Saturday, October 10, 2009

The World-Color It Happy-1967

Now here's a fascinating oddity. It's the opening credits to an unsold and apparently unaired 1967 Hanna-Barbera pilot that seems designed as that studio's answer to WALT DISNEY'S WONDERFUL WORLD OF COLOR. There's lots of interesting stuff here including Joe and Bill themselves in animated form (with Hanna voiced by VIC & SADE's Bill Idelson!), JETSONS sound effects, a pretty good Burt Bacharach/Hal David theme song sung by Jack Jones, writing credits that include Chuck Jones' favorite collaborator Michael Maltese along with Woody Allen(!) and my own old friend from the Radio Cons, Ezra Stone (who also apparently directed a segment with Woody). Quite frankly, the whole thing looks like it might have been similar to the later BANANA SPLITS with its different segments and mix of live-action and animation but I'd still love to see the rest of it!

2 comments:

  1. I passed this on to Mark Evanier who offers a little more (but not much) info here--http://www.newsfromme.com/archives/2009_10_10.html#017841

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  2. If this show was presented to ABC, chances are the network turned it down because MGM was offering its own anthology series, OFF TO SEE THE WIZARD, which did feature animation from Chuck Jones himself. Remember that show? I do, albeit vaguely.

    But that is not to demean this effort from H-B. Getting Burt Bacharach, Hal David, Jack Jones (then married to Jill St. John) AND Woody Allen was no mean feat! This would have been one very interesting show indeed, had it aired in 1967, and I would have seen it, even in prime time!!

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