King Leonardo and his Short Subjects

infobox television
show_name = King Leonardo and his Short Subjects


genre = animation
runtime = 30 minutes
starring = Jackson Beck
Kenny Delmar
Allen Swift
Sandy Becker
producer = Joe Harris
Treadwell Covington
Buck Biggers
Chet Stover
network = NBC
num_episodes = King And Odie: 102
The Hunter: 61
Tooter Turtle: 40
country = USA
imdb_id = 0053515
tv_com_id = 25186

"King Leonardo and his Short Subjects" was an animated cartoon series released in 1960 by Total Television (which would later rename itself Leonardo Productions after the main character of this show).

Plot

The show focused on Leonardo the lion (Jackson Beck), who was the inept yet well-meaning king of the fictional African nation of Bongo Congo. His incompetent brother Itchy's (Allen Swift) attempts to overthrow Leonardo and rule the kingdom himself along with his friend, gangster, and leader Biggie Rat (Jackson Beck impersonating Edward G. Robinson). Biggie would mostly employ the help of an evil German inventor named Professor Messer (German for "Knife"). They were later both employed by Mr. Mad, a mad scientist with a domineering personality (easily cowing even the strong-willed Biggie) and his own nefarious plans for Bongo Congo, not to mention a creepy echoing voice. The title was a play on a king ruling over his "subjects", along with the common term "short subjects" for cartoons and other films whose duration is just a few minutes.

Leonardo was assisted by Odie Cologne AKA "Odio Cologne" (Allen Swift impersonating Ronald Colman), an ironic play on "Eau de Cologne", a mild-mannered skunk.

Other Segments

Each half-hour episode of "King Leonardo" consisted of five animated segments. Each half-hour included a two-part "King and Odie" cliffhanger story, with other characters featured in between:

* "Tooter Turtle": The adventures of a turtle (Allen Swift) who has Mr. Wizard, a lizard, transport him to various settings only to realize he was better off at home
* "The Hunter": A Southern-accented crime-fighting bloodhound (Kenny Delmar) often chases after an evil fox simply named the Fox (Ben Stone). The Hunter's personality was similar to that of Senator Claghorn or the Senator-inspired character Foghorn Leghorn, which was logical, in that The Hunter's voice was provided by Kenny Delmar, the original radio voice of Senator Claghorn.

Later Appearances

After "King Leonardo and his Short Subjects" ended, one season's worth of new segments of The King and Odie and The Hunter continued to be produced and aired on Total TV's "Tennessee Tuxedo and his Tales", which premiered in 1963. The following year, Total TV launched its most popular series, " Underdog". When "Underdog" premiered in 1964, it featured repeats of "The Hunter", while "The Hunter's" former spot on the "Tennessee Tuxedo" program was filled by repeats of "Tooter Turtle". ( In the first two years of "King Leonardo and his Short Subjects", non-Total Television animated shorts were aired on the program, including The Fox and the Crow and Li'l Abner produced by Frank Tashlin for Columbia Pictures/Screen Gems.Another segment of the original "King Leonardo" show was "Twinkles" (a pink elephant), which simultaneously appeared as a feature on Jay Ward's "Rocky and his Friends". The main purpose of this segment was to advertise Twinkles Cereal, a product of the show's chief sponsor General Mills. The "Twinkles" segments continued to air in syndicated reruns of the show during the 1960s, which were presented in a 15-minute format under the title "The King and Odie", but were later phased out after a fireman character replaced the elephant as the cereal's mascot. The "Twinkles" segments would be removed when the show was syndicated during the 1980s.

"King Leonardo and his Short Subjects" was part of NBC's Saturday Morning lineup until 1963.

The animation for the first batch of this show was produced by TV Spots (who did Crusader Rabbit in 1957) and then later episodes were by Gamma Productions, the same Mexican studio that did much of the work for Jay Ward. For this reason, and due to shared sponsorship by General Mills, Gamma has often been associated with both Total Television Productions and Jay Ward Productions.

The King Leonardo shorts have often been packaged with Jay Ward shows such as "Rocky and Bullwinkle" and "George of the Jungle" in syndication. Despite similar limited-animation styles, Leonardo was not a Ward show.

King Leonardo never attained the popularity of Total Television's other series' "Underdog" and "Tennessee Tuxedo", and is hardly ever aired on television today. As of December 2006, the Black Family Channel aired this show on its "BFC Kids TV" block until the channel's demise a year later. previously episodes of the show can be found on the In2TV service

The characters of this show were also featured in an eight-issue comic book produced by Dell Comics and Gold Key.

Cast

*Jackson Beck- Leonardo, Biggie Rat, Professor Messer
*Allen Swift- Odie, Itchy, Duke, Earl, Tooter Turtle, Narrator
*Sandy Becker- Mr. Wizard
*Kenny Delmar- Mr. Mad, The Hunter, Narrator

Catch phrases

* King Leonardo - "Confound it, that's the most unheard of thing I ever heard of!"
* Odie Cologne - "Ah, Sire!"
* Biggie Rat - "Dig me?"
* Itchy Brother - "Yeah, Big, I dig."
* The Hunter - "That's a joke, son."
* Tooter Turtle - "Please, Mr. Wizard; it's what I want to BE."
* Mr. Wizard - "Drizzle, Drazzle, Druzzle, Drome; time for zis one to come home." and "Be just vhat you is, not vhat you is not. Folks vhat do zis are ze happiest lot."

Episodes

External links

* [http://www.bcdb.com/cartoons/Other_Studios/T/Total_Television_Productions/King_Leonardo_and_His_Short_Subjects/ King Leonardo at Big Cartoon Database]
* [http://www.toonopedia.com/leonardo.htm King Leonardo at Don Markstein's Toonopedia]