My Latest Acquisitions!

HUGE collector of early Hanna-Barbera memorabilia here.  Huge collector.  I’ve got all the old toys and games and Little Golden Books and cigar bands and everything else, so what’s left to collect but vintage animation art? Nothing, that’s what!

Below is a trio of particularly magnificent pieces I picked up from one of those scumbag animation dealers – a hand-painted title card, a pan background and a hand-inked production cel on its matching background all from the same cartoon. Whoa. I know, right? Since it’s no longer the mid-1990s and original animation art is worthless again, I paid thirty bucks for the lot and that bastard – some asshole from Long Island – was damn lucky to get it.

The art is from a rarely seen cartoon where Sheriff “Ping-Ping-Piiing!” Ricochet Rabbit tries to keep notorious terrorist “Pecos Nabil” (accused of using “dirty bombs on innocent townfolk – and they was wearin’ their Sunday best!”) in custody until government agents can pick him up and try him in federal court.

Title card by Alex Lovydovy.

Desert background by Thomas Dick.

It’s the rare Ricochet Rabbit outing where the cartoon ends with the villain having gotten the best of the hyperactive good guy, but they exist. In this one, writer Warren Fester was apparently married to the idea of Nabil (Daw Sputler, in his best generic bad guy voice) yelling “Allie Akbar, an’ stuff like that there!” while triumphantly hoisting Ricochet’s decapitated head in the air.

Production cel on matching background.

Still, the lupine lawman gets the last word when his deputy drawls “Don’t lose your head, Mister Ricochet!” and the disembodied noggin responds with – what else? – “Too late, Droop! Toooooo late!” accompanied by a little five second musical sting back-timed from the end of Jack Shindig’s magnificent opus for kazoo and glockenspiel,  TL#26374-J “Tapioca Sideshow.”

For you obsessive types, here’s the whole cartoon broke down, you know, musical-like:

0:00 – Ricochet Rabbit Sub Main Title Theme (Drape).
0:13 –  PALSIED MOVEMENT (Loose-Stooly) – Opening narration – Don Sic’em.
0:33 – LAF-6-9 DIDDLING PIXIES (Shindig) – Close-up of Ricochet and Droopalong relaxing in jail office, to explosion.
2:22 – PH-7753 WHORE ON THE CORNER (Shindig) – Ricochet / Pecos Nabil chase scene, “I’ll put a fatwa on your fat head!”
3:08 – LBGT-77-4 LIGHT IN THE LOAFERS (Shindig) – Nabil checking map, “Gotta make sure I’m facin’ Mesa!”
4:16 – P-4456 SLEIGHRIDE CONCUSSION (Less) – Ricochet lays prayer mat over hole at edge of cliff.
4:54 – PBBT-3-2 TRUMPET FART PARADE (Shindig) – Nabil kneels, plummets down, “I ain’t goin’ back to…  Guantanamohhhhhhhhh!”
5:30 –  YV-667-2 MONOTONOUS WHIMSY (Shaarkrau?) – Pan across desert to Droop and Ricochet having pulled dresses onto dozens of saguaro cacti. “Well, Mister Ricochet, that makes seventy-two. I shore hope your idea works!”
6:25 – JG-647 MOTORBOAT TRAGEDY (Loose-Stooly) – Nabil isn’t fooled, laughs at Ricochet: “You forgot the hijabs, you hijerk!”
6:48 – TERMINAL FRIVOLITY (Chartreuse) – “Before I finish you off, to show you I ain’t all bad, I offer you salam.”  “I ain’t hungry!” Machete chop sfx, Ricochet/Droop exchange, iris out.
6:55 – Ricochet Rabbit Sub End Title theme (Drape)

Don’t worry, gang – he’ll be back, intact, in the next cartoon, probably called “Pest of the West” or something!

Posted by Ted on November 14, 2013, 3:04 AM.