Discover Fascinating Behind-the-Scenes Facts About Your Favorite ’60s Cartoon Classics
One wonderful aspect of classic cartoons is how many of them have managed to stand the test of time. Although The Flintstones, The Bugs Bunny Show, and Scooby Doo, Where Are You! delighted children growing up in the 1960s, future generations have proved just as enamored with their colorful scenes, exuberant voices, and wacky slapstick as the children they were intended for.
Naturally, that makes it easier to appreciate the processes and talents that brought these classic cartoons to life. It might not always be pretty to see how the sausage is made, but these illuminating details about our favorites from the past offer fascinating looks into what could have been. Keep reading to learn more.
Yogi Berra was no fan of Yogi Bear
Sports fans in the early 1960s no doubt made the connection between New York Yankees catcher Yogi Berra's name and that of the popular picnic basket-swiping bear. Although a quote from Joseph Barbera obtained by The Hollywood Reporter stated that the reference wasn't intentional, he admitted that Yogi Bear's name was unconsciously inspired by Berra's.
Assuming he wasn't speaking in jest — it was sometimes hard to tell with Berra — he told The Long Beach Press-Telegram that he took exception to the cartoon's name to such a degree that he considered pursuing legal action. As he said, however, "Television is big enough for both me and Yogi Bear. I was going to sue the Yogi Bear program for using my name, until somebody reminded me Yogi isn't my real name — it’s Lawrence."
Watching The Jetsons felt futuristic for a surprising reason
Although The Jetsons clearly wanted to evoke a somewhat utopian but wacky vision of the distant future, that's not the only reason why viewers may have felt they were starting to enter a new era when it first aired. Although the show only ran for 24 episodes, it marked an easy milestone to take for granted.
According to the Smithsonian Magazine, The Jetsons was the first show that ABC aired in color. However, that decision may have contributed to its short run because less than 3% of American households in 1962 had color TVs. That meant it didn't look as good on black-and-white televisions as some other cartoons at the time did.
Bugs Bunny was once called an "Oscar-winning rabbit"
In the introduction for 1960's The Bugs Bunny Show, the announcer referred to Bugs Bunny as "that Oscar-winning rabbit." Although the 1959 Academy Awards were far from the technological advancement needed to allow a cartoon character to accept an award, the announcer's introduction was still technically true.
Although Bugs himself was never given an acting award, the official Oscars website noted that the cartoon "Knighty Knight Bugs" won an Academy Award for Cartoon Short Subject the year before The Bugs Bunny Show first aired. Considering it was the only Bugs Bunny cartoon to achieve such an honor, it was worth bragging about.
Red Skelton had beef with Bullwinkle
Rocky & Bullwinkle were popular characters in the late '50s and early '60s but one person who wasn't happy to tune in was legendary comedian Red Skelton. As Keith Scott wrote in The Moose That Roared, Skelton's friends made him aware of how much Bullwinkle's voice resembled his character, Clem Kadiddlehopper.
After the comedian's lawyers threatened legal action, the producers opted to make a cartoon in which Bullwinkle directly addressed the controversy. Although he denied the resemblance, he did so in a voice that was a much more direct imitation of Kadiddlehopper. That cartoon must have illustrated the difference because there's no further record of the matter.
Jonny Quest was originally going to be an adaptation
As the Internet Archive explained, there was once a popular adventure radio serial called Jack Armstrong, The All-American Boy that ran between 1933 and 1951. By the following decade, Hanna-Barbera was planning an animated adaptation of the series and produced a short TV pilot for it.
However, negotiations for TV rights to the character fell through, which meant the animation studio had to come up with an original series that filled a similar adventure niche. From that need, Jonny Quest was born. However, the closing credits were still able to use some footage from the Jack Armstrong, The All-American Boy pilot.
Alvin and the Chipmunks were named after label executives
After the runaway success of the Christmasy "The Chipmunk Song," CBS aired The Alvin Show, where Alvin and his two brothers and bandmates lived out their wacky adventures. Indeed, it was the first of many animated properties that starred the Chipmunks. Yet, before the three little musical rodents became household names, they were just the faces of an experimental novelty song.
As such, their creator Ross S. Bagdasarian Sr. (aka Dave Seville) didn't go far for inspiration for their names. Alvin was named after Alvin Bennett, the president of Liberty Records, while Theodore was named after an audio engineer named Theodore Keep and Simon was named after the label's founder, Simon Waronker.
The Pink Panther theme's composer was in the cartoon
Although The Pink Panther was enough of a hit to spawn multiple sequels, its iconic opening sequence with that recognizable saxophone theme proved popular enough to inspire its own spin-off Pink Panther cartoons. Yet, while the original live-action film had an animated sequence, so too did these cartoons have live-action portions.
One of them — titled "Pink, Plunk, Plink" — saw the panther in a power struggle with a conductor's orchestra. After he wins and conducts his theme song, the only person in the audience applauding is the tune's composer, Henry Mancini.
The Flintstones were born from a frustrated outburst
Although the influence of The Hooneymooners on The Flintstones is clear to those familiar with both series, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera couldn't agree on the setting. Apparently, this also made it hard to agree on what the characters would be wearing.
In what he likely thought was an absurd suggestion highlighting how stressful their bickering became, Hanna blurted out, "Let's do it in a caveman setting! They won't wear clothes, they'll just wear animal skins!" However, when the two men discovered how much they ultimately liked that idea, the pilot practically wrote itself from there.
The Bugs Bunny Show did not feature the Roadrunner
Although the Roadrunner is among the most popular Looney Tunes characters, modern viewers may be surprised to learn that he didn't feature in the opening for The Bugs Bunny Show at all. Although Wile E. Coyote was there and even Hippety Hopper — the baby kangaroo that keeps boxing Sylvester — was featured but not the Roadrunner.
To explain this, it's worth knowing that Wile E. Coyote was also a Bugs Bunny antagonist, which mark some of the only times the character actually spoke. After the Roadrunner's show in 1966 proved popular, The Bugs Bunny Show was renamed to The Bugs Bunny and Roadrunner Hour and the bird was finally featured.
The Yogi Bear Show wasn't the birth of Yogi Bear
While Yogi Bear proved a popular enough character to sustain a series of animated properties and retain widespread name recognition today, that wouldn't have been possible without another cartoon. That's because Yogi was originally introduced on The Huckleberry Hound Show.
After Yogi Bear was given his own segment of the show for long enough, he turned out to be a popular enough character to sustain his own show in 1961. That's often how comic book characters get their own comic lines but it's just as likely to happen in the cartoon world.
Underdog reruns were censored due to drug concerns
Throughout his adventures in Underdog, the titular superhero is known to get tired easily. Similarly to Popeye with spinach, this was quickly remedied by what he called his "super energy pill." Also like Popeye, this inclusion was intended to encourage children to take their vitamins. However, it seems that the writers would have done well to be a little more obvious about these intentions.
According to The Great Saturday Morning Experience, reruns of Underdog broadcast during the 1970s were edited to remove all references to this super energy pill. This made it harder to make sense of the cartoons, but was done out of concern that children would go into their parents' medicine cabinets and take the wrong pills.
Shaggy and Fred's actors wanted to trade parts
In an interview with ScoobyAddicts.com, Fred voice actor Frank Welker mentioned that he had originally planned to audition for Scooby-Doo but ended up reading for Fred and Shaggy because the part was already cast. Of the two, he would have preferred to be Shaggy because he wanted a comedic role that was different from his usual typecasting up to that point.
As it turned out, Shaggy voice actor Casey Kasem had similar sentiments from the opposite direction, as he didn't consider himself a comedic actor. Nonetheless, Welker ultimately thought the casting worked out well even though it was hard for him not to note that Fred was the least popular among the Mystery Machine gang.
Rocky And Bullwinkle had a one-sided rivalry with Disney
Although Walt Disney's cartoons were often associated with wholesome family magic, producer Jay Ward was wont to take Rocky & Bullwinkle in a much more satirical direction. And while Animated Views noted that Disney was reportedly a fan of Ward's flagship series, Ward clearly didn't feel the same way about Disney.
This was most telling in one "Fractured Fairytales" segment of Rocky & Bullwinkle, which featured a Prince Charming that was made to resemble Disney. In this cartoon, the prince decides to build a lucrative theme park around Sleeping Beauty rather than wake her up.
The Jetsons used a real architectural style called "Googie"
According to the Smithsonian Magazine, an architectural trend arose after World War II that was intended to capture the futuristic promise of the atomic age and the space age. This ultramodern design featured intense sloping roofs and was characterized by the heavy use of steel and giant glass windows.
Although the word "Googie" was a derisive nickname coined by architectural critics who hated the design, it caught on as a name for the style even among fans. Since The Jetsons had a similar aim to evoke the future, the architecture featured in the cartoon leaned heavily on the Googie style. Unfortunately for the show's vision of the future, Googie fell out of vogue by the 1970s.
Bugs Bunny's name was a reference to his original writer
According to USA Today, Bugs Bunny was originally given the fairly generic name of "Happy Rabbit." During this time, his clever ruses and mischievous antics were written by a man named Ben Hardaway. Since Hardaway went by the nickname "Bugs," Happy Rabbit was eventually renamed "Bugs Bunny."
However, this didn't quite happen intentionally. As Hollywood Cartoons: American Animation in Its Golden Age author Michael Barrier wrote on his website, designer Charles Thorson drew the rabbit for Hardaway and referred to him as "Bugs' bunny" in internal materials. After this informal nickname stuck, the apostrophe was dropped and it became official.
Snagglepuss is responsible for an unprecedented credit
Originally known for his segments on The Yogi Bear Show, Snagglepuss had a recognizable voice that was based on Bert Lahr's performance as The Cowardly Lion in The Wizard Of Oz. According to Cartoon Research, this inspiration wasn't lost on Lahr, who sued Kellogg's, Screen Gems, and Hanna-Barbera for $500,000 in 1963 over a Cocoa Krispies commerical.
Since Snagglepuss was in this ad, Lahr believed viewers would be confused and think he endorsed the cereal. To address the legal matter, the defendants featured a credit in the commercial that made it clear Snagglepuss was voiced by Daws Butler. This is the only time to date that a commercial has explicitly credited a voice actor.
Rocky & Bullwinkle had a publicity stunt with awful timing
According to Lethbridge News Now, an episode of Rocky & Bullwinkle that featured a fictional place called Moosylvania eventually inspired the cartoon's producer Jay Ward to travel the country and petition the public to support the establishment of America's 51st state. Naturally, this would be called Moosylvania and it encompasses a Minnesotan island.
Although he was able to drum up national interest in the idea, Ward encountered an unexpectedly hostile reaction from the White House when he fulfilled his promise to deliver the petition personally. He likely didn't expect President Kennedy to agree, but he didn't expect to be turned away from the door in a heated exchange with security. Unfortunately, Ward made his trip on the day that ballistic missiles were discovered in Cuba and the threat of nuclear disaster left the White House unamused by his antics.
Casey Kasem stopped voicing Shaggy due to Burger King
Although one of Shaggy's most defining traits was his enthusiasm to join Scooby-Doo in eating practically everything in sight, Business Insider explained that this was never an aspect of his character that Casey Kasem was comfortable with. This was because he was not only a strong advocate of healthy eating but adhered to a district vegan lifestyle.
However, this frustration came to its breaking point in 1995, when Kasem was asked to voice Shaggy for a Burger King commercial. Not only did he refuse to work with the hamburger chain but this event was the catalyst that made him walk away from the character entirely. He was coaxed back in 2002 after Shaggy was made a vegetarian.
Velma's running "losing her glasses" gag wasn't planned
Although Velma Dinkley was known to end up in wacky situations after losing her glasses in Scooby Doo, Where Are You!, none of those would have happened if the showrunners weren't inspired by their own voice actors. According to MovieFone, Velma's actress, Nicole Jaffe, also relied on glasses to see.
Thus, when she sat down for her first table read with the cast and dropped them, she nervously cried, "My glasses, I can't see without them!" Apparently, the writers thought that fit the character so well that they made it a running joke and catchphrase.
Jonny Quest wasn't as original as it seemed
After Hanna-Barbera found that they wouldn't have the rights to adapt Jack Armstrong, The All-American Boy, their next step was to turn the ideas they had into what would become Jonny Quest. However, that didn't mean this show broke the company's streak of taking blatant inspiration from other sources.
The show's main characters and high-tech adventures mirror the Rick Brant children's book series published between 1947 and 1967. In them, young Brant travels the world alongside his scientist father Hartson Brant, their ex-marine bodyguard Scotty, and sometimes Brant's friend from India named Chada. Sound familiar?
The Academy liked a Pink Panther cartoon more than the movie
Although the original Pink Panther film from 1963 did secure an Oscar nomination, it seems the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was more impressed by Henry Mancini's iconic score than anything that actually happened in the movie.
And as true as it is that the original run of Pink Panther cartoons were short-lived, they certainly started off with a bang. The first 7-minute short — titled "The Pink Phink" — won an Academy Award for Cartoon Short Subject in 1965. It also marks the first time that an animation studio won an Oscar with its first short.
The Jetsons got some of its future predictions right
Although it's true that people still don't have flying cars or personal robot maids in the 2020s, there are nonetheless a few areas in which The Jetsons showed some impressive foresight. For the most part, its accurate predictions concern things that weren't commonplace in the American home yet but would be by the 21st Century.
Some examples included flat-screen televisions, the contents of newspapers being read on a screen, video chats, tanning beds, and home treadmills. Most impressively, The Jetsons predicted that people would have to deal with annoying computer viruses before the home computer was even close to becoming a reality.
Yogi Bear was also inspired by The Honeymooners
Hanna-Barbera famously created The Flintstones by transferring the central family and neighborhood dynamics of Jackie Gleason's legendary sitcom into the Stone Age. Although that wasn't quite how the same show inspired Yogi Bear, the influence is clearly there in its main character.
Just like Fred Flintstone had similar character traits to Ralph Kramden, Barney Rubble had a similar personality as his neighbor, Ed Norton. However, Yogi was even more directly inspired by Art Carney's famous character, as both his voice and the pushed-up brim of his hat were references to Norton.
The Flintstones blazed some surprising trails
Despite being clearly indebted to The Honeymooners, The Flintstones also made history in its own right. In one respect, it made future cartoon juggernauts like The Simpsons and Family Guy by being the first cartoon to be broadcast at prime time rather than in the traditional morning slots.
However, it also broke a boundary that had only been crossed in live-action TV programs before. In an era where some shows still had married couples sleeping in separate beds, The Flintstones marked the first time that a married couple shared a bed in a cartoon.
Japanese TV producers renamed Underdog to follow trends
Although there was no confusion about what the "U" on Underdog's chest stood for in the English-speaking world, there was an interesting coincidence at play that had TV executives in Japan seeing an opportunity. That's because a different term that starts with "U" was attached to multiple popular shows at the time.
By the time the Underdog cartoon found its way to Japan in 1967, both Ultra-Man and Ultra 7 were new sensations. As such, the U on Underdog's outfit presented the perfect opportunity to benefit from the naming trend and call him "Ultra Puppy."
Scooby-Doo was unwittingly perfected by Frank Sinatra
As The Los Angeles Times reported, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! was once a more general story about a group of teenagers (possibly in a rock band) encountering frights in a haunted house. Although they had a dog, there wasn't originally any intention to make him the main character.
However, inspiration struck CBS executive Fred Silverman while he was flying to the pitch meeting and listening to Frank Sinatra's "Strangers In The Night." Once Silverman heard Sinatra scat-sing "Scooby dooby doo," he made a snap decision that the famous dog would not only be named Scooby-Doo but have the whole show centered around him.
Rocky & Bullwinkle annoyed even its main sponsor
Although most of the cartoon's controversies feel almost silly today, Jay Ward's insistence on a satirical bent for the show frequently worried Rocky & Bullwinkle's biggest sponsor, General Mills. Executives from the cereal brand frequently feared retaliation from Walt Disney, the Roman Catholic Church, America's Italian and Greek communities, and others over various jokes and accents.
As Keith Scott wrote in The Moose That Roared, one storyline that caused particular friction explored the idea of Boris and Natasha crashing the world economy with counterfeit cereal box tops. Surprisingly, this only mildly bothered General Mills themselves, but it made the marketing agency DFA frantic out of concern that the outlandish prizes promised in the storyline would undermine their own promotional efforts.
Race Bannon somehow won a "Best Cartoon Mom" contest
According to Disney Adventures Volume 3 Issue 11, the Cartoon Network once held a viewer poll asking who the greatest cartoon mom of all time was. Although Jane Jetson and Wilma Flintstone were among the most popular choices in that poll, the winner turned out to be an unexpected dark horse.
Although Race Bannon was clearly a very masculine man — and his care was arguably a matter of professional duty as a bodyguard — the affection and emotional nurturing that he gave Jonny Quest nonetheless led viewers to conclude that he was the best mother that the world of cartoons had to offer. Even for 1993, that was a pretty progressive attitude.
"Meet The Flintstones" was originally a much different song
The first two seasons of The Flintstones didn't feature its now-iconic theme. In fact, MeTV explained that it was originally part of a tie-in children's album before it proved popular enough to introduce the show itself by Season 3. However, the version of the album is significantly different from what would air on TV.
Not only was it performed by the cartoon's cast, but it featured multiple verses, including one dedicated to the Rubble family. Moreover, it actually ends with Barney having the last word and singing, "Have a scooba-dooba-doo time" rather than a "yabba dabba doo time." Since Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! wasn't even an idea yet, that's quite the coincidence.
One character in The Alvin Show was funnier at the time
One could argue that Alvin's antics on The Alvin Show are timeless, as is the humor children would have seen in watching absent-minded professor Clyde Crashcup bungle his experiments in wacky new ways. However, there was one aspect of this character that parents in the '60s may have laughed more about than their children.
That's because Crashcup's appearance — and especially his voice — was based on character actor Richard Haydn's performance as Edwin Carp on The Charlie McCarthy Show, which starred a popular ventriloquist act. Since that show ended in 1956, some children were likely too young to remember it.
The Spider-Man theme's popularity didn't help its artists
Even among those who have never seen Spider-Man's first animated series in the '60s, the cartoon's theme song remains iconic. However, the unfortunate truth is that for the artists behind the song, its enduring popularity doesn't make a lot of difference.
According to American Songwriter, the theme was written by Paul Francis Webster and Bob Harris, the first of whom received three Academy Awards and a total of 15 nominations for his film compositions. It was recorded in Toronto, Canada, by the Billy Van Singers and the Laurie Bower Singers, which meant that 12 vocalists were involved. However, it wouldn't have mattered if the song never caught on from their perspective, as the singers were only paid for the session and received no residuals.
There's a reason Popeye looked different in every cartoon
Although the surprising popularity of the theatrical Popeye cartoons of the past compelled King Features to produce a line of TV animations quickly, the company had one persistent problem. As Fred M. Grandinetti wrote in Popeye The Sailor: The 60s TV Cartoons, King Features didn't have their own animation studio.
Although the theatrical cartoons were made by Paramount Cartoon Studios, they turned out to be only one of six animation studios the copyright holder would work with. Since there were so many cooks making the proverbial broth here, both the style and quality of the animation varied from episode to episode.
Wacky Races owed its existence to a then-recent movie
Although the magic of cartoons is such that the cars in Wacky Races could pull off incredible feats to turn the tide of their competition, its source material was already wacky enough to seem like a cartoon. That's because the concept and especially some of the cartoon's characters are based on the 1965 movie The Great Race.
In it, Natalie Wood plays a Southern belle in a pink racing suit named Maggie DuBois, who served as an obvious inspiration for Penelope Pitstop. Wacky Races' famous villain, Dick Dastardly, was based on Jack Lemmon's character, Professor Fate. Although he's just a giggling dog, Muttley was nonetheless based on Fate's sidekick, Peter Falk's Maximilian Meen.
Phone numbers are a little anachronistic in The Jetsons
In the Jetsons episode, "The Vacation," a randomized phone call from game show host Gus Guesser confirms that George Jetson's phone number is "VENUS-1234." Although younger viewers may assume the show created an alien-seeming phone system, those who remember when the cartoon aired have likely been hit with a wave of nostalgia.
That's because this system that included words in phone numbers was the standard way phones worked from the 1930s to the mid-60s. Phone numbers start with the person's location and then progress into a series of numbers. So, while the fact that George is apparently orbiting Venus is futuristic, Venus's phone system is quite retro.
Scooby-Doo was once a different dog with an awful name
Although Scooby-Doo wasn't always supposed to be the star of his show, The Independent reported that he was always supposed to be involved in his friends' adventures. However, both he and his name would have been completely unrecognizable from the dog we all know and love.
Not only was he originally supposed to be a fluffy sheepdog, but his name was supposed to be Too Much. Changing him to a Great Dane helped establish his iconic look, but the name was the key change. Scooby-Doo is not only a much better name but also much easier to recognize as a dog's name.
Snagglepuss was originally a villain with a different name
Viewers who saw Snagglepuss on The Yogi Bear Show or Laffalympics would likely have a hard time picturing him as a villainous character, considering his nervous mannerisms and wholesome catchphrases like "heavens to Murgatroyd!" However, that's precisely how he was introduced on Quick Draw McGraw.
Although he still had his iconic voice and familiar phrases, Snagglepuss was originally a sheep rustler with orange fur named Snaggletooth. He also had no compunction against shooting Quick Draw McGraw, which would certainly be jarring for those familiar with his later incarnations.
Speed Racer's title was much more clever in Japanese
Although its Western name is decidedly generic, the original Japanese version of Speed Racer was titled with an elaborate pun that works on four levels. For those who are unaware, the show was called Mach GoGoGo. So, what's so clever about that?
It's true that the title is telling Speed Racer to "go," but that barely scratches the surface. His car was called the Mach 5, and the Japanese word for five is "go," which accounts for one of the "gos." Another of them is a reference to the fact that Speed Racer's name is Go Mifune, which means the title is essentially saying, "Go, Mach Go that's driven by Go." Moreover, "go go go" is a common Japanese onomatopoeia for the sound of tires hitting a track.
Rocky And Bullwinkle's voice cast was in the hot seat
Due to the daring satirical bent of his show and the wild publicity stunts he imagined to promote it, it was likely fair to say that Rocky & Bullwinkle producer Jay Ward developed a reputation as an eccentric during the '60s. However, it seemed that was no less true of the environment he created while producing the show.
As a report from Tulsa World suggested, some of the voice cast had a habit of reading their lines and monologues too slowly. So Borid Badenov voice actor Paul Frees got the idea to set the bottom of Hans Conreid's script on fire to motivate him to read faster. Apparently, it worked.
Jonny Quest was doomed no matter how well it did
Considering how aggressively its episodes were re-run over the years, it may come as a surprise to some to learn that there were only 26 episodes of the original Jonny Quest series. That's because the show only stayed on the air for a season before its cancellation.
Unlike other properties that got a second life in syndication, this wasn't because Jonny Quest was unpopular at the time. According to Doux Reviews, it both received respectable ratings and significant critical acclaim. Unfortunately, those accolades don't matter as much when every episode of a show goes over budget. Since Jonny Quest's production costs ran up quickly, the only option was to cancel it.
Mel Blanc had to record some of Barney's lines bedridden
According to MeTV, Mel Blanc was involved in a car accident on January 24, 1961, that nearly claimed his life. Despite this, however, it only took a six-week stay in a UCLA hospital before he was able to return to work as the voice of Barney Rubble on The Flintstones.
However, he had to do so from bed, as he would remain in a body cast for an additional 90 days. Nonetheless, his son Noel was able to set up the recording equipment that two semi trucks from the studio brought to Blanc's home and created a makeshift recording booth for Blanc.
Underdog was an instant but short-lived sensation
According to Architectural Digest, a giant balloon bearing the likeness of Underdog first appeared in New York City's famous Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1965. What made that so incredible is that it took less than a year after his cartoon even debuted before he became a popular enough character to inspire the float.
Paradoxically, that float would end up having a more enduring presence in America than the cartoon itself. Although the Underdog cartoon was canceled in 1967, it wouldn't be until 1984 that his balloon was retired from the parade after almost 20 years as a regular and beloved fixture of the festivities.
The Green Goblin was much different in the '60s cartoon
Comic fans understand that the Green Goblin is the villainous alter-ego of Norman Osbourne, but that's not who he is in the first Spider-Man animated series. Instead, he's a mythological demon who was discovered in an ancient sarcophagus by a film crew.
That was Stan Lee's original conception of the Green Goblin, which Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko vetoed while the two men developed the original Spider-Man comics. However, since Ditko wasn't involved in the animated series, Lee had free reign to envision the villain however he wanted.
Wacky Races was originally going to be a game show
As Jared Bahir Browsh wrote in Hanna-Barbera: A History, Wacky Races was originally imagined as the animated portion of a game show that saw contestants in the studio bet on the racer they expected to win. For CBS executive Fred Silverman, however, the appeal of the show was much simpler.
As far as he was concerned, the races in Wacky Races weren't entertaining because of how they ended, but due to interactions between the wide collection of characters involved. Once the characters became the focus of the show, the game show angle was dropped.
The Jetsons all but predicted MTV with their own teen idol
As S. Annett wrote in Anime Fan Communities: Transcultural Flows and Frictions, The Jetsons' hit-miss track record for predicting the future was edged further to the side of prescience by the episode "A Date With Jet Screamer." The titular character is a popular young musician with whom Judy Jetson becomes enamored.
During one scene, Judy invites her friends over to dance the "Solar Swivel" along with Jet Screamer's music video. Although the writers likely based this conception on how teens of the '50s reacted to seeing Elvis on The Ed Sullivan Show, they nonetheless predicted that artists would one day promote their music with their own music videos. They also predicted that someone would find a way to air those videos on TV regularly decades before MTV existed.
Carl Sagan considered Scooby-Doo a "public service"
Although it was unusual to see a prominent public figure dedicate praise to a children's cartoon for much of the 20th Century, renowned astrophysicist and Cosmos host Carl Sagan made an insightful statement about the value of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!
According to The Atlantic, he praised the show for encouraging skepticism and reaching evidence-based conclusions among young minds. As he put it, the fact that "paranormal claims are systematically investigated, and every case is found to be explicable in prosaic terms" made the show a public service.
Speed Racer's dialogue was weird due to circumstance
When Speed Racer is parodied in other media, it's common for people to make fun of the rushed, stilted line deliveries and confusing, exposition-heavy dialogue. As the Japan Times reported, however, this was due to the enormous pressure on writer/director Peter Fernandez.
In addition to these duties, Fernandez voiced Speed Racer himself. Not only did he have to distill the surprisingly complicated plots of the original Japanese animation into digestible dialogue, but he didn't have much time to do it. Since he only had two days to write each episode's script and one day to record everyone's voices, it's amazing the show was as coherent as it was.
Rocky & Bullwinkle has a connection to The Addams Family
For those who are unaware, The Addams Family's name is a reference to Charles Addams, a cartoonist who regularly worked for The New Yorker. His gloomy character designs in one of these cartoons proved so captivating that the characters of Morticia and Gomez Addams were written around them.
However, it turns out that The Addams Family wasn't the only TV show inspired by those designs. Although the designs were interpreted very differently in Rocky & Bullwinkle's case, it's still not hard to notice their similarity to Boris Badenov and Natasha Fatale, the moose and squirrel's recurring antagonists.
Spider-Man's voice cast was almost flying blind
Considering that only 40 issues of The Amazing Spider-Man existed by the time the comic was adapted into an animated series, the show had its sharing of growing pains. And since the show changed villain origin stories and gave Spider-Man a catchphrase he hasn't used before or since ("walloping web snappers"), even fans of those comics wouldn't know what to expect from it.
However, it seems that was just as true for the voice cast. As Spider-Man's actor, Paul Soles, told CTV News, he didn't get to see any of the show's animations before he recorded his lines. Instead, only the script and some drawings gave him any idea of how he was supposed to react to a given situation.
Speed Racer's original manga explains a plot hole
When people watch cartoons for long enough, it's hard not to start asking logical questions. The most common among them ponders how Wile E. Coyote is able to afford all the contraptions he orders to catch the Roadrunner. For American audiences, a similar question centered around Speed Racer's girlfriend Trixie.
How can she afford her own helicopter, and where did she learn to fly one? Although the show never answered these questions, the Japanese comic book (or manga) that it was based on answered both in one fell swoop. As it turns out, Trixie's father is the CEO of Shimura Aviation, which would explain her training and her funding.
Wacky Races was intended as a spin-off factory
Jared Bahir Browsh wrote in Hanna-Barbera: A History CBS executive Fred Silverman had a Trojan Horse-like conception for Wacky Races once the show was ironed out. In addition to being an entertaining show, Wacky Races was supposed to serve as market research for its own characters.
Once a character proved popular, they would quickly get their own spin-offs. This resulted in the shows Dastardly And Muttley In Their Flying Machines and The Perils Of Penelope Pitstop. Although these ill-fated cartoons only lasted a season apiece, Silverman was later able to perfect the formula behind them with Maude and The Jeffersons, the successful spin-offs of All In The Family.
