American TV series or program
The Beagles
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Genre
| Animation
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Voices of
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Narrated by
| Kenny Delmar
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Country of origin
| United States
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Original language
| English
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No.
of series
| 1
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No.
of episodes
| 36
(
list of episodes
)
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Producer
| Joe Harris
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Running time
| 30 minutes
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Production company
| Total Television Productions
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Network
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Release
| September 10, 1966
(
1966-09-10
)
?
September 2, 1967
(
1967-09-02
)
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The Beagles
is a Saturday morning
animated television series
that aired on
CBS
from September 10, 1966, to September 2, 1967.
[1]
The show was produced by
Total Television
, which created
King Leonardo and His Short Subjects
,
Tennessee Tuxedo and His Tales
, and
Underdog
. 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.
[2]
It was also the last animated series produced by Total Television before it was dissolved in 1969.
Inspiration
[
edit
]
It is widely assumed that the show drew inspiration from the rock band
the Beatles
, 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
.
[3]
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.
The Beagles
were different from
The Beatles
in that
The Beagles
were a duo rather than a
quartet
and both members were
anthropomorphic
dogs. Stringer (voiced by
Sandy Becker
impersonating
Dean Martin
), the tall one, played
guitar
, while Tubby (voiced by
Allen Swift
impersonating
Jerry Lewis
), short, fat and wearing
spectacles
, played
stand-up bass
. They often got into trouble as a result of
publicity stunts
planned by their manager, a
Scottish terrier
named Scotty (also voiced by Swift).
Episodes
[
edit
]
Cancellation
[
edit
]
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
. The films had apparently been shipped by mistake to
Producers Associates of Television
,
General Mills
' 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
[
edit
]
External links
[
edit
]
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First-run
animated series
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First-run
live-action series
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Rebroadcasts
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Related
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