What were your favorite cartoons growing up?

Televisions were just becoming popular when I was about five years old (I’m 72 as I write this). One of the first families in the neighborhood to get a TV was Rex and Anne McCoy. Their daughter Cheryl was my age. Programming in the late afternoon, just before the evening news, was given over to cartoons. McCoy’s TV was a big hit among the neighborhood kids. We would all troop down to their house and watch.

The first cartoon I remember was “Felix the Cat”. I recall it as being a pretty simple cartoon, but hey, it was the first one I saw and so is important to me. I’ve noticed that when I see many of these cartoons nowadays, I’m not all that impressed. Most were cranked out at a breakneck pace. Some of them in the 1960’s even went so far at to film people saying their lines and splicing the mouths into the animation in order to avoid having to go to the trouble of matching the drawings to the sound.

By the early 50’s Jay Ward, who would go on to fame animating Rocky and Bullwinkle, created his first series, “Crusader Rabbit” another one of my favorites. Along with Crusader Rabbit himself, it also featured his sidekick, Rags the Tiger. I don’t know if they are related in any way but I have always associated Calvin and Hobbes with them.

Along with Rocky and Bullwinkle Jay Ward did such shows as “Fractured Fairy Tales”, “Peabody’s Improbable History”, and “Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties”.

Another cartoon company that was very popular around that time was Hanna-Barbera. Their most popular creations were “Yogi Bear”, “The Flintstones” and “Huckleberry Hound”. My personal favorite from them was “Augie Doggie and Doggy Daddy”. My dad would go nuts when I did an imitation of them getting a dog “biskit”.

I wasn’t particularly crazy about Warner Brothers cartoons. I far preferred Daffy Duck to Bugs Bunny and I also liked Tasmanian Devil and Yosemite Sam, but overall they weren’t my favorite.

Disney cartoons weren’t a big deal to me either. I did like Donald Duck, especially when he was up against Chip and Dale. Donald’s miniature train set with all its detailing with the building interiors was great. Even as a kid I realized that these were model props and not fully functional tiny abodes, but that was what was so great about them. My friend Bob Unzeitig could do a perfect Donald Duck imitation.

I always thought Mickey Mouse was a drip and I felt cheated when they had one of his cartoons on the Mickey Mouse Club and not Donald Duck. To our delight, Lance called him Duck Donald.

There are many other cartoons I could go on about but the last I will mention is “Underdog”. I always liked Wally Cox who gave him his voice.

This post is part of the StoryWorth project that I am participating in.
At the ButchieBoy main page click the “StoryWorth” category to see the rest of the entries.