Snagglepuss

Snagglepuss
Snagglepuss's Title Card
Genre	Comedy
Format	Cartoon series
Created by	Hanna-Barbera
Directed by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Starring	Snagglepuss
Voices of	Daws Butler[1]
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	32 (List of episodes)
Production
Producer(s)	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Running time	7 Minutes Per Short
Production company(s)	Hanna-Barbera Productions
Broadcast
Original channel	First-Run Syndication
Original run	January 30, 1961 (1961-01-30) – December 30, 1961 (1961-12-30)
Chronology
Related shows	The Yogi Bear Show The Huckleberry Hound Show

Snagglepuss is a Hanna-Barbera cartoon character created in 1959,^[2] a pink anthropomorphic mountain lion voiced by Daws Butler.^[1] He is best known for his famous catchphrase, "Heavens to Murgatroyd!",^[1] along with phrases such as "Exit, stage left!" Snagglepuss was originally known as "Snaggletooth" (a pink lion precursor).^[3]

Summary

Snagglepuss first appeared in several episodes of The Quick Draw McGraw Show^[2] and became a regular segment on The Yogi Bear Show, starring in a total of 32 episodes. (See the list of episodes.) He also appeared in other Hanna-Barbera series such as Yogi's Gang in 1973, as a co-host for Laff-A-Lympics in 1977 and 1978, Yogi's Treasure Hunt in 1985 and as a teenager on Yo Yogi! in 1991.

Snagglepuss lives in a cavern, which he constantly tries to make more habitable for himself. No matter what he does, however, he always winds up back where he started or worse off than he was before. In some episodes, Snagglepuss is chased by Major Minor (voiced by Don Messick), a tiny-sized hunter, whose chases seem similar to the ones which involve Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny (which was hardly a coincidence, since most of the scripts were created by Michael Maltese, one of Warner Bros. Cartoons' key writers in the '40s and '50s).

In his earliest roles, before getting his own cartoons, Snagglepuss was orange instead of pink and occasionally called "Snaggletooth". Confusion reigns in part because his first appearance, Lamb Chopped (an early Quick Draw McGraw short), actually calls him Snagglepuss but has him refer to an unseen "Snaggletooth" as his brother.

Character

Butler's voice characterization is reminiscent of the more soft-spoken aspect of Bert Lahr's broad-ranging characterizations, specifically the Cowardly Lion in the 1939 MGM movie The Wizard of Oz. (Coincidentally, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera headed the MGM cartoon studio on the Tom and Jerry anthology before opening Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1957.)^[1]

Snagglepuss has three signature catchphrases. Before dashing off (whether to escape or for some other reason), he exclaims "Exit, stage left!" (or stage right, and sometimes even up or down), a phrase used in theatrical stage directions. Snagglepuss typically appends the adverbial focus particle "... even" to seemingly every phrase. His most famous is his perpetual exclamation, "Heavens to Murgatroyd!" - a line first uttered by Bert Lahr in the 1944 film Meet the People.^[1]

When the character of Snagglepuss was used for a series of Kellogg's cereal television commercials in the 1960s, Lahr filed a lawsuit, claiming that the similarity of the Snagglepuss voice to his own might cause viewers to falsely conclude that Lahr was endorsing the product. As part of the settlement, the disclaimer "Snagglepuss voice by Daws Butler" was required to appear on each commercial, thus making Butler one of the few voice artists to receive a screen credit in a TV commercial.

Other appearances

• Snagglepuss appeared in Yogi's Ark Lark and Yogi's Gang. In Yogi's Gang, he is often referred to as a tiger and not a mountain lion.
• Snagglepuss acted as a co-host with Mildew Wolf from the Cattanooga Cats segment "It's the Wolf" on Laff-A-Lympics.
• Snagglepuss was a regular in Yogi's Treasure Hunt.
• In the "Fender Bender 500" segment of Wake, Rattle, and Roll, Snagglepuss (voiced by Greg Burson) was paired up with Huckleberry Hound as they drove a monster truck called the Half-Dog, Half-Cat, Half-track; it resembled a portable stage, which was perfectly appropriate for both Huck and Snag.
• Snagglepuss appeared in three TV-movies which were part of the Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10 series:
  • Yogi's Great Escape
  • Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose
  • The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound
• Snagglepuss also appeared in the animated specials Yogi's First Christmas and Casper's First Christmas.
• Snagglepuss was featured as a teenager in Yo Yogi! again voiced by Greg Burson.
• Snagglepuss was seen in a Cartoon Network Rap in 1995.
• In The Simpsons episode Lady Bouvier's Lover, Comic Book guy shows Bart a cell of Snagglepuss to show a cell that's worth something, as opposed to the cell of Scratchy's arm Bart was trying to sell to him.
• In the My Life as a Teenage Robot episode "Bradventure", Snagglepuss (voiced by Tom Kenny) made a cameo appearance along with Sylvester the Cat.

In other languages

• Croatian: Krezumica
• Danish: Snakkepus
• French: Alcibiade
• Hungarian: Nyegleó
• Italian: Svicolone
• Portuguese: Leao da Montanha
• Spanish: El león Melquíades

See also

• List of Hanna-Barbera characters
• List of works produced by Hanna-Barbera
• The Yogi Bear Show

References

1. ^ ^{a b c d e} Martin, Gary (1996-2009). "Heavens to Murgatroyd". http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/heavens-to-murgatroyd.html. Retrieved 2009-08-22. 
2. ^ ^{a b} "Cartoon Scrapbook". http://www.cartoonscrapbook.com/S/snagglepuss1961.htm.  Snagglepuss
3. ^ Toonopedia, Snaggletooth and Snagglepuss.

External links

• Toonopedia: Snagglepuss
• Big Cartoon DataBase: Snagglepuss
• Wingnut Toons: List of episodes
• TV Acres: Snagglepuss
• The Cartoon Scrapbook – Information and details on Snagglepuss.