King Leonardo and his Short Subjects
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| King Leonardo and his Short Subjects | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Genre | animation |
| Starring | Jackson Beck Kenny Delmar Allen Swift Sandy Becker |
| Country of origin |  United States |
| No. of episodes | King And Odie: 102 The Hunter: 61 Tooter Turtle: 40 |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Joe Harris Treadwell Covington Buck Biggers Chet Stover |
| Running time | 30 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | NBC |
| External links | |
| IMDb profile | |
| TV.com summary | |
King Leonardo and his Short Subjects was an animated cartoon series released in 1960 by Total Television (which would later rename itself Leonardo Productions after the main character of this show).
The show focused on Leonardo, a lion, who was the inept yet well-meaning king of the fictional African nation of Bongo Congo, and his incompetent brother Itchy's attempts to overthrow Leonardo and rule the kingdom himself along with his friend (and leader) Biggie Rat, a gangster with an Edward G. Robinson-type accent. Biggie would mostly employ the help of an evil German inventor named Professor Messer (German for "Knife"). They were later both employed by Mr. Mad, a mad scientist with a domineering personality (easily cowing even the strong-willed Biggie) and his own nefarious plans for Bongo Congo, not to mention a creepy echoing voice. Voice actor Jackson Beck provided the voice of King Leonardo. The title was a play on a king ruling over his "subjects", along with the common term "short subjects" for cartoons and other films whose duration is just a few minutes.
Leonardo was assisted by Odie Cologne (sometimes referred to as "Odio Cologne"), an ironic play on "Eau de Cologne", a mild-mannered skunk with a refined Ronald Colman-type accent.
Each half-hour episode of King Leonardo consisted of five animated segments. Each half-hour included a two-part King and Odie cliffhanger story, with other characters featured in between: Tooter Turtle, about the adventures of a turtle who has Mr. Wizard, a lizard, transport him to various settings only to realize he was better off at home, and The Hunter, a cartoon about a Southern-accented crime-fighting bloodhound who often chased after an evil fox simply named the Fox. The Hunter's personality was similar to that of Senator Claghorn or the Senator-inspired character Foghorn Leghorn, which was logical, in that The Hunter's voice was provided by Kenny Delmar, the original radio voice of Senator Claghorn.
After King Leonardo and his Short Subjects ended, one season's worth of new segments of The King and Odie and The Hunter continued to be produced and aired on Total TV's Tennessee Tuxedo and his Tales, which premiered in 1963. The following year, Total TV launched its most popular series, Underdog. When Underdog premiered in 1964, it featured repeats of The Hunter, while The Hunter's former spot on the Tennessee Tuxedo program was filled by repeats of Tooter Turtle. ( In the early months of King Leonardo and his Short Subjects, non-Total Television animated shorts were aired on the program, including The Fox and the Crow and Li'l Abner produced by Frank Tashlin for Columbia Pictures/Screen Gems. Another segment of the original King Leonardo show was Twinkles (a pink elephant), which simultaneously appeared as a feature on Jay Ward's Rocky and his Friends. The main purpose of this segment was to advertise Twinkles Cereal, a product of the show's chief sponsor General Mills. The Twinkles segments continued to air in syndicated reruns of the show during the 1960s, which were presented in a 15-minute format under the title The King and Odie, but were later phased out after a fireman character replaced the elephant as the cereal's mascot. The Twinkles segments would be removed when the show was syndicated during the 1980s.
King Leonardo and his Short Subjects was part of NBC's Saturday Morning lineup until 1963.
The animation for the first batch of this show was produced by TV Spots (who did Crusader Rabbit in 1957) and then later episodes were by Gamma Productions, the same Mexican studio that did much of the work for Jay Ward. For this reason, and due to shared sponsorship by General Mills, Gamma has often been associated with both Total Television Productions and Jay Ward Productions.
The King Leonardo shorts have often been packaged with Jay Ward shows such as Rocky and Bullwinkle and George of the Jungle in syndication. Despite similar limited-animation styles, Leonardo was not a Ward show.
King Leonardo never attained the popularity of Total Television's other series' Underdog and Tennessee Tuxedo, and is hardly ever aired on television today. As of December 2006, the Black Family Channel aired this show on its "BFC Kids TV" block until the channel's demise a year later. previously episodes of the show can be found on the In2TV service
The characters of this show were also featured in an eight-issue comic book produced by Dell Comics and Gold Key.
Contents |
[edit] Cast
- Jackson Beck- Leonardo, Biggie Rat, Professor Messer
- Allen Swift- Odie, Itchy, Duke, Earl, Tooter Turtle, Narrator
- Sandy Becker- Mr. Wizard
- Kenny Delmar- Mr. Mad, The Hunter, Narrator
[edit] Catch phrases
- King Leonardo - "Confound it, that's the most unheard of thing I ever heard of!"
- Odie Cologne - "Ah, Sire!"
- Biggie Rat - "Dig me?"
- Itchy Brother - "Yeah, Big, I dig."
- The Hunter - "That's a joke, son."
- Tooter Turtle - "Please, Mr. Wizard; it's what I want to BE."
- Mr. Wizard - "Drizzle, Drazzle, Druzzle, Drome; time for zis one to come home." and "Be just vhat you is, not vhat you is not. Folks vhat do zis are ze happiest lot."
