Thursday, March 20, 2014

Rein-Toon-Ation: Laurel & Hardy (1966)

The legendary comedy team of Laurel & Hardy had long since passed on by the time Hanna-Barbera obtained a license to produce animated adventures of the duo. Larry Harmon (Bozo the Clown), who earlier had been licensed to produce Popeye for King Features' television arm (and introduced the world to Filmation founders Lou Scheimer & Hal Sutherland), and Jim MacGeorge essayed the roles in more than 100 shorts, which could be packaged individually or in a 30 minute block for syndication. The two would then reprise for a Laurel & Hardy guest appearance on The New Scooby-Doo Movies, which would mark the end of the license.

I never saw these films when they first aired, and it can be assumed that either the estates of Stan Laurel & Oliver Hardy, or Harmon or co-producer David L. Wolper (Biography), holds the rights today. Here's "Mutt Rut":



No rating.

2 comments:

magicdog said...

Never saw this show (I did see the Abbott & Costello animated series), but at least it explains why L&H were in The New Scooby Doo Movies. It seemed odd for them (and the Three Stooges) to interact with the gang.

They were redesigned for that appearance. They looked more proportional to match the rest of the cartoon world. The stooges didn't have that luxury.

hobbyfan said...

Actually, looking back at the Stooges-Scooby teamings, it looked like Curly was an amalgam of Curly Howard & Joe DeRita, but I could be wrong.....