TV Animation - 1969

- Ink on paper, plus digital work

- June 2024

These are animated cartoon characters that debuted on American television in 1969.

Left to right:

Frank Hardy - The Hardy Boys

Ardeth Pratt - Hot Wheels

Smokey Bear - The Smokey Bear Show

The Grump - Here Comes the Grump

Scooby-Doo & Shaggy - Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!

Caroline Wilson - Skyhawks

Country - Cattanooga Cats

A little background:

This particular year, Casey Kasem provided voice work for most of the seven cartoons listed here. Let's face it, the dude had a great voice. Also, it seemed as though cartoons were incorporating more of the rock style of the era. Hardy Boys, Scooby-Doo and Cattanooga Cats had a lot of that type of the then-modern music. Some of those characters were even in rock bands within the cartoons. The character designs were also reflecting that late-60s "hippie" style. I've noticed the clothing and music stuff continues into the cartoons of the 1970s. But those drawings will come later...

The Hardy Boys was Filmation's new series in 1969, loosely based on the popular book series. Here Come the Grump was the new DePatie-Freleng series that year. (They're best known for the Pink Panther cartoons.) As a side note, popular actor and comedian Rip Taylor did the voice of The Grump.

The Smokey Bear Show I thought was an interesting one. First, his name is actually "Smokey Bear". It's apparently been mistaken as "Smokey the Bear" all these years. Everybody's favorite forest fire safety character apparently wasn't even animated in the United States. Even though it's an American production studio, they outsourced the animation to Japan. I'll have to dig further into my research, but this might be one of the earliest instances of American studios outsourcing their TV animation. Nowadays, almost all American TV animation is produced somewhere in Asia. There's very little actual television animation done here in the United States anymore.

The toy company Mattel decided to get into the animation industry with Hot Wheels, loosely based on their toy cars, and also Skyhawks. Even though Jack was the main character in Hot Wheels, I thought his character design was boring and looked like all the other characters on TV. That's why I went with Ardeth instead. Her character design was more interesting than his.

Lastly, that leaves the Hanna-Barbera series': Cattanooga Cats and Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! Obviously Scooby-Doo was one of the studios best cartoons. Those characters have lasted all these decades later. Who DOESN'T love Scooby and Shaggy? Zoinks!

Thanks for taking the time to read this. If you want to see more, check out the "History of TV Animation" section of my gallery.