Saturday Morning's First Cartoons: "King Leonardo" and "Tennessee Tuxedo"

Hanna-Barbera’s Ruff & Reddy series is often credited as the first made for Saturday morning cartoon, but it aired in the afternoon. These cartoons created the format of made for Saturday cartoons.

From 1960 to the 1990’s when entire channels had cartoons Saturday morning was for kids. Most channels played old shorts, the 3 Stooges, old cartoons. But the idea of cartoons created for Saturday morning came from Total Television.

The idea of cartoons transitioned to TV during this period. ROCKY AND BULLWINKLE were a major success- for the cereal company that backed the cartoon. Total TeleVision Productions came into being in the aftermath of Rocky & Bullwinkle’s success. The studio was jointly founded by four men, all of whom were General Mills executives: Buck Biggers, Treadwell D. Covington, Joe Harris, and Chester Stover. All of Total TeleVision’s shows were primarily animated by Mexican animation studio Gamma Productions, who were notorious for sloppy animation and mistakes.

The Leonardo cartoon was in a half hour time slot and followed the format of ROCKY. The main cartoon at the beginning and end, short subjects in between. TOOTER THE TURTLE liked history and wanted to experience it first hand. His friend, a lizard named Wizard who lives in a cardboard box can make that happen. You can see the TOOTER SHORTS here:

THE HOUND was a private detective dog that protects the innocent from The Fox. Here is a playlist of THE HOUND:

Click this link for THE HOUND playlist!

King Leonardo and His Short Subjects (1960-1963)

Many of the voice actors from King Leonardo & His Short Subjects returned for Tennesee Tuxedo. Jackson Beck voiced Tennessee's main nemesis, a gangster named Rocky Maninoff who sounded like actor Humphrey Bogart. Kenny Delmar voiced the zoo assistant Flunky, as well as two of Tennessee’s other zoo allies: Yakkity Yak and Baldy the Eagle. There’s also Bradley Bloke, who voiced Chumley and Tennessee's rival Jerboa Jump the Kangaroo Rat, Mort Marshall as Stanley Livingstone, and actor Larry Storch as Phineas J. Whoopee.

Most notably is comedian Don Adams voicing Tennessee Tuxedo himself, early in his career. Adams was already well-known for his comedic clipped character voice, a parody of William Powell’s speaking style, which he brought to the role of Tennessee. He would soon become well-known in television thanks to a role on The Bill Dana Show (which debuted about a week before Tennessee Tuxedo) and, two years later, as the lead on Get Smart. - JOSH MEASIMER

Click this link to watch TENNESSEE TUXEDO

The engineer who often functioned as producer on Tennessee Tuxedo was Ben Stern the father of Howard Stern. This group, THE GLOBAL PSYCHOTRONIC FILM SOCIETY has a tie-in with Don Adams. Del Close, the co-founder of the group THE CHICAGO PSYCHOTRONIC FILM SOCIETY which Global grew from, was being considered for a recurring role on GET SMART! He was brought in to film an episode but noticed that the main director wasn't there to film his part and everyone on set seemed preoccupied. That's because Johnny Carson was to be the surprise guest on the show. Del didn't get the role. Even on YouTube, only Carson's scenes are highlighted. The life of an actor...

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Behind the paywall: Super Saturday Morning

First episodes of: DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS, WILD C.A.T.S., MASK, DRAGON WARRIOR, JAYCE AND THE WHEELED WARRIORS and PRYDE OF THE X-MEN.