The Ruff & Reddy Show

Infobox Television
show_name = The Ruff & Reddy Show


caption = The show's title card.
genre = Cartoon series
cliffhanger
director = Bob Hultgren
presenter = Jimmy Blaine (original run)
Robert Cottle (reruns)
voices = Daws Butler
Don Messick
country = USA
num_seasons = 3
producer = William Hanna
Joseph Barbera
runtime = 30 min.
network = NBC
first_aired = December 14, 1957
last_aired = April 2, 1960
followed_by = "The Huckleberry Hound Show" (1958-1962)
imdb_id = 0050057
tv_com_id = 18872

"The Ruff & Reddy Show" is a Hanna-Barbera animated series starring Ruff, a cat voiced by Don Messick, and Reddy, a dog voiced by Daws Butler. First broadcast in December 1957 on NBC, it was the first television show produced by Hanna-Barbera.

History

William Hanna and Joseph Barbera entered the television field fresh from serving as the heads of the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer animation department, which shut down in June 1957. Unlike its successor "The Huckleberry Hound Show", "Ruff and Reddy" featured a live action host, Jimmy Blaine, and various theatrical cartoons from Columbia Pictures' Screen Gems library including The Fox and the Crow and Li'l Abner filling up the rest of the half-hour.

Messick's "Ruff" voice characterization was very similar to the one he would later use for Pixie the mouse. Butler used his tried-and-true southern drawl for "Reddy", a voice that would later become mainly identified with Huckleberry Hound. A supporting character in some episodes was the tiny-sized Professor Gizmo (also voiced by Don Messick). Villains Ruff and Reddy faced included Harry Safari (Daws Butler), Captain Greedy and Salt Water Daffy (Daws Butler and Don Messick) and western outlaws Killer and Diller (Daws Butler and Don Messick). The show's episodes borrowed from the serialized storytelling format of such shows as "Crusader Rabbit" by making extensive use of cliffhanger storylines. Each story had 13 episodes, four airing per show. Don Messick was naarator. The episodes were not much longer than four minutes, including an opening song and much repetition of preceding events.

"Ruff and Reddy" was broadcast in black and white until fall 1959, when it went to color. Actor/singer and Storyteller:Jimmy Blaine served as the series' first mc with Puppeteers:Rufus Rose And Bobby Nicholson providing comedic relief as Rhubarb the Parrot and Jose the Toucan.. NBC cancelled the show at the end of the 1959-1960 season, and was later rerun in 1962 with Captain Bob Cottle as the second and last live-action host. When NBC cancelled the series, Screen Gems syndicated the cartoons to local TV stations. Warner Bros. Television now owns the distribution rights to the series.

Episodes

*Night Flight Fright
*Planet Pirates
*Whama Bamma Gamma Gun
*Hocus Pocus Focus
*The Mad Monster of Muni Mula
*The Mastermind of Muni Mula
*Creepy Creature Feature
*Muni Mula Mix-Up
*The Creepy Creature
*Crowds in the Clouds
*Reddy Rocket Rescue
*Surprise in the Skies
*Last Trip of a Ghost Ship
*Pinky the Pint Sized Pachyderm
*The Irate Pirate
*Dynamite Fright
*Marooned in Typhoon Lagoon
*Scarey Harry Safari
*A Creep in the Deep
*Bungle in the Jungle
*Jungle Jitters
*Hot Shot's Plot
*The Gloom of Doom
*The Trapped Trap the Trapper
*Pot-Shot Puts Hot Shot on Hot Spot
*Slight Fright on a Moonlight Night
*Westward Ho Ho Ho
*Asleep While the Creep Steals Sheep
*Copped by a Copter
*The Two Terrible Twins from Texas
*A Friend to the End
*Heels on Wheels
*Killer and Diller in a Chiller of a Thriller
*Ship-Shape Sheep
*The Boss of Double-Cross
*The Whirly Bird Catches the Worms
*Hot Lead for a Hot-Head
*The Goon of Doubloon Lagoon
*Tootin' Shootin'
*Blunder Down Under
*The Late, Late Pieces of Eight
*The Metal Monster Mystery
*Big Deal with a Small Seal
*The Goon of Doubloon Lagoon
*Two Dubs in a Sub
*A Real Keep Submarine
*No Hope for a Dope of a Periscope
*Rescue in the Deep Blue
*A Whale of a Tail of a Tale of a Whale
*Welcome Guest in a Treasure Chest

Other Appearances

The characters next appeared on "The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie", in the episode "Yogi's Ark Lark" (which featured almost every Hanna-Barbera animal character that existed at the time). Since then, they haven't been used in anything new.

Ruff made an appearance in the "Yogi's Treasure Hunt" episode "Goodbye Mr. Chump" as a newspaper vendor.

Episodes of "Ruff and Reddy" later appeared on one volume of the "Hanna-Barbera Personal Favorites" home video series called "Animal Follies", along with "Yippee, Yappee and Yahooey", "Touché Turtle and Dum Dum", "Augie Doggie and Doggie Daddy" and "Snagglepuss".

The computer game titled "Ruff and Reddy in the Space Adventure" was released in 1990 for Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64, Amiga and Atari ST.

"The Ruff & Reddy Show" in other languages

* Brazilian Portuguese: "Jambo & Ruivão"
* French Canadian: "Pouf & Riqui"
* Italian: "Tatino e Papino"
* Macedonian: "Жолтко и Лутко" (Zoltko i Lutko)
* Spanish: "Ruff y Reddy"
* Serbian: "Жутко и Љутко" (Jutko i Ljutko)
* Japanese: "つよいぞラフティ"

External links

*imdb title|0050057
*tv.com show|18872
* [http://www.bcdb.com/cartoons/Hanna-Barbera_Studios/P-R/The_Ruff_and_Reddy_Show/ Big Cartoon DataBase: The Ruff and Reddy Show]
* [http://www.wingnuttoons.com/RuffReddy.html List of episodes @ Wingnut]
* [http://www.toontracker.com/ruffredd/ruffredd.htm Toon Tracker: Ruff & Reddy]
* [http://www.toonopedia.com/rufreddy.htm Toonopedia's "Ruff & Reddy" entry]