Tuesday, May 16, 2017

Saturday Morning's Forgotten Heroes: Gene Hattree (1964-6?)

Total Television was looking for another hit series. Somewhere in between Underdog and The Beagles, TTV had tried at least three pilots, two of which would later be integrated into the Underdog syndication package in the 70's. Suffice to say, after Beagles was cancelled by CBS after 1 season, that was the end of TTV.

Gene Hattree was a parody of all those singing cowboy westerns, wrapped in a six minute package. Hattree himself (Sandy Becker) was a send-up of Gene Autry, except that he couldn't really sing that well. Becker used a voice similar to that of Sgt. Okey Homa (Go Go Gophers), and didn't really appreciate his deputy, Rabbit Foot (Herb Nelson), trying to help, since Rabbit's efforts ended up in failure, in true slapstick fashion.

In "The Trap", Hattree goes after Tortilla Fats (Jackson Beck) and his henchmen.



Like, you could see the ending coming a mile away, once Rabbit set up the 2nd trap.

Rating: C.

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