****
Edited by Azizi Powell
Latest Edition - October 31, 2024
This pancocojams post presents information about the early 1960s King Leonardo* cartoon series.
This post also showcases three examples of those cartoons as well as some comments from those cartoon's YouTube discussion threads.
The content of this post is presented for historical, entertainment, and cultural purposes.
All copyrights remain with their owners.
Thanks to all those who were associated with these cartoons. Thanks also to all those who are quoted in this post and thanks to the publishers of these videos on YouTube.
-snip-
The words "King of Bongo Congo" words are given in parenthesis as they weren't part of the title of these cartoons. Instead, that's how I remember referring to these cartoons.
"Here comes Leonardo, Leonardo lion
The king of Bongo Congo
A hero brave and strong"
The words "the King of Bongo Congo" may also be one way that other people around my age (76 years old) such as former United States President Donald Trump, who is 78 years old, remember those cartoons.
Click https://pancocojams.blogspot.com/2024/10/donald-trumps-inclusion-of-congo-among.html for a related pancocojams post entitled "Donald Trump's Inclusion Of "The Congo" Among The Places He Alleges Are Sending Prisoners To Illegally Enter The United States."
"King Leonardo and his Short Subjects was an animated cartoon
series released in 1960 by Total Television (which would later rename itself
Leonardo Productions after the main character of this show).
The show focused on Leonardo, a lion, who was the inept yet well-meaning king of the fictional African nation of Bongo Congo, and his incompetent brother Itchy's attempts to overthrow Leonardo and rule the kingdom himself along with his friend (and leader) Biggie Rat, a gangster with an Edward G. Robinson-type accent. They were later both employed by Mr. Mad, a mad scientist with a domineering personality (easily cowing even the strong-willed Biggie) and his own nefarious plans for Bongo Congo, not to mention a creepy echoing voice.
Leonardo was assisted by Odie Cologne, a mild-mannered skunk (on the theme song he was referred to as "Odio Cologne").
Each half-hour episode of King Leonardo consisted of three segments, the King Leonardo segment, Tooter Turtle, about the adventures of a turtle who has a wizard lizard transport him to various settings only to realize he was better off at home, and Twinkles the Elephant. The main purpose of this segment was to advertise Twinkles Cereal, a product of the show's chief sponsor General Mills. This segment would be removed when the show was syndicated during the 1980s.
Leonardo cartoons were also sometimes paired up with The Hunter, a cartoon about a Southern-accented crime-fighting bloodhound who (while also behaving like Foghorn Leghorn including the Senator Claghorn jokes) often chased after an evil fox, on Total TV's more popular series Underdog. In addition,non-Total Television animated shorts were aired on the program which included The Fox and the Crow and Li'l Abner produced by Frank Tashlin for Columbia Pictures/Screen Gems.
King Leonardo and his Short Subjects was part of NBC's Saturday Morning lineup until 1963.
The animation for this show was produced by Gamma Productions, the same Mexican studio that did much of the work for Jay Ward.
The similar animation style and the fact that King Leonardo shorts have often been packaged with Jay Ward shows such as Rocky and Bullwinkle and George of the Jungle in syndication have led many viewers to believe that it is a Ward show.
King Leonardo never attained the popularity of Total Television's other series, Underdog and Tennessee Tuxedo, and is hardly ever aired on television today. As of July 30, 2006, the Black Family Channel is airing this show on it's "BFC Kids TV" block.
The characters of this show were also featured in an eight-issue comic book produced by Dell Comics and Gold Key.
Cast
Jackson Beck - Leonardo, Biggie Rat, Professor Messer
Allen Swift - Odie, Itchy, Duke, Earl, Tooter Turtle,
Narrator
Sandy Becker - Mr. Wizard
Kenny Delmar - Mr. Mad, The Hunter, Narrator".
[...]
Some of this page is derived from Wikipedia. The original article was at King Leonardo and His Short Subjects. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WikiFur, the text of Wikipedia is available under CC-BY-SA and the GFDL."
SELECTED COMMENTS FROM SHOWCASE CARTOON #1
1. @richardranke3158, 2022
"Thanks a lot for the second story of King Leonardo. This first came on when I was in first grade.:-)"
**
Reply
2. @raymondyorysh7401, 2024
"5:18 The Hunter introduction with King Leonardo and Odie Cologne."
-snip-
These are two of the three comments that are found in this discussion thread (as of Oct. 30, 2024 at 9:57 AM EDT).
SHOWCASE CARTOON #2 - 105 - The King and Odie - Theme Song
Bongo Congo, November 22, 2018
-snip-
Here are some comments from this cartoon's YouTube discussion thread (with numbers added for referencing purposes only) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIViBySfOPk
"Notice good King Leonardo hoppin' and boppin' around to the theme song! As he's dodging bullets, it looks like he's dancing in rhythm and when he's climbing down the ladder, it looks like he's wiggling his butt left and right to the song."
**
Reply
2. @RoninCatholic, 2022
" "True Blue Odie" was actually colored blue in the clip lined up with that line, even though normally he's supposed to be black. I can't even tell how intentional that is given the budget and schedule these kinds of cartoons were made under - it might've been an animation error, it might've been trying to compensate for visual readability issues (as black-heavy character designs tend to run into, I know from experience), and it might've been coincidence that this clip was chosen to run under that line or it might've just been making the best use of a gaffe that already happened."
**
Reply
3. @arqivist2077, 2024
"After the original network run of King Leonardo And His Short Subjects, a syndicated version of the show, The King And Odie, was prepared with the addition of newly produced episodes. Between the old and new episodes they streamlined the design and animation of the characters, and I guess they couldn’t afford to have the painters waste all their black ink on Odie, so they gave him a dark bluish grey color.
4.
"The theme song’s audio is actually taken from the 1960s
syndicated intro."
bullwinklecanada,
Here are some comments from this cartoon's YouTube discussion thread (with numbers added for referencing purposes only) :
1. @cd637299, 2013
"I went to bcdb[dot]com, The Big Cartoon Database, selected
Total TV (under "T" in Studios), and selected both King Leonardo
& Tenn. Tuxedo. *It* says that
indeed this episode was during TT, from 1963.
I sure would like to know more on this."
**
Reply
2. @cd637299, 2013
"Well from Barry's post, I gather then, that King & Odie
were *still* being produced while "Tenn. Tuxedo" was a brand new
show. I had always thought that K&O
were 100% reruns after TT debuted. Was I
wrong then? (If K&O were still being
made during TT, then this would actually be Season 4, as King Leonardo was its
own show from 1960-63. Now, where are
those Total TV copyright dates? :)"
3.@bullwinklecanada, 2013
"
**
Reply
4. @cd637299, 2013
"It looks like the last season of production, as the drawings
look a bit better than earlier ones.
And, since "Duke of Earl" was a big hit in 1962, the names
Duke & Earl would certainly date this at '62; any showing of King L in 1963
onward would be a rerun, right?"
**
Reply
5. @zltoonslc2000rj, 2023
"The theme song’s audio is actually taken from the 1960s
syndicated intro."
**
6. @MrVJ1062, 2020
"Notice good King Leonardo hoppin' and boppin' around to the
theme song! As he's dodging bullets, it looks like he's dancing in rhythm and
when he's climbing down the ladder, it looks like he's wiggling his butt left
and right to the song."
Reply
7. @bongocongo4360, 2024
"His Royal Majesty has a solid boogie beat."
**
8, @RoninCatholic, 2022
" "True Blue Odie" was actually colored blue in the
clip lined up with that line, even though normally he's supposed to be black. I
can't even tell how intentional that is given the budget and schedule these
kinds of cartoons were made under - it might've been an animation error, it
might've been trying to compensate for visual readability issues (as
black-heavy character designs tend to run into, I know from experience), and it
might've been coincidence that this clip was chosen to run under that line or
it might've just been making the best use of a gaffe that already happened."
**
Reply
9. @arqivist2077, 2024
"After the original network run of King Leonardo And His
Short Subjects, a syndicated version of the show, The King And Odie, was
prepared with the addition of newly produced episodes. Between the old and new
episodes they streamlined the design and animation of the characters, and I
guess they couldn’t afford to have the painters waste all their black ink on
Odie, so they gave him a dark bluish grey color."
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