The 1970 animated sitcom Where’s Huddles? was a ten-episode highlight showcasing virtually all the flaws of then-contemporary Hanna-Barbera scripting and animation. If there was an example of lazy, wasted effort by the venerable Saturday Morning kings of animation, Where’s Huddles? was likely it. In all fairness, the half-hour, ten-episode show was a summer replacement for The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour, which aired from July 1, 1970, to September 2, 1970, during prime-time hours.
One can easily imagine that the production values would be low, considering the time frame. Still, the plots (most of them borrowed from other H-B productions, most notably The Flintstones) and the scribbly, limited animation doomed any idea of expanding the series into a regular show. The irritating laugh track did not help. Once considered a test run for a prime-time show possibility in 1971, H-B mercifully dropped the idea.
Joseph Barbera and William Hanna served as the show’s directors. R.S. Allen, a successful TV sitcom writer, penned all ten episodes along with Harvey Bullock. (Notably, Bullock wrote eleven episodes of The Flintstones.) The characters were designed by H-B’s go-to designer, Iwao Takamoto, who defined the H-B house style during the 1960s and 70’s. These were clearly not their best efforts.
“Where’s Huddles?” was a standard family sitcom centered around a professional football quarterback for the Rhinos, Ed Huddles, and his neighbor, Bubba McCoy. Marge Huddles and Penny McCoy were their respective spouses. Mad Dog Mahoney coached the team, which also included Freight Train. Sarcastic neighbor Claude Pertwee supplied nasty comments to all. Rounding out the crew was Huddle’s baby daughter Pom-Pom, The Huddle’s requisite dog Fumbles, and Pertwee’s unfriendly cat, Beverly.
The ensemble cast reunited many former players from The Flintstones, making it even more apparent where the show’s bones came from; Where’s Huddles? was basically the former show in football uniforms. Most of the shows focused far more on domestic situations than football-based plots. Episode Eight, “To Catch a Thief,” was virtually a direct steal of the 1961 Flintstones episode “Wilma’s Vanishing Money.”
The voice cast also reflected its Flintstones ancestry. Alan Reed voiced Coach Mad Dog, Mel Blanc served as Barney Rubble clone Bubba McCoy, and Jean Vander Pyl performed as Marge Huddles and her toddler Pom-Pom. Other voice artists included Cliff Norton as Ed Huddles, former Duke Ellington vocalist Herb Jeffries as Freight Train, Marie Wilson as Penny McCoy, and Don Messick, H-B’s funny animal specialist, as both Fumbles and Beverly. Dick Enberg (as himself) announced the Rhino’s games. Paul Lynde, who supplied many sterling performances for H-B, including Templeton the Rat in Charlotte’s Web and Hooded Claw in The Perils of Penelope Pitstop, voiced Claude Pertwee to perfection.
Anyone watching an H-B production could expect limited animation, but Where’s Huddles? combined it with shoddy, scratchy animation that further cheapened the show. It’s one thing to give the world a lesser copy of The Flintstones; it’s another thing entirely to imbue it with inferior artwork and animation. A pity; some prominent animation veterans contributed to the show, including Ed Barge, Dick Lundy, Walt Peregoy, John Sparey, and George Goepper.
Hanna-Barbera had certainly done far better, less derivative work than Where’s Huddles?, and there were still better days ahead for the studio. Still, it is instructive to animation aficionados and historians to revisit H-B’s lesser, even disposable works when evaluating the history of television animation.
Courtesy of Mark Christiansen here is the rare Where’s Huddles? pilot from 1970. What you’ll see are full color storyboard drawings by Iwao Takamoto, Jerry Eisenberg and Willie Ito that were filmed and set to a complete soundtrack in order to demonstrate to CBS what the series would look like. Some of the character voices were changed once the series went into full production. Any glitches or imperfections you notice were on my original source tape. Enjoy! Includes the vocal talents of Cliff Norton, Mel Blanc, Paul Lynde, Nancy Kulp, Joe Besser, Don Messick and Allan Melvin.
Where’s Huddles can be seen each week – Monday mornings at midnight (12 AM) – on MeTV Toons.
