Huckleberry Hound

As a child I could not wait for Saturday mornings. I loved watching cartoons of the 60’s era. And there were good cartoons during that era. There was Woody Woodpecker, Secret Squirrel, Quick Draw McGraw.

However, one of my all-time favorites was Huckleberry Hound. He was a blue coonhound dog that spoke with a North Carolina Southern drawl. The cartoon was one of six television shows to win an Emmy Award in 1960 as an Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Children’s Programming, the first animated series to receive such an award.

The show aired from 1958 through 1961, and then of course it ran in syndication for many years after.

The cartoon character was created by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera.

He was voiced in the original cartoons in 1958 by Daws Butler. Butler was an American voice actor who worked for the Hanna-Barbera animation production company and the Walter Lantz cartoon studio. He originated the voices of many familiar Hanna-Barbera cartoon characters including Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, Snagglepuss, Quick Draw McGraw, Wally Gator, Elroy Jetson, and Hair Bear, as well as many more.

The voice for Huckleberry Hound was inspired by a neighbor of Butler’s wife, Myrtis Martin, in her hometown of Albemarle, North Carolina. Butler would visit Myrtis and her family and would talk to the neighbor who was a veterinarian. Butler found the man’s voice amusing and remembered it when it came time to voice Huckleberry Hound.

Huckleberry Hound’s name is a reference to the 1884 American novel “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.”

The opening scenes of Huckleberry Hound would have him singing a tone-deaf and inaccurate rendition of “Oh My Darling, Clementine.” This was used as a running gag on the show.

Most of the Huckleberry Hound cartoons would have him trying to perform jobs in different fields, ranging from policeman to dogcatcher, with results that would always backfire, and yet, he would usually come out on top, either through slow persistence or sheer luck.

Huck did not seem to exist in a specific time period as he was also a Roman gladiator, medieval knight, and a rocket scientist. He also appeared in futuristic cartoons, as an intergalactic space policeman, alongside other Hanna-Barbera characters.

The one thing about Huckleberry Hound that I remember that always made me laugh was when he was trying to hammer a nail, and always hit his thumb. The thumb would suddenly swell up, and show like it was throbbing, then suddenly Huck would let out a yell lol! I thought that was hilarious as a child.

Charles Dawson Butler – Contracted pneumonia and suffered a stroke a few months before he died. He died of a heart attack on May 18, 1988. He was 71 years old. The television special Hanna-Barbera’s 50th: A Yabba Dabba Doo Celebration was dedicated to him.

Myrtis Martin Butler – Died in Beverly Hills, California, on November 15, 2018. She was 101 years old, and she was buried next to Daws in Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California.