Sunday, May 1, 2011

Daytime Heroes: Deputy Dawg (1960)

Terrytoons' Deputy Dawg first appeared in syndication in 1960 (Wikipedia claims it was 2 years later), and enjoyed a pretty healthy run, even though production ended in 1963.

The Deputy patrolled the bayou country somewhere in Mississippi (it was never stated exactly where), answering to a human Sheriff while keeping Vincent Van Gopher, Muskie Muskrat, Pig Newton, and the rest of the gang out of mischief. Occasionally, Deputy Dawg would be seen fishing for catfish with those same "varmints" he often had to apprehend for raiding hen houses and such.

Comic Dayton Allen provided most of the voices (Don Markstein's Toonopedia page credits Lionel Wilson with doing some incidental characters), as demonstrated in the episode, "Heat Wave", uploaded by Dwighttfrye to YouTube:



Deputy Dawg was picked up by NBC in 1971, presumably as a mid-season replacement, then went right back into syndication, which is where I first discovered him in the mid-70's, when the reruns aired on WSBK in Boston. The above clip was taken off a broadcast of the USA Cartoon Express. That cable run in the 80's proved to be the last hurrah for the Deputy, as he hasn't been seen since, likely because of perceptions of political incorrectness.

Rating: B.

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