Hokey Wolf

Hokey Wolf is a Hanna-Barbera cartoon about the adventures of a con-artist wolf who is always trying to cheat his way into the simple life. He is often accompanied alongside by his young, diminutive, sidekick Ding-A-Ling Wolf, both of whom are featured as part of The Huckleberry Hound Show in their own segment.

History

The initial creation of Hokey Wolf occurred when another follow-up segment was needed, because Yogi Bear's rising popularity in preceding appearances warranted a promotion to his own self-titled show.^[1] As a result of the change in schedule, Hokey Wolf had made its debut midway through the third season of The Huckleberry Hound Show ^[2]and became a regular appearance afterward on this segment. Hokey's theme music for his segment of the show was composed by Hoyt Curtin and used an instrumental version of the refrain from Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here.^[3]

The segment follows the everyday misadventures of its protagonist, Hokey Wolf, and his young companion, Ding-A-Ling Wolf, through their typical con-artist routines of getting what they need in their daily lives.^[1] Through each episode, Hokey would usually try to fool different characters with food-stealing schemes and/or finding a place to stay without cost, only for most of these tricks to back-fire on him in one way or another.^[1]

Character Information

Both of the cartoon's feature characters were designed by animation artist and character designer Ed Benedict.^[4]

Hokey Wolf

Hokey Wolf (voiced by Daws Butler impersonating Phil Silvers) is the smooth-talking title character throughout each cartoon. His main hobby in life was to outsmart and coax the clueless out of free meals or places to stay, much of which he seemed to do so with ease, despite possible consequences later on. Hokey typically wears his trademark green bow tie with white collar and a violet-colored hat. His personality would later be recycled for fellow Hanna-Barbera characters Top Cat and Yogi Bear, who starred in a prime-time sitcom that ran from 1961 to 1962 that followed a very similar concept.

Ding-A-Ling Wolf

Ding-A-Ling Wolf, who is Hokey's sidekick.

Ding-A-Ling Wolf (voiced by Doug Young impersonating Buddy Hackett) is the younger sidekick to Hokey Wolf who always accompanies him throughout each misadventure. He is usually eager to follow in Hokey's ambitious con-artist footsteps, but often reconsiders the plans Hokey will come up with in many situations. Ding typically wears a bowler hat (sometimes red, sometimes black), a sleeveless green shirt, and a black vest.

Original Segment on The Huckleberry Hound Show

In total, both Hokey and Ding-A-Ling Wolf have starred in 28 seven-minute cartoons throughout the third and fourth seasons (1960–1961) of The Huckleberry Hound Show.^[5] Their pilot episode was Tricks and Treats. The Hokey Wolf series would come to an end with the episode Bean Pod’ners, airing on December 1, 1961 (1961-12-01). Below is a complete listing of all cartoon shorts with the protagonist Hokey Wolf:

1960 season

1961 season

DVD Release

The Episodes Tricks And Treats And Castle Hassle Are On The DVD Hanna Barbera 25 Cartoon Collection part of The Best Of Warner Bros. collection series.

Further appearances

Hanna-Barbera series

While the initial series ended in December 1961, Hokey Wolf went on to appear in four other animated Hanna-Barbera series alongside other classic characters. These were as follows:

• Yogi's Gang (1973–1975) – Hokey was a member of the crew.

• Laff-A-Lympics (1977–1979) – Hokey Wolf played as a team member of The Yogi Yahooeys.

• Yogi’s Treasure Hunt (1985) – Hokey was a regular guest star in several episodes.

• Yo Yogi! (1991–1992) – Hokey Wolf (voiced by Matt Hurwitz) co-starred as the mayor of Jellystone Town. His younger companion, Ding-A-Ling, also made a brief non-speaking cameo as Hokey's photographer in the episode "Super Duper Snag", but he has a speaking role in the episode "Polly Want a Safe Cracker" (voiced by unknown voice actor).

Hanna-Barbera films

• In the last episode of The Yogi Bear Show (1962), Hokey Wolf, along with his sidekick Ding-A-Ling, were among the guests who showed up to wish their friend Yogi Bear a happy birthday.^[7]

• In the 1972 television movie Yogi's Ark Lark, both Hokey Wolf and Ding-A-Ling appeared together as part of the gang. The film was part of The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie and also the pilot for Yogi's Gang.

• In the 1982 television special Yogi Bear's All Star Comedy Christmas Caper, Hokey Wolf co-starred as a member of the group that visited Yogi in Jellystone Park. Hokey Wolf also mentioned to Ranger Smith that he is friends with the Secretary of the Interior.

• In the 1988 feature length television film The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound, Hokey Wolf co-starred in and played the mayor of a western town named Two-Bit.

Other appearances

• Both Hokey and Ding-A-Ling appeared on Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law.
  • Hokey made non-speaking cameo appearances in the episodes "Peanut Puberty," "Evolutionary War," "Juror in Court," and "The Death of Harvey."
  • Ding-A-Ling (voiced by Neil Ross) was a plaintiff in "SPF" when his name was being used without his consent as a URL for a pornographic website. He also appeared in "The Death of Harvey," and made cameo appearances in "Identity Theft" and "Juror in Court."

Hokey Wolf in other languages

• Brazilian Portuguese: Joca & Dingue-Lingue

• French: Garoup le Loup

• Italian: Ugo Lupo

• Japanese: Hokeyのオオカミ (Hokey urufu)

• Spanish: El Lobo Hokey

• Hungarian: Lompos Lajos

• Serbian: Vuk Vučko

See also

• The Huckleberry Hound Show
  • List of The Huckleberry Hound Show episodes
• List of works produced by Hanna-Barbera
• List of Hanna-Barbera characters

References

External links

External images

Toonarific: Hokey Wolf – Screenshots from Hokey Wolf at Toonarific.

• Hokey Wolf at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on February 5, 2016.