Snagglepuss

Snagglepuss
File:Snagglepuss.jpg Snagglepuss's Title Card
Genre	Comedy
Created by	Hanna-Barbera
Directed by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Starring	Snagglepuss
Voices of	Daws Butler
Country of origin	United States
Original language	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	32 (list of episodes)
Production
Producers	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Running time	7 Minutes Per Short
Production company	Hanna-Barbera Productions
Original release
Network	First-Run Syndication
Release	January 30 (1961-01-30) – December 30, 1961 (1961-12-30)
Related
The Yogi Bear Show

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 right!"

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.

In his earliest roles, before getting his own cartoons, Snagglepuss was orange instead of pink and occasionally called "Snaggletooth", though not always. 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.

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 seemingly every phrase. 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.

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 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 TV-movies 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 other languages

• Spanish: El león Melquíades
• Portuguese: Leao da Montanha
• French: Alcibiade
• Italian: Svicolone

Snagglepuss in popular culture

• Snagglepuss appeared together with Elmer Fudd on the Drawn Together episode "Gay Bash" voiced by Chris Edgerly.
• Snagglepuss has made various non-speaking appearances in episodes of Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law.
• Snagglepuss is a track on John Zorn's Naked City.
• The Snagglepuss catchphrase "Heavens to Murgatroyd!" was used at the beginning of the song "Storm in a Teacup" by the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
• An album by British garage rock band Thee Headcoats is entitled Heavens To Murgatroyd Even! It's Thee Headcoats!
• Snagglepuss was often mentioned and impersonated on Whose Line is it Anyway?, primarily by Chip Esten and Colin Mochrie.
• Snagglepuss appears on the Robot Chicken episode "Ban on the Fun," voiced by Victor Yerrid. In a segment that parodies the Laff-A-Lympics in the style of the Munich massacre, he reports on TV about the death of some of its competitors.
• In the movie Hackers, Cereal Killer comments that a hack by Dade Murphy was "superhero-like, even!" in a Snagglepuss voice.
• Canadian rockers Rush titled their 1981 live album Exit...Stage Left. According to drummer Neil Peart, they wanted to have Snagglepuss's tail on the cover, but could not due to licensing issues.
• In the film The Broken Hearts Club (starring Dean Cain, centering on twenty-something gay men) one of the characters "outs" Snagglepuss with an opinion that he's "the first gay cartoon character".
• In Batman #613 Harley Quinn, while fighting Catwoman on the stage at the opera, exclaims, "Heavens to Murgatroyd, exit stage left!" Likewise, her love interest, The Joker, uses "Heavens to Murgatroyd" in Batman: Cacophony (written by Kevin Smith, who named his daughter Harley Quinn Smith after the character.)
• In a Yakky Doodle cartoon, The Witch references Snagglepuss by Saying "Like my old friend Snagglepuss always says, 'Exit, stage left!'"
• Bobby Moynihan appeared as Snagglepuss on the "Weekend Update" segment of the November 15, 2008 episode of Saturday Night Live. "Snagglepuss" appeared as a guest to discuss the passing of California's Proposition 8, an anti-gay marriage proposition. Snagglepuss "came out" during his appearance. He also announced that his lover was another Hanna-Barbera character from The Flintstones - "The Great Gazoo" (played by Will Forte).
• Snagglepuss was the moniker of a Jamaican dancehall DJ in the late 1980s / early 1990s, whose specialty was a voiceover that replicated the cartoon character's voice.
• The gangsta rapper WC in the song "Put On Tha Set" off the CD Curb Servin', raps in a Snagglepuss voice: "Heavens to merkatroids, I'm looped! I'm tripping!"
• Rapper Tech N9ne refers to the classic Snagglepuss catchphrase "Heavens to Murgatroyd!" in the song "Ghetto Love" from his 2009 Sickology 101 album.
• Rapper Snagglepuss guest performs on Brand Nubian's 1994 album Everything is Everything in the song Step Into Da Ciper.

See also

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

External links

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