''The Beagles'' is a Saturday morning animated television series that aired on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

from September 10, 1966, to September 2, 1967. The show was produced by

Total Television Total Television was an American animation studio founded in 1959 by Buck Biggers, Chester "Chet" Stover,p.478 Erickson,Hal ''Television Cartoon Shows: An Illustrated Encyclopedia, 1949 through 2003'' McFarland & Co., 2005 Joe Harris, and Trea ...

, which created ''

King Leonardo and His Short Subjects ''King Leonardo and His Short Subjects'' (also known as ''The King and Odie Show'') is a 1960–1963 American Saturday-morning animated television series that aired on NBC, sponsored by General Mills. It was created by Total Television (which wou ...

'', ''

Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales ''Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales'' is an animated television series that originally aired Saturday mornings on CBS from 1963 to 1966 as one of the earliest Saturday morning cartoons. It was produced by Total Television, the same company that pr ...

'', and ''

Underdog An underdog is a person or group in a competition, usually in sports and creative works, who is largely expected to lose. The party, team, or individual expected to win is called the favorite or top dog. In the case where an underdog wins, the ...

''. The show was cancelled by CBS after one season, despite finishing in the top 10 for Saturday mornings. It then went into reruns on ABC from September 9, 1967, to September 2, 1968. It was also the last animated series produced by Total Television before it went defunct in 1969.

Inspiration

It is widely assumed that the show drew inspiration from the rock band

the Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developmen ...

, based on the similarity of the show's name. The two characters in the band, Stringer and Tubby, were spoofs of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. However, the music they played bore no resemblance to anything Martin & Lewis performed, and was clearly derived from the popular music coming out of Britain at the time, as was the show's title. In 1966, small children watching cartoons on TV were unlikely to remember Martin & Lewis, who broke up ten years earlier. The original masters of this series are in the possession of TTV artist Joe Harris, according to an interview Harris did for the book ''Created and Produced by Total Television Productions'' by Mark Arnold. A soundtrack album, ''Here Come the Beagles'', was released on Columbia Records's Harmony offshoot in 1967. The single "Looking For The Beagles/I Want To Capture You" was released on Columbia, as Harmony did not release singles.

Bio

''The Beagles'' were different from

The Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developmen ...

in that ''The Beagles'' were a duo rather than a quartet and both members were anthropomorphic dogs. Stringer (voiced by

Sandy Becker George Sanford Becker (February 19, 1922 – April 9, 1996), who was known professionally as Sandy Becker, was an American television announcer, actor, and comedian who hosted several popular children's programs in New York City. The best known ...

impersonating Dean Martin), the tall one, played

guitar The guitar is a fretted musical instrument that typically has six strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strin ...

, while Tubby (voiced by

Allen Swift Ira Stadlen (January 16, 1924 – April 18, 2010), known professionally as Allen Swift, was an American voice actor, best known for voicing cartoon characters Simon Bar Sinister and Riff-Raff on the ''Underdog'' cartoon show. He took his pro ...

impersonating Jerry Lewis), short, fat and wearing

spectacles Glasses, also known as eyeglasses or spectacles, are vision eyewear, with lenses (clear or tinted) mounted in a frame that holds them in front of a person's eyes, typically utilizing a bridge over the nose and hinged arms (known as temples o ...

, played

stand-up bass The double bass (), also known simply as the bass () (or #Terminology, by other names), is the largest and lowest-pitched Bow (music), bowed (or plucked) string instrument in the modern orchestra, symphony orchestra (excluding unorthodox addit ...

. They often got into trouble as a result of

publicity stunt In marketing, a publicity stunt is a planned event designed to attract the public's attention to the event's organizers or their cause. Publicity stunts can be professionally organized, or set up by amateurs. Such events are frequently utilize ...

s planned by their manager, a

Scottish terrier The Scottish Terrier ( gd, Abhag Albannach; also known as the Aberdeen Terrier), popularly called the Scottie, is a breed of dog. Initially one of the highland breeds of terrier that were grouped under the name of ''Skye Terrier'', it is one ...

named Scotty (also voiced by Swift).

Segments

Episodes

Cancellation

According to Joe Harris, the editor of ''The Beagles'' died on the job and his widow threw out all the editing materials including the master negatives. The series was presumed lost; but the original negatives and tracks were found decades later in a warehouse owned by

Golden Books *Western Publishing (1907−2001) — , magazines, and {{C, Children's book publishers, children's books publisher, formerly based in Racine, Wisconsin Racine ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Racine County, Wisconsin, United States. It is ...

. The films had apparently been shipped by mistake to Producers Associates of Television,

General Mills General Mills, Inc., is an American multinational manufacturer and marketer of branded processed consumer foods sold through retail stores. Founded on the banks of the Mississippi River at Saint Anthony Falls in Minneapolis, the company orig ...

' TV film subsidiary, which owned all of Total Television's other series, and were only discovered after Golden Books had bought P. A.T.'s interests.

References

External links

Cast listing of first episode

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Beagles, The 1960s American animated television series 1960s American musical comedy television series 1966 American television series debuts 1967 American television series endings American Broadcasting Company original programming American children's animated comedy television series American children's animated musical television series Animated musical groups Animated television series about dogs English-language television shows CBS original programming Television series by Universal Television Total Television