Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales
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Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales was a popular, semi-educational animated cartoon show that originally aired on CBS from 1963 to 1966. It was produced by Total Television, the same company that produced the earlier King Leonardo and the later Underdog.
It revolved around the title character, a penguin (voiced by Don Adams of Get Smart fame, who would voice Inspector Gadget twenty years later) and his best friend Chumley, a walrus. The pair lived (not always willingly) at the zoo, under the control of the ill-tempered zookeeper, Stanley Livingston (sic) (an obvious pun on the missionary David Livingstone and journalist Henry Morton Stanley). It was on one of Stanley's journeys that Tennessee met Stanley. Actually it was Chumley that Stanley wanted as Chumley was at the South Pole. Thus Chumley was a one of a kind, a South Pole walrus. Tennessee agreed to accompany Chumley and Stanley back to the zoo.
Tennessee and Chumley regularly escaped from the zoo, only to find trouble in the outside world. When faced with more trouble than they could bear, the pair would turn to their friend, a college professor named Phineas J. Whoopee (voiced by Larry Storch, later seen on F Troop). "Mr Whoopee", as he was known, was extremely knowledgeable on all subjects, and would frequently lecture the pair on such diverse topics as the physics behind the hot air balloon, to how musicians become popular. His lectures were illustrated and animated on the Three Dimensional Blackboard (3DBB for short) he would retrieve out of an avalanche of junk from his overstuffed hallway closet. The pair would then attempt to use their newly-gained knowledge to get out of the trouble they had created, but would invariably end up in more trouble with Stanley Livingston, who typically punished them by making them scrub pots and pans for six months.
Occasional back segments included The World of Commander McBragg, Klondike Kat, Tooter Turtle, The Hunter, and King Leonardo and his Short Subjects (The last three rerun from the earlier King Leonardo show).
For the voice of the "small penguin, who tries but can't succeed-o", Don Adams used his already-well-known "clippy" voice characterization, which he said was an exaggeration of actor William Powell's voice.
Like most cartoon series produced by Total Television, later reruns of "Tennessee Tuxedo And His Tales" are quite different from the original network series. The first 34 "Tennessee Tuxedo" cartoons would later be incorporated into syndicated prints of The Underdog Show. That syndicated package actually was a revised version of another earlier (mid-1960s) syndicated series, "Cartoon Cut-Ups," which featured segments of Underdog, Tennessee Tuxedo and Commander McBragg. In fact, the syndicated "Underdog Show" includes some artifacts including the "Cartoon Cut-Ups" closing (combining portions of the original "Tennessee Tuxedo" and "Underdog" closings, effectively eliminating the punch line of the visual "Post No Bills" joke in the original "Underdog" closing) and the final teaser at the end of the show in which announcer George S. Irving says, "Looks like this is the end...but don't miss our next Cartoon Cut-Ups show!" (The line was redubbed to say "Underdog" instead of "Cartoon Cut-Ups.")
In syndication, "Tennessee Tuxedo And His Tales" features different supporting cartoon segments compared to the show's original network run, including some cartoons from the Jay Ward studio. The first 39 syndicated episodes (#901-939) include "Tooter Turtle," "Bullwinkle's Corner" (followed by a vintage "Rocky And His Friends" commercial bumper) and "Aesop And Son." For syndicated episodes #940-945 and again from #956 through the end of the episode cycle, the supporting segments are all Jay Ward cartoons: "Peabody's Improbable History," "Mr. Know-It-All," and "Fractured Fairy Tales." Syndicated shows #946 through #955 repeat the "Tooter Turtle," "Bullwinkle's Corner" and "Aesop And Son" cartoons already shown in episodes #901-910. The 70 "Tuxedo" cartoons themselves each appear twice over the 140 syndicated shows, in addition to the aforementioned repeats of the first 34 segments as part of the syndicated "Underdog Show." (During a recent run on the Black Family Channel cable network, only shows #901-934 were aired.)
In its first season during its original network run, "Tennessee Tuxedo And His Tales" featured segments of "The Hunter" and "The King And Odie." Both segments originated on the 1960 series "King Leonardo And His Short Subjects," but "Tennessee" included 26 newly-produced segments of both, which were not seen on the original "King Leonardo" program (and were not syndicated as part of that package either). The following season, "The Hunter" began appearing as a segment on "The Underdog Show," and the "Hunter" spot in "Tennessee Tuxedo And His Tales" was filled by repeated segments of "Tooter Turtle" (a character also previously seen on "King Leonardo And His Short Subjects"). The "Tooter" cartoons shown on "Tennessee" were all repeated segments; no new segments were produced. Between 1968 and 1970, "Tooter Turtle" and "The Hunter" were seen as part of ABC-TV's "The Dudley Do-Right Show." The 26 "Hunter" and "King & Odie" segments originally produced for "Tennessee Tuxedo" are seen in syndicated reruns as part of the "Dudley Do-Right And Friends" package (which also is different from the 1968-1970 "Dudley Do-Right Show").
