My pal Earl Kress and I had a lovely chat last evening with Doggie Daddy. You remember Doggie Daddy: The Durante-style mutt who faithfully (often, thanklessly) raised his devoted son Augie in some of the funniest and warmest cartoons ever done for television. The late, great Daws Butler was cast as the voice of Augie…and all the other main characters on the 1959 Quick Draw McGraw show. But when it came time to record the adventures of Augie Doggie and his dear ol' Doggie Daddy, Daws decided doing all those segments of a Jimmy Durante impression would turn his throat to sandpaper and recommended another actor he knew. At least, that's the story the way we always heard it.
Recently, we tracked down the actor who played D.D. (and many other roles in early Hanna-Barbera cartoons) and his version was a wee bit different. Doug Young was a great performer on radio dramas, which is where he met Daws…maybe doing an episode of The Whistler or Lux Radio Theater. By '59, with radio drama a thing of the past, Young was out of show business. One day, he ran into Daws in a record shop and Daws said, in effect, "You ought to be working in front of a microphone again." So they went into Daws' home studio, put together a new demo tape…and that's how Doug Young became Doggie Daddy. I thought the result was one of the most memorable characterizations ever done for a TV cartoon. It may have started as a Durante knockoff but there was something warm and wonderful about the poppa pooch…so it was kind of thrilling to finally "meet" (albeit via telephone) the man behind the voice.
Doug was in H-B cartoons for much of the sixties — he was Hokey Wolf's loyal sidekick, Ding-a-Ling, Yippee in "Yippee, Yappee and Yahooey," plus he played tons of supporting roles on The Flintstones and other shows. In '68, he left Hollywood and now does some regional voice work in his home town. (Still sounds like he always did. He kept lapsing into Doggie Daddy muttering, "My son, my son…") He may be visiting Southern California later this year and if so, we're going to try to arrange a little reunion with some of his old friends from the cartoon voice business. He remembers them fondly and the feeling seems to be quite mutual. (A special thanks to another great vocal thespian, Frank Buxton, who put us in touch with Doug.)