Someone put this up on YouTube and folks have been writing to ask me what, if anything, I know about it. In the immortal words of Master Sgt. Schultz, "I know nothing." Here is the clip about which I know nothing…
It's obviously a short presentation that Hanna-Barbera made around 1970 to try and sell some TV network on a prime-time animated series called Duffy's Dozen, all about a big family touring the United States. H-B usually didn't make presentations with this much actual animation in them. Joe Barbera was a wonderful salesperson and I suspect the thinking was that if you put him in a room with a buyer and he couldn't sell the thing with a few pieces of art and his natural charisma, it was unsellable.
But at this time in our nation's history, it was very tough to sell an animated series for prime time. Specials, yes but series, no. There hadn't been a real hit cartoon show on in the evenings for a while and sponsors weren't telling the networks, "Hey, we want to reach more cartoon watchers."
There was also the problem that a series needed more lead time than a live-action show. Let's say my live-action production company sold your network on a new half-hour sitcom and you order thirteen episodes…half a season. By the time we've delivered and you've aired six or so, you know if you have a hit. If you do and you want the other half of the first season, we can remain in production and get them to you without a gap. You'll have Show #14 a week after #13.
Now let's say it's animation. Animation requires more lead time, especially if we aren't going to go wildly overbudget. If you give us a pickup for thirteen more, we can't get Show #14 done in eight weeks and Show #15 the week after that and so on.
We need a lot more time. Show #14 might be done six months later, by which time the interest in the show might have cooled to the point of non-existence.
Also, there's this: When the live-action Happy Days started production, everyone at the network or at the studio who watched the first few said, "Hey, we need to see more of that Fonzie guy." They could decide this by watching rehearsals or filming or looking at rough cuts. So his role was enlarged before the first half-dozen were done and that had a lot to do with that show succeeding.
That kind of course correction doesn't happen in animation. By the time you see a rough cut of #1, the next dozen episodes will be too far down the assembly line to make any real changes on them. I've seen good cartoon shows and bad cartoon shows. I can't think of one that got much better than its pilot during its first thirteen episodes.
So animation just doesn't fit in with the way you, the network, buy shows and how you sell the commercial time in them to sponsors. If you want a full season of my cartoon series, you're going to have to commit to that well in advance…and then if it tanks, you're stuck with a whole lot of episodes. If there's a reason to believe the viewing audience is receptive to prime-time animation — like there was when The Simpsons hit big — you'll find workarounds and take some gambles. But in 1970, H-B probably felt they needed this selling tool to convince anyone. And it didn't work.
Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera supplied their own voices in this, both sounding a lot stiffer and less funny than they were in person when I worked with them in later years. Live and in person, Joe could have charmed Ted Nugent into voting for Hillary. Here, voicing still caricatures of themselves, they both sound awkward. The voice actors in the animated segment are John Stephenson, Janet Waldo, Casey Kasem and one child actress I can't identify.
The artwork looks like Iwao Takamoto and Jerry Eisenberg. Iwao has passed away. Jerry is still around but he told me he doesn't recall a damned thing about it. So you now know as much about it as I do…and maybe as much as we're ever going to know.