Time to get your giggles on, Groove-0philes! Here's Gold Key's final Where's Huddles? tale (they'd published 3 issues in1971), "The Buffoon of Lake Lagoon" from Hanna-Barbera Fun-In #9 (July 1971). Where's Huddles? was a shot by H/B to regain their prime-time audience--an audience that they hadn't enthralled in half a decade. Huddles wound up being a short-lived "summer replacement show" made memorable by the voice acting of greats like Mel Blanc, Jean Vander Pyl, and Paul Lynde. The premise, pretty much a modern-day Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble as pro football players was way out there--way enough out that it should have clicked, but it didn't. Still, Ol' Groove has fond memories of the show, and the comics were well-done. They certainly give you a good idea of the look and spirit of this long-forgotten show. (Speaking of looks, wonder why they made Ed Huddles look like Walter Matthau?)
It wasn't really so unusual to have the character seem like Matthau. Let's face it, previous H-B shows starred ""Phil Silvers," "Art Carney.""Jimmy Durante," etc. The only difference is that those characters were animals, not human.
ReplyDeleteAfter 15 years as a character actor, Walter Matthau had burst out as a star and was extremely popular at that time. IT made sense they would do SOME celeb and who better for this particular role than Walter?
Yeah, I know H-B used celebrities as characters, and I know Matthau was popular at the time, but I just don't picture him as a football player (not even a middle-aged one). Seemed that all of the choices H-B used up to that point made sense, but this one didn't click for me. Joe Namath, yes, Walter Matthau--not so much.
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