disappointment when your dad goes to the trouble and expense of buying a record featuring your favourite Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters only to discover it tries to pawn off a fake as the real thing. That’s what would have happened to kids some 55-or-so years ago.
Hanna-Barbera or Columbia’s Screen Gems worked out a deal with New York City-based Golden Records to release discs featuring the studio’s theme songs, sung by the characters themselves. The only problem was, someone else was voicing the characters. You see, H-B had a deal with a Columbia record subsidiary and it released albums with Daws Butler, Don Messick, et al. Golden had to settle for New York-based imitators—and some of the impressions were not all that good. (I still like the arrangement of the little combo doing the Wally Gator theme, though).
However, one thing that was good about these Golden efforts was the sleeve the 45s (and 78s!) came in. Whether they were designed at H-B, I don’t, but the characters look pretty good. Reader Rick Greene sent scans of his collection and we’re pleased to pass them along.
Long-time readers will know we’ve found and posted dubs of some of the themes and filler songs from the people at Golden. You can hear them HERE, HERE, and the Yogi Christmas ones HERE.
