Paul Winchell...

I wrote a review of Paul's book, Winch, in the spring of 2004. The book is an autobiography and it comes to terms with past experiences, offers forgiveness for earlier mistakes he made in his personal life, and there's what I consider some heavy commentary about the afterlife and other spiritual curiosities. Not to be missed is the description of his feelings while inside a morgue aiding in an autopsy. Prior to purchasing the book I had somewhat of an idea what the book would be about based upon earlier reviews but one never knows until one purchases it for themselves. The only thing I will say is the book is candid and it tells the story of a man who had faults and flaws (just like we all do) but I have seen several reviews balk at the idea that he shouldn't have been so honest or so tell-all. The idea that he shouldn't write a book about his personal demons and what he went through in his life would be like evading reality and so it was necessary to include this information.

This kind of book, filled with one-sided recollections, was bound to create a stir from those who are in the book and the best a lot of us can do is just judge for ourselves. There are many sides to stories...Paul told how he felt, which it's his life story and who are we to say he's right or wrong?

The book is a fascinating story even though it jumps around from decade to decade without a lot of focus on any particular aspect of his career which enables the book to not necessarily be a career-oriented story. There's a lot of recollections about the pressures of show business and how fickle fame can be but this is a life story in every sense of the word in that it deals with his life's experiences and there's a lot of discussion about his trips to see psychiatrists and there's memorable recollections of outright rage and torment stemming from insecurities, paranoia, and his struggles with what I'd consider to be a dominating mother. Those who are wanting to read a career life story of Paul Winchell will just have to wait until someone comes along and writes a book about Paul which focuses on his stage life and voice work in cartoons. I'd be in line to buy such a book if it were to come into print. I grew up hearing his voice long before I knew of his career and his impact on children's programming. Tigger...Gargamel...Dick Dastardly...are what I call the "big 3". I remember watching an episode of Dick Van Dyke on TV and Paul Winchell was a guest star. It was the first time I had seen Winchell on TV. I was born in 1976 and so i'm more familiar with Paul's cartoon work. Anyway, after reading the book I do have a better picture of Paul, the man, but that in no way shape or form makes me not like his work given his life's experiences and mistakes. I still get a kick out of his voice work in animation and seeing his TV clips on-line with his puppet's. As I said at the start, it's a fascinating story...and there are plenty of pictures as well!

Paul Winchell passed away on June 24, 2005 at the age of 82. In one of the most ironic scenarios in all of Hollywood happened the next day on June 25 when John Fielder passed away at the age of 80. Fielder had long been the voice of Piglet on the Winnie the Pooh cartoons. Paul, mentioned earlier, was the voice of Tigger in those same cartoons and it was truly bizarre that the two of them would pass away a day apart from each other. A month earlier, in May 2005, Howard Morris had passed away. In addition to being a face actor and director, Morris was the voice of the Gopher in the Winnie the Pooh cartoons from the beginning through 1988 when he retired from the role.

Help!!! It's The Hair Bear Bunch

Yes, the cartoon series from 1971 will put you in a goofy mood...but let that not distract you all from experiencing the Hair Bear Bunch for yourselves. The series lasted just 16 episodes which was a common practice for Hanna-Barbera in the late '60s on through the 1970's. On more than one occasion networks that aired cartoons on Saturday mornings, which would mean all three networks, were always on the look out for material to program their fall schedules with. Unlike Warner Brothers whose major contribution to Saturday morning television were four decades of theatrical cartoon reruns, Hanna-Barbera was putting out made-for-TV cartoons in quick succession. A lot of Hanna-Barbera's cartoon series seem to have more episodes than actually exist and a large part of this feeling stems from the consistent re-runs. Jabber-Jaw, for example, had only a handful of episodes but they've been re-ran off and on for decades. A lot of the Hanna-Barbera cartoons were spoofs and parodies of pop-culture. JAWS of course was the inspiration for Jabber-Jaw but in order to trump the potential violent over-tone of a cartoon focusing on a shark they gave the title character the sound of Curly from The Three Stooges. Frank Welker mimicked Curly Howard's voice in that series. Critics and fans alike refer to the cartoon as Scooby-Doo underwater because of it's mystery/teenager concept and a talking shark, instead of a talking dog.

So, what was the inspiration behind this 1971 cartoon that focuses on three bears and a couple of zoo keepers? The full title of this series is Help! It's The Hair Bear Bunch. The program isn't based on Scooby-Doo, surprisingly enough. Instead, the series is based pretty much on The Phil Silvers Show. Hair Bear, the leader, has the smooth-talking con-artist voice that Daws Butler often gave characters with this personality. Phil Silvers never actually spoke like this but yet the personality of one cooking up schemes in order to get rich quick is so synonymous with Phil Silvers' Sgt Bilko character that it's hard not to make the connection. Hair's two friends are Square Bear and Bubi Bear. Each bear has a distinct voice and personality. Hair being the leader and the brains behind their schemes. Square is the laid-back, almost hippie-like bear with an invisible motorcycle and a huge appetite. Bubi on the other hand is the short bear who talks in gibberish. It's hilarious listening to his gibberish because nobody watching the cartoon understands him but Hair and Square do. Bubi was voiced by Paul Winchell and Square was voiced by Bill Callaway. Several other animals from the Wonderland Zoo stopped by the bears cave...one of the gimmicks is that the inside of the cave could transform into a swinging singles pad but if either of the two zoo keepers was spied making their way to the cave then the bears would flip various rock switches in their cave and transform the interior back into a barren, empty cave to hide how comfortable they lived. Peevly ran the zoo as if it were a military base...another connection to Phil Silvers' TV show.

What about those zoo keepers, though?? The head zoo keeper, Mr Peevly, was always peeved about something...taking out his anger on his assistant, Botch. 99% of Peevly's irritation came from Hair Bear. Peevly was always on the quest to expose the bears for hi-jinks but he could never catch them that much...on the rare moments that he had the bears cornered and threatened to ship them off somewhere else, Hair would use blackmail and threaten to go over Peevly's head about a prior incident involving Peevly himself. This often caused Peevly to bellow one of his catch-phrases which went something like "I'll get ya for this, Hair! MARK MY WORDS!!!! ONE OF THESE DAYS..." and he'd go stomping off with Botch tagging along beside him. The zoo keepers were voiced by John Stephenson as Mr. Peevly, doing his Joe Flynn high-nasal impression, and Joe E Ross as Botch. Joe used the voice he was famous for and the "ooh-ooh" catch-phrase he made popular in the 1960's on the sitcom, Car 54, Where Are You? Botch was incredibly stupid and Peevly was short-tempered anyway...an explosive combination...factor in Peevly's irritations at the Bears and you had a walking time-bomb of anger. Joe Flynn, incidentally, played Captain Binghamton on McHale's Navy and his voice quickly became parodied on cartoons with John Stephenson often providing the vocals. Stephenson would use the Joe Flynn parody voice on other cartoon characters with similar short-tempered personalities.

This series, much like a lot of Hanna-Barbera cartoons, is mostly memorable not for any specific episode but instead for it's theme song and characters. Once a person watches this cartoon series and gets a grasp of what it's all about the individual episode plots don't necessarily tend to stick out as much as it's theme song and the personalities/voices of the characters. I think this is true for a lot of the cartoons of this time period from Hanna-Barbera. There once was a series called Where's Huddles? and if someone with some knowledge of cartoons attempts to cite certain episodes it's almost impossible to do...but yet the person can quote some of it's theme song and tell you what the show was about.

For those interested, the series can be seen on-line at various video hosting web-sites. It also airs on Boomerang.

Oh, those Smurfs!!

Like them or not, The Smurfs was a mainstay on Saturday morning television as well as late afternoon syndication for a period of years. The characters were created by an artist named Peyo over-seas and the Hanna-Barbera studio adapted the characters for American audiences. Schtroumpf is the word that was used overseas and it was translated into "Smurf" for America...and it is the Americanized characters of which this blog is about. NBC was the network that aired the program.

The characters, the core line-up, each had distinct character traits...each one was somewhat predictable in terms of what would happen within the story. A lot of the characters interacted with one another peacefully but there were several episodes where there was anything but peace among the village. Usually at the heart of most arguments and the cause of most annoyance was Brainy Smurf. He was the brainiac of the group but often in the stories he'd use his "brains" in a condescending way...as a sort of know-it-all. This characterization allowed him to be at the receiving end of a lot of anger directed at him by others...including the usually gentle, Papa Smurf.

Papa Smurf was the leader of the group. He was never really said to be the father of every single Smurf but a lot of fans and critics seem to suggest it. Some say the "papa" name is just a word that's used to show respect for an older, wiser adult. Smurfette, for years and years the only female Smurf, was created by the wizard Gargamel in one of his schemes to capture the Smurfs.

Gargamel was an evil wizard who lived in a run-down castle/hut who was constantly hatching schemes to capture the Smurfs for his magic potions. He could never find the Smurfs hidden village on his own...but sometimes he was led into the village by accident or just in sheer luck he stumbled onto it all on his own. The running joke was that Gargamel could never find the village once he was tricked into leaving...for example, he could be five steps away from the village but he couldn't find his way back. This irritation prompted him to look at his cat, Azrael, and scream something like: "I almost had them!!! Where is the village...come on...we gotta find it!!! AZRAEL!!!!". In most episodes, as Gargamel and his cat are roaming all over the countryside in search for the Smurf village and getting farther and farther away, you can hear him throwing a fit as the camera shows the Smurfs gathered around laughing as the scene fades to black.

Clumsy Smurf was an accident prone Smurf, always at the receiving end of Brainy's wrath for being "dumb". Clumsy looked up to Brainy but would often out-smart Brainy in his own unique way by using a simple approach to handle a situation within the story which differed greatly from a complex approach from Brainy. A typical exchange would find the two of them standing on the outside of a locked door and Brainy would become the "teacher" and go on to tell Clumsy how to proceed with climbing through the window, giving him step by step instructions, quite certain that the door is locked...only for Clumsy to walk over to the door, turn the knob and say something like: "Gosh, Brainy...we don't have to climb through the window...the door's unlocked." Brainy would look into the camera and slap his forehead or roll his eyes.

Vanity Smurf is just as his name implies...vain. He carried a mirror and wore a pink flower in his hat...often commenting on the state of the plants in his mushroom. All of the Smurf's lived in mushroom houses. He'd also react to the exaggerated macho behavior of Hefty Smurf. Jokey Smurf liked to play practical jokes. Sleepy Smurf was typically dozing off all the time. Grouchy Smurf was a grouch. Farmer Smurf was the village's farmer...looking over the garden. The Smurf's had several allies...Mother Nature was their biggest. She often helped Papa Smurf and gave him advice on all sorts of situations. Johan and Peewit were also allies of the Smurfs...as the series became even more popular they added Baby Smurf and a few more female Smurfs and Grandpa Smurf...with a wooden cane and a longer beard...perhaps Papa Smurf's father!? Hogatha, Big Mouth, Scruple are just three of the secondary villains of the series...they, like Gargamel, have this shared hatred for the Smurfs.



The Smurfs ran for an incredible nine years, 1981-1990. The characters spoke English pretty much...and they had their own slang phrases as well. They'd incorporate the word "smurf" into nearly everything they said. "Have a smurfy day!" or "Holy smurfs!!" or "That's smurfy!". Another phrase "i'll be smurfed!" was often said in place of "i'll be darned". "Great Smurf!!" was used in place of "Great scott!!". There was a Smurfs comic book issued on Marvel. There was also a Smurfs cereal...very smurf-a-licious!

The ratings of the series had declined by the late 1980's but the ratings weren't abysmal by any means...but the series went out of production in 1990 simply because NBC wanted to expand their news program on Saturday morning and it ate into a lot of the air-time for animated cartoons on that network. I believe NBC was the second network to rid it's Saturday morning line-up of cartoons and replace it with news programs and live-action teen programs. I think CBS was the first and ABC was the last to rid it's line-up of wall to wall cartoons. Whatever network came first, all three of them plus the Children's Television Act, helped end Saturday morning TV as people in my age group and older remember it. Now, of course, there's a few programs aimed at children that air on Saturday morning but it's nothing like it once was...with every network airing cartoons for nearly 5 hours on Saturday mornings...that'll never happen on network TV again.

In total there were 256 episodes...and because several episodes would contain 2 separate stories, there were in reality 421 stories spread out over those 256 air-dates.

After the show ended production in 1990 it continued to air in syndication in the late afternoons for a period of years until quite a few cartoon franchises became property of Ted Turner in the early to mid 1990's. He purchased the Hanna-Barbera library and as a result all of the syndicated cartoons from that company that were in reruns on network TV suddenly departed network for cable-TV...specifically airing on his Cartoon Network, a 24 hour cable network that would air cartoons from the Hanna-Barbera library. Soon, Cartoon Network became a major cable network and as things are likely to do it started to change. The network became more about original programming instead of airing vintage cartoons. The Warner Brothers cartoons became Turner's property as well during the 1990's. Boomerang was launched to provide a network for the classic cartoons so Turner and company could use Cartoon Network for original programming. Turner owns, partially owns, or at one time owned just about everything...the Hanna-Barbera cartoon library; the Ruby-Spears cartoon library; the MGM library; the Warner Brothers cartoon library. He created the cartoon character, "Captain Planet". Turner's non-animation networks include TBS, TNT, Turner Classic Movies, and CNN...so the 1990's were a time of severe change in the Saturday morning business...



Behind the scenes of The Smurfs the main voice artists for this series were Don Messick. He gave voice to Papa Smurf as well as Dreamy Smurf and the hisses of Azrael and other sound effects. Paul Winchell was on hand as Gargamel...using the voice he gave to Dick Dastardly. Lucille Bliss was the voice of Smurfette. June Foray voiced Jokey Smurf and Mother Nature. Alan Young was the voice of Farmer Smurf and Miner Smurf. Danny Goldman was the voice of Brainy Smurf. Frank Welker provided the voice of a lot of minor characters in addition to semi-regulars Hefty Smurf and Poet Smurf. Michael Bell voices Grouchy and Handy Smurf while William Callaway voices Painter Smurf and Clumsy Smurf. Hamilton Camp gave voice to Greedy Smurf. I believe there were something like 99 Smurfs in all...

This series utilized the talents of Alan Oppenheimer...he was on hand to voice Vanity Smurf, Father Time, and Homnibus. Jonathan Winters voiced Grandpa Smurf. I think that covers pretty much the main Smurfs that made the most frequent appearances on each episode. Johan and Peewit were voiced by Michael Bell and Frank Welker. Michael Bell voiced a lot of characters and his most popular role is Zan, half of the Wonder Twins, on the late 1970's and 1980's version of Superfriends. Search through my various blog entries to read more about Frank Welker and a lot of these voice artist's.

The series has become available on DVD. It airs on Boomerang, the vintage cartoon network. The series is still popular, or infamous, depending on your viewpoint, some 19 years after it's last first-run episode aired.