Snagglepuss

For other uses, see Snagglepuss (disambiguation).

Snagglepuss
The Yogi Bear Show character
Snagglepuss's Title Card
First appearance	The Quick Draw McGraw Show (1959)
Created by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Voiced by	Daws Butler
Information
Aliases	Snaggletooth
Species	Animated mountain lion
Gender	male
Relatives	Yogi Bear Quick Draw McGraw

Snagglepuss is a Hanna-Barbera cartoon character created in 1959, a pink anthropomorphic mountain lion voiced by Daws Butler. He is best known for his famous catchphrase, "Heavens to Murgatroyd!", along with phrases such as "Exit, stage left!" Snagglepuss was originally known as "Snaggletooth" (a pink lion precursor).

Summary

Snagglepuss first appeared in several episodes of The Quick Draw McGraw Show and became a regular segment on The Yogi Bear Show, starring in a total of 32 episodes. (See the list of episodes.) He also appeared in other Hanna-Barbera series such as Yogi's Gang in 1973, as a co-host for Laff-A-Lympics in 1977 and 1978, Yogi's Treasure Hunt in 1985 and as a teenager on Yo Yogi! in 1991.

Snagglepuss lives in a cavern, which he constantly tries to make more habitable for himself. No matter what he does, however, he always winds up back where he started or worse off than he was before. In some episodes, Snagglepuss is chased by Major Minor (voiced by Don Messick), a tiny-sized hunter, whose chases seem similar to the ones which involve Elmer Fudd and Bugs Bunny (which was hardly a coincidence, since most of the scripts were created by Michael Maltese, one of Warner Bros. Cartoons' key writers in the '40s and '50s).

In his earliest roles, before getting his own cartoons, Snagglepuss was orange instead of pink and occasionally called "Snaggletooth". Confusion reigns in part because his first appearance, Lamb Chopped (an early Quick Draw McGraw short), actually calls him Snagglepuss but has him refer to an unseen "Snaggletooth" as his brother.

Character

Butler's voice characterization is reminiscent of the more soft-spoken aspect of Bert Lahr's broad-ranging characterizations, specifically the Cowardly Lion in the 1939 MGM movie The Wizard of Oz. (Coincidentally, William Hanna and Joseph Barbera headed the MGM cartoon studio on the Tom and Jerry anthology before opening Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1957.)

Snagglepuss has three signature catchphrases. Before dashing off (whether to escape or for some other reason), he exclaims "Exit, stage left!" (or stage right, and sometimes even up or down), a phrase used in theatrical stage directions. Snagglepuss typically appends the adverbial focus particle "... even" to synonyms (instead of the more commonly used "[concept A]; [concept B, which tops concept A and/or includes but is not limited to concept A] even" format). His most famous is his perpetual exclamation, "Heavens to Murgatroyd!" - a line first uttered by Bert Lahr in the 1944 film Meet the People.

When the character of Snagglepuss was used for a series of Kellogg's cereal television commercials in the 1960s, Lahr filed a lawsuit, claiming that the similarity of the Snagglepuss voice to his own might cause viewers to falsely conclude that Lahr was endorsing the product. As part of the settlement, the disclaimer "Snagglepuss voice by Daws Butler" was required to appear on each commercial, thus making Butler one of the few voice artists to receive a screen credit in a TV commercial.

Titles

1. Major Operation
2. Feud for Thought
3. Live and Lion
4. Fraidy Cat Lion
5. Lions Share Sheriff
6. Cagey Lion
7. Royal Ruckus
8. The Roaring Lion
9. Paws for Applause
10. Knight and Daze
11. The Gangsters All Here
12. Having a Bowl
13. Diaper Desperado
14. Arrow Error
15. Twice Shy
16. Cloak and Stagger
17. Remember Your Lions
18. Remember the Daze
19. Express Trained Lion
20. Jangled Jungle
21. Lion Tracks
22. Fight Fright
23. Spring Hits a Snag
24. Legal Eagle Lion
25. Don't Know It Poet
26. Tail Wag Snag
27. Rent and Rave
28. Footlight Fright
29. One Two Many
30. Royal Rodent
31. Be My Ghost
32. Charge That Lion

Other appearances

• Snagglepuss appeared in Yogi's Ark Lark and Yogi's Gang. In Yogi's Gang, he is often referred to as a tiger and not a mountain lion.
• Snagglepuss acted as a co-host with Mildew Wolf from the Cattanooga Cats segment "It's the Wolf" on Laff-A-Lympics.
• Snagglepuss was a regular in Yogi's Treasure Hunt.
• In the "Fender Bender 500" segment of Wake, Rattle, and Roll, Snagglepuss (voiced by Greg Burson) was paired up with Huckleberry Hound as they drove a monster truck called the Half-Dog, Half-Cat, Half-track; it resembled a portable stage, which was perfectly appropriate for both Huck and Snag.
• Snagglepuss appeared in three television films which were part of the Hanna-Barbera Superstars 10 series:
  • Yogi's Great Escape
  • Yogi Bear and the Magical Flight of the Spruce Goose
  • The Good, the Bad, and Huckleberry Hound
• Snagglepuss also appeared in the animated specials Yogi's First Christmas and Casper's First Christmas.
• Snagglepuss was featured as a teenager in Yo Yogi! again voiced by Greg Burson.
• Snagglepuss was seen in a Cartoon Network Rap in 1995.
• In The Simpsons episode Lady Bouvier's Lover, Comic Book guy shows Bart a cel of Snagglepuss to show a cel that's worth something, as opposed to the cel of Scratchy's arm Bart was trying to sell to him.
• In Drawn Together Snagglepuss is featured in the episode "Gay Bash" but his face is blurred, referencing how strangers are blurred on reality programs.
• In the My Life as a Teenage Robot episode "Bradventure", Snagglepuss (voiced by Tom Kenny) made a cameo appearance along with Sylvester.
• Snagglepuss recently made two cameos in a MetLife commercial in 2012, titled "Everyone". In a behind the scenes video, Snagglepuss acts and rehearses in front of the director of the ad, only for the director to tell him he does not have any speaking roles in the ad, and in response, Snagglepuss storms out of the trailer.
• On a segment of Weekend Update on Saturday Night Live, Season 34: Episode 8, November 15, 2008, Bobby Moynihan appeared in costume as Snagglepuss to comment on California's ban on gay marriage. During the segment Snagglepus is outed by anchor Seth Meyers, and then confesses that his domestic partner is fellow Hanna-Barbera cartoon character The Great Gazoo who also makes a cameo.

See also

• List of Hanna-Barbera characters
• List of works produced by Hanna-Barbera
• The Yogi Bear Show

External links

• Toonopedia: Snagglepuss
• Big Cartoon DataBase: Snagglepuss
• Wingnut Toons: List of episodes
• TV Acres: Snagglepuss
• The Cartoon Scrapbook – Information and details on Snagglepuss.