This blog was started because of an affection for the stock music heard in the backgrounds of The Huckleberry Hound Show and The Quick Draw McGraw Show. To make a long story short, after a search that took several decades, I discovered the origin of the cues, acquired copies where I could and started documenting which ones were heard on specific cartoons, moving my efforts to this blog in 2009.
The easier way, of course, would be to have copies of the cue sheets that Screen Gems had to submit to ASCAP and BMI so royalties could be paid to the composers.
One of the greatest cartoon music scholars out there, if not the greatest, is Daniel Goldmark. He has written several books and, wonderfully, penned a thesis where the appendix contained a list of the music (except that composed in-house) heard in every single Warner Bros. cartoon (except the “Seely Six”) from 1930 to 1969, compiled from cue sheets. This is such an incredible resource. He was also the music coordinator on the Spümcø cartoons “Boo-Boo Runs Wild” and “A Day in the Life of Ranger Smith.” Music by Capitol Hi-Q! (the Smith cartoon opens with ZR-49 LIGHT UNDERSCORE by Geordie Hormel).
After years and years, I finally had the courage to ask Dr. Goldmark—we have corresponded about one his projects—if maybe he had any Hanna-Barbera cue sheets from the Capitol Hi-Q days.
He did. And, to my astonishment and extreme delight, he e-mailed me 135 pages of cue sheets for the first three seasons of the Huck show, before Hoyt Curtin took over. Not for all the cartoons, but a good percentage of the first two seasons.
At last, I could learn the identity of some of the music I have not been able to find.
Here are a few discoveries.
The sheets are for each half hour show. That means they list music for themes and bumpers in addition to the cartoons. The opening themes always run 24 seconds, meaning each cartoon had credits. The sheets also note the order in which the individual cartoons aired. They confirm what many people have said—there was a rotation each week, with Huck being the first cartoon one week, Yogi the next, and Pixie and Dixie the next.
The sheets for the first two years say “revised.” I don’t know why. I do notice some cues on the sheets are different than what you hear in the cartoons from the Huck DVD or any Huck cartoons that aired on American cable TV. I don’t have a copy any more, but a version of “The Runaway Bear” (E-29) was on-line that had a substitution for a Jack Shaindlin cue. Unfortunately, I don’t have a cue sheet for that cartoon.
Guyla Avery, according to the sheets, was part of the studio’s music department. Guyla was actually Bill Hanna’s secretary, and Iwao Takamoto told a story about how Bill would shout at her from inside his office until it was agreed to protect eardrums by installing an intercom. Hanna never quite figured out to operate it, so he continued to yell out at Guyla. She later married artist/designer Alex Toth. Until June 3, 1960, the studio’s address on the sheets is 1416 N. LaBrea, which was the old Kling/Chaplin studios. The sheets for the third season, starting in September, reveal the company was now operating out of the window-less cinder-block building at 3501 Cahuenga (not to be confused with later new building down the street on Cahuenga we all associate with Hanna-Barbera).
Somewhat maddening is the fact the sheets only list names of music if they don’t contain an alpha-numeric. That means the sheets don’t actually tell us most of the names. For example, a sheet will read “6-ZR-50” and not tell us the name is “Light Underscore.” With that in mind, let me try to clear up the identities of some the music as revealed by the cue sheets.
● Not one, but two short pieces by Raoul Kraushaar were heard on the Huck show. They have an MR prefix: 7-MR-183 and 8-MR-377. The Kraushaar cues were pulled from the Hi-Q library via the Omar library, co-founded by Kraushaar in 1956 (he is the “R” in “Omar”). They both sound like they were recorded in the back of a room, with a clarinet, strings and muted trumpets. In some cases, they were edited together to sound like one cue.
● The sad trombone music heard as the sneaky dog limps with a crutch in “Nuts over Mutts” is Jack Shaindlin’s LAF-72-3.
● “Oh Susanna” heard as Cousin Batty chats with Pixie and Dixie is Shaindlin’s LAF-88-7.
● George “Geordie” Hormel is responsible for ZR-21E SUSPENSE when the alien’s spaceship lands in Jellystone Park in “Space Bear.”
● In the same cartoon, the cue that the late Earl Kress said contained the name “Fireman” is LAF-1-2. He never could remember the complete name.
● The light symphonic music, memorably heard as the skunk is flying on a paper airplane in the Augie Doggie cartoon “Skunk You Very Much” is LAF-113-3. The cue sheet lists as the composer “Langworth” instead of Jack Shaindlin, and it doesn’t remind me of any of Shaindlin’s work.
● LAF-6-16 is a mystery. The cue sheets assign the code to two completely different pieces of music; Dr. Goldmark warns that cue sheets are not always accurate. One is the medium circus march that opens “Goldfish Fever.” But it’s also the code assigned to the brief piece in “Rah Rah Bear” where the players enter the field. That cue starts off the same but ends differently than Shaindlin’s “Boxing Greats No. 2.” On top of that, the medium circus march is reported as LAF-1-8 at the end of “Boxing Buddy.” The same cue is at the start of “Mark of the Mouse” but I don’t have a cue sheet for that. I don’t know what to think; I only have the sheets for the three cartoons mentioned above. For now, I will assign both codes to the march and leave the boxing cue without an LAF number.
● Mr. Jinks is sitting in a basket in “Party Peeper Jinks” while LAF-93-2 plays underneath. It starts with a flute and has quacking muted trumpets.
● A cue in the same cartoon between choruses of a birthday song to Jinks is LAF-93-15. It features woodwinds and strings.● A fast circus-type chase cue called LA-74-4 is heard in a pile of cartoons, in some cases only the second half is used when the melody goes F-G-A-Bb-C and comes back down. Part of it is in the final scene of “Nottingham and Eggs.”
● Shaindlin provides the seagoing medley which opens “Pistol Packin’ Pirate.” It is LAF-65-7.
● The dramatic cue during the showdown between Sheriff Huckleberry (in the cartoon of the same name) and Dinky Dalton is L-31 SOMBER MOVEMENT by Spencer Moore.
● “Brave Little Brave,” with its specialty cues, doesn’t follow the Capitol Hi-Q numbering system. The music for about the first 4½ minutes is a Geordie Hormel piece labelled 11-ZR-K7C. The rest of the music is Q-743 by Spencer Moore. The closest cue I can find is L-744 MELODIC WESTERN UNDERSCORE. Same tempo, same orchestration, same double tom-tom beat, but the melody doesn’t quite match. My guess is the “Q” cues were in the original Capitol “Q” library, which was replaced by Hi-Q in 1956.
● “Show Biz Bear” features silent film serial style music played on an upright piano. These are Shaindlin cues entitled “Silent Movie Piano”; Shaindlin recorded a commercial album of these.
● Clarence Wheeler’s “Woodwind Capers” turns out to be a solo flute, four seconds long. It’s heard in “Hoodwinked Bear.” At least, that is all that was used.
● The version of “La Cucaracha” in several cartoons is an Omar library cue labelled OK-787 by Bill Loose and Jack Cookerly, who later played keyboards for Hoyt Curtin.
Whew! I think that’s it.
All this wonderful information is going to take some time to update the cues on the blog, as I’ll have to change some Quick Draw shows and other Huck cartoons for which I don’t have cue sheets.
People who like lists and lists of cartoons can stand by for just a moment.
You can see most of the music referred to was composed by Jack Shaindlin. We’ve posted about Shaindlin before, but a brief summary of his stock music career is he formed a company in the late ‘40s called Filmusic. The November-December 1952 edition of Film Music revealed:The Hollywood office of Filmusic Co. of New York is making 1500 recorded selections available for TV and non-theatrical producers. The company, the largest independent music-on-film library in the country, is headed by Jack Shaindlin and features his sound tracks. Mr. Shaindlin has been musical director for the March of Time, Louis de Rochemont and the major studios in the east since 1937. His Filmusic sound track is used exclusively by NBC-TV.
The problem with trying to identify names of his cues (you won’t find my favourite Shaindlin cue, “Toboggan Run” in a copyright catalogue or in the BMI database) is simple. Shaindlin told Business and Home Screen magazine once that “the music was never published and hasn’t been ‘kicked around.’” Filmusic became Langlois Filmusic in 1954 and Cinemusic in 1960. Shaindlin seems to have copyrighted only select cues for the sake of royalties, and certainly not the 1500 mentioned above, including a good many of the ones heard in the Huck and Quick Draw shows.
Here are the Shaindlin cues that have been partially ID’d and a couple that have not been. These were sent to me years ago by Earl. I have held off posting them until I knew what they were, except for one cue he asked me not to post.
Included is a vaudeville hi-step cue that got a workout on the Quick Draw McGraw series; all Earl could remember was it contained “fireman” in the title. Another I particularly like reminds me of little busy animals skipping through the woods. It’s heard at the end of “Baffled Bear,” as Yogi runs a gas station. I’ve also attached “Six Day Bicycle Race,” heard several times in the Snooper and Blabber caper “Puss N’ Booty.” If I don’t have the real names, you’ll see quotation marks around fake ones. Don’t accept these as valid.
Two bonus cues are below, thanks to reader Evan Schad. With his help, I acquired a Synchro library 78 rpm disc containing the two Hecky Krasnow cues heard on several Augie Doggie cartoons.
LAF-1-2 "high stepping fireman"
LAF-6-16 "circus parade"
LAF-25-3 "dance of the forest squirrels"
LAF-74-2 LICKETY SPLIT
LAF-74-4 "race to the finish"
LAF - SIX DAY BICYCLE RACE
LAF - "the greatest show on earth"
LAF - "happy little elves"
HAPPY COBBLER
SWINGING GHOSTS
Again, I am extremely appreciative to Daniel Goldmark for his generosity and selflessness in providing this valuable documentation.
Since people love lists, here are the cartoons for which we have a list of the cues with production numbers and episode numbers in brackets. Alas, only one of the three Yowp cartoons is present.
E-1 Pie-Pirates (003)
E-2 High Fly Guy (008)
E-3 Tally Ho-Ho-Ho (007)
E-4 Pistol Packin’ Pirate (005)
E-5 Judo Jack (002)
E-6 Little Bird Mouse (007)
E-7 Yogi Bear’s Big Break (001)
E-8 Big Bad Bully (004)
E-9 Slumber Party Smarty (002)
E-10 Kit-Kat-Kit (003)
E-11 Big Brave Bear (006)
E-12 Scaredy Cat Dog (006)
E-13 Baffled Bear (009)
E-14 Cousin Tex (001/012)
E-15 Foxy Hound Dog (005)
E-16 Jinks’ Mice Device (004-021)
E-17 The Ghost with the Most (009)
E-18 The Buzzin’ Bear (013)
E-19 Jiggers It’s Jinks (008)
E-20 The Brave Little Brave (010)
E-21 The Stout Trout (012)
E-22 The Ace of Space (010)
E-27 Jinks the Butler (013)
E-31 Sheriff Huckleberry (005)
E-32 Sir Huckleberry Hound (004)
E-33 Lion-Hearted Huck (002-013)
E-34 Rustler-Hustler Huck (006)
E-35 Huckleberry Hound Meets Wee Willie (001/010)
E-37 Tricky Trapper (003)
E-38 Cock-a-Doodle Huck (008)
E-39 Two Corny Crows (009)
E-40 Freeway Patrol (007)
E-41 Dragon Slayer Huck (012)
E-47 Birdhouse Blues (021)
E-49 Prize-Fight Fright (021)
E-52 Brainy Bear (022)
E-53 Nice Mice (022)
E-54 Postman Huck (022)
E-55 Robin Hood Yogi (023)
E-56 King-Size Surprise (023)
E-60 Robin Hood Yogi (023)
E-61 Scooter Looter (025)
E-62 Mouse-Nappers (025)
E-63 Little Red Riding Huck (025)
E-64 Hide and Go Peek (026)
E-65 Boxing Buddy (026)
E-66 The Tough Little Termite (026)
E-70 Papa Yogi (030)
E-71 Ten Pin Alley (027)
E-74 Show Biz Bear (027)
E-76 King Size Poodle (030)
E-77 Nottingham and Eggs (032)
E-78 Rah Rah Bear (032)
E-79 Hi-Fido (027)
E-80 Stranger Ranger (031)
E-81 Somebody’s Lion (030)
E-82 Batty Bat (033)
E-84 Mighty Mite (031)
E-85 Bear For Punishment (033)
E-87 A Bully Dog (031)
E-89 Bird Brained Cat (032)
E-90 Huck the Giant Killer (033)
E-97 Hoodwinked Bear (037)
E-98 Piccadilly Dilly (037)
E-99 Goldfish Fever (037)
E-100 Snow White Bear (038)
E-101 Wiki Waki Huck (038)
E-102 Pushy Cat (038)
E-103 Space Bear (039)
E-104 Puss in Boats (039)
E-105 Huck’s Hack (039)
E-107 Booby Trapped Bear (041)
E-109 High Jinks (043)
E-110 Legion Bound Hound (041)
E-111 Price For Mice (041)
E-112 Gleesome Threesome (042)
E-113 Science Friction (042)
E-114 Plutocrat Cat (042)
E-115 A Bear Pair (043)
E-117 Spy Guy (044)
E-118 Nuts over Mutts (044)
E-120 Knight School (043)
E-122 Party Peeper Jinks (044)
Sheets are missing for Huckleberry Hound Shows K-011, 014 through 020, 024 in the first season, and K-028 through 030, 034 through 036 in the second, and K-040, K-045 to 52 in the third. .