Hanna-Barbera will always be synonymous with their "Saturday morning assembly line" as 60 Minutes once described it. Although their cartoons were never synonymous with quality, the endless stream of licensed merchandise that was churned out to cash in on the popular HB characters was even more dubious. From their weird line of cigarette smoking figurines to the incorrectly colored comic book adaptations, Hanna-Barbera products rarely achieved even the marginal quality of the cartoons they were based on.
There is an exception to this rule. In 1965, after six years of licensing their characters to the Colpix and Golden record companies, they founded their own label, Hanna-Barbera Records. The company put out, as you might expect, albums based on The Flintstones, Atom Ant, Touché Turtle et al. However, they were also responsible for some of the most impressive (and now sought after) garage rock, psychedelia and rugged soul music of the era - and indirectly spawned a band called Three Dog Night.
FOR THE KIDS...
The first Hanna-Barbera related LPs were released by Stu Phillips' label, Colpix Records. When Colpix got the contract to press a Ruff and Reddy (the very first Hanna-Barbera television cartoon) record in 1959 it had released only a handful of albums including a James Darren offer, some Nina Simone recordings and George Burns Sings (Ten years later Buddah Records put out a different record with the same name). Ruff and Reddy Adventures in Space was a high quality recording featuring Don Messick and Daws Butler. These early Colpix Hanna-Barbera recordings were a far cry from what licensed Hanna-Barbera albums were like in the seventies. By that time most Hanna-Barbera recordings seemed to feature nameless sound engineers or delivery boys filling in for the voices of Yogi Bear and Wilma Flintstone instead of the original voice actors - a fact both obvious and aggravating to child and adult ears alike.
Colpix quickly got its finances in flow after scoring many lucrative contracts to press "Original Television Soundtracks," Hanna-Barbera being just one of such clients. Huckleberry Hound: The Great Kellogg's TV Show was the second HB platter and featured the many brilliant voices of Daws Butler accompanied by a cool Hammond organ. Colpix soon followed with an LP for each successive Hanna-Barbera cartoon. Yogi Bear and Boo Boo was a step down with audio stripped directly from cartoons that relied on visual gags, making the LP difficult to follow. The incongruous narration of someone named Howard Berk explained what we couldn't see (stopping the background music cold whenever he did). Other television related LPs released by Colpix were Quick Draw McDraw, Here Comes Huckleberry Hound, Mr. Jinks - Pixie and Dixie, Huckleberry Hound and The Ghost Ship, Top Cat, The Jetsons, Quick Draw McDraw and The Treasure of Sarah's Mattress, The Flintstones, The Misadventures of Dennis the Menace and Mr. Ed. Eventually Colpix released the notable first albums for doo-woppers The Marcels and stand-up comedians Woody Allen and Dick Gregory.
For undetermined reasons,
Hanna-Barbera's LP output seemed to move back and forth between Colpix and Golden Records, a subsidiary of the company that published the wildly popular Little Golden Books. Golden itself had already released plenty of Hanna-Barbera 45s and seven inch 78s, while Colpix was in charge of most HB LPs. For twenty nine cents between 1959 and 1964 you could pick up neat singles like Ruff and Reddy and Professor Gizmo, Songs of The Flintstones and, just in time for the 1964 presidential election, The Campaign Songs of Bill Hanna & Joe Barbera's Magilla Gorilla and Yogi Bear. The left leaning Magilla Gorilla campaigned for withdrawal of American troops from Indochina while Yogi, a Goldwater Republican, authored a pamphlet titled Conscience of the Above Average Bear (note: joke).
Like Colpix, Golden LPs featured plenty of television related stuff. Non-HB items included The Mighty Hercules, At Home with The Munsters, Rocky and His Friends and Car 54 Where Are You? Golden released a handful of Hanna-Barbera LPs between 1962 and 1964 including The Jetsons: New Songs of the TV Family of the Future, Magilla Gorilla and Friends, Howl Along with Huckleberry Hound and a mouthful called How To Be a Better-Than-the-Average Child Without Really Trying with Yogi Bear. Golden also had an LP titled Hey There, It's Yogi Bear - confusingly released the same year Colpix put out their final HB title - the soundtrack to the feature length film Hey There, It's Yogi Bear (1964).
FOR THE TEENS...
In 1965 Hanna-Barbera Records was formed. A very young Danny Hutton was with HBR's rock and roll division from
the start. Used as somewhat of a sounding board to determine what was
hip with the kids, Hutton helped scout for new talent while simultaneously
composing and performing original music for the label. Hutton had been
working as a warehouse grunt at Disney's Buena Vista Records (that label's
greatest gems are probably several Frankie &
Annette soundtrack LPs). Coincidentally, Hutton credits the Dixieland tunes of The Firehouse Five Plus Two, a jazz group composed of Disney animators, as sparking his interest in music. Hanna-Barbera had hired a man named Larry
Goldberg to help in the Hanna-Barbera Records A&R department, but Goldberg did not feel confident in his knowledge of modern rock. Goldberg knew Kim Fowley and Fowley in turn recommended "Daring Dan Hutton," a young kid with his pulse on what was hot. When called in for an audition, Hutton wrote a couple songs on the spot and
was immediately hired. He would become the main creative force at Hanna-Barbera
Records, learning his trade at a frantic pace, and polishing the skills that would help him develop his band, Three Dog Night.
Tom Ayres was also brought on board to help cull new talent. Ayres had previously managed The Dartells who recorded the one hit wonder Hot Pastrami in 1963 (as manager, he scored the group an appearance on The Munsters - another rocking 'ells, The Standells, had also made a cameo on the sitcom). At HBR Ayres held the titles of A&R Administrator, National Promotion Director, International Manager of Copyrights and General Manager of All Music Divisions. He'd bring back the washed-up Dartells to record a single for the new label, but nobody cared. Ayres' last job with Hanna-Barbera, after the record label ceased operations, was for the cartoon department's Frankenstein Jr. and The Impossibles. There he was in charge of choosing appropriate music for the animated mod rockers to perform. Later in the decade Ayres worked at RCA where he convinced the company to sign David Bowie.
Fall of 1965 marked the start of The Flintstones' sixth season and the show was getting increasingly weird. New elements were injected into the program to spice it up and make it feel more contemporary. The well-remembered episode No Biz Like Show Biz had Fred suffer hallucinations. He believes that Pebbles and Bamm Bamm have turned into garrulous musicians when he sees them sing Stuart Hamblen's country gospel song Open Up Your Heart and Let the Sun Shine In. The opening sequence of the episode places Fred and Barney on the old stone sofa, flipping through TV channels, all of them polluted with nothing but teenage rock shows. A song heard on one of the programs is Dance in the Sand by The Creation IV. It would be the first single pressed by Hanna-Barbera Records. Pebbles and Bamm Bamm had their famous gospel cover released as a single shortly after that with The Lord is Counting on You as side B. The religious tracks are perhaps the most absurd to come from Bedrock when you consider that The Flintstones lived in an age long before the birth of Christ.
A few Flintstone episodes later, The Beau Brummels appeared, ludicrously billed as "The Beau Brummelstones" on "Shinrock" introduced by "Jimmy O'Neillstone" (all gags sure to resonate with the children of today). They performed their hit Laugh, Laugh, a song produced by one Sylvester "Sly" Stone. I wonder what Sly Stone's name would have been had he appeared on The Flintstones. Watch The Beau Brummelstones here.
One of Danny Hutton's first notable projects at the label was the song Roses and Rainbows. It too was one of the songs heard while Fred and Barney watched TV in No Biz Like Show Biz. Hutton credits Billboard magazine with the song's success after it was
included as an Evatone Soundsheet in one issue. The flipside to the hit
single was a song titled Monster Shindig. That track would
re-appear on several HBR albums including a full-length Monster Shindig LP starring cartoon stars The Gruesomes, Super Snooper and Blabber Mouse. The song also appeared on other HB records when a cuddly character turned on a radio or entered a nightclub. Roses and Rainbows was a big hit in Los Angeles, an appropriate development, as HBR would specialize in regional hits. Larry Goldberg spent much of his time combing countrywide charts for regional chart toppers, buying the masters and giving them a national release on Hanna-Barbera Records.
FOR THE SURFERS...
Joe Barbera and Bill Hanna were cartoon men. They knew music but little about the rock and roll world. That's why they hired people to understand it for them. Danny Hutton was an acquaintance of Brian Wilson and it was natural that, like every other record label, HBR would attempt to cash in on the popularity of surf music. An early HBR single titled Do the Bomp by The Bompers was penned by California surf music giant and "boss jockey" Roger Christian. Christian was a hep radio DJ that provided countless surf gems for The Beach Boys, Dick Dale and The Del-Tones, The Hondells, The Astronauts, Jan and Dean and several surf groups that featured uncredited studio musicians moonlighting under phony band names. Christian also wrote the HBR surf song with transvestite-innuendo in its title, Carol's Got a Cobra, performed by session players going under the moniker The Chains.
Less popular HB cartoon characters like Squiddly Diddly and Precious Pupp had surf and hot rod records made for them. HBR put out Squiddly Diddly's Surfin' Surfari, the only surf album to ever star an octopus. It included gems like Surfer's Hall of Fame, Gremmies, Surf Bunny and the oddly titled Surf Busters. The record actually features very little of the octopus its named for. If you're familiar with this mentally-challenged cartoon character, you know this is for the best.
The Precious Pupp LP was titled Hot Rod Granny and featured the asthmatic dog wheezing it up in the same manner that would make "Muttley" popular for Hanna-Barbera a few years later (Incidentally, Muttley remains the most popular of all Hanna-Barbera characters in Japan where no shortage of Muttley mugs, pens, fridge magnets and hats can be purchased). The album showcased the surfy song Queen of the Drags, assumed to have been penned by Danny Hutton.
A year later beloved garage rockers The Chocolate Watchband were coaxed into recording a side for HBR under a pseudonym. The label sought to cash in on the popularity of Roger Corman's Wild Angels (1966) and the film's fantastic soundtrack by Davie Allen and The Arrows. Billed as The Hogs, they covered the distorted surf sounds of Blue's Theme and provided an augmented surf tune for the flipside, Loose Lip Sync Ship. The sticker ambiguously stated, "Produced by The Phantom." The track eventually wound up on one of those marvelous Pebbles compilations. The band also appeared with The Standells in the exploitation film Riot on Sunset Strip (1967). FYI - IMDB lists Riot on Sunset Strip "Plot Keywords" as "Gang Rape / Rock / Summer of Love."
FOR THE TEA HEADS...
HBR's obscure garage rock oddities are one of the reasons the label attracts plenty of attention from record collectors and nerds. The Guilloteens recorded the heavy Hey You and I Don't Believe. The unsigned group had been working with Phil Spector when their manager received an offer from Hanna-Barbera. Not wanting to miss an opportunity, he signed the boys up with HBR, ending their Spector alliance. Guitarist Louis Paul gave the quote of the century when he lamented, "We went from Wall of Sound to Huckleberry Hound." The group would perform on Shindig (not Shinrock) with a picture of Yogi Bear on their bass drum. Paul Revere and The Raiders convinced them to drop the cartoon record label, promising to help them get on at Columbia Records. They did, releasing two Columbia singles before vanishing.
The Five Americans were another notable sixties rock group that HBR picked up. The group had achieved regional success on the weird Texas based ABNAK label. ABNAK is cemented in my mind by the strange cover of The Jon & Robin Elastic Event featuring the son of the label's president, Jon Abnor Jr, who sadly suffered from chronic depression and eventually murdered his psychiatric nurse and took his own life. The Five Americans laid down I See the Light for ABNAK and it quickly became a hit in the Dallas-Fort Worth area thanks to steady promotion from Radio KLIF (great name!) and their disk jockey Ken Dowe. HBR in traditional fashion phoned the group and offered to give the regional smash some national exposure. The track climbed to number twenty-six on the charts in January 1966 thanks to HBR. Based on the success of that song the group came to Hollywood to cut a full LP. ABNAK's president, Jon Abnor Sr., who was also manager of The Five Americans, came along. Robin of The Jon & Robin Elastic Event would go on to marry the drummer of the group, Jimmy Wright. John Durrill, the band's keyboard player, became a "ghost" member of The Ventures.
The 13th Floor Elevators found themselves distributed by HBR briefly. Their psychedelic classic You're Gonna Miss Me had been a hit for International Artists and so, of course, HBR picked it up. However, before the band would agree to a full length LP, they demanded a friend of theirs be put on the payroll. HBR refused and the deal fell through, but not before HBR pressed a bunch of singles and shipped them to stores. International Artists used some legal wrangling to get HB's illegitimate 45s pulled, in turn creating some big time collector's items.
Hollywood's very own W.C. Fields Memorial Electric String Band recorded some songs for Hanna-Barbera Records including Hippy Elevator Operator (what the hell was this psychedelic obsession with elevators?). The group once appeared as guests on the program of Los Angeles' original right wing blowhard, Joe Pyne. The band lasted a couple of months only but are held in high-regard.
Texas' Mouse and The Traps moonlighted at HBR under the pseudonym Positively Thirteen O'Clock. The group would cover Count Five's Psychotic Reaction for HBR (included on a Pebbles comp) and its silly named B-side 13 O'Clock Theme for Psychotics. They travelled all the way to Hollywood to record the two songs in September 1966. A full-length LP was planned for the group, but HBR would die before they had the chance.
The Time Stoppers out of Pittsburgh and their HBR single I Need Love (sometimes heard on WFMU's Teenage Wasteland) ended up on a Pebbles compilation. Other obscure garage rawkers who did time for HBR include The Dimensions from Seattle, The Countdowns from Bedford, PA, The Unrelated Segments and The Tidal Waves both from Detroit, The Pleasure Fair appearing under the name Rainy Day People and featuring a future member of Bread and The New Breed featuring the future bassist for The Eagles.
FOR THOSE TIRED OF WHITE MUSIC...
Another crowning jewel in the short-lived but incredible life of HBR was its stable of gritty soul artists. Art Grayson's When I Get Home was a fine piece of Tennessee soul music. Another sensational album was T.V. and The Tribesman Barefootin'. TV and The Tribesman was the nonsense name granted for the album starring Joe Medwick, a fine soul singer who generally wrote stuff for larger stars like Bobby "Blue" Bland. So many people released on Hanna-Barbera Records appeared under fake names that one assumes everyone was overwhelmed with embarassment. The majority of the tracks on Barefootin' are credited to "The Crazy Cajun" Huey P. Meaux. The back of the album states that it was recorded at "Pasadena Sounds" in Texas - indicating that HBR paid for a series of pre-existing tracks. HBR also released an album by Earl Gaines, a soulful crooner who coincidentally, was often compared to Bobby "Blue" Bland. The Four Gents were a minor soul group with connections to both Detroit and Chicago who released a cover of a song by The Impressions for HBR. They are not to be confused with the original incarnation of The Delfonics who went under the same name.
HBR took the ferry
across the Mersey for regional British hits to distribute in America via the Hanna-Barbera brand. Jimmy James of Jimmy James & The Vagabonds was an American soul singer who ended up in England. Hanna-Barbera released his group's small hit Hi Diddley Dee Dum Dum for the American public and Chess Records stars The Dells eventually covered the tune. I'm pretty sure the song was not named for Touché Turtle's sidekick.
Jean King retains a cult following from her stint as a member of The Blossoms, the back-up singers on Shindig. Like The Guilloteens, Jean King and The Blossoms had a strong Phil Spector connection having provided backing on several of his projects. Her 1966 HBR LP Sings for the In-Crowd could probably be described as "light soul" in the Dobie Gray/Brook Benton realm.
FOR THE SPIES AND PRIVATE EYES... AND RAQUEL WELCH KIND OF GUYS
Hanna-Barbera dabbled in soundtracks. Somehow they managed to score the contract to release the original motion picture soundtrack for the rock and roll beach movie A Swingin' Summer (1965). The album featured The Righteous Brothers performing Justine, a pre-fame Raquel Welch singing I'm Ready to Groove and The Rip Chords doing the surfy Red Hot Roadster. The soundtrack also showcased a song by Donnie Brooks called Penny the Poo (for real). Len Barry, The Dovells, Gypsy Boots, Gary Lewis and The Playboys and Jody "Queen of the House" Miller all appear in the film but not on the album.
HBR released another film soundtrack, this one a lot more in line with what you might expect when you hear the name "Hanna-Barbera." The cartoon studio had released their second theatrical feature, a big-budget take-off on the popular spy films of the period, The Man Called Flintstone (1966). The music was great and its soundtrack was one of many HBR projects with a James Bond feel. At that time every record label was pumping out cheap albums of spy music while the genre was still popular. Most featured covers of television theme songs like I Spy and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. with plenty of originals done in a James Bond vein, the best of which were often composed by under-rated session players like Billy Strange, Leroy Holmes, Al Caiola and Danny Davis.
HBR's James Bomb starring Super Snooper and Blabber Mouse featured a beautiful
cover painting by Paul Julian, a veteran background artist on countless
Looney Tunes classics and a major contributor to the pleasing
aesthetics on Johnny Quest. HBR released Secret Squirrel and Morocco Mouse in Super Spy and strangest of all, Yogi Bear and The Three Stooges in The Mad Mad Doctor No No - a Bond spoof featuring the voices of Moe Howard, Larry Fine and Curly Joe DeRita!
Even while they focused on rock and roll, HBR never abandoned the pay dirt, LPs based on their always popular stable of adorable characters. As demonstrated by Yogi and The Stooges, the cartoony releases kept with the general HBR theme of the weird and crazy. The Flintstones in S.A.S.F.A.T.P.O.G.O.B.S.Q.A.L.T. was an album of barbershop quartet music. Another lovely Julian painting graced the cover, featuring members of the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes singing in the barbershop. The abbreviation stood for "Stone Age Society For Aiding The Preservation Of Good Old Barber Shop Quartets ... And Like That."
The Flintstones and Jose Jiminez in the Time Machine was another unlikely HBR team-up (Fred Flintstone was seriously connected to comedy royalty) featuring the Bill Dana comedy character made popular on The Steve Allen Show. Good ol' Jose Jiminez went on to write the legendary episode of All in the Family that pitted Archie Bunker against Sammy Davis Jr.
Bill Dana and Sammy Davis Jr. were both in the cast of the ABC primetime special produced by Hanna-Barbera, Alice in Wonderland or What's A Nice Kid Like You Doing In A Place Like This? The animated musical featured Sammy as the voice of the Cheshire Cat and Dana, who also scripted the special, as the White Knight. Zsa Zsa Gabor also appeared along with the familiar stable of HB voice actors and HBR released a soundtrack. HBR was unable to have Sammy Davis Jr. appear on the album due to his contractual obligation to Reprise, so he was replaced with Scatman Crothers (who would establish a long association with Hanna-Barbera's cartoon department, providing the voice of Hong Kong Phooey and several others). Scatman's single from the album had him singing the title track but also a crazy B-side called Golly Zonk! (It's the Scat Man).
Another television soundtrack was planned but, as far as I know, never saw a release. Hanna-Barbera's Jack and the Beanstalk (1967) featured live-action sequences directed by Gene Kelly (who starred) coupled with animated backgrounds and characters. Kelly was apparently so disgusted with the level of animation when the final project was screened for him that he cussed out Joe Barbera and regarded it as unsalvageable trash. That is until the special won an Emmy and Gene Kelly jumped up to accept the award thanking "all the little hands" that helped make the wonderful cartoon.
FOR INSTRUMENTS ONLY...
Hanna-Barbera Records never seemed to have a clear mandate of what it wanted to be. It was never solely a children's record label and hardly limited itself to just rock or soul. Louis Prima cut a fresh LP for the company and the Godfather of lounge music, Les Baxter, took a break from scoring American International's exploitation pictures to press Hanna-Barbera Records single 456, a schmaltzy rendering of The Beatles song Michelle.
Other instrumental sides came from The Laurie Johnson Orchestra of England who had their version of The Avengers theme song released as a single, followed with a full album. West Coast horn player Shorty Rogers cut a great jazz interpretation of Hoyt Curtain's adventure theme from Johnny Quest. Rogers was no stranger to cartoon music having previously scored the Mr. Magoo short Hotsy Footsy and Warner Brothers' Three Little Bops. The Dynatones were an instrumental jazz quartet who pressed a spiffy side, and subsequent LP, called The Fife Piper that HBR picked up from a small Pittsburgh label. No, they did not appear on Shindig with a picture of Dynomutt on their bass drum.
Merry Christmas Featuring the Hanna-Barbera Organ and Chimes was an instrumental LP that probably disappointed more than a few children who received it Christmas morning 1965. The promising cover has Snagglepuss on bass, Fred Flintstone at the pipe organ, Top Cat on snare, Huck on chimes and Wilma on candy cane(...?). The album featured no audio of the beloved cartoon characters and no bass, snare or candy canes. Just organ and chimes. A Christmas album featuring those ultra-religious babies was also put out: Pebbles & Bamm Bamm Singing Songs of Christmas.
My favorite instrumental HBR project had the company join the weird bandwagon of "Baroque Covers," a short-lived fad in which studio musicians recorded popular songs using Baroque instruments such as the harpsichord and... whatever Baroque instruments there are other than harpsichords. Baroque N' Stones by The Renaissance Society joined other failed albums in the genre like John Simon's Baroque Inevitable at Columbia, United Artists' Bacharach Baroque by The 18th Century Corporation and The Baroque Beatles Book performed by Joshua Rifkin on Elektra. The liner notes for the HBR album dismissed the sceptics of this non-craze stating "[this album was] not the outgrowth of someone's warped sense of humor" nor an attempt "to achieve some satirical end."
FOR THOSE WITHOUT A CATEGORY...
One of the rarest (but nowhere near the most valuable)
HBR release was a small run of LPs featuring Hanna-Barbera cartoon sound effects sent to radio stations and film studios for production
use. Sometimes when you hear a very HB-esque sound effect in a
competing company's cartoon, there's a good chance it was swiped off Drop-Ins Volume One.
Paul Frees, the prolific voice actor who was regularly employed by Hanna-Barbera's cartoon department, considered himself a songsmith as well. Best known as the voice of Boris Badenov, Frees had tried his hand at rock and roll songs before. In 1950 Paul sang Space Girl, a doo-wop song about Frees' sexual infatuation with a girl from a different solar system. Jack Marshall, the legendary guitar player who wrote The Munsters theme song, composed it. Frees also authored a Teresa Brewer ditty in 1956 called I'm Drowning in My Sorrows and in 1960 wrote and directed a cheap juvenile delinquency film musical called The Beatniks featuring his lyrics, "...sideburns don't need your sympathy!" In 1966 Frees cut the HBR single A Girl backed with Portrait of a Fool.
Hanna-Barbera Records released a lot of one-off obscurities like the audio documentary Gemini IV Walk in Space and
singles from Gerri Diamond, George Chambers, Gloria Tracy, The Riot Squad, DeWayne
& The Beldettas and tons of others I don't even know about. Many more cartoon related albums were made before HBR's demise including The Hillbilly Bears in Hillbilly Shindig, Winsome Witch in It's Magic, Atom Ant in Muscle Magic and Johnny Quest in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea to name but a few.
As far as anyone can tell, the majority of the HBR non-cartoon masters have been lost forever. If you have them in your possession please quit being a dick and let us know. Most of the albums in HBR's "cartoon-characters-telling-fairy-tales" series were re-issued in 1977 on CBS/Columbia Records with incredibly inept cover art. Who knows if CBS was sitting next to the garage rock masters when they were focusing on Hansel & Gretel as Told by The Flintstones. Don't expect any of those rock, soul, surf or lounge albums to be on CD before you die.
The wealth of material released by Hanna-Barbera Records is nothing short of incredible. It's more amazing when you realize the label lasted less than two years, starting approximately mid-1965 and ceasing operations just before the spring of 1967. I do not have the precise story about why the label folded. It most likely had to do with HBR simply spending way more money than it was taking in. Danny Hutton resolved, "I was [at Hanna-Barbera Records] from
the very beginning, when they were just moving in the furniture ... I
always felt like it was more of an experiment than anything else."
RANDOM SNAGGLEPUSSY...
Spectropop.com, a site that makes even the most obsessive music fan feel dumb and inadequate has the best information available on HBR 45s in their piece Yogi Bear's Nuggets.
A short interview with Danny Hutton about HBR.
Paul Frees and The Poster People - a great novelty album pressed by MGM in 1970.
Audio of Golden Records seven inch EP with lesser HB characters: Musical Songfest featuring Cindy Bear, Hokey Wolf and Snuffles.
Audio of Golden Records LP: Music and Stories From Original Hit TV Cartoons featuring a version of The Flintstones theme that has a second "Meet The Rubbles" chorus.
1959 Ruff and Reddy and Professor Gizmo MP3.
Large Gallery of Hanna-Barbera Little Golden Records.
The Banana Splits had a great LP released on Decca Records in 1968.
More Banana Splits songs including some 1969 Kellogg's Cereal give-aways.
Cover of Decca Banana Splits 45
Image of Kellogg's Josie and The Pussycats Record.
Image and Info on the Josie and The Pussycats 1970 Capitol Records LP.
Image of Kellogg's Mail-Order Yogi Bear Record #1.
Image of Kellogg's Mail-Order Yogi Bear Record #2.
The Cattanooga Cats had a soundtrack LP released on the Forward Records label.
HB's Harlem Globetrotters cartoon had an album released on [Don] Kirshner Records.
Watch The Chocolate Watchband numbers from Riot on Sunset Strip here and here.
Images of A Swingin' Summer Original Motion Picture Soundtrack: Front cover, gatefold, back cover.
Listen to both Sammy Davis Jr. and Scatman Crothers do their respective versions of the song What's A Nice Kid Like You on this page.
Peter Pan Records released many high-quality children's 45s and 78s throughout the 1950s often featuring popular characters like Popeye, Felix the Cat and many of the Looney Tunes folk. By the time they got around to releasing Hanna-Barbera stuff in the nineteen seventies they had turned into an embarrassing low-budget children's label that put out a plethora of bunk as quickly and carelessly as possible. Sometimes the releases were read-a-long books, sometimes normal LPs - today they are almost always found scratched beyond belief by some violent child who in a rage attacked them with a nail after finding his favorite characters bastardized by horrible substitute voice actors. Here are links to images and audio of Peter Pan crud:
The Funky Phantom LP (Audio currently down)
Cover of Scooby-Doo Book and Record and Record Label.
Scooby-Doo Peter Pan Records Picture Disc.
Audio from Fred Flinstone The Magician Read Along Book.
Audio from Scooby Doo Read Along Book.
Audio from Fred and Barney Circus Fun Read Along Book.
Audio from Huckleberry Hound at the Firehouse Read Along Book.
Kliph, you are thee man! If I'm ever president, there's going to be a Department of Pop Culture, and I will personally go into the Capitol and twist senators' arms to ensure your confirmation as Secretary. Loved seeing Woody Allen talk-show-hosting Billy Graham (!!) and the endearing clockwork movements of the Beau Brummelstones. Never knew there was a Scatman Crothers version of "Nice Girl Like You", and it was a treat to hear that, too. Man, you just made my whole Sunday!
Posted by: Parq | August 12, 2007 at 12:26 PM
Wonderful article! I new there had to be a reason why I woke up this morning. Thanks!
Posted by: Jonny | August 12, 2007 at 02:15 PM
Awesome article Kliph. Sorry folks that so many of my HBR files are down. I'm working on getting them back up and running though. Plus I have a few other HBRs listed here that I never did get around to sharing online before my stuff went AWOL. I hope to have all my files back up and running by the end of this month.
Dave
Posted by: Dave | August 13, 2007 at 01:55 AM
Another HBR artist was Gloria Tracy, who was both a singer and a harp player. Her LP of instrumental tracks where she plays the harp, "Gloria A-Glo" has liner notes by Art Linkletter, who was so enamored of her that she was invited as a guest on "House Party". That program aired on Valentine's Day 1966 and, though I don't recall ever watching it then (I just turned 11 around that time), I'd love to be able to see the color tape of it if it hasn't been wiped.
Posted by: DPJohnson | August 13, 2007 at 02:19 AM
In an article in MOJO magazine about Vince Taylor of "Brand New Cadillac" fame several years ago, it was mentioned that he was related to either Hannah or Barbara by marriage & his trip to England to be a rock 'n roll star was financed by the in-law.
Posted by: diskojoe | August 13, 2007 at 10:54 AM
The music on the Cattanooga Cats album is outstanding! Clips
of the show with these songs are at YouTube...One Top Cat album had Daws Butler filling in for Arnold Stang (covered in a Beware of the Blog feature on Stang); Butler did his Hokey Wolf voice
(that character, like TC, was based on Phil Silvers).
I remember when the Jetsons movie came out in the 80s, a local
used record store prominently displaced multiple copies of
an older Jetsons release, "First Family On The Moon".
Posted by: AnthroCoon | August 14, 2007 at 11:24 AM
You can keep checking back on my blog to find shares of about 90% of all of the Hanna Barbera cartoon LPs, and all but 2 of the COLPIX TV LPs. Eventually (by end of this month I hope) I will have them all re-posted with new (working) links. I do have both of those LPs shared that AnthroCoon mentions. I have tried to acquire all of the HBR and COLPIX TV/cartoon LPs. The ones I don't have already have proven to be very elusive. My 5 grand-kids love listening to them. Just before bed time especially. Here's the link to the blog:
http://childrensrecordsandmore.blogspot.com/
Dave
Posted by: Dave | August 14, 2007 at 05:25 PM
I have a promo copy of a 45 from that early 60's "Freddy FLintstone" Stone Age Rock, but my b-side is named "Bedrock Beat". If intereste, I can make scans of the label(it didn't come with a pic sleeve). Anyone know more about it?
Posted by: Duck 182 | August 15, 2007 at 03:21 AM
All of the Hanna Barbera links shared here linking to my Children's Music & More Blog are fixed now.
Dave
Posted by: Dave | September 20, 2007 at 07:49 PM
Alrighty, I've got one for the useless info files....I recall borrowing a record from the library featuring HB voice talents called "Gold Pinky" or something to that effect. It was a James Bond spoof on Gold Finger (duh). Have never been able to find ANY info on this and most people look at me sideways when I try to describe it (should be used to that reaction as I get it for most everything actually). Does anyone have a friggin clue regarding this?? Thanks!
Posted by: Bessolo | October 08, 2007 at 12:02 AM
I finally figured out which LP Bessolo was talking about. It's on the HBR "Super Snooper James Bomb" LP. You can find it by clicking the "James Bomb starring Super Snooper and Blabber Mouse" link in the article above.
Dave
Posted by: Dave | April 15, 2008 at 01:40 AM
I have the Drop-Ins Vol 1 and I was wondering how much it was worth. If anybody has anymore info about this album it would be appreciated. Thanks Harry.
Posted by: Harry | April 18, 2008 at 02:02 PM
Actually, an LP soundtrack for the Hanna-Barbera special "Jack and the Beanstalk" (1967) starring Gene Kelly was released and you can find it if you know where to look. Good luck! ; )
Posted by: Jeannie Lindley | November 15, 2008 at 10:28 PM
Are you looking for a 1966 copyright dated Winsome Witch, Pop goes the Weasel 45? I am in the market to sell one.
Thank you
Posted by: Kerstin Norton | December 14, 2008 at 09:31 AM
When it was still possible to find garage-punk 45s at garage sales, HBR was a label I'd grab reflexively. Great stuff. When I visited CA circa '81, a cousin of mine was "seeing" both a member of the Five Americans, and Erik Estrada, which got my pop-culture brain rather amused (she worked at NBC at the time).
Posted by: Anon by choice | June 04, 2010 at 11:48 PM
You mentioned the H-B "drop-in" record for DJS. I remember hearing at a radio station in the 70's a somewhat similar record probably from Warner Bros. (I say probably because I never saw the actual record; it was divvied-up onto cartridges.) The record featured Mel Blanc in his familiar voices; you heard a door open, Blanc would deliver a one-liner, then the door slammed. A couple I remember, Porky Pig wanting to be a d-d-de-d-d-de-disc jockey, and Yosemite Sam hollering "KILL THE POWER! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" Someone told me it was called "Run-Ins" or "Run-Throughs," but I've never seen a copy anywhere nor any mention of it on line (including some very exhaustive WB discographies.) Anyone know what it is?
Posted by: Jeff Missinne | March 08, 2013 at 09:56 PM